BLUE CHEER Outsideinside (PolyGram) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Also from '68, these San Francisco anti-hippies' second album, another classic of super-heavy (for its time) psychedelic proto-metal.

BLUE CHEER Vincebus Eruptum (PolyGram) cd 12.98
Their 1968 debut, the birth of metal? With "Summertime Blues". Dumb yet so brilliant. Essential heavy history.

BLUE OYSTER CULT Agents Of Fortune (Columbia / Legacy) cd 12.98
The umlauted Oyster boys' fourth album, from '76, remastered n' reissued with bonus tracks etc. By this point, the Cult was getting pretty big. "Agents Of Fortune" features what must be their biggest hit, "(Don't Fear) The Reaper". Worth it for that, and "This Ain't The Summer Of Love" and a few others. Though, we have to say their first three albums are stronger and less commerical sounding, and are recommended ahead of this one, which is just cheesier and wimpier, what with having more keyboards and the Brecker Brothers playing horns. But then again, it's got the poetic lyrics *and* vocals of Patti Smith on "The Revenge Of Vera Gemini" as well as the aforementioned afterlife romance classic "Reaper".
RealAudio clip: "The Revenge Of Vera Gemini"

BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER Crows Eat The Eyes From The Leviathans Carcass (Release The Bats) cd 14.98
Finally, the very first cd release from Northwestern blacknoize terrorists Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, not a proper full length exactly, more a collection of odds and ends, a selection of out of print tracks, culled from various 7"s and 12"s and tapes, as well as a couple previously unreleased jams.
Those new to Blue Sabbath Black Cheer should definitely beware, the sound this dastardly duo conjure up is more noise than music, more drone than metal, yet it manages to be all of those things at once. They described their sound as "black acid bog death, blackened noise volume assault", and it most definitely is that, it's the sound of SUNNO))) and Wolf Eyes and Organum, mixed with black metal and dark ambience, power electronics and minimal dronemusic, and somehow molded into harsh and harrowing blackened buzzscapes, veering from full on caustic assault, to hushed mysterious creep, often in the same song.
One of the tracks here is from the Borre Fen lp, and of the various micro-releases represented here, that was the only one that we ever managed to get in the shop, which means for many folks, ourselves included, this is practically a new record.
From the opener "Untitled" (most of the tracks are titled "Untitled"!), a swirling buzzing cacophony of crumbling industrial whir, peppered with buried percussion, howled voices lost in the mix, keening sheets of feedback, and a fierce white noise blow out, to the follow up "Untitled", a much more minimal, bit of cinematic drift, still pretty ominous and spooky, but here it's about the drone, and the strange processed gurgling sounds underneath, the heartbeat like pulse, the fragmented melodies and the overall hellish vibe, to another "Untitled", another wash of minimal scrape and creak and groan and grind, shot through with minor key moodiness, and wreathed in warm layers of deeeeeeep whirring rumble.
The record's centerpiece is the 17+ minute track from Borre Fen, which oozes to the surface, a long death march trawl some bleak black underworld of sound, a roiling pit of blackness and despair, thick layers of black drone, processed tapes, field recordings, disembodied voices processed into still more drones, distant streaks of feedback, gurgled grunted 'vocals', rumbling, grinding stretches of abstract sound, fragments of melody drifting in a churning black sonic sea, creepy and dark and desolate and downtuned and very very evil. Besides the above mentioned bands, we also hear bits of Lustmord, Stalaggh, Wolf Eyes, Za Frumi (mostly for the Orc like vocals), Abruptum, Anenzephalia, MZ412...
The record finally finishes off with another "Untitled" track, which eschews all that low end for a 5 minute stretch of horror movie high end, stretched to its breaking point, some definite difficult listening, like some sort of boiling teapot / dog whistle dronejam, all over a grinding bit of crunchy rumble, finishing off the record, if not with a bang, then an ear piercing shriek.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES! Housed in super cool black on black cardboard sleeves, and for those that care, mastered by Herr Hans Grusel, of das infamous Krankenkabinet!
MPEG Stream: "Untitled"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled"

BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER D.D.T.T.N.B. (Anarchymoon Recordings) lp 29.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
When two of your band members are credited with playing "cement mixer", listeners can safely assume that you are loud and noisy as hell. Combined with the accepted knowledge that Blue Sabbath Black Cheer is one of the most dense and monolithically HEAVY noise crews currently in existence, it won't take long before you're either running in terror or hitting the "add to cart" button. Of course, at $29 a pop, these aren't cheap, but here's a quick rundown as to why D.D.T.T.N.B. may well worth your time and money, provided this is your cup of noise: 200 copies, awesome cardboard sleeves featuring an ominous silver silkscreened skull on each side with four insectoid/Motorhead looking shapes alongside the credits on an extended flap, and, the crowning glory - a gorgeous slab of one sided pitch black vinyl with another hand screened skull displayed prominently on side 2, a work of art unto itself.
Now lets talk about the menacing tones sunk within these grooves. At first, you will probably be thinking, "It's a cement mixer. I get it." And indeed, the horrifically grating buzzing sounds are just that. But what might sound ridiculous on paper soon takes on a life of its own, and before long the mixers blend with other overblown electronics to create a pulsing, vaguely rhythmic wall of sound. Oddly enough, it becomes comforting and trancelike, and if you allow yourself to be fully hypnotized, the results are almost soothing. If you are wondering what's up with the title, it stands for "Destructively Dedicated to the New Blockaders", as BSBC allegedly worked some of the aforementioned group's material into this piece. We say "allegedly" because more than anything we were overwhelmed by the dense sheets of sound and not really too into the idea of keeping an ear out for anything resembling melody. Not that we're complaining, as this strangely beautiful record expertly harnesses harsh, filthy sounds and works them into a endlessly writhing piece of cinematic white noise. These are already sold out at the label, so you'll probably want to act fast before being forced to hit up eBay with tears streaming down your face. Don't say we didn't warn you.

BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER No Escape (Static Caravan) 7" 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Super limited new slab of sickness from these purveyors of gloriously abject noise drone filth. So limited in fact that it's already out of print, and we have the last 20 or so.
Brutal ambient filth from the Pacific Northwest, as only BSBC can do it. Moving further and further away from any semblance of doomdronedirge and more into a totally abstract free noise direction, albeit their sound still infused with an element of doom.
These two tracks are sprawling soundscapes of hissy buzz, industrial clatter, rumbling drones, post industrial ambience, an almost static wall of murky sound, but distinctly depressive and doomy for sure. A continuous grinding low end assault, that makes Khanate and Bunkur seem downright musical, which they actually are compared to BSBC, who seem to be more interested in evoking terrifying feelings with sound, of creating a bleak and soul shattering soundworld from walls of black buzz and rumbling doom drenched drones. Mission accomplished.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES. ALREADY OUT OF PRINT. THESE ARE THE LAST COPIES EVER. Creepy black and white sleeves, pressed on thick white vinyl.

BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER Prossneck, Germany 1629 (Gnarled Forest) cassette 5.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Right now, everything released by these Northwestern dealers of doomdeathdirgedrone, is out of print, EXCEPT for these two cassettes, Prossneck, Germany 1629, and the split with fellow noisemakers Drowner. But these won't last long. These two tapes are both tour only, limited to 100 copies, we got 20 of each, and judging from past Blue Sabbath Black Cheer releases, those won't last long at all, needless to say, one per customer, and even more needless to say, if you want one of these, don't dawdle! Blink and you'll miss 'em.
This one features two looooong blasts of caustic blur and buzz, murky slowed down vocals, thick waves of hiss, everything churning and roiling, heavy and noisy and brutal, heavy on the drone, built a bit like a low end Whitehouse, some strange demon with a tracheotomy proselytizing over a hellish din, soon joined in by what sounds like terrified screams, and the sound of flames on flesh. Really really creepy. The flipside is a bit more abstract, a drifting sea of crumbling distortion and blurred hiss, some grinding rumbles and buried almost-melodies, sort noise tangled up with deep black industrial dronemusic. As always, heavy and frightening and black as pitch.
Once again, LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!! We have 20, that is it!!

BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER The Endless Blockade (Gnarled Forest / What We Do Is Secret) lp 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another missive from some grim otherworld, the latest in a hellish black flow from the brackish depths, a never ending glacial eruption of blackened sonic filth and blown out white noise brutality from this despicable duo, this latest, a three song 12", is currently, due to the insanely limited nature of their releases, the only thing these guys have available, but not for long we predict, as this too was limited to a mere 525 copies, we got about a tenth of those, but as with past releases, we can't promise they'll be around for long.
More of the BSBC caustic black ambience, a cacophony of junkyard clatter, the clang of pipes, all sorts of crunch and grind, under a thick wash of high end buzz, and shifting clouds of blurred hiss, monstrous vocals buried in the murk, some riffage too (we think), but those riffs mostly exist as simply another layer of blacknoise, a never ending wash of grinding static heaviness. The second track ups the heaviness, the vocals more bellowing, more surges of black tar low end, still cloaked in sheets of white noise, but churning violently beneath the surface, a rumbling, rib cage rattling drone, that seems to be splintering and crumbling to pieces before our ears.
The flip side is much more tranquil (it's all relative though), a minimal driftscape of distant whir, twisted fragmented melodies buried way down in the mix, the grinding of alien machinery, peppered with squalls of speaker shredding buzz, the track quickly escalates, the noise getting noisier, the buzz getting buzzier, the vocals more howled and anguished, the whole thing pushing toward a Merzbowian white noise blowout. Imagine sitting in a concrete bunker with a thousand transistor radios tuned between stations, with the volume all the way up, an ear shredding symphony of static, while in another concrete bunker Wolf Eyes and Khanate play at full volume, barely audible through the suffocating cloud of hiss all around you.
Brutal, punishing, abject, harrowing, hateful, heavy, and pretty fucking awesome. As if we even needed to tell you.
LIMITED TO 525 COPIES. Amazing woodcut paste on front cover, with a printed insert and postcard inside.

BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER / DRIED UP CORPSE split (Gnarled Forest) 10" 14.98
Originally released as a super limited cassette (only 50 copies), this 10" (also way too limited at 300 copies) teams up our favorite demonic duo, with the awesomely monickered Dried Up Corpse for some deep dire noise drenched heaviness.
The BSBC side is about the prettiest thing they've ever done, which means it's still vile and sick and murky and ominous and fucked up, it's just that it's not so harsh, more muted and blurred and black ambient, than some of their other outings. A sprawling deeeeeeeeep doomscape, creeping black rumbles, demonic gurgles, distant foghorn like melodies, bits of muted percussion, plenty of buzzing grit and distorted feedback, but all smeared and woozy and subterranean sounding, a darkly demonic drift, that infuses what might otherwise be warm shimmering blackened ambience, with some seriously abject miserablism and gloom.
Dried Up Corpse counter BSBC's sensitive side with a caustic chunk of chaotic crunch. Beginning with some deep whirring rumbles, the track soon splinters into full on blunted white noise, skittery and fractured and totally blown out, all the while underpinned by that initial rumbling whir, eventually the noise peels back leaving a long stretch of deep softened buzz to play us out.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!!! Gorgeous super thick hand screened sleeves, with nice two sided printed inserts.

BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER / DROWNER split (Gnarled Forest) cassette 5.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Right now, everything released by these Northwestern dealers of doomdeathdirgedrone, is out of print, EXCEPT for these two cassettes, Prossneck, Germany 1629, and the split with fellow noisemakers Drowner. But these won't last long. These two tapes are both tour only, limited to 100 copies, we got 20 of each, and judging from past Blue Sabbath Black Cheer releases, those won't last long at all, needless to say, one per customer, and even more needless to say, if you want one of these, don't dawdle! Blink and you'll miss 'em.
The BSBC side is another sea of harsh his and caustic buzz, thick waves of distortion and blurred vocal damage, squealing feedback, a million amps with AM radios blasting white noise through busted speakers, strangely beautiful, but that severed limb, horrible car wreck, utter disaster sort of beautiful. A near static expanse of washed out heavy black noise, once again managing to be surprisingly listenable, at least for those who are into that sort of thing!
Drowner offers his own chunk of thick corrosive heaviness, the sound much fuller and seemingly guitar based than BSBC, churning downtuned crumbling black buzz, shot through with shards of feedback, a monstrous low end sludge, peppered with strange buried melodies, bits of electronic shimmer, and various other sonic bits, but at its very black heart, this is a wall of blown out blackened heaviness, oozing glacially, and destroying everything in its path. The two groups make a pretty good match. And while we know we're gonna hear more from BSBC before too long, we definitely want to check out some more Drowner...
Once again, LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!! We have 20, that is it!!

BLUEPRINT HUMAN BEING Heaven Is All (Paradigms) cd 12.98
Fourth in this new series of super limited aural oddities, all of them amazing and sonically all over the map, from black metal (Throne Of Kataris, elsewhere on this list) to doom drone (past Record of the Week Hjarnidaudi) to gorgeously gloomy chamber music (Amber Asylum) to this, the first release, as far as we can tell, from epic Finnish post rock prog metal mavens Blueprint Human Being. That's right you heard us, FINNISH. As in from Finland! So all you Finnish music freaks best not dawdle, as you will definitely want to get your hands on this. Especially if you're partial to the sort of Krauty drone rock of Circle and the like, although that element is only one tiny aspect of BHB's sound. There's lots of post rocky drift, a sort of proggier Tarentel maybe, but then the horns kick in and we're in serious King Crimson territory. But there's also lots of fuzzy metal guitar wrapped around jagged loping Slintish rhythms, with strange sung / spoke vocals, all blending in some weird way that reminds us as much of Ved Buens Ende as Crimson. Some parts have the horns moving to the foreground, the music taking on a very jaunty garden party sort of feel, which makes us think of some damaged, sort-of-metal Penguin Cafe Orchestra or some bizarre Japanese what-the-fuck jazzdrone outfit or the stranger Circle side projects like Ratto Ja Lehtisalo. A bit schizophrenic for sure, but in a good way, a super dynamic sort of seasick meander through blasting metallic post rock, far out quirky prog, lilting almost RennFaire acoustic breaks, and blissed out repetitive krautrock. Be sure and stick around for the end of the final 11+ minute track, after a stretch of silence, comes a dizzying blast of freaked out psychedelic noise, all grinding loops, snippets of earlier songs, and all sorts of head spinning post production fuckery. Groovy laid back post-kraut-rock slathered in thick swirls of distortion and fuzzy effects, obscured by tape dropouts and strange damaged feedback, the whole thing warped and warbly as if broadcast through a thick cough syrup haze. So cool.
Limited to 750 copies, packaged in a mini lp style sleeve wrapped in a hand stamped brown paper outer sleeve.
MPEG Stream: "Vojaganto"
MPEG Stream: "Tucumbalam"

BLUES CREATION Demon & Eleven Children (Calamares Productions) cd 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Unfortunately not the much nicer (but out of print) Japanese cd edition, this is a European cd pressing of this ESSENTIAL early '70s heavy rock proto-metal record. The lead off track, "Atomic Bombs Away" proves Blues Creation to be Japan's version of Black Sabbath.
MPEG Stream: "Nightmare"
MPEG Stream: "Tobacco Road"

BLUES CREATION Live! (Black Rose) cd 22.00
Japan's Blues Creation started off as standard late '60s traditional blues-rock band but quickly got all heavy and freaky and proto-metallic and sort of became their country's riffy acid-blues answer to Black Sabbath (well, along with a few others like Flied Egg and of course AQ faves the Flower Travellin' Band, who covered Sabbath on their first album). We really wish we could still get a hold of the Japanese import cd version of Blues Creation's classic 1971 album Demon & Eleven Children. But at least, at last, we have a few recently obtained copies of this, a reissue of a live album that originally came out (or was recorded at any rate) 'round the same time. It's got the title track from Demon & Eleven Children, along with a couple of Blue Creation originals not found on Demon, one called "Nightmare" being as good and metal as anything on that album. Plus there's a few covers -- "Understand" with guest vocalist Carmen Maki, who was kind of a Japanese Janis Joplin/Robert Plant hybrid, and extended-length versions of ol' nuggets like "Rolling Stone" and "Tobacco Road" (a mean version of that song for sure!). This is definitely not for those who hate the blues -- a lot of this is real bluesy -- but it's also pretty much always heavy and/or frantic. And the guitar work is KILLER, Iommi-worthy leads ripping out of yr speakers all the time. A live recording is just perfect for these guys. They have a super electric sound and that early '70s jamming aesthetic like the Sabs themselves.
MPEG Stream: "Nightmare"
MPEG Stream: "Tobacco Road"

BLUT AUS NORD Memoria Vetusta I (Candlelight) cd 13.98

MPEG Stream: "Slaughterday (The Heathen Blood Of Ours)"
MPEG Stream: "On The Path Of Wolf... Towards Dwarfhill"

