HASKELL, JIMMY AND HIS ORCHESTRA Count Down! (EM Records) cd 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We listed this a while back, but then discovered that it's now been officially re-released in a much more deluxe version by one of our new favorite labels, Japanese reissue label EM records (who also did the Moolah and the Symphony Of The Birds discs we reviewed recently). This is an absolute all time space-age bachelor pad music kitschy classic for sure. Count Down! -- originally released in 1959 -- is a rock and roll visit to outerspace. Take your standard 1950's boogie woogie, throw a ton of echo, reverb, theremin and other strange sounds at it and you have Jimmie Haskell. Pre-dating Joe Meek's I Hear A New World by just one year, it's hard to believe the two didn't have a late night brainstorming session together. The two share a similar production aesthetic -- double speed vocals, extreme EQ-ing & compression -- and an off-kilter melodic sensibility. Wacky and wonderful!
As with all EM releases, very nicely done with lots of liner notes (unfortunately almost all in Japanese, though) as well as photos, the original artwork, repros of both the front and back covers and loads more!
MPEG Stream: "Weightless Blues"
MPEG Stream: "Rockin' In the Orbit"
MPEG Stream: "We Get Messages"

HASSELVANDER, JOE Road Kill / Lady Killer (Rock Saviour Records) cd 10.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Pentagram man in sleaze metal shocker! Big hair, bullet belt, snakeskin boots. Sometimes (all the time) you just can't beat good ol' skool heavy metal, '80s style! This reissue is just that, authentic underground '80s metal, recorded circa '84 and '86, capturing the party time sleazy rock vibe of the big hair era, but with an extra doom twist, so while arena Ozzy is one influence, Witchfinder General is another. And Pentagram, definitely Pentagram. That's 'cause this Joe Hasselvander fella is best known as the longtime drummer for those American doom metal legends. (His other claim to fame: since the late '80s, he's also been the drummer for NWOBHM stalwarts Raven.) He was a member of Pentagram for years and years (until recently), in particular a crucial member of the band when they were but a duo, he and wizened vocalist Bobby Liebling together creating Pentagram's comeback classics Review Your Choices (1999) and Sub-Basement (2000), Hasselvander playing not only drums but guitar and bass as well on those albums, as well as penning a good portion of the material! (Reissues of which are back in stock this list by the way.)
So, anyone into Pentagram should be curious about the solo material Hasselvander recorded back in the '80s, and your curiosity will be rewarded if you pick up this disc... it rocks! And demonstrates again that he's a talented multi-instrumentalist, metal songwriter, and a pretty decent singer as well.
It's basic, heavy, fun stuff that's stick-in-your-head catchy. Track 4, "Loud Enough", was echoing 'round my brain for days after first spinning this - you know when you start thinking of a song, your humming it without knowing it, but can't figure out what it is? Listening to as much music as we do here at AQ, that happens now and then, and it took a while before I was able to identify the chorus occupying my mind as being from that song, and this disc.
There's 16 tracks total on this disc, consisting of the Lady Killer lp from 1984 and the Roadkill sessions from '86. Plus, there's two bonus tracks. One's a live recording circa 1979 from another Hasselvander band, Overlord. And then another a live track, "The Ghoul", performed by Death Row (aka Pentagram) from 1982, with Bobby L. on vox of course, another reason for Penta-fans to get this.
The Roadkill material comes first on the disc, probably a good thing 'cause it sounds much better - though all of this has raw sound quality, the budget production of Ladykiller material is especially fuzzed and frazzed with distortion, sounding more like a demo than Roadkill does, even though Roadkill was a demo (later issued on vinyl in the late '90s), while Ladykiller was an actual release in '84.
Apparently Lady Killer was originally intended as an exploito-metal project, supposedly to be an all-girl band a la Girlschool. But when the female singer hired for the session failed to show up, Joe had to sing instead, with no prior vocal experience. He also played all instruments except lead guitar. Universally panned upon release, it's got a bit of a cult status now... but the Road Kill material is stronger, Joe's vocals much improved (since he had a chance to practice 'em) consisting of 8 demo tracks, six by Joe and two by former Pentagram guitarist Victor Griffin. Songs from Road Kill like "Back Door Man" and "Under The Gun" seem like they could have been hits... in the '80s anyway. Kinda like early Twisted Sister, early Motley Crue, or early W.A.S.P (with that extra doomy vibe already mentioned). Heavy and hooky, meat and potatoes American metal, nothing too high falutin', but with tons of underground '80s metal atmosphere.
This is packaged with a thick cd booklet full of lyrics, liner notes from Joe, and vintage photos (including an unbelievably wasted lookin' pic of the now-deceased guy who played guitar on Roadkill, Jay Smith). Recommended to all heshers and headbangers!!
MPEG Stream: "Under The Gun"
MPEG Stream: "Loud Enough"
MPEG Stream: "I'm Alright"

HASSLES You've Got Me Hummin (Razor & Tie) cd 15.98
'60s pop-psych reissue of the two albums by these Long Island teenagers best known for having budding songwriting genius Billy Joel in their ranks! Not as over the top as Billy's subsequent proto-metal project Atilla, this still has some of his wild keyboard playing and plenty of charming, trippy tunes.

HASUNUMA, SHUTA OK Bamboo (Western Vinyl) cd 14.98
OK Bamboo begins with lithe melodic movements of piano delicately textured with soft stutter and glitch. Made us envision a milky complected android awaking with an itch to drowsily scratch. Then this android opens her mouth briefly to yawn-murmur-sing a few mysterious words before diving into the green-blue waves to frolic with some remarkably lifelike animatronic sea creatures. Aaaah, maybe you'll trip out to it differently than we did, but we hope you get an inkling of Hasunuma's distinctly Japanese dream-tronica.
MPEG Stream: "OK Bamboo"
MPEG Stream: "Sunny Day In Saginomiya"

HASUNUMA, SHUTA s/t (Western Vinyl) cd 14.98
The musical equivalent of a young leaf drifting along on a slow flowing brook. Shuta Hasunuma's music is as minimal yet richly expressive as a haiku -- stirring a collective "ahhhh" from all within earshot. Each track is composed from tiny fragments of field recordings that he captured in both rural and urban Japanese environments. Meditative. Contemplative. Beautiful.
MPEG Stream: "Green Repair"
MPEG Stream: "Morning Fanfare"

HASWELL, RUSSELL Live Salvage 1997 - 2000 (Mego) cd 18.98
Collected works (live, as the title states) from the man behind OR Records (responsible for a slew of excellent experimental / electronic discs from artists like Zbigniew Karkowski, Francisco Lopez, Farmer's Manual, CD_Slopper, etc.). You might recognize Haswell's name as he's remixed Merzbow (Scumtron) and Thurston Moore (Root) as well as collaborated with the former on a 12" put out a few years ago on Mego (now out-of-print, soon to be reissued by Meme on CD). The Akita connection alone should give you an indication of what Haswell has in store on this album: brutally aggressive laptop harshtronics, huge slabs of noise of the non-digital persuasion with a knowing nod toward Akita-san himself. Nice. Cover photo by Wolfgang Tillmans to go along with an acknowledgment list that's hip as fuck.

