DEAD C, THE Trapdoor Fucking Exit (Siltbreeze) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We kind of wish distros and labels would do house cleaning more often. A few lists ago we got copies of a couple super rare long out of print Birchville Cat Motel releases, then a few weeks ago one of our distributors found a secret stash of the long out of print Skullflower cd IIIrd Gatekeeper (Allan and Andee's favorite btw) and this week Tom, the mighty overlord of the Siltbreeze empire, cleaned out his basement and found a dusty little pile of this legenday NZ freenoisepop gem from the godlike Dead C, Trapdoor Fucking Exit. We pounced on them immediately as this is most definitely one of our all time favorite records, and a record so subtly influential, that without it, you could pretty much wipe the entire modern noise rock slate squeaky clean. Sure, the Skaters and Wolf Eyes and The Grey Daturas and the Yellow Swans would all be around, but they'd probably sound more like jangly indie pop the grinding free noise weirdness. For if anyone deserves the credit/blame for launching a thousand bands that perform sitting on the floor twiddling knobs, it's the Dead C. But wait! The Dead C were no knob twiddlers, no they were a goddamn bonafide rock band. Bass, drums, guitar, but with the most basic of instrumentation, they were able to conjure up totally inhuman and unholy squalls of sound. And this was not just noise, the Dead C, at least in the beginning, crafted soft focus, ultra personal pop songs stripped to the bone, the musical flesh peeled off, leaving a rickety percussive framework, draped with mumbled crooned sad boy vocals, all totally wrapped in dense billowy clouds of guitar swirl and thick streaks of fluttering feedback. The ultimate corrosive, deconstructed, detuned, angular, abstract, noise / pop / rock hybrid.
A bit like other bedroom NZ bands of the time, but with that fey 4-track dreaminess completely drenched in lo-fi hiss and grit. Song structures totally subverted, almost like the Chills with a full frontal lobotomy and a airplane hanger full of amps or a clan of cavemen attempting to play the Clean's greatest hits. Elsewhere, the crooning vocals are replaced by distant Gregorian style chanting, serene and ghostlike, but still buried under luxuriously lo-fi washes of ultra murk. Trapdoor Fucking Exit is a confusional crawl of machine gun snares, grinding guitars, slow burn instrument rumble, careening, stumbling rhythms, chaotic ambience, claws-on-concrete guitar scrabble, drum splatter, feedback freakout, but all seemingly effortlessly harnassed into some strange, haunting, detuned and damaged indie noise pop. The Dead C would eventually ditch the pop element almost altogether, concentrating more on texture and sound, but for a brief moment, way back in 1990, the diametrically opposed sound worlds of lo-fi bedroom pop and corrosive free noise freakout collided and formed a brilliant and briefly blinding burst of glorious pop flecked free noise beauty. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
And remember this is waaaay out of print, we got a handful from the Siltbasement and we're not sure how many more there are lurking in corners or in old boxes, so we figure once these are gone they are probably gone for good.
MPEG Stream: "Heaven"
MPEG Stream: "Mighty"
MPEG Stream: "Krossed"

DEAD C, THE Tusk (Siltbreeze) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Highly anticipated album from New Zealand's Dead C (Bruce Russell, Robbie Yeats, and Michael Morley), masters of controlled chaos.

DEAD C, THE Vain, Erudite And Stupid - Selected Works: 1987-2005 (Ba Da Bing!) 2cd 10.98
All right, while Andee is the biggest Dead C expert here at Aquarius, we're ALL fans of New Zealand's long-running noise rock geniuses. And since he took responsibility for writing the extensive and effusive reviews we've published in recent weeks for the repressings / warehouse finds of The Dead C's Harsh 70s Reality and Trapdoor Fucking Exit albums, I (Allan) thought I'd step up and take over reviewing this brand new release, which is in fact a sort of "best of" anthology selected and compiled by the band themselves, featuring 22 tracks spread over two compact discs, spanning their career to date. Not being as much of an expert as Andee, but still a fan (I've got a few of their albums, and would have more but missed out on some releases when I wasn't as 'hip' to this band as I am now), this 2cd is just what I needed: a primer of sorts on this sometimes confusional, confounding, and obscure-but-important band. And as far as reviewing goes, what's to review? THIS SHIT IS ESSENTIAL! End of story. It's an ideal introduction for newbies and even the most dedicated Dead C fanatic will want it as well. Even if you've collected every last rare tape or vinyl track from these guys it's still nice to have a few of 'em on cd.
You'll hear how The Dead C trio of Michael Morley, Robbie Yeats, and Bruce Russell blazed their own unique path through the down under underbelly of indie-rock experimentation, pushing the boundaries of (between?) noise and rock in their New Zealand laboratory. True originals, appreciated at first only by a hardy few (themselves, mainly, as well as the likes of Sonic Youth). Their deliberately lo-fi, song-subverting, willfully 'wrong' music-making was and is perhaps an acquired taste. We'd venture to guess though that at this point, few regular AQ customers would have less than positive reactions to The Dead C's seasick lurchings, to their sounds of droning flybys from UFOs made out of straw, and feedback stomp and damaged thrash. No complaints about caustic liquids somehow coursing through guitar strings, amps, and ears. Thumb up to their hazy hints of melodies, buried beneath solid static storms of guitar distortion, or their moments of quietly emotive indie-pop prettiness in the NZ tradition, left to rust and decay.
The tracks are arranged chronologically, from "Max Harris" off their 1988 Flying Nun album DR503 starting off the first disc, to the track "Truth" taken from The Damned released in 2003 that ends the second disc. Disc one might be considered a survey of their "songier" era, going up to about 1992's Harsh 70s Reality, while disc two deals with material from 1994 on that saw them becoming less of a particularly noisy indie-rock band and more of truly abstract, improvising noise band, still with some rock and pop elements weirdly woven in. The tracks selected comprise both some "greatest hits" (things we'd have picked too, for sure) and some total rarities from long-deleted cassettes and limited vinyl-only releases, like the Clyma Est Mort LP, The Operation Of The Sonne LP, the Xpressway Pile-Up cassette comp, and the Helen Said This mini-LP, among others. Actually most of these tracks are rarities, in the sense that a lot of their '90s cds on Siltbreeze like The White House and Repent, and even more recent albums like the incredible self-titled double disc on Language Recordings from 2000 are out of print now too. There's two tracks from Harsh 70s Reality, but strangely enough nothing from Trapdoor Fucking Exit, by the way.
The thick cd booklet contains essays, in ascending order of non-fictional detail, from Seymour Glass of Bananafish mag, Tom Lax of Siltbreeze, and Nick Cain of Opprobrium fanzine. And there's track-by-track commentary from Bruce Russell as well, adding to the "primer" value of this release. It may be true that this band's stuff takes a while to "get". Years maybe. But this crash course gives a great head start.
The blurb sticker on the front of this proclaims The Dead C as "the GREATEST noise/drone rock band of all time" and we really might not have any argument with that at all! It goes on to suggest that fans of Wolf Eyes, SUNNO))), Lightning Bolt and Growing would/should dig The Dead C quite heavily. Probably true as well. The implication being, though, that fans of those bands wouldn't have heard of The Dead C before. Perhaps -- and if that's the case, and that's you, you definitely should check this out!!! We'd probably go on to say that as much as we enjoy all those bands, The Dead C is much closer to our hearts for sure...
MPEG Stream: "Hell Is Now Love"
MPEG Stream: "3 Years"
MPEG Stream: "Tuba Is Funny (Slight Return)"
MPEG Stream: "Bitcher"