BLUT AUS NORD Memoria Vetusta II - Dialogue With The Stars (Candlelight) cd 13.98
Anyone paying attention will know that in the past few years, the unlikely nation of France has been churning out some of the most progressive, intelligent, and best black metal around. There's Deathspell Omega, Peste Noire, Spektr, and of course, the mighty Blut Aus Nord, a shadowy group who seamlessly blends synthy ambience with a relentless, yet interestingly controlled black metal assault. Seasick guitar riffs, plodding, often midtempo drums, and vocalist Vindsval's vile black metal rasp (and occasional operatic chant, no shit) meet up in an unholy union of strangely structured songs that are at once hallucinatory, majestic, and beautiful.
Blut Aus Nord possess a unique, cyclical style of songwriting, and even though we have no idea what they are saying, it is evident through titles that each song fits within a well defined philosophical theme. With names like "This Formless Sphere (Beyond the Reason)", "...the Meditant (Dialogue With the Stars)", and "Elevation", it's clear that the band's interest goes beyond any sort of juvenile take on Satanism, instead seeking to make sense of an endlessly unfathomable universe. Their albums seem to exist as esoteric and surreal dream worlds, and the band's intense, psychedelic approach isn't as much furious as it is contemplative. Within this potent mixture, they are also surprisingly "rocking".
Memoria Vetusta II - Dialogue With The Stars (part I, Fathers of the Icy Age, was released waaaaay back in 1996) starts with "Acceptance (Aske)", a GORGEOUS synthscape that sets the moody atmosphere for the next hour. It was interesting to watch customers enter the store during such a beautiful and melancholy piece, only to be hit with the loping, super blackened approach that kicks off the next track, "Disciple's Libration (Lost in the Nine Worlds)", which over the course of 9 minutes, manages to perfectly encapsulate everything that is so great about this band.
The impeccable production on this album certainly adds to its greatness. Clear and spacious, the music within sounds as if it has existed forever, created by a group of immortal mystics, not, you know, a couple of guys from France. In the end, we are presented with what will undoubtedly be one of the best metal records of 2009.
MPEG Stream: "Antithesis Of The Flesh (And Then Arises A New Essence)"
MPEG Stream: "The Alcove Of Angels (Vipassana)"
MPEG Stream: "Acceptance (Aske)"

BLUT AUS NORD Memoria Vetusta II - Dialogue With The Stars (Back On Black) 2lp 25.00
Now available on vinyl!
Anyone paying attention will know that in the past few years, the unlikely nation of France has been churning out some of the most progressive, intelligent, and best black metal around. There's Deathspell Omega, Peste Noire, Spektr, and of course, the mighty Blut Aus Nord, a shadowy group who seamlessly blends synthy ambience with a relentless, yet interestingly controlled black metal assault. Seasick guitar riffs, plodding, often midtempo drums, and vocalist Vindsval's vile black metal rasp (and occasional operatic chant, no shit) meet up in an unholy union of strangely structured songs that are at once hallucinatory, majestic, and beautiful.
Blut Aus Nord possess a unique, cyclical style of songwriting, and even though we have no idea what they are saying, it is evident through titles that each song fits within a well defined philosophical theme. With names like "This Formless Sphere (Beyond the Reason)", "...the Meditant (Dialogue With the Stars)", and "Elevation", it's clear that the band's interest goes beyond any sort of juvenile take on Satanism, instead seeking to make sense of an endlessly unfathomable universe. Their albums seem to exist as esoteric and surreal dream worlds, and the band's intense, psychedelic approach isn't as much furious as it is contemplative. Within this potent mixture, they are also surprisingly "rocking".
Memoria Vetusta II - Dialogue With The Stars (part I, Fathers of the Icy Age, was released waaaaay back in 1996) starts with "Acceptance (Aske)", a GORGEOUS synthscape that sets the moody atmosphere for the next hour. It was interesting to watch customers enter the store during such a beautiful and melancholy piece, only to be hit with the loping, super blackened approach that kicks off the next track, "Disciple's Libration (Lost in the Nine Worlds)", which over the course of 9 minutes, manages to perfectly encapsulate everything that is so great about this band.
The impeccable production on this album certainly adds to its greatness. Clear and spacious, the music within sounds as if it has existed forever, created by a group of immortal mystics, not, you know, a couple of guys from France. In the end, we are presented with what will undoubtedly be one of the best metal records of 2009.
MPEG Stream: "Antithesis Of The Flesh (And Then Arises A New Essence)"
MPEG Stream: "The Alcove Of Angels (Vipassana)"
MPEG Stream: "Acceptance (Aske)"

BLUT AUS NORD Mort (Candlelight) cd 14.98
If you thought the last few Blut Aus Nord records were weird, and freaked out, and fucked up, then this new disc is gonna have you either cowering in the corner with all the lights off and clutching some sort of talisman to ward off whatever the fuck kind of evil this record is emanating, or you'll be scratching your head wondering "What the fuck?" Or if you're anything like us, you'll be doing both, and loving it.
Any vestige of buzzing black metal has been shed and in its place a completely abstract, confusional world of muddy blackness. This music is so weird it's almost impossible to describe it in words. It's most definitely not black metal. It is certainly black, or at least some very very dark shade of gray, but it would be hard to definitively describe this as metal. Imagine all the super Slinty post rock parts from the most recent Deathspell Omega record, take all of those parts, play them all at once, some forward, some in reverse, run them all through banks of effects, and you'll have something like Mort. There are no blast beats, not mosquito-like riffing, in fact Mort hovers a lot closer to doom than to black metal.
But even doom wouldn't really begin to describe the loping lurching weirdness. Every track is a strange assemblage of damaged drum machines, dizzying circusy keyboards a dense oppressive swirl of guitars that sound like they are constantly being tuned and detuned. Super woozy and sea sick sounding. Completely and almost overwhelmingly chaotic. Like the songs are constantly threatening to fall apart at any moment. Which lends the proceedings a certain amount of tension and dramatic gravitas. Leads drift in and out, and sort of warble and wail, before breaking a part and sinking into the murk. The vocals are like another layer of low end rumble, a thick reverberating whir. Everything constantly shifting and blurring, pitches shifting up and down, swarms of creepy little FX appear and then fade away, long stretches of black ambience, punctuated by bursts of near industrial pummel. So weird. But it's mainly the riffs that make this record as fucked up as it is. They're not black metal riffs really, barely even metal riffs, some sort of gothy no-wave sounding deconstructed guitar torture. Sort of like if they had Greg Ginn come in and play a bunch of angular fucked up Black Flag riffs and then slowed them WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY down and doused them in effects and randomly adjusted the tape speed, so the band and the various instruments seem to slowly shift in and out of phase, occasionally falling together in one huge blast of black fury, only to slowly drift to pieces again.
So weird and dark, and strangely mournful and melancholy. Some bastardized mix of Abruptum, M83 and Nortt. A baffling and brilliant, blissed out no-wave black doom ambient post rock masterpiece.
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "2"
MPEG Stream: "3"