HAT The Demise Of Mankind (Antichristian Front / Abyss) cd 14.98
One of the joys of metal records, black metal records in particular, is unravelling the mystery of the logo, because even the most logo savvy among us has stumbled across a label that was just too gnarled to decode. So we were pretty excited by this record, part of the mystery lay in the fact that it was a black logo, on a nearly black background, but the logo itself was also super complex, each letter, a branch spouting hundreds of tiny tendrils, the letterforms mere bulky blurs, only three letters though, so we gave it a try, and seemed to suss it out, but figured it couldn't be right. That's an H, and the next letter looks like an A, and the third and final letter is... a... T? So that spells HAT? This thrashing blackened grim horde spewing this awesome frosty Nordic buzz is called Hat? Then we were imagining a huge corpsepainted creature growling into a microphone "Weeeeeee are calllllled.... HAT". Pretty funny. We're fairly sure Hat must be Norwegian for hate or something similar, and the band probably never thought about the meaning in English, but we can't help but be ticked by a buzzing blast like this being perpetrated by a band called Hat.
Chapeau themed monicker aside, this band is seriously fierce and grim, slipping from total classic old school style Nordic blasting blackness, a la Satyricon, Immortal, Emperor, to more midtempo blackened grooves like Khold. Some of the songs are laced with recordings of clanking chains, trudging footsteps (on the way to the gallows it sounds like), explosions and gunfire, but the music is plenty violent and furious all on its own. The guitar sound is incredible, thick and ultra buzzy, the vocals are sick and harsh and hellish. the drumming simple but powerful, the melodies epic, the song structures not super complex, instead super buzzy and hypnotic. Seriously excellent classic Norwegian blackness, by the grim kvlt horde known simply as... HAT.
MPEG Stream: "Guds Skitne Avkom"
MPEG Stream: "Eternal Damnation Of The Soul"
MPEG Stream: "Schadenfreude"

HATAKEYAMA, CHIHEI Minima Moralia (Kranky) cd 14.98
Japanese laptop jockey Chihei Hatakeyama has flattened the source material of guitar and vibraphone into the tasteful ambient construction found on Minima Moralia, dreamy drones dotted with fizzing digital pixelations. There's none of the attack and rhythm that might pinpoint Hatakeyama's source material; instead he produces warm, dreamy drifts of ringing tones and velvety buzzings that locate the album in the realm of Eno's ambience (in terms of composition) and Kompakt's beloved Pop Ambient series (in terms of warmth via use of analogue / digital dialoguing). Very pleasant listening.
MPEG Stream: "Bonfire On The Field"
MPEG Stream: "Starlight Reflecting On The Surface Of The River"

HATCHA & BENGA 10 Tons Heavy (Planet Mu) 12" 9.98

HATCHA & KROMESTAR 3000 (Aphex Recordings) 12" 11.98

HATCHA VS. KROMESTAR Brothers Grim (Eight FX) 2x12" 24.00

HATCHET Awaiting Evil (Metal Blade) cd 13.98
The current retro thrash renaissance of course has its practitioners here in the Bay Area. Of course, 'cause the Bay Area in the '80s was thrash ground zero what with Metallica and Exodus and Heathen and all, and, well, history repeats itself. The North Bay young 'uns known as Hatchet are up for riding the retro thrash rocket as high as they can go (so far, getting signed to iconic label Metal Blade on the strength of the tracks they'd posted to their MySpace page!).
With mile-a-minute neck wrecking riffage, blasting battery, and snarling, sometimes screeching vox (spitting lyrics about angels of death and marching dead and stuff like that), Hatchet sure sound like the real deal, no (pardon the pun) hack job. Dunno how they would have fared vs. the Big Four back in the day, but amidst the legions of retro thrashers popping up left and right in the metal underground right now they more than hold their own. A rapid fire mix of technicality, melody, attitude, and horror-flick fun.
Nostalgic good times all right, nothing more, nothing less, but cooler in our book than boring death metal band number 71,523 that until recently was standard issue in the American underground metal scene. If you want originality, well grab the Slayer and Megadeth and Testament albums that Hatchet so obviously grew up on...
MPEG Stream: "Frozen Hell"
MPEG Stream: "Frailty Of The Flesh"

HATE FOREST Battlefields (Supernal Music) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

HATE FOREST Battlefields (Supernal Music) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

MPEG Stream: "With Fire And Iron"
MPEG Stream: "Our Fading Horizons"

HATE FOREST Nietzscheism (Supernal Music) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Not sure how it happened, but somehow we've never reviewed any Hate Forest records. Which is surprising since all of the AQ metalheads LOVE Hate Forest. How could we not? They hail from a pretty amazing Ukrainian metal scene, and feature members from a bunch of other bands we dig: Drudkh, Dark Ages, Astrofaes, Nokturnal Mortum. Got your attention now do we?! The sad thing is as of recently Hate Forest have decided to call it a day. Some of the HF folks have a new band called Blood Of Kingu which we'll of course track down as soon as it's out, but just because the band is gone, are any of their records any less amazing.
We'll try to list all of them eventually, but we'll start with Nietzscheism, which is kind of a greatest hits, a collection of 7"s, compiling material from Resistance (2004), Darkness (2000), Blood And Fire (2001) and Ritual (2001).
The disc starts off unexpectedly with a Carl Orff piece that had Kerry feeling like she just had her heart torn out in some Indiana Jones movie, which we imagine was probably the intended effect. An epic, majestic, super dramatic intro to a song cycle that is all of those things, albeit much much blacker!
Fans of Drudkh and Nokturnal Mortum will have some idea of what to expect from these Ukrainian black metal warriors, a relentless and furious blackened attack, a buzzing blackness rife with incredible riffs, simple blasting beats, deep growled demonic vocals, a weird blend of black shriek and death gurgle, all violently tangled up into a pummeling, crushing black metal majesty. There are brief stretches of midtempo Burzumic buzz, loping sea sick rhythms and mournful melodies, amidst the grim black brutality, and there's even a track that hints at the weirdness Nokturnal Mortum would later turn into entire records, simple martial percussion, sounds of the forest, crickets, owls, crackling fire, whispering wind, creepy affected spoken vocals, but those moments are merely brief respites, glimmers of false hope, single rays of light amidst a sky of roiling stormclouds, fleeting glimpses of dronelike buzz between huge swaths of hateful Satanic black brutality. So fucking awesome!!!
MPEG Stream: "Annihilation"
MPEG Stream: "The Wood Brothers"