DEAD CAN DANCE Aion (4AD) cd 13.98

DEAD CAN DANCE s/t (4AD) cd 16.98
Perhaps more so than the revolving door project This Mortal Coil, there was no other band in the '80s that embodied the 4AD sound more so than Dead Can Dance. Their labored, heavily orchestrated songs hinged upon a dark, neo-romantic reading of medieval leitmotifs and Renaissance melody with plenty of Celtic flourishes tossed in for good measure. Firmly linked to the Dead Can Dance sound were the voices of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry - the former epitomizing an ethereal swoon counterpointed by the latter's exacting baritone. Their first album found the two Australian transplants living in London and showcasing much more of their Australian post-punk roots than on later albums. Gerrard had recorded a couple of singles with her unfortunately forgotten band Microfilm, and Perry had a stint in a band called The Scavengers.
Joy Division and 154-era Wire were the springboard for much of Dead Can Dance's ideas on this album through the bass-driven post-punk songs dappled with spectral guitar work and primitive electronic underpinnings. If it weren't for the instantly recognizable twin vocals from Gerrard and Perry (the latter of whom carries the bulk of this album), Dead Can Dance's debut could be mistaken for anything that would have come out on Factory at that time. Hints of their more well-known orchestrated sound appear on this album in the form of some hammered dulcimers and tribal percussion spiralling around their songs. Altogether, it holds up surprisingly well.
On this reissue, 4AD has repackaged the album in a cardboard gatefold with a nicely cleaned up / remastered version of the album, which had always suffered from a murky sound. However, they left off the Garden Of Earthly Delights EP, which had been included on previous cd versions of this album. Whoops!
MPEG Stream: "The Fatal Impact"
MPEG Stream: "The Trial"
MPEG Stream: "Musica Eternal"

DEAD CAN DANCE Spiritchaser (4AD) cd 15.98

DEAD CAN DANCE The Serpent's Egg (4AD) cd 13.98

DEAD CAN DANCE Wake (4AD) 2cd 15.98

DEAD CHILD Attack (Quarterstick) cd 14.98
Last year when we reviewed this Louisville band's debut ep, we said we'd delay discussion of the whole "false/hipster/irony metal" thing until a later date, if/when they unleashed a full-length. Well here it is. So here we go. Some "true metal" folks on poseur patrol are gonna balk at a band playing '80s influenced thrashy metal with high pitched vox, that happens to include dude from Slint and Tortoise in it (Dave Pajo, no stranger to this issue 'cause of his stint in Early Man), plus others of similar indie rock pedigree... but we think that's kind of cool. IF they're not just taking the piss, but are in fact saying "hey we really do like metal, maybe we were too 'alternative' for it for a while back there but now we realize the folly of our ways and we're gonna fuckin' rip!!"
What we can agree on is that it would be annoying if a band like Dead Child got popular 'cause of their non-relevant, non-metal scene connections, while other bands playing the same style of music can't get the time of day. (Like, if this starts selling, folks also better start coming in looking for Slauter Xstroyes reissues...) But then again, why bands get popular often has very little to do with merit anyway! We went over some of this ground in our recent review of The Sword's Gods Of The Earth. And Dead Child aren't even popular like that, yet. So, let's judge stuff by what it sounds like, not what bands people were in or who goes out to their shows.
As to that (what it sounds like) well it IS metal. Heck the singer sounds a lot like Gerrit Mutz of Sacred Steel (yelping with that same Jello Biafra warble in there somewhere) and you can't get much more metal than that. Their songs are ultra-riffy, almost monotonously so, but crunchy and catchy enough, and the singer's got style to help 'em stick in your ear. They reprise one track from the ep ("Never Bet The Devil Your Head", our fave from that disc) and come up with a bunch of other similarly wicked tunes. In the hipster metal debate, we'll give them the benefit of the doubt, and headbang away without further worries.
We also realize that if Dead Child were a "NWOFHM" band from Finland, the work of our pals in Circle, like Steel Mammoth or Tractor Pulling, we'd have no qualms at all, and be quite impressed, though of course they'd also be a lot weirder. The song titles here certainly align with that sort of thing: "Black Halo Rider", "Rattlesnake Chalice", "Wasp Riot"... could easily be something Krypt Axeripper would think up.
MPEG Stream: "Twitch Of The Death Nerve"
MPEG Stream: "Eye To The Brain"

DEAD CHILD s/t (Cold Sweat) cd ep 10.98
Five songs in just under 17 minutes from this new Louisville retro-metal act. Sorta mid paced thrashy, straight-ahead headbanging fare. Crunchy guitars, not much lead playing though, just lots of stiff riffing. They sound a lot like The Sword or Early Man, actually. Got that can't-quite-place-it-heard-it-before-but-still-sounds-good '80s derived thing going on. Our favorite track is "Never Bet The Devil Your Head" wherein the vocalist pulls off some nice raspy screams. "I Will Live Again" is also pretty good, more of a doomy number. So, this lil' disc might not be a bad thing to throw on as the soundtrack to the next couple cans of cheap American beer you quaff.
Oh... did we mention that one of the guys in the band is named Dave Pajo? That's right, the Slint, Aerial M, Papa M, Tortoise, Zwan, etc. Dave Pajo... suddenly we realize another reason why Dead Child remind us of Early Man! (Pajo briefly played bass for 'em). Well this is just an ep, so let's not get all embroiled in thee whole ole false/hipster/irony metal argument right now fer goshsakes...maybe when/if they do a full-length we'll let rip on that subject. Along with Pajo, Dead Child also contains members of The For Carnation, Crain, Anomoanon, Shipping News, and Phantom Family Halo, fyi. Heck if these indie rockers want to play metal, why not? Just as long as we don't start selling more of these than we do of, say, Skeletonwitch or Sacred Steel.
MPEG Stream: "Never Bet The Devil Your Head"

DEAD HATE THE LIVING Shock And Awe (Hyperrealist) cd 14.98

DEAD KENNEDYS Milking The Sacred Cow (Manifesto) cd 9.98

DEAD LETTERS SPELL DEAD WORDS Lost In Reflections (Killer Pimp) cd 11.98
For years now, the cryptically (and coolly) monickered Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words has been quietly and consistently releasing some of the most haunting and beautiful minimal dronemusic we've heard, a blend of soft skittery glitch, brooding guitar loops, deeeeeep drone, dreamy drift, and experimental post-everything soundscaping, that is as good if not better than anything produced by the legion of overhyped sound makers constantly fawned over by the public and press alike. We've only managed to review two DLSODW releases so far, both sadly out of print now, but the release of this new one, quite possibly his best, seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally throw our weight behind Dead Letters, and hopefully open some ears to these mysterious and wondrous sounds, and reveal to the hordes of dronelords and free music freeks just what they've been missing.
Dead Letters is the work of Swedish musician Thomas Ekelund, and over the years, his music has drifted from extreme near silent ultra minimalism, to warm whirring dronescapes to muted crunch and clatter to shimmering underwater ambience, but on Lost In Reflections, all of those elements are present, in lesser amounts, the perfect distillation of a lifetime of sounds, here presented more as background then the main event, that main event here being the guitar. Each of the six tracks, however distorted or refracted or fragmented or obfuscated, seems to be borne of the guitar, with Ekelund working his mysterious alchemy and transforming those buzzing steel strings into wholly new shapes.
The opener, "This Room Seems Empty Without You" held us spellbound from the very first few seconds, a bit of reverby guitar, moody and minor key, very post rock, slow core and abstract, the notes hovering in a dark expanse of overtones and deep low end shimmer, the guitar unfurling gradually, subtly processed, peppered with a strange percussive glitch, that gives the music a sort of downtempo vibe, still droney and abstract and free, but with a little Portishead or Bowery Electric mixed in. The glitches coalesce into an almost-rhythm, the end result is some strange minimal instrumental downtuned Galaxie 500 mixed with the brooding barely there drift of Bohren, and a sort of late night lugubrious skitter.
The next track, "Lost & Losing", takes a whole 'nother tack, beginning with bits of scrape and creak, amp buzz, muted harmonics, a subtly percussive textural soundscape, quietly and slowly surrounded by a gorgeously hazy sea of sun spots and solar flares, taking the shoegaze-y shimmer of Nadja and Jesu and dialing it way back, until it's a glimmering sheet of prismatic buzz, all the while those strange sounds from the song's beginning continuing to weave a buried barely there rhythm, everything locked into deep woozy bleary eyed swells.
We have the tendency to go song by song, describing the sound of each, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but often it's not just the sound, it's the mood and the vibe and the feel and the deft and delicate arrangement of those sounds. And Ekelund is a master, taking simple strummed guitars, and wrapping them in a gauzy patina of blur buzz, locking the original riff into a loop, and then gently adding bit of melody, bits of texture, turning something simple into something complex and gorgeous, there are hints of Earth all over Lost In Reflections as well, a particularly abstract bit of fuzzy drift, will suddenly part to reveal a dark elegiac guitar line, slowed way down, creating some sort of underwater blues, while elsewhere, the twang and pluck of the guitar strings is wreathed in sonic sunlight, the sounds allowed to overlap and tangle up, the notes and melodies all wound up, spinning slowly and spitting out sparks, bits of glitch and high end tones, streaks of feedback, until those sounds are smeared into one long undulating stretch, and over the top a string of chiming notes are hung like Christmas lights on a tree, the, guitar often disappearing completely, leaving just a bit of twang to hover and then fade away.
The final track is a monster, nearly 20 minutes, imagine Nadja, Merzbow and Tim Hecker covering Arvo Part, and you might be close. This is some sort of soft noise, blindingly effulgent upper register ur-drone chorale, the streaks and shards of guitars sound like voices, the distortion thick, the effects crumbling and swirling, a glancing listen reveals a wall of sound, but headphones are like a diving bell, allowing us to sink into this roiling sonic sea, that seems to stretch out forever, bottomless and endless, part way through, the song changes shape, that which constituted the whole of the sound up until that point is relegated to a background for these new sounds, a sweeping, loping epic bit of post rock, still washed out and woozy, but with a simple propulsive rhythm, and a gorgeously melodic chiming central riff, darkly fervent and slightly ominous and hauntingly epic, the swirling sounds around those new elements growing more frenetic, thickening, while the song just grows and grows, sprawls and expands, as if any second the heavens will open and the song will become the sonic manifestation of the rapture. So totally intense and powerful and moving and majestic, and simply breathtaking.
MPEG Stream: "This Room Seems Empty Without You"
MPEG Stream: "Lost & Losing"
MPEG Stream: "What I Wouldn't Give To Feel Alive"