BLUT AUS NORD Odinist: The Destruction Of Reason By Illumination (Candlelight) cd 13.98
What is it about French black metal? Deathspell Omega, Mutiilation, Spektr, Alcest, Peste Noire, Amesoeurs, Nuit Noire, Antaeus, Malcuidant, S.V.E.S.T., Eikenskaden, Vlad TepesŠ Sure there are other places that have spawned lots of great bands, but holy shit.
And of course, you can't leave Blut Aus Nord off that list. Beginning life as a furious blackened beast, Blut Aus Nord gradually began to incorporate long stretches of dark ambience, and haunting Wolf Eyes-ian industrial soundscapers into their sound, eventually even recording a whole disc of ambient drone music which was tacked on as a bonus disc alongside their album The Work Which Transforms God.
Their most recent record, Mort, found the band shifting again, shrugging off the buzzing blackness of their past incarnation, and weaving any buzz they had left into long slow loping post rock epics. Sort of gothy, definitely still metal, but a sort of plodding woozy dronemetal. Their strange riffing still intact, having once turned blazing blasts into something dizzying and bizarre, on Mort were turning doomy blackness creepy, demented midtempo dirges. It was unexpected, but it definitely grew on us, the key being that the songs were rife with all manner of fucked up chords, and convoluted arrangements, lost of layers, all woven and twisted and tangled and seriously fucked up.
So here we are a year later, and Odinist finds the band continuing down the same path. No blasts to be found here. The tempo stays pretty slow, sometimes jacked up to a furious midtempo, but just as often slowing down to a funereal plod, and much of the record is spent sort of swaying seasickenly, a lurching gallop, that perfectly compliments the murky melodies and the washed out riffs, the vocals barely audible, the drums pretty far down in the mix as well, only surfacing occasionally with a flurry of double kicks. The key as always is the riffs, and the riffs here are atonal and off kilter, minor key and angular, giving the songs a definite twisted no-wave vibe. But much of what made Mort so damaged sounding has been smoothed out a bit here, the weirdness more subtle, the sound of the record more static, many of the songs in the same key, so they sound like various movements in the same piece, definitely the sort of record meant to be listened to as a whole, but here and there some killer riff will surface, or some unlikely hook and will suck you back in. And keep you there, holding you under, as the black waves of woozy buzz wash over you.
Dark and droney, dizzying and dense, more grey metal than black metal, and if you couldn't tell by now, really fucking awesome.
MPEG Stream: "An Element Of Flesh"
MPEG Stream: "The Sounds Of The Universe"
MPEG Stream: "Odinist"

BLUT AUS NORD The Mystical Beast Of Rebellion (Oaken Shield) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally managed to get a bunch of these, the 2001 full length from one of our favorite experimental black metal bands ever, France's Blut Aus Nord. Even back in 2001, these guys were taking classic sounding frosty grim blackness and twisting it all up into their own strange idea of what black metal should sound like, adding strange chords, and weird string bends, turning buzzing riffs into dizzying smears of abstract sound, what could have been just fast and furious, ends up sounds trippy and sort of psychedelic. And here too, the roots of their more drone based ambient side surfaced, which would culminate in 2005's all ambient disc Thematic Emanation Of Archetypal Multiplicity, as well as their less buzzy and more atmospheric direction on their their most recent disc Mort. But on Mystical, like on The Work Which Transforms God, this dark ambient side consisted mostly of long glacial interludes between songs, doomy fuzzed out riffs, disembodied and abstract giving way to dark shimmering low end rumble, chiming bells, a muted dark.
But really, it's the demented riffing that makes Mystical so special. The vocals howl demonically, the drums blast so fast, they almost sound like a drum machine, with a sort of industrial rigidity, but the riffs are just mind blowing, it sounds like the guitars must be fretless, or every note in ever chord is being bent back and forth, slippery and woozy, gorgeously disorienting, tripped out and druggy, like listening to Immortal through some sonic funhouse mirror.
Usually when we get a hold of older, earlier records from a band, they tend to be more raw, less progressive and less fully realized (Deathspell?) but if anything, Mystical is just as weirdly fucked up and amazing as the two record that would follow.
NB Andee liked this so much he spaced out and reviewed it TWICE, here's his other review, for comparison/posterity's sake:
The Mystical Beast Of Rebellion was Blut Aus Nord's third release from way back in 2001, immediately preceding The Work Which Transforms God and displayed more of a classic black metal vibe, very droney and mesmeric, a seasick buzz drenched blast, with warped epic melodies, all very minor key and melancholy, lending the proceedings a very moody doomlike vibe. Very reminiscent of classic Immortal or Satyricon. There is definitely some sonic foreshadowing of weirdness to come, slow slithery stretches of murk and mumble, abstract ambient breakdowns, long stretches of buzz slowed way down into truly harrowing lurching lopes, riffs that bend and seem to warble as if some invisible hand was altering the pitch control, dark and dreary miserablism twisted into very Nortt like mid tempo droney doom.
But The Mystical Beast Of Rebellion is more about the blast and buzz, the forst and fuzz, and if you're anything like us, that should suit you just fine!
MPEG Stream: "The Fall Chapter I"
MPEG Stream: "The Fall Chapter II"