HATE FOREST Purity (Supernal Music) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We realized a list or two back, that we had somehow managed to make it to list 200-and-something without ever listing any records by Ukrainian black metal horde Hate Forest. Which obviously needed to be rectified since pretty much all the metal inclined folks we know LOVE Hate Forest. So we listed Nietzscheism, a sort of greatest hits, with the intention of digging in to their catalog, and giving all the AQ list metalheads a chance to pick up some of these amazing discs.
So here we have Purity, recorded back in 2002, another perfectly frosty, relentlessly buzzing slab of intense and furious black metal. Just like all of their other records, the sound of Hate Forest here is not fancy or fucked or convoluted or complex, just simple, ultra aggressive, ultra fast, grim and chilly, the perfect sonic representation of the snow cloaked Ukrainian forest. A blast of blurry black metal that over the course of the album spreads out into a thick black drone, a bleak mesmerizing whir, thick with buried melodies and growled demonic howls. A thick squirming blackness that swallows you whole and leaves you shivering and alone, praying for death, as the oppressive black hole heaviness crushes you into the frozen ground.
MPEG Stream: "Domination"
MPEG Stream: "Elder Race"

HATE FOREST Scythia (Supernal Music) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

MPEG Stream: "Scythia"
MPEG Stream: "Shining Abyss"

HATE FOREST Sorrow (Supernal Music) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We realized a list or two back, that we had somehow managed to make it to list 200-and-something without ever listing any records by Ukrainian black metal horde Hate Forest. Which obviously needed to be rectified since pretty much all the metal inclined folks we know LOVE Hate Forest. So we listed Nietzscheism, a sort of greatest hits, with the intention of digging in to their catalog, and giving all the AQ list metalheads a chance to pick up some of these amazing discs.
So here we have Sorrow, Hate Forest's most recent and final full length, and besides being a seriously dense and buzz drenched slab of blackness, it has one of the most amazing covers ever, a barren mountainside covered in leafless dead trees, the sort of photo you can stare at and get lost in, which is exactly the sort of black web these guys weave.
Sharing members with Drudkh, Dark Ages, Astrofaes, Nokturnal Mortum and probably every black metal band in the Ukraine, the now defunct Hate Forest offered up a relentless buzzsaw blast of white hot lightning fast black metal, blast beats all over the place, a near static wall of fuzz, riffs so serpentine and furiously fast, they almost become a solid black buzz. Melodies surface here and there but only briefly, quickly swallowed up by the churning downtuned whirl of whirring furious brutality.
Nothing subtle, or even that weird, no intricate tempos or convoluted song structures, this is pure cult grim blackness, a million miles an hour, a buzzing black bullet aimed straight for the depths of hell. So fast and relentless, that it becomes so hypnotic and dronelike that you almost can't help but drift into a glorious black dreamstate. Awesome.
Includes a big booklet with more breathtaking photos of snow covered mountains, rushing rivers, forests and fjords.
MPEG Stream: "Cold Of The Grave"
MPEG Stream: "Fullmoon"

HATE FOREST The Most Ancient Ones (Supernal Music) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

MPEG Stream: "To The Thickets And Swamps"
MPEG Stream: "The Most Ancient Ones"

HATEBEAK / LONGMONT POTION CASTLE split (Reptilian) 7" 4.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Managed to get a few more of these back in (random copies on "birdshit" colored vinyl (a sort of swirly grey)!!
It had to happen. And of course, the minute we heard that it actually had happened, we knew we had to have it. A death metal band... with a PARROT on lead vocals!!! How completely and stupidly brilliant! We love it! And so will you. The music is furious and blasting death metal, grinding riffs, pounding drums and crushing bass. Only, the usual cookie monster grunts are replaced by the evil squawks of Waldo the parrot. And Waldo does a pretty decent job, offering lots of unintelligable grunts and growls and other birdlike vocalisations. Our pal Brian at WFMU tried to get Hatebeak to perform on his show, but apparently Waldo can't really handle loud sounds (death metal included) and records his 'vocals' separately, so Hatebeak will sadly remain a studio only project. The artwork is pretty inspired as well. They appropriate Judas Priest's Screaming For Vengeance metallic bird cover, change Hatebreed's logo just a litle bit (and include a little bird-hatching-from-an-egg graphic) and title their side of the split Beak Of Putrefaction (a play on Carcass' Reek Of Putrefaction). Awesome! And there's a rumoured upcoming split with a band called Caninus fronted by a dog! We kid you not.
The other side of the split comes courtesy of AQ fave crank calling phenom Longmont Potion Castle, who instead of his usual phone prank schtick, offers up two "metal interludes", all instrumental blasts of blazing noodly metal! The perfect compliment to Hatebeak. And he's also sampled at the beginning of the Hatebeak side. Maybe the best split 7" of all time although the more recent Hatebeak / Caninus split might definitely give this a run for its money!

HATEFUL ABANDON Famine (Or Into The Bellies Of Worms) (Todestrieb) cd 14.98
What a difference a name makes, oh ok, and an extra member. The UK's Abandon, formerly a tortured suicidal black metal one man outfit, has changed their name to Hateful Abandon, added a fella called Swine to the lineup, and the result is really strange and unexpected.
Abandon, before the name change, trafficked in a super harsh and hateful black metal along the lines of Xasthur or Leviathan, buzzing riffs, deep depressive blackness, laced with hysterical shrieking vocals. But on Famine, gone is ALL of the buzz, and much of the vocal hysteria, in its place, something equally depressive, but sonically completely removed from the black metal of its former incarnation. The sound here is all clean guitars and simple loping drums, deep moody basslines, more gloom and goth than blast and buzz. Joy Division is the obvious reference. The occasional blackened shriek being the only reminder that this band was once grim and harsh. But hell, c'mon, the sound doesn't need to be grim and harsh for the vibe to be. and the vibe here is definitely grim and bleak, and sorrowful and depressive. Much like the recently reviewed Frail cassette, that matched up black metal vox with Cure-ish eighties new wave, Hateful Abandon subtly infuse a bit of blackness into what would otherwise be just a slab of gloomy miserablist gothic slowcore. Which would be fine with us of course, but the mix is pretty bizarre, and the result is pretty excellent. Guitars chime and ring out, melodies unfurl lugubriously, the bass is serpentine and soporific, the drums more keeping time than driving the songs, the vocals, lazily drawled, from soft sad boy croon, to deep gothy bellow, to demonic shriek, often in the same song, but the shrieking is in fact kept to a minimum, relying much more on the gloomier less harsh vocals, which definitely makes this something dark and brooding and moody and melancholic, not even remotely heavy, which means this is only for truly adventurous and open minded metalheads, or for the rest of you, who like it dark and creepy and haunting and hypnotic, and might not mind the occasional hellish howl with your doomy dreary dirges...
MPEG Stream: "Rats Whisper Murder"
MPEG Stream: "Diamond Spine"