DEAD LETTERS SPELL OUT DEAD WORDS 11 Instances Of Dead Letters + Words (Ideal) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

DEAD LETTERS SPELL OUT DEAD WORDS A Line : Align (Mystery Sea) cd-r 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Found a stash of these in the back room. Lucky thing too since these Mystery Sea discs are limited to 100 copies, AND they're amazing, so you get one more chance you lucky bastards, don't blow it:
This is the first time we've reviewed anything by Swedish dronescaper Thomas Ekelund, aka Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words, which is weird as folks around here are big fans. It's not for lack of releases, he's been pretty prolific, it just one of those things, so many releases, artists, records, so little time.
Well, we aim to change that all right now, with this, the latest from Ekelund, a limited cd-r released on night-ocean-drone label Mystery Sea, and Ekelund's sounds here sound right at home. Three looooong tracks, the first, ultra minimal, it takes minutes to get going, but once it does, it's a fantastic expanse of ultra minimalism, so minimal in fact that much of it borders on Francisco Lopez territory. But turn it up, and listen close, and Ekelund's soundworld will reveal itself to you. A washed out murmur, peppered part way through with footsteps, the sound of metal on metal, some sort of random field recording, of men working, the clang and clatter overshadowing the whispery sounds beneath, but by the end of the first track, those whispery sounds have built into growling swells, thick smears of muted melody, crumbling and almost industrial sounding when paired with the grind and creak of the workmen.
The second track starts off in a similar fashion, strange super close mic'd sounds, thumps and scrapes, crinkles and cracks, over a super busy microscopic dronescape, all hisses and whirs and little bits of almost invisible melody, but it doesn't take long for that track to also swell into something dense and thick, high end tones rest atop a pulsing sea swell like drone, the low end fading out leaving a strangely dreamy high end shimmer, eventually fading out and leaving just those strange clunks and scrapes and that whirling swirling whisper beneath.
The closing track is a continuation of track two, in fact, they all sort of fit together into one sprawling soundscape, but the closer remains murky and minimal, a subtle scraping floating on a thick, but soft and smeared low end rumble, it's only in the last minute or two that other sounds join in, strange twinkles and glimmers, like laying on the ocean floor and watching bits of sunlight slowly make their way through the swirling blue grey sea.
Amazing packaging too, full color tray card, numbered, the booklet a half booklet, leaving half of the cd face exposed. Very striking.
And as always LIMITED TO 100 COPIES.
MPEG Stream: "At Keiller's Park (Summer 2006)"
MPEG Stream: "At Keiller's Park (Fall 2007)"

DEAD LETTERS SPELL OUT DEAD WORDS Lost In Reflections (Ideal / Fang Bomb / Release The Bats) lp+7" 22.00
NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! This recent Record Of The Week now on lp, lp AND 7" to be exact, as it was too much music to fit on a single lp. Fancy packaging, thick vinyl, very swank, and of course very limited!
For years now, the cryptically (and coolly) monickered Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words has been quietly and consistently releasing some of the most haunting and beautiful minimal dronemusic we've heard, a blend of soft skittery glitch, brooding guitar loops, deeeeeep drone, dreamy drift, and experimental post-everything soundscaping, that is as good if not better than anything produced by the legion of overhyped sound makers constantly fawned over by the public and press alike. We've only managed to review two DLSODW releases so far, both sadly out of print now, but the release of this new one, quite possibly his best, seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally throw our weight behind Dead Letters, and hopefully open some ears to these mysterious and wondrous sounds, and reveal to the hordes of dronelords and free music freeks just what they've been missing.
Dead Letters is the work of Swedish musician Thomas Ekelund, and over the years, his music has drifted from extreme near silent ultra minimalism, to warm whirring dronescapes to muted crunch and clatter to shimmering underwater ambience, but on Lost In Reflections, all of those elements are present, in lesser amounts, the perfect distillation of a lifetime of sounds, here presented more as background then the main event, that main event here being the guitar. Each of the six tracks, however distorted or refracted or fragmented or obfuscated, seems to be borne of the guitar, with Ekelund working his mysterious alchemy and transforming those buzzing steel strings into wholly new shapes.
The opener, "This Room Seems Empty Without You" held us spellbound from the very first few seconds, a bit of reverby guitar, moody and minor key, very post rock, slow core and abstract, the notes hovering in a dark expanse of overtones and deep low end shimmer, the guitar unfurling gradually, subtly processed, peppered with a strange percussive glitch, that gives the music a sort of downtempo vibe, still droney and abstract and free, but with a little Portishead or Bowery Electric mixed in. The glitches coalesce into an almost-rhythm, the end result is some strange minimal instrumental downtuned Galaxie 500 mixed with the brooding barely there drift of Bohren, and a sort of late night lugubrious skitter.
The next track, "Lost & Losing", takes a whole 'nother tack, beginning with bits of scrape and creak, amp buzz, muted harmonics, a subtly percussive textural soundscape, quietly and slowly surrounded by a gorgeously hazy sea of sun spots and solar flares, taking the shoegaze-y shimmer of Nadja and Jesu and dialing it way back, until it's a glimmering sheet of prismatic buzz, all the while those strange sounds from the song's beginning continuing to weave a buried barely there rhythm, everything locked into deep woozy bleary eyed swells.
We have the tendency to go song by song, describing the sound of each, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but often it's not just the sound, it's the mood and the vibe and the feel and the deft and delicate arrangement of those sounds. And Ekelund is a master, taking simple strummed guitars, and wrapping them in a gauzy patina of blur buzz, locking the original riff into a loop, and then gently adding bit of melody, bits of texture, turning something simple into something complex and gorgeous, there are hints of Earth all over Lost In Reflections as well, a particularly abstract bit of fuzzy drift, will suddenly part to reveal a dark elegiac guitar line, slowed way down, creating some sort of underwater blues, while elsewhere, the twang and pluck of the guitar strings is wreathed in sonic sunlight, the sounds allowed to overlap and tangle up, the notes and melodies all wound up, spinning slowly and spitting out sparks, bits of glitch and high end tones, streaks of feedback, until those sounds are smeared into one long undulating stretch, and over the top a string of chiming notes are hung like Christmas lights on a tree, the, guitar often disappearing completely, leaving just a bit of twang to hover and then fade away.
The final track is a monster, nearly 20 minutes, imagine Nadja, Merzbow and Tim Hecker covering Arvo Part, and you might be close. This is some sort of soft noise, blindingly effulgent upper register ur-drone chorale, the streaks and shards of guitars sound like voices, the distortion thick, the effects crumbling and swirling, a glancing listen reveals a wall of sound, but headphones are like a diving bell, allowing us to sink into this roiling sonic sea, that seems to stretch out forever, bottomless and endless, part way through, the song changes shape, that which constituted the whole of the sound up until that point is relegated to a background for these new sounds, a sweeping, loping epic bit of post rock, still washed out and woozy, but with a simple propulsive rhythm, and a gorgeously melodic chiming central riff, darkly fervent and slightly ominous and hauntingly epic, the swirling sounds around those new elements growing more frenetic, thickening, while the song just grows and grows, sprawls and expands, as if any second the heavens will open and the song will become the sonic manifestation of the rapture. So totally intense and powerful and moving and majestic, and simply breathtaking.
MPEG Stream: "This Room Seems Empty Without You"
MPEG Stream: "Lost & Losing"
MPEG Stream: "What I Wouldn't Give To Feel Alive"