BLUT AUS NORD The Work Which Transforms God / Thematic Emanation Of Archetypal Multiplicity (Candlelight) 2cd 15.98
We've been wanting to list this for a long time now but have been waiting for it to get reissued as a double disc with the new ep tacked on. Well, now the wait is finally over. This grim French outfit somehow manage to play some seriously convincing classic black metal, but in the process, do something indescribable to it, adding all sorts of off kilter guitar parts, industrial pummel, totally alien melodies, huge stretches of suffocating ambience, and totally convoluted midtempo dirges, turning it into some of the most demented, deliriously damaged black metal we've ever heard. Even when they sound like they're just blazing through a passage of straight up black metal, all these little bits and pieces just sound not quite right, which is what makes Blut Aus Nord so fucking amazing. When they slow down, which they do quite a bit, the guitars seem to splinter into jagged shards, malfunctioning and becoming what sound distinctly like SST / Black Flag riffs and licks, you know, all stumbling and angular weirdness. And when they kick out the jams and explode into a buzzing blasting fury, there are strange guitar sounds swooping and soaring everywhere, sonic shards careening past, drones and multiple layers of buzz and hiss envelop every blast like a graveyard fog. The record opens with a two minute track confusingly titled "End", two minutes of swirling ambience, chilly winds and distant chimes, all buried beneath a murky barely there drone, and then the record ends with the also strangely titled "Procession Of The Dead Clowns", a ten minute melancholy doom dirge, simple drums and a simple keening mournful guitar melody, relentless and plodding and totally dismally intense. Between the two are ten tracks of the above mentioned grim and evil, relentlessly repetitive confusional black metal, draped with all manner of bizarre moaning, fucked up guitar damage, weirdly sliding riffage, and all drowning in drones and dirge, howling blackened ambience and seriously bizarre blasting black metal brutality.
Also included is Blut Aus Nord's more recent ep release, Thematic Emanation of Archetypal Multiplicity, five tracks, 28 minutes of haunting, moaning midtempo dirges, bizarre industrial, drum machined drones, massive slow motion doom, and creepy experimental ambience. Essential.
MPEG Stream: "The Choir Of The Dead"
MPEG Stream: "Axis "
MPEG Stream: "The Fall"

BLUT AUS NORD Ultima Thulee (Candlelight) cd 13.98

MPEG Stream: "The Son Of Hoarfrost"
MPEG Stream: "The Plain Of Ida"

BLUT AUS NORD / BLOODOLINE / REVERENCE / KARRAS Dissociated Human Junction (Panik Terror Musik) cd 16.98
It's only been a year, but it feels like forever since we've heard from beloved French black metal weirdos Blut Aus Nord, so we were super psyched to discover this 4 way split with 3 unreleased BaN tracks, and even though the tracks aren't brand new (they're from a super limited 2004 10"), they definitely hit the spot. In a big way.
But besides the BaN tracks, this comp also features a new Blut Aus Nord side project called Karras that totally destroys as well. And as if that all weren't enough the other two bands are just as amazing and fucked up if not more so.
Let's start with the Blut Aus Nord tracks, what else do you need to know, three tracks, you've never heard em, they are gorgeously twisted and blackened, the guitars slithery and spidery, everything wrapped in a warm cocoon of prickly buzz, long stretches of bleak black ambience, haunted rumblings, mysterious warbles, epic blasts of buzzing blackness, swaths of seasick synths, creepy minor key melodies, very dark and depressive, mournful and almost cinematic, definitely ranks up there with some of our favorite Blut Aus Nord stuff ever.
The Karras track, an massive 11 minute blast of confusional chaos, takes the already damaged and demented sound of Blut Aus Nord eve further, everything more twisted and convoluted, the drums a blasting splatter, guitars swirling everywhere, thick sheets of buzz, creepy processed vocals gurgling and growling, twisted squiggly melodies all over the place, the guitars buzzy, but also murky and muddy and thick like tar, this roiling black madhouse, peppered with long stretches of totally tranquil near static ambient shimmer. But that's not all, huge chunks of industrial pummel, more vocals croaking and mewling, the drums a never ending torrent of spastic beats, blasting and pounding, finally breaking into a funeral doom dirge right near the end before spinning off into a cloud of black hiss. Holy shit. We NEED to hear more Karras. A totally mindblowing and physically exhausting schizophrenic doomed and damaged black metal assault.
Like we said before, that would most definitely be enough, but there are two other bands to dig into. First, blackened Spaniards Bloodoline, whose blasting blackness is peppered with awesome moaning string bends and slippery riffage, that makes their tracks sound all funhouse mirrored and weirdly warped, especially the first track "Voyage Till Death". The beginning of their second song even sounds a bit like Chavez, with dual tangled highend guitar melodies, eventually exploding into a relentless keening crush. The third just seals the deal with another black hole slab of black mayhem, but with a strangely melancholy and poppy undercurrent.
Finally, there's another French outfit, who appropriately shared that abovementioned 2004 10" with Blut Aus Nord. Their sound is more in line with BaN's modern metallic melancholic murk. Slightly industrial tinged, mournful with lots of blurred buzz. Plenty of black metal riffing, but the sound is washed out and near ambient, huge expanses of doomic misery, bookended by gnarled black riffs, much of the two tracks spent drifting through a black haze, or plodding machinelike through some abject blackened sonic wasteland. Creepy growled and chanted vocals, thick swaths of chordal fuzzŠ
Way recommended obviously, as we think would be anything else that can be tracked down by all four of these bands (and fear not, you know we're already working on itŠ)
MPEG Stream: BLOODOLINE "Voyage Till Death"
MPEG Stream: BLUT AUS NORD "Part 1"
MPEG Stream: KARRAS "Xenoglossy"