HATEFUL ABANDON Move (Todestrieb) cd 14.98
Record number two from this hateful harsh suicidal black metal band turned dark gothy gloom wave outfit, and the band continue to shed the black vestiges of their past incarnation, moving ever toward a more purely darkwave pop sound, and like on their debut, Famine (Or Into The Bellies Of Worms), the sound here is all warm muted buzz, propulsive drum pound, low slung slithery basslines, all woven into a droned out darkly psychedelic chunk of sweet sonic miserablism, the vocals this time a bit more strident in places, and powerful, making this sound more like Killing Joke than anything. Although the deep dramatic croon from the first record remains, and seems to be again channeling Andrew Eldridge from Sisters Of Mercy. There are also long droned out tones, that sound like horns, but could be guitars or synths, the effect is the same, adding a sort of mournful funeral quality, which is balanced by the chiming melodies, and the almost Cure-like songcraft, although it's more like Cure filtered through Circle, as the tracks have a looped krautrock like mesmer to them, hypnotic and trancelike.
Some of the tracks are peppered with weird squelchy synths and electronics, adding a weird spaciness to the proceedings, but for the most part, the sound here is a dark, driving minimal gloom pop, with the guitars occasionally slipping into an almost metallic chug, but tending more toward the angular crunch of echo drenched jangle, there are samples too, but really with music like this, it's all abut the bass and drums, that sort of Joy Division foundation that's in full effect here, and is dark and driving and dreamily depressive, mournful and melancholic, Hateful Abandon like the darker grittier version of Nuit Noire gloom pop offshoot Soror Dolorosa, and really anyone who dug that (did anyone not?) will love this too!
Released on the always kick ass UK label Todestrieb.
MPEG Stream: "The Way It Ends"
MPEG Stream: "Human Clockwork"
MPEG Stream: "The Lost"

HATER The 2nd (Burn Burn Burn) cd 11.98

HATEWAVE s/t (tUMULt) cd 11.98
The latest in killing technology from our very own Andee's tUMULt label! This is the first (and last) release from Chicago's metal mercenaries Hatewave. Completely crushing math/speed/avant/noise/metal/grind.
Hatewave's musical bloodbath is equal parts death metal, free jazz, grindcore, no-wave and pure noise. Furiously brutal, two guitar and drums (no bass!) attack, whirling riffs, bursts of white noise, calculus-style time changes, frantic blast beats, and a barely-under-the-surface free-jazz obsession all coalesce into some of the most insane, lightning speed, technical black metal/grind bombast ever. Featuring ex-Chicago / current SF scene fixture and metal/jazz obsessive, drummer Weasel Walter (Flying Luttenbachers, Lake of Dracula, To Live and Shave in L.A.). Originally this was a limited LP-only release -- this cd version adds 3 bonus tracks from their 1997 demo! The LP (and at the time, soon to be released cd) was banned by some squeamish distributors for its somewhat gory cover art and controversial lyrics, all of which are still present in their throat hacked, head smashed, blood soaked glory!
MPEG Stream: "Desire To Kill"
MPEG Stream: "Slit the Catholic Throat"
MPEG Stream: "Bleed for Me"

HATEWAVE s/t (Up Jumps The Devil) lp 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
First release from this Chicago powerhouse. Ten songs of insane math/speed/avant/noise/metal/grind. Whirling riffs collide with obtuse time changes, shrieking howls are obliterated by careening blast beats, ultra precise rhythms disintegrate into waves of entropic dissonance. Featuring Chicago scene fixture Weasel Walter on the drums (Lake of Dracula, Flying Luttenbachers, etc.). Overtly disturbing gore photos and a non gory but equally disturbing band photo complete the very "underground metal" packaging scheme of this cult vinyl-only release.

HATEWAVE Sexual Healing 2 (Apop) cd 12.98
Before Hatewave became a grinding mathy metal juggernaut (with a killer record on tUMULt), they were, well, THIS. Something much more fucked up and damaged. Retarded and demented. Still sort of metal, but way more lo-fi and noisy, splattery confusional and bizarre.
Before Weasel Walter was in the band, they were fronted by the mysterious and brilliantly demented Nondor Nevai. As the liner notes to this archival release so eloquently state: "Fuck metal." And indeed, most metalheads, even ones who dug the twisted blackmathgrind of the tUMULt recording, will find this stuff too tweaked and twisted.
The guitars are muddy smears, not so much riffing as spewing gouts of buzz and fuzz, gnarled melodies and sheets of lo-fi crumbling distortion, the drums, if they are real drums, are an avalanche of thuds, of splattery skittery chaos, the vocals howled and moaned and shrieked, this is some seriously fucked up stuff.
Probably the closest comparison would be Faxed Head. In fact, twice when we were listening to this, people came up and asked us if it was Faxed Head. But even compared to Faxed Head this stuff is grimier, more mental, a sick onslaught of furious relentless pound and grind and grunt and stumble and what-the-fuck.
Definitely might be too much for all but the strangest and most adventurous metalheads, but noiseniks and grind freaks and anyone into utter aural insanity should just go ahead and dig in.
Also be warned: super gnarly, somewhat problematic cover art, inside and out, nudity, blood, violation, and some awesomely shitty layout!
Recommended, but only for the sick, chosen few.
MPEG Stream: "Hate Your Guts"
MPEG Stream: "I Need You (My Vodun Goat)"
MPEG Stream: "Shitlist"

HATFIELD, JULIANA Made In China (Ye Olde Records) cd 15.98
Both in her band the Blake Babies and as a solo artist, Juliana Hatfield's always had a bit of raunch in her girlishness, but on her latest full length she takes on a considerably harder, grittier rock sound with a few bluesy moments. Made In China offers up heavy chunks of electric guitars, noodly solos, distorted vocal effects. Nonetheless she still sounds like a perennial petulant teen.
MPEG Stream: "New Waif"
MPEG Stream: "Going Blonde"

HATRED s/t (Ultra Eczema) lp 25.00
Hatred is another Wolf Eyes side project, this time, it's Nate Young of Wolf Eyes along with his special lady Alivia Zyvich, and if this record is any indication, the Young/Zyvich household must be one
The disc begins with what sounds like some ultra lo-fi Ryoji Ikeda style minimalism, with piercing high end tones and barely audible low end pulses, all woven into mysterious minimal harmonies and slowly shifting microscopic textures, before launching into a dense loopscape of what sounds like snatches of other songs, short sharp samples, chopped and sped up, distorted and bathed in effects, transformed into a glitchy hiccuping hiss-scape peppered with little bursts of sizzling percussion. But most of the record is taken up by a looooooong burbling swampy low end smear of sound, extended stretches of squelchy keyboard electronic grit and looped fuzz, with haunting distant bells shimmering way in the background. It sounds a bit like Italian creep-prog outfit Goblin being held underwater in the bathtub, or a super damaged noise rock record on Kompakt. Awesome.
Packaged in a MASSIVE fold out, thick paper poster, the outside adorned with black and orange monster faces, snarling and grimacing in a field of sloppy cross hatching and chicken scratch, inside, and eyeball melting monster head rendered in that sort of 3D without the glasses green and red, that moves every time you look at it and makes your eyes ACHE!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! Already out of print and sold out at the label so these are the last copies ever...