DEAD MACHINES Futures (Troubleman Unlimited) cd 11.98
Man, as someone who works with computers a LOT, I was listening to this record while thinking about what "dead machines" means to me and hmmm... wish they titled it Fan Works, Won't Boot Up.
And even though that's sort of a joking title, it would actually describe what this noise-scape record sounds like.
On an artistic level, there is something genuinely nice here. Very little variances in overall sound level and track length make this seem almost like some sort of stilted dialogue amongst a sea of dying machines. Or very similar to the background white noise folley from Blade Runner.
Dead Machines is actually a magical New York noise couple: John Olsen (Wolf Eyes) and Tova O'Rourke (Wooden Wand, Vanishing Voice). Parts of this album remind us of SF's own Patrick Mullins from Burmese who creates aural apolocalypses in the same vein, using a multitude of electronics and sound manipulation.
MPEG Stream: "track 1"
MPEG Stream: "track 2"

DEAD MACHINES Live at Tzompantli (Eclipse) lp 14.98

DEAD MACHINES / DAMION ROMERO / JOHN WIESE Friday the Thirteenth (Anarchymoon Recordings) 2lp 28.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
With a lineup like that you'd probably be expecting some sort of ear splitting noise free-for-all. A blasting batch of brutality designed to melt your speakers into little black puddles, to send your neighbors diving for the phone to call the cops, the sort of N O I S E that is gloriously and literally unlistenable. Well, in this case, you'd be wrong. Very wrong.
In fact all four sides of this quadruple live set, are downright listenable, if not actually lovely here and there. An epic 4 sided dark ambient dronefest, that while hitting the spot for the usual suspects, will definitely also appeal to the drone minded among you as well as the Earth / SUNNO))) dronedoomdirge obsessed.
John Wiese of Bastard Noise and about a million other projects starts things off not with a bang, but a rumbling whir, a slowly unfurling blanket of crumbling fuzz and hiss, muted minimal ambience rife with pulsing low end and thick rivers of black shimmer. This is dark ambience more than noise, strange disembodied melodies, drifting all ghost like, haunting and surprisingly pretty, but without ever losing its overall bleak and ominous vibe. Definitely the best thing we've heard from Wiese.
So at this point we sort of expected Dead Machines to kick it up a notch, and they do, sort of. Beginning with a grinding symphony of buzzing analog synths and fuzzed out feedback, but that quickly gives way to a very Wolf Eyesian industrial ambient wasteland, clang and rumble, creaking and crumbling clatter, barely there dreamlike whir, distant high end melodies, downright blisssful before a coda of thick buzz and roaring damaged noise (but even then, it sounds really fuzzy and washed out)
It's up to Romero then, to get things good and noisy, but surprise surprise, Romero follows suit, offering up maybe the most tranquil and drone-y set of the bunch, thick undulating low end throb, overtones shifting and beating against each other, sounding like a doom metal Phill Niblock. Gorgeous and dreamy but still dark and menacing.
The final track, taking up all of side 4, features this fearsome foursome, Romero, Wiese and the two Dead Machines, teaming up for an epic and one would assume chaotic and noisy collaboration, but once again, we're thrown a serious curveball. Instead of all four piling up on top of each other and making a huge loud mess, they deftly intertwine their sounds into a subtle dark drift. Only once exploding into a full on noise drenched onslaught, spending most of the time rumbling and whirring and weaving a dense and dreamy world of dark drones, and mysterious sonic shapes. Really fucking awesome.
Double lp, pressed on THICK black vinyl, packaged in super elaborate, three color silkscreened fold over sleeves and LIMITED TO 515 COPIES...

DEAD MACHINES, THE Human Brain Wasting Syndrome lp 15.98

DEAD MAN Euphoria (Crusher) cd 21.00
We kinda think that when we're reviewing a band's eagerly awaited new album, for instance their follow up to a debut we really liked, that it's not entirely unreasonable for us just to say, hey, please go read our review of that first record (or provide a brief summary, like in this case: awesome Swedish time trippin', '70s sounding stoner psych prog a la Dungen, Elope, Witchcraft) and then for us to go on to say, this one is ALSO awesome, so if you liked that one get this, and if you haven't heard either, get both! If you like this retro-'70s sort of thing, that is. Reasonable, right?
Dead Man's Euphoria is maybe a bit mellower than their self-titled debut, certainly much closer to the sun-dappled poppiness of Elope than to the Sabbathy proto-metal heaviness of Witchcraft. But it could definitely appeal to those into the moody folkiness -and- progginess of the latter.
They're still big time '70s throwbacks, they look and sound like bunch of long haired ol' hippies. Back to the land types, doing their thing out on some farm / commune someplace. Definitely a lazy, hazy, rustic vibe here, quite a bit Grateful Dead-y in point of fact. Some tracks are long (8, 9 proggy minutes for "The Wheel" and "Rest In Piece") while others breeze by in under two or three minutes. There's acoustic guitars and backporch bluesy bits (the singer asking someone for some lemon-squeezin' in "A Pinch Of Salt" ferinstance), and an overall placid, summery feel. Real pleasant, but ofttimes melancholic too. The vocals, particularly when handled by the guy with the wavery, breathy, close-to-tears voice, are quite emotive. (Those could be tears of joy though, the album's called Euphoria after all.)
And that's not to say that Dead Man don't heavy it up with the guitars now and then, they do, some swinging hard rock riffage certainly is heard, but this is mostly much lighter and gentler than you might be used to from the more doomy likes of Witchcraft, Burning Saviours, Graveyard... out of that Swedish '70s lovin' scene, Dead Man do the least to live up to the more evil implications of their name! But for melodiousness and progginess and flutey folkiness they're holding their own. We like!!
FYI, this will supposedly be getting a domestic cd release in June, we've just learned. Also they should be coming over to the US for a tour this fall, cool!
MPEG Stream: "Today"
MPEG Stream: "The Wheel"
MPEG Stream: "Light Vast Corridors"

DEAD MAN Euphoria (Crusher) lp 22.00
We kinda think that when we're reviewing a band's eagerly awaited new album, for instance their follow up to a debut we really liked, that it's not entirely unreasonable for us just to say, hey, please go read our review of that first record (or provide a brief summary, like in this case: awesome Swedish time trippin', '70s sounding stoner psych prog a la Dungen, Elope, Witchcraft) and then for us to go on to say, this one is ALSO awesome, so if you liked that one get this, and if you haven't heard either, get both! If you like this retro-'70s sort of thing, that is. Reasonable, right?
Dead Man's Euphoria is maybe a bit mellower than their self-titled debut, certainly much closer to the sun-dappled poppiness of Elope than to the Sabbathy proto-metal heaviness of Witchcraft. But it could definitely appeal to those into the moody folkiness -and- progginess of the latter.
They're still big time '70s throwbacks, they look and sound like bunch of long haired ol' hippies. Back to the land types, doing their thing out on some farm / commune someplace. Definitely a lazy, hazy, rustic vibe here, quite a bit Grateful Dead-y in point of fact. Some tracks are long (8, 9 proggy minutes for "The Wheel" and "Rest In Piece") while others breeze by in under two or three minutes. There's acoustic guitars and backporch bluesy bits (the singer asking someone for some lemon-squeezin' in "A Pinch Of Salt" ferinstance), and an overall placid, summery feel. Real pleasant, but ofttimes melancholic too. The vocals, particularly when handled by the guy with the wavery, breathy, close-to-tears voice, are quite emotive. (Those could be tears of joy though, the album's called Euphoria after all.)
And that's not to say that Dead Man don't heavy it up with the guitars now and then, they do, some swinging hard rock riffage certainly is heard, but this is mostly much lighter and gentler than you might be used to from the more doomy likes of Witchcraft, Burning Saviours, Graveyard... out of that Swedish '70s lovin' scene, Dead Man do the least to live up to the more evil implications of their name! But for melodiousness and progginess and flutey folkiness they're holding their own. We like!!
FYI, this will supposedly be getting a domestic cd release in June, we've just learned. Also they should be coming over to the US for a tour this fall, cool!
MPEG Stream: "Today"
MPEG Stream: "The Wheel"
MPEG Stream: "Light Vast Corridors"