BODIES IN THE GEARS OF THE APPARATUS / DESPISED ICON split (Relapse) cd 9.98

BODY, THE 2008 Tour cd-r (self-released) cd-r 3.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally!!! New music from The Body, who at one time, might just have ranked as one of, if not THE, favorite heavy band around these parts. Their self titled debut is incredible (and sadly out of print), a dizzying mix of post rock, ultra doom, and sludge metal, with a penchant for mathy rhythms, lots of space, and some seriously anguished vocals.
They released a super limited cd-r a bit later (which we have more of for a very short time, see elsewhere on this list!) which was more of the same, and included a totally over the top Judas Priest cover, the original totally transformed, which then leads us to this, a brand new tour ep, ALL covers, and not the sort of covers you might expect from a band like the Body, which is precisely why we love these guys so much.
Crass, Danzig, Black Flag and, wait for it, Sinead O'Connor. Yep. Hard to believe but it works, and they don't just turn it into a pointless sludgefest, they have obvious affection for the original. But before we get to "Black Boys On Mopeds", let's run through the other covers first.
Crass's "Do They Owe Us A Living" is all buzzing low end, and tribal drumming. The vocals a processed feral bark, the whole thing lurching and lumbering and seriously harrowingly intense. Makes the original sound like a lullaby. The Danzig track is a loping low slung groove, with a fierce downtuned riff, and hysterical shrieking vocals, the band totally own it, and again, add untold heaviness and harshness to the original. Black Flag's "Police Story" is pulled apart and gutted, before exploding into a punk rock frenzy, who knew a sludge band could rock so hard? It's a muddy, murky free for all, not that far removed from the original other than the downtuned guitars and the insane vox.
And finally, "Black Boys On Mopeds", a gorgeous sprawling dirge, and wisely the band opted to get some help with the vocals, a gorgeous female voice, underpinned by howled shrieked back up vocals way off in the distance, the bulk of the song a single buzzing throbbing note stretched out into a thick undulating drone, the rhythm a metronome like clack buried in the mix, the end gets all trippy and dubbed out, but damn if this isn't creepier and prettier than the original.
The Body is back, and we couldn't be happier. Now someone just needs to sign these guys and give them tons of money so they can finally put out a new full length!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Tired Of Being Alive (Danzig)"
MPEG Stream: "Black Boys On Mopeds (Sinead O'Connor)"

BODY, THE Cop Killer Dead Cops (Corleone) 7" 3.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A two barrel blast from these slow motion sludge merchants. A double dose of dead cops. The Body dump their sludgy doom all over "Cop Killer" by Body Count and "Dead Cops" by M.D.C.! The originals are barely recognizable, the original riffs, transformed into cesspools of filthy sludge. If you love Khanate and Moss and other masters of the ultra slow doom, The Body is more of what you need.
Cool packaging, transparent silkscreened sleeve with machine guns obi insert.

BODY, THE Even The Saints Knew Their Hour Of Failure And Loss (self-released) cd-r 3.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Man, have we missed these guys. One of our favorite doom / sludge outfits ever, who just seemed to disappear, but we recently got back in touch, and not only did they send us a bunch of their new, all covers tour cd-r (reviewed elsewhere on this list), but also sent us a handful of copies of this long out of print cd-r, that we raved about way back when. So one more chance if you missed out, or for folks who had yet to discover the list, let us introduce you to one of our favorite bands...
The return of the Body! We'd been chomping at the bit, waiting for these sludgelords to come up with record number two, might still be a while, but in the meantime we've got this super limited 20 minute cd-r ep to tide us over. Four tracks of abstract sludge doom. Think a more skeletal Khanate, with dubbed out drums, and replace Alan Dubin's vocals, with a hysterical shriek bordering on Bathtub Shitter territory. Weird but so fucking cool and creepy. Massive sheets of blacktar guitars, sometimes a grinding trudge through a viscous cloud of noxious grime, at others, a slow motion stumble through stark post rock territory, one track features a doom dub breakdown, where the snare sort of careens lazily in a wide open space before eventually being stomped flat by a wall of anvil guitars, another track is peppered with creepy soundbites, adding to the paranoid creepiness. The final track, a Judas Priest cover (!) is a blown out white noise drenched dirge, crumbling and crushing. Fuck yeah.
Packaged in a cool hand stamped cardboard sleeve. SUPER LIMITED still!
MPEG Stream: "Even The Saints Knew Their Hour Of Failure And Loss"
MPEG Stream: "Ruiner"