HATTIFATTENERS Rabbit Rabbit (Dark Beloved Cloud) cd 13.98

HAUD MUNDUS / WORMLUST Oblivio Appositus (Total Holocaust) cd 13.98
Another killer release from Total Holocaust, this one from two bands we'd never heard of before, Haud Mundus from Ireland, and Wormlust from Iceland, both bands, sharing members, so while the bands definitely sound different, there's some sonic overlap for sure. Two loooong songs from each, up first is Haud Mundus, who begin with a haunting cinematic doomic plod, all choral voices, soaring synths, strange mutterings, tangled guitars, before exploding into some serious woozy, depressive mid tempo raw blackness, ultra distorted, weirdly melodic, tangled and mathy arrangements, plenty of stops and starts, hushed ambient stretches, but when the band are rocking, it's some serious tripped out gnarled post black metal radness, the drums way blown out, the vocals buried in the mix, the guitars super epic and emotional, lurching and sea sick, almost like some noise rock / black metal hybrid, dizzyingly flitting from full on black blast to lurching downtuned lumber to weird shimmery drift. The second HM track is just as cool, beginning with a sort of Viking vibe, still weirdly distorted and in the red, eventually lurching into a more traditional sounding black metal blast, but even then, the riffs are twisted and angular, keyboards soaring here and there, a strange industrial breakdown, before finishing off with some killer abstract doomgaze pound. Seriously awesome. Only recording by these guys, and we're already dying for more!
Wormlust finds the vocalist of Haud Mundus teaming up with an Icelandic partner for some more twisted blackness, similarly blown out and off kilter, but the sound of Wormlust is more machinelike, bordering on industrial, downtuned and chuggy, with bellowed vokills, and loud drums, mostly midtempo, but with some awesomely tripped out psychedelic interludes, at times sounding a bit like a slower, more freaky, more raw Marduk, the first track finishing off with a swirling chaotic spaced out coda that just rules.
The second track is tripped out black psych workout, plenty of clean guitar, woozy riffage, echo drenched howls, lurching midtempo rhythms, soaring synths, droned out buzz, some super fuzz bass chug breakdowns, some glistening clean guitar drift, and a final 30 second blowout of pounding black crush. Oblivio Appositus is also Wormlust's only proper release, just two songs, but like with Haud Mundus, we're ready from these guys as well.
Packaged in a cool 6 panel embossed digipak.
MPEG Stream: HAUD MUNDUS "Veins Of Stone"
MPEG Stream: WORMLUST "Surge - About The Death Of A God"

HAUGHM, JOHN (AGALLOCH) +46 17' 36.30", -124 4' 20.13" (Anthem) 7" 8.98
From the same label that brought us the avant ambient dubstep of Clubroot and Swarms, comes the debut solo 7" from John Haughm, the guitarist for black metal outfit Agalloch. If that sounds like a weird mix, you might not think so as much once you've heard it, as this finds Haughm trying some spaced out solo guitar on for size. A looped bit of almost krautrocky kosmische mesmer. you can definitely hear some Agalloch-isms in the sound, and the mood and vibe does get dark and ominous, and you can almost imagine the band suddenly crashing in all chug and pound and howl, but it's not to be, this is just a gorgeous little chunk of hypnotic solo guitar, the sounds looped and layered, subtly processed, melodies intertwined, tones run through the computer and spit out a little bit Fennesz-y on the other end. The result is pretty dreamy, even for non-metalheads, or metalheads who don't really care for Agalloch, the only bummer is that it's so short, it's the sort of sound that once stretched out to the length of a cd, or a whole side of an lp, would be the ultimate loopguitar krautpsych bliss out. Let's just hope this is a teaser of more to come.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! It's a one sided 7" with the B-side silkscreened and hand numbered, housed in a swank, super striking sleeve, with a download code to boot!
MPEG Stream: "+46 17' 36.30", -124 4' 20.13""

HAUNTED CASTLE Void Lake (Arbor) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We have to admit, we don't know too much about Haunted Castle, other than they shared a killer 10" split with the band Grey Skull a while back (which featured a cut out and hairy (!) sleeve), and more recently collaborated with recent AQ faves Robedoor on a killer droney ambient lp. But on that record it was tough to tell who was doing what. Robedoor tended to be a noisier heavier proposition, so we just sort of assumed that Haunted Castle were the quiet ones, getting Robedoor to mellow a bit and bliss out. But based on Void Lake, now we're not so sure. Four lengthy, brutal and caustic face melting blasts of psychnoise guitar damage, ultra blown out, dripping with crumbling distortion, all downtuned, and strangely processed, wrapped in thick clouds of, well, more guitar we'd guess. Shimmery streaks of high end feed back and grinding growling guitar fug, bits of muted percussion, what sounds like bizarre vocals and little scrapes and scratches, but it's mostly guitar, squealing and strangled, beaten and mangled, the instrument's anguished cries a huge squall of musical pain and abject fury, with big crashing chunks of industrial clatter dropped into the melee here and there for good measure. It's like Keiji Haino jamming with Heavy Winged, Mouthus, Vulture Club, Burmese, Whitehouse and Liquor Ball, after a night of serious drinking and way too much horse tranquilizer, and maybe with some frontal lobotomies to boot. Damaged free form psych that should appeal to the Brooklyn hipster noiseniks as well as old school Japanoise fanatics and everyone in between.
Packaged in a hand painted collaged cardboard sleeve, the discs themselves hand painted as well, the sleeve nestled in a hand screened and hand sewn fabric bag. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each one hand numbered...
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Four"

HAUNTED GRAFFITI (ARIEL PINK) Can't Hear My Eyes b/w Evolution's A Lie (Mexican Summer / Kemado) 7" 3.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
What a great way to end the year, two new songs from one of our favorite and most enigmatic songwriters of the present day, Ariel Pink. Now backed with a full band including members of Lilys and Beachwood Sparks.
While Ariel Pink is most often thought of for his lo-fi recordings and his on-the-verge-of-total-disaster live performances, the truth is that besides all his eccentricities and beyond all the hiss and mystique, Ariel Pink crafts some of the most endearing, catchy and brilliantly crafted songs EVER. Some folks try so hard to seem weird and unique, but with AP, his originality and singular musical vision is totally for real and ALL his own. He definitely fits perfectly in the great legacy of outsider pop luminaries having truly carved out his own place in the landscape of the underground music scene.
The last few times we've seen him live we've been blown away, by the music of course, but also by all the crazy ideas and weird sonic invention he manages to somehow cram into his songs and now finally we get to hear a couple of new tracks he's been performing live, recorded and damn do they sound great! The A side is one of the most smooth sounding AP jams yet, the band really works wonders creating some gorgeous alternate universe FM radio soft rock, complete with a totally tasteful sax solo (!) which would usually have us cringing but somehow it manages to totally work. And the B side is much more raw, dirgey and haunting. We keep listening to both songs over and over, and probably will until the new full length arrives, oh, and this 7" is way limited, only 500 copies, so it'll be gone all too soon and you know what that means....