DEAD MAN s/t (Crusher Records) cd 21.00
Ok, we don't know what sort of time warp technology they've developed over there in Sweden, but it does the job. I mean, if the US Navy ever wants to find out just what happened with that aircraft carrier or whatever from the 1940s (y'know, they made a movie about it, The Final Countdown or The Philadelphia Experiment wasn't it?), we'd say don't bother asking Michael J. Fox, get somebody over in Sweden to explain. They obviously have the time travel thing figured out. And best of all, they use it to make more rock and roll bands like in the good ol' days of acid rock and psychedelia!! Bands like Witchcraft and Elope and Dungen, who sound more 1970 than 2006. We've mentioned them all before, and if you know 'em and love 'em, well here's *another* group of Swedes that we think fans of those bands should check out. Dead Man! Long hair, bright harmonies, folky melodies, acoustic strum, heavy riffs, trippy vibes... even a 14-minute long experimental prog finale. Yep, definite time warp. Like Witchcraft and those others, they never betray their modernity. No anachronistic hints of '90s stoner rock or alternative rock or metal or anything. Really, though it -says- this debut full-length was recorded in 2005, it's like no rock music past, say, 1974 seems to have ever entered their ears.
Despite being called Dead Man this isn't particularly a dark album... just heavy psych in the old style. Some tracks are hard rockers, others spaced out and Floydian, even a little bit on the rustic Grateful Dead side of things... A couple of the guys in the band sing (in English), one of 'em with a wavering trill in his voice that reminds us a bit of Roger Chapman from Family, whereas the other singer has a stronger Swedish accent giving more of that Dungen flavor. The Norwegian '70s heavy psych act November could be one definite influence on these guys.
Again, although we do suspect the use of time-travel technology, we're also aware that Dead Man's guitarist used to play drums in Norrsken, Magnus Pellander's band before he formed Witchcraft. I guess he stole a page from Magnus' spellbook, temporal magic chapter. Meanwhile, two of the other members were in Swedish bands called The Strollers and The Roadrunners -- never heard them but boy those names are EXACTLY what the sort of '60s garage/beat bands that would have evolved into a band like Dead Man would have been called -- had this all really transpired 35 years ago like it sounds. Sure, not a lot of points for originality, but plenty for verisimilitude. We say, right on, Dead Man!
MPEG Stream: "Goin' Over The Hill"
MPEG Stream: "Haunted Man"

DEAD MAN s/t (Crusher) lp 21.00
Hey, now on vinyl, Dead Man's first record, to go along with their new album (see nearby)... What we said about the cd version:
Ok, we don't know what sort of time warp technology they've developed over there in Sweden, but it does the job. I mean, if the US Navy ever wants to find out just what happened with that aircraft carrier or whatever from the 1940s (y'know, they made a movie about it, The Final Countdown or The Philadelphia Experiment wasn't it?), we'd say don't bother asking Michael J. Fox, get somebody over in Sweden to explain. They obviously have the time travel thing figured out. And best of all, they use it to make more rock and roll bands like in the good ol' days of acid rock and psychedelia!! Bands like Witchcraft and Elope and Dungen, who sound more 1970 than 2006. We've mentioned them all before, and if you know 'em and love 'em, well here's *another* group of Swedes that we think fans of those bands should check out. Dead Man! Long hair, bright harmonies, folky melodies, acoustic strum, heavy riffs, trippy vibes... even a 14-minute long experimental prog finale. Yep, definite time warp. Like Witchcraft and those others, they never betray their modernity. No anachronistic hints of '90s stoner rock or alternative rock or metal or anything. Really, though it -says- this debut full-length was recorded in 2005, it's like no rock music past, say, 1974 seems to have ever entered their ears.
Despite being called Dead Man this isn't particularly a dark album... just heavy psych in the old style. Some tracks are hard rockers, others spaced out and Floydian, even a little bit on the rustic Grateful Dead side of things... A couple of the guys in the band sing (in English), one of 'em with a wavering trill in his voice that reminds us a bit of Roger Chapman from Family, whereas the other singer has a stronger Swedish accent giving more of that Dungen flavor. The Norwegian '70s heavy psych act November could be one definite influence on these guys.
Again, although we do suspect the use of time-travel technology, we're also aware that Dead Man's guitarist used to play drums in Norrsken, Magnus Pellander's band before he formed Witchcraft. I guess he stole a page from Magnus' spellbook, temporal magic chapter. Meanwhile, two of the other members were in Swedish bands called The Strollers and The Roadrunners -- never heard them but boy those names are EXACTLY what the sort of '60s garage/beat bands that would have evolved into a band like Dead Man would have been called -- had this all really transpired 35 years ago like it sounds. Sure, not a lot of points for originality, but plenty for verisimilitude. We say, right on, Dead Man!
MPEG Stream: "Goin' Over The Hill"
MPEG Stream: "Haunted Man"

DEAD MEADOW Feathers (Matador) cd 10.98
Dead Meadow time again, ah it's always so nice. It's like being told it's time to take an afternoon nap, a *heavy* nap that is, wrapped in the warm comfort of Dead Meadow's vibrations. DC's Dead Meadow are throwbacks to an earlier age, when bellbottoms and bongs were the order of the day and bands played 'head' music... Kitsch that might be now, but damn they're good and we can all use a good nap once in a while, 'specially one that'll let us do a Rip Van Winkle in reverse and wind up spending a blissed out afternoon in 1969, y'know? It's all very very stoned, Dead Meadow spacing-out more than ever before over the course of this 57 minute cd/double lp. More dreamy than heavy this time out, really, I mean it is "heavy, maaan" heavy, but not as Blue Cheery as before (or maybe they've gotten into the latter, less-well-known, mellower Blue Cheer LPs). Even with the addition of a second guitar player to the line-up, Dead Meadow are now more light and drifty than lugubrious and dirgey. Hypnotic as always, but the thudding riffs are taking a back seat to the melodies here, rustic hippy sundappled hazy smoke melodies. And it's a beautiful thing. I mean, don't worry, they've still got their Sleep's Holy Mountain moments but we think their Pink Floyd tendencies are getting the upper hand here. I guess they called it Feathers for a reason. But we're pretty sure that if you liked their last album Shivering King, you'll like this!
MPEG Stream: "Let's Jump In"
MPEG Stream: "Heaven"

DEAD MEADOW Feathers (Matador) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Dead Meadow time again, ah it's always so nice. It's like being told it's time to take an afternoon nap, a *heavy* nap that is, wrapped in the warm comfort of Dead Meadow's vibrations. DC's Dead Meadow are throwbacks to an earlier age, when bellbottoms and bongs were the order of the day and bands played 'head' music... Kitsch that might be now, but damn they're good and we can all use a good nap once in a while, 'specially one that'll let us do a Rip Van Winkle in reverse and wind up spending a blissed out afternoon in 1969, y'know? It's all very very stoned, Dead Meadow spacing-out more than ever before over the course of this 57 minute cd/double lp. More dreamy than heavy this time out, really, I mean it is "heavy, maaan" heavy, but not as Blue Cheery as before (or maybe they've gotten into the latter, less-well-known, mellower Blue Cheer LPs). Even with the addition of a second guitar player to the line-up, Dead Meadow are now more light and drifty than lugubrious and dirgey. Hypnotic as always, but the thudding riffs are taking a back seat to the melodies here, rustic hippy sundappled hazy smoke melodies. And it's a beautiful thing. I mean, don't worry, they've still got their Sleep's Holy Mountain moments but we think their Pink Floyd tendencies are getting the upper hand here. I guess they called it Feathers for a reason. But we're pretty sure that if you liked their last album Shivering King, you'll like this!
MPEG Stream: "Let's Jump In"
MPEG Stream: "Heaven"

DEAD MEADOW Got Live If You Want It (The Commitee To Keep Music Evil / Bomp) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Got Live If You Want It" (or maybe "If Yo Want It", which appears on the spine) is a surprise live release from a band with only two studio albums to their credit. Now, in the past we've given good reviews to Dead Meadow, really liking their retro stoner rock sound, heavy psychedelia derived from Blue Cheer and other past masters, along with tinges of their modern-day indie rock lineage. But we've always made one caveat: the singer's whiny voice simply sucks. One would hope that live, his nasal drone would be helpfully drowned out by the band's massive amp-abuse. But, on this recording at least, such is not the case. However, like their studio albums, much of this is instrumental anyway, and if you're already a fan, you can deal with this -- you either actually like the vocals (good god!) or have learned to tune 'em out (as I did) and will certainly enjoy wallowing in the spacey, jammed-out, lopingly heavy live Dead Meadow live experience as presented here: over 45 minutes (eight tracks total) of well-recorded versions songs from both of Dead Meadow's LPs, plus two we don't recognize (new tunes perhaps), all as performed live in Hoboken in the winter of 2002. Not much more needs to be said. Those new to the band would be better advised to start with either of their two albums on Tolotta: "Dead Meadow" and/or "Howls From The Hills" -- see elsewhere on our website for reviews. Or, wait 'til next year when they're scheduled to release a new album on Matador! (Where they'll fit in well with the likes of Bardo Pond).
RealAudio clip: "Rocky Mountain High"
RealAudio clip: "Lady"

DEAD MEADOW Got Live If You Want It (The Commitee To Keep Music Evil / Bomp) lp 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Fitting for a band that harks back to the days when vinyl was king, here's the LP version of "Got Live If You Want It" (or maybe "If Yo Want It", which appears on the spine), a surprise live release from a band with only two studio albums to their credit. Now, in the past we've given good reviews to Dead Meadow, really liking their retro stoner rock sound, heavy psychedelia derived from Blue Cheer and other past masters, along with tinges of their modern-day indie rock lineage. But we've always made one caveat: the singer's whiny voice simply sucks. One would hope that live, his nasal drone would be helpfully drowned out by the band's massive amp-abuse. But, on this recording at least, such is not the case. However, like their studio albums, much of this is instrumental anyway, and if you're already a fan, you can deal with this -- you either actually like the vocals (good god!) or have learned to tune 'em out (as I did) and will certainly enjoy wallowing in the spacey, jammed-out, lopingly heavy live Dead Meadow live experience as presented here: over 45 minutes (eight tracks total) of well-recorded versions songs from both of Dead Meadow's LPs, plus two we don't recognize (new tunes perhaps), all as performed live in Hoboken in the winter of 2002. Not much more needs to be said. Those new to the band would be better advised to start with either of their two albums on Tolotta: "Dead Meadow" and/or "Howls From The Hills" -- see elsewhere on our website for reviews. Or, wait 'til next year when they're scheduled to release a new album on Matador! (Where they'll fit in well with the likes of Bardo Pond).

DEAD MEADOW Howls From The Hills (Tolotta) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Anything recorded at a "mobile mystic gnome studio" has got to be good, right? Well, at least if you're in the mood from some suitably stoned, retro-rocking, Blue Cheer worship from this very heavy and psychedelic Virginia-based band. "Howls From The Hills" is Dead Meadow's second album for Joe Lally of Fugazi's stoner-positive Tolotta label (Spirit Caravan is one of their labelmates) and it picks right up where the first one left off, with weighty grooves, mellow jams, Sleep-worthy guitars, hippie imagery... Unfortunately guitarist Jason Simon's somewhat whiny (thankfully not ever-present) vocals are still a taste we have yet to acquire, but that's not enough to sink this heavy, hairy beast. The wah, the fuzz, the drone, the riff...it's power trio spacerock mayhem galore, spiced with sitar and cello. In the current stoner rock scene, these guys seem just so much more authentic than most. And is that not a great album cover, or what?

DEAD MEADOW Howls From The Hills (Xemu) cd 14.98
The second album from Dead Meadow now gets proper reissue treatment from Xemu who also reissued their great debut a few months back. With the recent explosion of stoner psych-rock it's nice to revisit Dead Meadow's beginnings as they are a big part of the recent resurgence of Sabbath inspired rock with smart psych undertones. Recorded in 2001 this has all the ingredients that has made the band an AQ favorite over this past decade. Here's what we said the first time around:
Anything recorded at a "mobile mystic gnome studio" has got to be good, right? Well, at least if you're in the mood from some suitably stoned, retro-rocking, Blue Cheer worship from this very heavy and psychedelic Virginia-based band. "Howls From The Hills" was Dead Meadow's second album for Joe Lally of Fugazi's now-defunct stoner-positive Tolotta label (Spirit Caravan was one of their labelmates) and it picked right up where the first one left off, with weighty grooves, mellow jams, Sleep-worthy guitars, hippie imagery... The wah, the fuzz, the drone, the riff... power trio spacerock mayhem galore, spiced with sitar and cello. In the current stoner rock scene, these guys seem just so much more authentic than most. And is that not a great album cover, or what?
MPEG Stream: "Dusty Nothing"
MPEG Stream: "Jusiamere Farm"

DEAD MEADOW Howls From The Hills (Tolotta) lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Anything recorded at a "mobile mystic gnome studio" has got to be good, right? Well, at least if you're in the mood from some suitably stoned, retro-rocking, Blue Cheer worship from this very heavy and psychedelic Virginia-based band. "Howls From The Hills" is Dead Meadow's second album for Joe Lally of Fugazi's stoner-positive Tolotta label (Spirit Caravan is one of their labelmates) and it picks right up where the first one left off, with weighty grooves, mellow jams, Sleep-worthy guitars, hippie imagery... Unfortunately guitarist Jason Simon's somewhat whiny (thankfully not ever-present) vocals are still a taste we have yet to acquire, but that's not enough to sink this heavy, hairy beast. The wah, the fuzz, the drone, the riff...it's power trio spacerock mayhem galore, spiced with sitar and cello. In the current stoner rock scene, these guys seem just so much more authentic than most. And is that not a great album cover, or what?`

DEAD MEADOW Old Growth (Matador) cd 13.98
Old Growth shows that Dead Meadow have grown oh so very comfortable with their now trademark sound, one that hazily recalls the Black Sabbath/Blue Cheer thud of their early albums, but downplays that sort of heaviness in favor of the mellowed-out, more melodic lighter touch we loved about the dreamy, Floydian-feelin' Feathers, their previous album from 2005.
Maybe they've gotten just a little too comfortable with it, as this new one doesn't push forward too much further, their smoke cloud drifting on to settle over another set of loping, lazy stoner groovage, with whiney vocals mumbled in their usual style. There's a whole lotta psychedelic blues rock guitar, but not so much in the way of heavy riffing. Instead, a lot of this is sorta stripped down, the very first track "Ain't Got Nothing (To Go Wrong)" somehow reminding us of something the White Stripes might do. And it's definitely a "song-oriented" album.
It's probably a 50-50 proposition that fans of Feathers (the album, not the band) will either be well pleased with this or feel sorta blah on it, really depends on how these songs strike you. Some of 'em we really dig. Dead Meadow heads from way back might have been hoping this time for more heaviness, however.
MPEG Stream: "Aint't Got Nothing (To Go Wrong)"
MPEG Stream: "The Queen Of All Returns"

DEAD MEADOW Old Growth (Matador) 2lp 17.98
Old Growth shows that Dead Meadow have grown oh so very comfortable with their now trademark sound, one that hazily recalls the Black Sabbath/Blue Cheer thud of their early albums, but downplays that sort of heaviness in favor of the mellowed-out, more melodic lighter touch we loved about the dreamy, Floydian-feelin' Feathers, their previous album from 2005.
Maybe they've gotten just a little too comfortable with it, as this new one doesn't push forward too much further, their smoke cloud drifting on to settle over another set of loping, lazy stoner groovage, with whiney vocals mumbled in their usual style. There's a whole lotta psychedelic blues rock guitar, but not so much in the way of heavy riffing. Instead, a lot of this is sorta stripped down, the very first track "Ain't Got Nothing (To Go Wrong)" somehow reminding us of something the White Stripes might do. And it's definitely a "song-oriented" album.
It's probably a 50-50 proposition that fans of Feathers (the album, not the band) will either be well pleased with this or feel sorta blah on it, really depends on how these songs strike you. Some of 'em we really dig. Dead Meadow heads from way back might have been hoping this time for more heaviness, however.
MPEG Stream: "Aint't Got Nothing (To Go Wrong)"
MPEG Stream: "The Queen Of All Returns"