HAUNTED, THE rEVOLVEr (Century Media) cd 13.98
Fourth full-length from one of the leaders of the modern Swedish melodic thrash/death scene with former members of scene legends At the Gates, Witchery, and let's not forget, the mighty, criminally-overlooked Seance. Allow me to digress for a moment and state that if you're a fan of this sound/scene and your collection is lacking Seance's classic '93 album "Saltrubbed Eyes", point your browser to eBay and get on it! But do that after you pick up this, the latest from some of the finest riff-writers in Scandinavia (or anywhere for that matter), the Bjorler twins (guitar and bass, respectively from At the Gates) and Jensen (Seance/Witchery). While not as technical as contemporaries Arch Enemy or Soilwork, The Haunted instead aim for the throat with a straight-forward speedy thrash approach, successfully merging break-neck (literally) speed with catchy and memorable riffs, and the result is a generous view from atop the thrash heap solely on the merit of kick-ass song-writing. For fans of all things Swedish, melodic and fast!
MPEG Stream: "No Compromise"
MPEG Stream: "Who Will Decide"

HAUNTED, THE The Haunted Made Me Do It (Earache) cd 15.98
Fiercely thrashy yet melodic second effort from this celebrated Scandinavian metal group (ex-member of now-legends At The Gates, plus riff-master Jensen from the equally popular Witchery). Better vocals than the debut, thanks to the new singer who isn't as shouty as the previous dude, although it's still run-of-the-mill gruff death metal vox. But musically, The Haunted maintain their hereditary post-At The Gates crown, but with elements of '80s metal that remind one just a little bit of, guess what, Witchery's irresistible retro-rock. That was easy...
RealAudio clip: "Bury Your Dead"

HAUSCHILDT, STEVE Sequitur (Kranky) cd 14.98
Record number two for the Emeralds' synthesist on Kranky; and like pretty much everything from that prolific trio, Hauschildt's sonic fruit doesn't fall too far from the Emeralds tree. Where his cohorts delve more into emotionally saturated post-kraut explorations of guitar and synth, Hauschildt's ethos tends more toward a grid-snapped electronica with taut sequencing and the occasional drum machine pulse, and he's probably the responsible party for bringing the beatbox to the 2012 Emeralds album Just To Feel Anything. He reprises those electronic rhythms once again on about half the tracks here, and those rhythms are anything but heavy and deep. Their airy spaciousness is only outdone by Hauschildt's luminously bright arppegiations, melodic sequences, and faux-chorale vocal samples that again look back to Vangelis and Jean-Michel Jarre for inspiration. While the more rigid tracks with their LFO squelching and vintage synth stabs come across at best as a decent attempt at Kraftwerk homage (e.g. "Accelerated Yearning") and at worst pre-fab soft-porn fluff (e.g. "Constant Reminders"), he's much better when he applies his craft to the atmospheric and the cosmic sensibilities of a track like the ethereal "Kept" and the gauzy, lovely title track.
MPEG Stream: "Interconnected"
MPEG Stream: "Accelerated Yearning"
MPEG Stream: "Kept"

HAUSCHILDT, STEVE Sequitur (Kranky) lp 14.98
Record number two for the Emeralds' synthesist on Kranky; and like pretty much everything from that prolific trio, Hauschildt's sonic fruit doesn't fall too far from the Emeralds tree. Where his cohorts delve more into emotionally saturated post-kraut explorations of guitar and synth, Hauschildt's ethos tends more toward a grid-snapped electronica with taut sequencing and the occasional drum machine pulse, and he's probably the responsible party for bringing the beatbox to the 2012 Emeralds album Just To Feel Anything. He reprises those electronic rhythms once again on about half the tracks here, and those rhythms are anything but heavy and deep. Their airy spaciousness is only outdone by Hauschildt's luminously bright arppegiations, melodic sequences, and faux-chorale vocal samples that again look back to Vangelis and Jean-Michel Jarre for inspiration. While the more rigid tracks with their LFO squelching and vintage synth stabs come across at best as a decent attempt at Kraftwerk homage (e.g. "Accelerated Yearning") and at worst pre-fab soft-porn fluff (e.g. "Constant Reminders"), he's much better when he applies his craft to the atmospheric and the cosmic sensibilities of a track like the ethereal "Kept" and the gauzy, lovely title track.
MPEG Stream: "Interconnected"
MPEG Stream: "Accelerated Yearning"
MPEG Stream: "Kept"

HAUSCHILDT, STEVE Tragedy & Geometry (Kranky) cd 14.98
Both Mark McGuire and John "Blue Randa" Elliott maintain quite a public profile outside their work in the kosmische synth-guitar trio Emeralds, but the third member of that outift, Steve Hauschildt, has remained relatively quiet. We had a super limited cd-r of his solo work on Gneiss Things which came and went in a just a few days, but beyond that, nothing outside Emeralds. Tragedy & Geometry is Hauschildt's first full album beyond a small and unavailable selection of cassettes, and it's found a suitable home on Kranky. If McGuire and Elliott have embarked on parallel trajectories for effervescent, impressionist ambience through guitar and synth respectively, Hauschildt's own vision is that of the machinist - ratcheting the electronic percolations that he brings to Emeralds within very precise grids and architectural blocks for his electronics to operate. Oneohtrix Point Never is also obsessed with the mathematical poetics of electronic music; but where OPN always skews his retrogarde flares through lost time, Russian mistranslation or sci-fi replication, Hauschildt adopts a tightly controlled rigor in his engineered electronica. Nowhere is that more true than on "Batteries May Drain", with its clockwork drum machine ticking at autobahn speeds amidst rasping motorik electronics and comet dusted synth melodies, in line with Jean-Michel Jarre and Vangelis. Elsewhere, hints of Emeralds' signature bittersweet atmospheres seep through the pulsing arpeggiations and synthesizer swoosh, aligned on tracks such as the "Overnight Venusian" which alludes to Aphex Twin's heralded Selected Ambient Works Vol. II. Quite fine!
MPEG Stream: "Batteries May Drain"
MPEG Stream: "Music For A Moire Pattern"
MPEG Stream: "Overnight Venusian"