DEAD MEADOW s/t (Tolatta) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Dead Meadow are a retro stoner psych rock power trio playing fuzzed out space-jams in a heavy and rollicking yet still kinda mellow mode. For fans of Blue Cheer and their fellow Tolatta act Spirit Caravan. They're also reminiscent of a more jammed-out, psychedelic Sleep, but with some gentle touches--there's even interludes of acoustic guitar indie-pop. This one grew on us! It's definitely more "out-of-time" than most other stoner rock efforts, harking back not to the arenas of the '70s but to the garages and hippie pads of the late '60s. As such it stands apart from the current legions of Kyuss / Fu Manchu clones. The one weak point, the slightly whiny vocals, hardly matter amid the instrumental majesty of the electric fuzz guitar and bass action that dominates this album!
RealAudio clip: "Greensky Greenlake"

DEAD MEADOW s/t (Xemu) cd 14.98
This band's most recent album, Feathers, was one of our favorites of last year so it's nice to get this opportunity to revisit their first record which has been out of print for quite a while, the label (Joe Lally's Tolatta) that released it originally went out of business and the record was sort of lost in limbo. Their stoner-psych-rock prowess can be found here in its full glory connecting the dots between Black Sabbath and Blue Cheer, Bardo Pond and Kyuss. One of Dead Meadow's best attributes is their ability to make records that totally grow on you and seep into your skin listen after listen. This has been hitting the spot for us so much as of late that literally not a day has gone by that this hasn't been blasting out of our speakers here in the store! Such a welcome reissue, and for sure a must-have if you missed it the first time around in 2001, when we said the following about it:
Dead Meadow are a retro stoner psych rock power trio playing fuzzed out space-jams in a heavy and rollicking yet still kinda mellow mode. For fans of Blue Cheer and their fellow Tolatta act Spirit Caravan. They're also reminiscent of a more jammed-out, psychedelic Sleep, but with some gentle touches -- there's even interludes of acoustic guitar indie-pop. This one grew on us! [See!] It's definitely more "out-of-time" than most other stoner rock efforts, harking back not to the arenas of the '70s but to the garages and hippie pads of the late '60s. As such it stands apart from the current legions of Kyuss / Fu Manchu clones. The one weak point, the slightly whiny vocals, hardly matter amid the instrumental majesty of the electric fuzz guitar and bass action that dominates this album!
Xemu should soon be reissuing Dead Meadow's 2nd Tolotta album Howls From The Hills as well, also a must for those working backwards from the band's excellent Matador output.
MPEG Stream: "Sleepy Silver Door"
MPEG Stream: "Indian Bones"

DEAD MEADOW Shivering King And Others (Matador) cd 10.98
Apparently time-travel is possible, 'cause there's just no way these guys could be of our day and age. With this, their third album and Matador label debut, Maryland thud-psych rockers Dead Meadow take things to an even higher, ahem, level of '60s/'70s inspired stoner delight. It's downer rock that swings like a pair of bellbottoms on a body hanging from a noose but is also certainly warm and enveloping, like a big fuzzy blanket. Heavy riffing with some nice mellow acoustic hippy jams as well. Basically drone-on bliss both ways. Kinda like if Sleep were a krautrock band.
We've said before that our only real problem with this band is the vocals. But on "Shivering King", although they're still super-nasal, they've managed via a combination of effects and mixing to somehow at last make 'em nicely palatable -- they're the high end counterweight to all the bass frequencies over which they drift. Fantastic!
NB. It's a bit weird Dead Meadow's on Matador now, but I guess they fit in with Bardo Pond (who've moved on to a new label, however) and it's not any stranger than the Champs being on Drag City!
Vinyl version is a double LP on 150 gram vinyl.
MPEG Stream: "Babbling Flower"
MPEG Stream: "Heaven"

DEAD MEADOW Shivering King And Others (Matador) 2lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Apparently time-travel is possible, 'cause there's just no way these guys could be of our day and age. With this, their third album and Matador label debut, Maryland thud-psych rockers Dead Meadow take things to an even higher, ahem, level of '60s/'70s inspired stoner delight. It's downer rock that swings like a pair of bellbottoms on a body hanging from a noose but is also certainly warm and enveloping, like a big fuzzy blanket. Heavy riffing with some nice mellow acoustic hippy jams as well. Basically drone-on bliss both ways. Kinda like if Sleep were a krautrock band.
We've said before that our only real problem with this band is the vocals. But on "Shivering King", although they're still super-nasal, they've managed via a combination of effects and mixing to somehow at last make 'em nicely palatable -- they're the high end counterweight to all the bass frequencies over which they drift. Fantastic!
NB. It's a bit weird Dead Meadow's on Matador now, but I guess they fit in with Bardo Pond (who've moved on to a new label, however) and it's not any stranger than the Champs being on Drag City!
Vinyl version is a double LP on 150 gram vinyl.

DEAD MILKMEN Big Lizard In My Backyard (Restless) cd 12.98
A little blast from our college radio punk rock past. I was 15 years old when this record came out, but I didn't truly appreciate it until I was in college and learned to like music other than heavy metal. Dean Clean, Joe Jack Talcum, Dave Blood, and Rodney Anonymous were a bunch of stoned slackers that spit out an infectious blend of punk rock and beatnik-y acoustic folk. Imagine the Violent Femmes covering Descendents tunes, only with lyrics written by seventh graders. Albeit fairly clever seventh graders. Actually, very -stoned-, fairly clever seventh graders. Songs about cars, laundromats, food, lizards, hairy girls, junkies and retards. Stupid, childish, puerile, and often in poor taste, but also catchy, clever and fun. I'll be surprised if there's anyone that wouldn't immediately recognise their big hit 'Bitchin' Camaro.'
RealAudio clip: "Bitchin' Camaro"
RealAudio clip: "Big Lizard In My Backyard"
RealAudio clip: "Tiny Town"
RealAudio clip: "Beach Song"
RealAudio clip: "Serrated Edge"

DEAD MOON Dead Ahead (Tombstone) cd 13.98
For the devout followers (particularly overseas) of this veteran Oregonian garage punk trio, their ninth album surely needs no introduction. For those less in the Dead Moon know, it's high time you got yerself acquainted. Punk rock grandparents (really!) Fred and Toody Cole along with drummer Andrew Loomis have been tooling out the hard livin' low-slung rawk tunes for well over fifteen years. They've not veered an inch from their straightforward rough-hewn path. Totally unadorned, honest and not always pretty, their sound is real down'n'dirty. These murky lo-lo-fi recordings truly adds to their unstable gritty glory. Dead Moon quite often prove to be an acquired taste, but those who do dig it are positively rabid. Are you?
MPEG Stream: "Signs Of Departure"
MPEG Stream: "Dawning Of The Dead"

DEAD MOON Dead Moon Night / Thirteen Off My Hook (Music Maniac) cd 15.98

DEAD MOON Echoes Of The Past (Sub Pop) 2cd 14.98
Dead Moon are one of those bands that seems to be revered and loved by everyone who's ever heard them, but considering how long the band has been around, it's a little hard to believe just how few people that is. SO we're pretty psyched that Sub Pop decided it was time to rectify that. With a massive double disc collection, gathering up all kinds of rare and essential DM tracks.
Dead Moon seem like they've been around forever, and they sort of have. The band formed in 1987, so we're talking almost 20 years. And husband and wife band leaders Fred and Toody were BORN IN 1948!! AND GOT MARRIED IN 1967!! Twenty years before they even started the band that would continue rocking to this day. And they pretty much out-rock any garage rock outfit you can think of. Dead Moon are classic, lo-fi, fuzzed out, stripped down, blues drenched garage rock nirvana. The drums sound like garbage can lids recorded in a cave, the guitars go from scrabbly thick riffing to reverby surf rocky fuzz, to smokey blues moodiness. The songs tend to be super simple, sometimes skeletal, but the band have a serious knack for the hook and they just kick out the motherfucking jams. Fred's got a killer Bon Scott-like growl and Toody has a cool sixties girl group sort of shout, and along with drummer Andrew Loomis every track they whip up is a winner, going from sounding like kick ass classic rock, to fuzzy garage groove, to psychedelic lo-fi blues rock, to some rare lost AC/DC demo, all slathered in Stoogesy swagger and swinging Stones stomp.
MPEG Stream: "Graveyard"
MPEG Stream: "Evil Eye"
MPEG Stream: "Dead Moon Night"
MPEG Stream: "Kicked Out - Kicked In"
MPEG Stream: "Destination X"

DEAD MOON Trash & Burn (Empty) cd 12.98

DEAD MOON Trash & Burn (Empty) lp 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

DEAD OF WINTER At The Helm Of The Abyss (Profound Lore) cd 12.98
From the same label that brought us the bafflingly brilliant WOLD record from a few lists past comes Canadian black metal juggernaut Dead Of Winter, who feature an old AQ fave totally out of his element, digital hard core technician Schizoid. In the past, Schizoid has hinted at his barely under the surface metal obsession by inserting all sorts of buzzing blackened riffs into his hyper distorted techno as well as once covering Burzum. But don't expect any sort of techno black metal hybrid from Dawn Of Winter -- this is full on, grim and frosty, lightning fast, spikes and corpsepaint black metal. A buzzy blurry mix of Darkthrone and Mayhem, furiously fast blast beats under a near drone of insectoid BM riffs and thunderous basslines. You can totally imagine these guys set up on the edge of a massive glacier, knee deep in snow, overlooking a blackened forest, blasting out a sheet of hellish black metal, in front of the swirling shifting northen lights, while lighting bolts rain down from the pitch black sky!
MPEG Stream: "Total Hate Final War"
MPEG Stream: "Across The Vast Storm Front"

DEAD PENI 2-4+1 (Blossoming Noise) cd 12.98
Droning dirge-y sludge records are a dime a dozen at this point. It's still a sound we love, but we're rapidly reaching a saturation point. The punk rock ethos of 'anyone can start a band' combined with the fact that everybody has a cd burner, and the seeming 'ease' of making doomy drone music, just means that now, it requires a whole hell of a lot of digging and sifting thought mounds of mediocre doom and so so sludge, to discover something as fucked up and far out as Dead Peni.
We first hear Dead Peni on a compilation a year or two back and were immediately smitten. The name evoked some sort of blackened take on Rudimentary Peni, but the sound was nothing of the sort, instead Dead Peni trafficked in an expansive sprawling riff based blackened doomdrone, that was anything but static, like a slowed down tarpit space rock, an even doomier murkier Godflesh, or Wolf Eyes with some rhythmic heft. It was hard to get a feel for what DP were capable of just on the basis of the music on the comp, but it was definitely enough to know we needed more.
And -more- has arrived, in the form of this three track, 47 minute, mysteriously monickered slab of blackened crush. 2-4+1 begins all hushed shimmer and deeeeeep low end whir, a sound that could be any cd-r, until some ungodly beastlike growl emerges from the depths and the guitar explodes, super distorted, crumbling and processed, but weirdly muted and warm. A single crash, allowed to ring out, transforming into a charged electronic buzz, streaked with feedback, and underpinned by that monstrous gurgling voice. Finally the drums kick in, a slow motion drum machined doomic plod, and we're gone. Total buzzing black doom industrial noise nirvana, lumbering and druggy, minor key and surprisingly melodic. A bit of Godflesh, a little Gore, some classic old school funereal doom run through a bank of Wolf Eyesian cracked electronics and malfunctioning effects, the weirdest part is the crowd noise, what sounds like the chanting of a rally or demonstration, snippets and samples, wrapped in rippling sheets of feedback, and woven into massive churning waves of crumbling distortion, a cinematic and weirdly dreamlike doom / industrial / noise hybrid. Like the sound of some super fucked up post apocalyptic political rally, tattered flags, burning buildings, a crowd of shapes and figures clad in rags, some mysterious shadow, on a raised parapet, delivering his message in a gurgling rumbling barely audible vocals, almost like goregrind vocals, but buried so low in the mix they end up sounding like another layer of droning rumble. One guitar weaves a soaring almost majestic melody, but still woozy and washed out sounding, while the track lurches glacially onward, the crowd cheering and chanting, the whole thing like some mysterious soundtrack to the end of the world, or at least the end of the world as we know it. But we can't help but willingly submit.
The following track begins with nearly 4 minutes of rain, thunder and lightning, voices, field recordings, laid over an almost imperceptible high end, which gradually grows and grows into a symphony of feedback, tones and overtones tangling and intermingling, creating all sorts of alien melodies, until finally the riff comes in, a super simple caveman dirge sort of riff, locked into a neverending loop, repeating over and over and over like some sort of proto metal mantra, while all the while, the rainfall continues, the random sounds drift in and out, the feedback swirls in little squalls and tangles, the only deviation, being some brief bits of classic doom like melody, before the riff inevitably returns to it's original looping dirge.
The final track begins with an explosion of blown out guitar and buzzing rumble, before drifting off, leaving the staticky detritus over a simple robotic pulse, and a sea of glitch and squiggles, the various elements finally locking into some sort of super abstract doom metal, but one that is hardly doom, or metal, more like some fragmented space drone, peppered with squalls of superdistorted guitar, the occasional clanging crash and crunch, all very muted and muddy, wreathed in a layer of gauzy distortion, voices, dogs barking, all manner of random sounds, and finally, a fierce howled processed demonic voice, wrapped in distorted riffage, and creating a super spare, spaced out sort of doom, where the riffs spend most of the time buzzing and drifting, only to rear up and spit out a bit of fractured melody and harsh hissy pummel, before recoiling again, and resuming its slow burning black drone. It almost sounds like Butthole Surfers ultra-doom, the same sort of effects drenched trippiness, and off kilter dementia, but way blacker, and way more fucked up and frightening.
Any of the three tracks could have been stretched out to album length, and we most certainly would have bought all three, but the three pieces here definitely work together well, as some sort of hellish, demonic, slow motion black doom drone dirge, that plays out almost like some impossible Wolf Eyes / Moss / Arvo Part mash up, if that makes any sense. Which it doesn't, but which is exactly what makes Dead Peni so amazing.
In addition to the 3 audio tracks, there's a fourth track included as a quicktime video, another blown out glacial buzz drenched dirge, this time accompanied by strange abstract visuals, black and white, giving way to green and blue, what seems to be buildings or ruins, but ultimately are so overexposed they just become shapes, the perfect visual representation of Dead Peni's abject black doom.
MPEG Stream: "2"
MPEG Stream: "3"

DEAD PREZ Get Free Or Die Tryin' (Boss Up) cd 13.98

DEAD PREZ Let's Get Free (Loud) cd 17.98

DEAD PREZ M-1 Confidential (Koch / Scotti) dual disc 16.98

DEAD PREZ RBG: Revolutionary But Gangsta (Sony) cd 16.98
Dead Prez fucking rule. Politically, musically. One of the best and seriously right-on groups in hip hop today. West Coast funk swagger, big ass, trunk busting beats, and classic loops, with biting lyrics that spare NO ONE. Another instant classic from a group doomed to stay way underground because of their unwavering politics. No "Hey Ya" for these guys. Fuck yeah!
Slightly puerile aside: You'da thunk they would have noticed that the title Revolutionary But Gangsta (say it aloud) is just a little too close to Revolutionary Butt Gangsta, eh? Especially in a genre rife with homophbia and continuous sexual boasting. Then again, maybe they did it on purpose. In that case, fuck yeah again!
MPEG Stream: "Walk Like A Warrior"
MPEG Stream: "I Have A Dream Too"

DEAD RABBITS Sin-Eater (Over It Media) cd 14.98
Supposedly a more metal Lynrd Skynrd, Dead Rabbits (what an awesome name!) sound a bit more like a slightly Southern fried Pantera or Superjoint Ritual with a bit more twang. Pretty cool, nonetheless.