HAUSCHILDT, STEVE Tragedy & Geometry (Kranky) 2lp 17.98
Both Mark McGuire and John "Blue Randa" Elliott maintain quite a public profile outside their work in the kosmische synth-guitar trio Emeralds, but the third member of that outift, Steve Hauschildt, has remained relatively quiet. We had a super limited cd-r of his solo work on Gneiss Things which came and went in a just a few days, but beyond that, nothing outside Emeralds. Tragedy & Geometry is Hauschildt's first full album beyond a small and unavailable selection of cassettes, and it's found a suitable home on Kranky. If McGuire and Elliott have embarked on parallel trajectories for effervescent, impressionist ambience through guitar and synth respectively, Hauschildt's own vision is that of the machinist - ratcheting the electronic percolations that he brings to Emeralds within very precise grids and architectural blocks for his electronics to operate. Oneohtrix Point Never is also obsessed with the mathematical poetics of electronic music; but where OPN always skews his retrogarde flares through lost time, Russian mistranslation or sci-fi replication, Hauschildt adopts a tightly controlled rigor in his engineered electronica. Nowhere is that more true than on "Batteries May Drain", with its clockwork drum machine ticking at autobahn speeds amidst rasping motorik electronics and comet dusted synth melodies, in line with Jean-Michel Jarre and Vangelis. Elsewhere, hints of Emeralds' signature bittersweet atmospheres seep through the pulsing arpeggiations and synthesizer swoosh, aligned on tracks such as the "Overnight Venusian" which alludes to Aphex Twin's heralded Selected Ambient Works Vol. II. Quite fine!
MPEG Stream: "Batteries May Drain"
MPEG Stream: "Music For A Moire Pattern"
MPEG Stream: "Overnight Venusian"

HAUSCHILDT, STEVE (EMERALDS) Critique Of The Beautiful (Gneiss Things) cd-r 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A 'repress' of a cd-r that we never got the first time around. Mr. Hauschildt is one of the three members of Emeralds; but unlike John Elliott and Mark McGuire, he doesn't seem to be as prolific in terms of solo and side projects, with less than a half-dozen tape and cd-r releases to speak of (compared to mountains of material from those other two). With The Critique Of The Beautiful, Hauschildt doesn't stray too far from the Emeralds sound of kosmiche dronescaping through analog synths and pedals. The album is dying to be made into a piece of vinyl, with the first four pieces acting as one suite that would be nicely matched by the lengthy finale. One of those first four - "What One Does To Another" - has almost a brightened Tim Hecker feel with percolating melodic phases piled below a thickened mass of warmly buzzed distortion. This is followed by "Runway" lovely post-Cluster track of pastoral synthesis built from a rhythmic arpeggiation anchored by a spiralling set of sequential notes and tone-bent phrases. And that extended finale opens with an oscillating flange of church organ minimalism, settling upon a melancholy melody which slowly shifts between just a few minor key notes which gradually wanders into zoned-out passages of electronic bubbling and fizzed textures. Very beautiful, very moving stuff.
Limited stock on this, so don't be surprised when this one sells out.
MPEG Stream: "What One Does To Another"
MPEG Stream: "Runway"
MPEG Stream: "Critique Of The Beautiful"

HAUSCHKA & HILDUR GUDNADOTTIR Pan Tone (Sonic Pieces) cd 19.98
Time to get swept away by some deep dreamy Icelandic beauty, as our favorite experimental cellist Hildur Gudnadottir teams up with composer and pianist Hauschka for a stunning collaboration. We already deeply smitten with the meditative music Gudnadottir has made on her own as well as in collaboration with Angel, BJ Nilsen, Mum, et cetera. But we hadn't spent much time with the music of Hauschka, but this pairing definitely has us wanting to hear more of his stuff. Together they create music that sounds like a solemn soundtrack for ghost towns, abandoned buildings, and isolated existence.
With elements in sound, composition and an overall feeling that reminds us of some of our favorite works by Gavin Bryars, Charlamagne Palestine, Harold Budd, Sylvain Chauveau, and The Rachels, this is one of those records we love playing early on a crisp winter morning or as it turns dark on a Sunday night and it's time to clear our heads of the distractions of the world, and start taking deep breaths and immersing ourselves in thoughtful introspection. Utterly beautiful and stirring.
MPEG Stream: "#283"
MPEG Stream: "Cool Gray 1"
MPEG Stream: "#304"

HAUSER, FRITZ Solodrumming (Celestial Harmonies) cd 16.98

MPEG Stream: "Disturbed Balance"
MPEG Stream: "Ocean One"
MPEG Stream: "Puzzle"

HAUSER, FRITZ & MICHAEL ASKILL Space: Music For Bells, Cymbals And Gong (Celestial Harmonies) cd 15.98

MPEG Stream: "3:05"
MPEG Stream: "5:17"
MPEG Stream: "5:44"

HAVE A NICE LIFE Deathconsciousness (Enemies List) 2xcd-r + book 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Let's just get it right out in the open, first thing. This should have been record of the week. It's beautiful, weird as fuck, mysterious, it's two whole discs of far out sounds, it comes with a massive photocopied book, filled with lyrics and text from some mysterious professor, and they're called Have A Nice Life...
BUT, the band decided to not make any more copies, and let us have their last 40. It will probably be available as a download or something in the future, but for now, these are the last 40 physical copies available EVER. And the only way, as far as we know, to get the book as well.
So what's the deal with Have A Nice Life? People are always emailing us about the new wave of shoegaze bands, nu-gaze as some folks like to call it (the same ones who now have us using the term metalgaze), and someone recommended Have A Nice Life, telling us the band was some sort of doom, metal, black metal, gothic, new wave, shoe gaze outfit, so obviously we were pretty curious. So we emailed the band. No response. Emailed the label. No response. Then we just happened to be going through piles of records, and found this one just sitting on the desk, where it must have been for weeks, a cool creepy cover, a color painting of a man's arm, bleeding, the words "the plow that broke the plains" on a black field above it. And it was bundled with a book. Hmmm. With the word Deathconsciousness printed on the front. And wham. It clicked. Those guys had already sent us a copy, which had somehow slipped through the cracks. So we quickly threw it on, and it was everything we had expected, everything we had hoped for, and more. We finally got in touch with the band, who told us they were not going to make any more, but would make one final batch for us.
So here they are.
Two discs, jam packed with dark blissed out shoegazey, new wave-y, slightly metallic nearly perfect pop. The songs insanely varied, but impossible cohesive. Some sort of sprawling bliss rock opera. Each track, perfect on its own, but even more perfect as part of the bigger whole.
The first disc is the prettier and poppier of the two. The opening track is a creepy stretch of Goblin like synth ambience, peppered with simple minor key acoustic guitar, haunting and lovely, which quickly gives way to thick ropy basslines, and reverbed electronic drums, a definitely Joy Division vibe, swirls of thick guitar, gorgeous melodies and heartfelt vocals, it's dirgey and doomy and depressive, but so catchy and poppy. The next track is a big blown out pop epic, all effected vocal harmonies and washed out watercolor guitars, reminding us quite a bit of M83. The rest of the first disc slips easily from gloomy goth pop, to minimal drone, to shimmery shoegaze, often all at once. The disc finishes off with a gloomy dirge, all downtuned grindguitar and pointillist piano. Softly crooned vocals, and a surprisingly catchy melody.
Which perfect leads into the second, darker and heavier disc, which begins with a track the boasts probably the greatest song title EVER: "Waiting For Black Metal Records In The Mail". But don't be expecting any black metal, instead it's a killer slab of eighties style indie doom pop, jangly guitar, propulsive drumming, and killer vocals, all wound into an awesome blast of hooky retro gloom, very reminiscent of the Comsat Angels. Hot on the heels comes another awesomely named song: "Holy Fucking Shit: 40,000", but again the title gives no clue that the song is a lilting mostly acoustic jam, with more piano, sad vocals, minor key melodies, a super reverby eighties production, all set to that Casio keyboard preset metronome rhythm. But about half way through, the track shifts and becomes a pounding rocker, the guitars thick and distorted, the drums pounding, but then all around synths buzz, vocals croon, the heaviness transformed into something much more dreamy and blissy. "The Future" is an aggro, almost no wave workout, all jagged guitars and shouted vocals, and more of that thick throbbing bass, but just like the rest of the tracks, it gets totally twisted around, his time by the addition of fake strings, and yet another killer and totally irresistible hook.
"Earthmover" finishes things off, but instead of being some dirgey doom epic, it's another blissed out popscape, lots and lots of fuzz and buzz, glistening melodies, minimal rhythms, all buried beneath layers of woozy whir and sun dappled sparkle. Almost like a much prettier and poppier Nadja.
And the thing about this record and these songs, is that, they all manage to be outrageously catchy, but not obviously so, and while they straddle about a million different genres, they manage to weave them all seamlessly into each other, making Deathconsciousness feel less like a rock band's collection of songs, and more like one massive organic mass of blackened dronepop jangle-goth bliss. Which as far as we're concerned it actually is.
The packaging is amazing. A slimline dvd case, two cd-r's each hand spray painted, full color cover, super spare and striking, and then there's the book. A dvd sized 80 page book, filled with lyrics, liner notes, woodcuts, engravings, illustrations, and a massive amount of text on the soul, spirituality, death, sorcery, Medieval heresy and more, all supposedly penned by an East Coast professor and scholar.
So awesome!
MPEG Stream: "Waiting For Black Metal Records To Come In The Mail"
MPEG Stream: "Holy Fucking Shit: 40,000"
MPEG Stream: "Bloodhail"
MPEG Stream: "The Big Gloom"
MPEG Stream: "Hunter"

HAVOHEJ Dethrone the Son of God (Hells Headbangers) cd 13.98

HAVOK UNIT / ANDOCEANS / THE SIN:DECAY Synaethesia - The Requiem Reveries (Vendlus) cd 10.98
From Finland, a three-way split of chaotic industrial metal, chock full of noisy distortion, dance beats, and scary samples. Two of these bands are actually the SAME band, they just changed their name (Havoc Unit was known for the past ten years as AndOceans, who did several previous albums of avant-garde black metal that we liked in the past). So you get the first ever Havoc Unit track, and the last from And Oceans, plus two (very different) remixes of each. And then there's the third band, The Sin:Decay, also in the same brutal industrial-metal vein, and it turns out it's a side project of one of the members of Havoc Unit/And Oceans... So despite being a "split", this could easily be heard as an album by just one band, Havoc Unit we'll say for simplicity's sake. And Havoc Unit, oddly enough, sound a bit like the '90s band Canadian Malhavoc, if you remember them. So well worth checking out if you're any of the following: a fan of AndOceans / a fan of Malhavoc / just into some blackened industrial metal weirdness. Brought to us by the rather off-the-wall metal label Vendlus (Wolves In The Throne Room, Grayceon, Audiopain, etc.).
MPEG Stream: "With Discipline Upon Mankind"
MPEG Stream: "Mvsn (Atyd Rmx)"

HAWD GANKSTUH RAPPUHS MC'S (WID GHATZ) Wake Up and Smell the Piss (Load) cd 14.98
You can never have too much Hawd Gangstuh Rappuhs MC's (Wid Ghatz). And god knows we're trying! Full length number two, in less than a year, and it's everything you've come to love from these East Coast miscreants. Bad drum programming, stupid lyrics, bad skits, horrible sense of humor. Fucking Brilliant. If the last HGRMWG was too much skit and not enough music for you, then this should balance it out, much more music, hardly any skits, and not as much rapping as you might expect. But the rapping that is there is really stupid and really, really funny. Includes what I think was their first track ever, the Cypress Hill spoof 'The Bong (Get In The)'.
RealAudio clip: "The Bong (Get In the)"
RealAudio clip: "Operation Albino"

HAWD GANKSTUH RAPPUHS MC'S WID GHATZ 2 Hype 2 Wype (WordSound) cd 14.98
Oh yeah! Finally, a full length from the best worst rap group EVER. God Albino, Duke Crapmore and Flybot Van Damn are three skinny white guys who absolutely destroy on the mic. Fuck Paul Barman and his wacky 'college guy' shtick, this is the shit. Stupid and funky and juvenile and offensive and so so funny. HGRMWG are like the Geto Boys, if the Geto Boys were immature, whiny, skinny white art-school drop outs. We've been following these guys for a while -- they've contributed standout tracks to all three of the WordSound comps as well as cameos on the Spectre records. Primitive loops, lo-fi recording, ridiculous fake voices, and lots and lots of skits! And ANYONE who bought a Steven Schultz record off the last list, HAS to buy this. In fact, I'm just gonna go through the files and send out copies to those people. You know who you are...

HAWD GANKSTUH RAPPUHS MCS WID GATZ s/t (Black Hoodz/Wordsound) 10 7.98
The history of rap will forever change with Guy Albino, Dook Crapmore, and Flybot Van Damn, a trio that is easily the most retarded hip hop outfit ever to grace the earth. Self deprecating, bombastic lyrics proclaim themselves as the mythical 'Sucker MCs' ridiculed throughout hip hop since the beginning of time, while shouting about being stupid white kids high on crack... loaded with scatalogical rhetoric that we really want Snoop Dogg to utter, through an exemplary rhythmic if wholly caucasian delivery... the ultimate transmutation of African-American culture into a suburban nightmare via Phoenix, Arizona. Absolute.
So highly recommended by Andee...

HAWG JAW Send Out The Dogs (Throne) cd 13.98