BODY, THE s/t (Moganono) lp 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A while back we reviewed an amazing record by a band called Tides. What was equally amazing was the circuitous route it took to get to Aquarius. In a nutshell, it was sent to a certain publication who deemed it too punk to review, a friend at said publication grabbed it from the reject box thinking we'd like it. We did. And well you can read that review on the AQ site. And that record ended up being a huge hit around here. The thing is, that record wasn't alone on its perilous journey. No, another record was right there along side the Tides cd making its way to AQ. That record, was this record. The Body. But The Body had a bit farther to go, before making it to the list you have right here in your hands. First, many emails with the label, then much waiting. Then finally a box of cds arrived, but somehow they had all become unglued and ruined in the mail. More emails followed, and still more waiting. FInally we had pretty much just given up. Then just a few days ago, a couple of big bearded guys with tattoos were sort of lurking around the store. You guessed it, they were The Body. Phew. So was it worth it? Hell yeah it was. That is if you like massive, pummeling, downtuned slow motion sludge metal with little bits of ultra doom and lots of post rock in there. And you know we do.
So yeah, The Body. This will definitely hit the spot for all you folks into Conifer, Pelican, Isis, The Ocean, Mouth Of The Architect, Tides and all that metallic post rock doom stuff. The first track is a crusher, a plodding doom riff spread out over eight minutes, with freaky garbled vocal samples and the whole thing building in intensity and slowly becoming more and more blown out until it's a fuzzy slab of white noise doom drone. Woah. The rest of the record trudges alternately between slow motion chugging and poundiing, moody mathy rhythmic workouts, and some truly dense tangles of chaotic riff rhythm mashup. All strung together with some seriously harrowing shrieked black metal style vocals buried WAY down in the mix. The final track is a fifteen minute long, relentless midtempo pipe to the skull, with a main riff that is repeated over and over, almost looped sounding, completely mesmerizing, before it all breaks down into a spacious plodding doom coda. So awesome.
Packaged in hand glued cardstock digipaks. This came out a while ago and was limited to 1000 copies so we can't be entirely sure how long we'll have these.
MPEG Stream: "()"
MPEG Stream: "The City Of The Magnificent Jewel"
MPEG Stream: "Hearts Ache, Even In Dreams (City Eater)"

BODYCHOKE Cold River Songs (Relapse) cd 14.98
You might not expect a band featuring former members of Whitehouse and Sutcliffe Jugend to sound a bit like some twisted noiserock hybrid of old Today is The Day, the crushing bombast of the Swans, and the ominous brooding doom and gloom of Joy Division, but that's precisely what Bodychoke conjure up on this, their long out of print final album, circa 1998, now reissued by Relapse.
We always assumed we didn't like Bodychoke all that much, the other records we heard we really not that good, and their version of "Painted Black" was even left off the tUMULt comp featuring multiple version of that iconic song, but holy shit has this record knocked our fucking blocks off. There's plenty of noise for sure, jagged and processed and crumbling and crunchy and blown out, but noise is just one element here, the band in full on noise rock / post rock. Unfurling low slung bass lines, jagged riffing, some cool complex drumming, the arrangements super dynamic, the vocals slipping from ominous deep Michael Gira like croon, to strangled punkish wail.
Opener "Control" pretty much has it all, beginning with a weird cacophony of fractured fragmented noise, the band soon slip into a minimal bass groove, before the guitars kick in and lock in with the snares, the song transformed into a brooding almost Angels Of Light sounding jam, until the chorus, which EXPLODES, and the noise from the beginning returns, wrapping the churning loping crush in a swirling field of feedback and crumbling grit and grime. It's just so intense and heavy and weirdly catchy, and so much better than we ever remember Bodychoke being.
And so it goes, the rest of the record continues to display a sound that's almost more slow building post rock than noise, but most of the tracks are laced with heaping doses of caustic crunch. There's also a cello player in the band, who offers up some gorgeously moaning ambience, and subtle strings here and there. Many of the tracks spread way out, sprawling lugubriously, expansive minimal post punk soundcapes, skitter and whisper, burning slowly until the song is engulfed in tangled riffage and wild tribal pounding, and even the noise, it's so deftly crafted and well placed, it's hard to imagine anyone into heavy music being put off at all, it's just like another layer of heaviness, another level of dynamicism, it's weird, we all had the exact same response when this record came on. "Oh I don't like Bodychoke", but gradually, it seemed everyone was listening to this, ALL the time, even now, as this is being written, not only is it playing on the stereo in the back room, but also in the store, this record just slays. So dark and heavy and brutal and melodic and epic and AMAZING. Based on nothing but how often this gets played in the store and how often we've listened to this since it came in, we're beginning to think maybe we should have made this Record Of The Week, so consider this an EXTREME highlight, and thus overwhelmingly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Control"
MPEG Stream: "Cold River Song"
MPEG Stream: "Your Submission"

BOGUS BLIMP Cords. Wires (Jester) cd 14.98
Bogus Blimp were nothing like we expected. I mean, they're from Norway. They release records on Garm's (from black metallers Ulver) label Jester. Who could have guessed that they would sound like circus music, or gipsy music, or sort of like Tom Waits. No one. But it is pretty cool! 'Cords. Wires' is Bogus Blimp's second record of dark carnivalesque / horror movie mini-epics with lots of samples, bizarre muttering, raspy vocals and strange sounds galore.
RealAudio clip: "Brothers of Space"
RealAudio clip: "No Cords"

BOGUS BLIMP Men-Mic (Jester) cd 13.98
We were told this was supposed to sound like circus music, and it sorta does--like really, really demented circus music. Another quite strange release on the quite strange Jester label (see also Esperanza and When, below). Jester is run by Garm of Norwegian black metal avantgardists Ulver and Arcturus, and it could be said that this band is a bit reminiscent of the more cabaret-styled material on Arcturus' last uberweird opus. Bogus Blimp seem to be an ensemble of evil clowns who have combined carnivalesque themes with the theatrical fury of Cradle of Filth, all within an hallucinatory electronic realm close to that of The Young Gods. Fans of Nina Rota, Mr. Bungle, Arcturus, etc. should check this out.

BOGUS BLIMP Rdtr (Jester) cd 14.98
From what weird Norwegian experimental electronica label do we always expect the unexpected? Well there's the excellent Rune Grammofon...and Smalltown Supersound...but it's Kristoffer "Garm of Ulver" Rygg's label Jester that really knows how to throw us for a loop, time and again. And having heard from Bogus Blimp before, the anticipation here is high... On their two previous Jester releases, Bogus Blimp were what we had to call "circus music"... quirky not-quite-metal, partly electronic bombastic carnivalesque stuff that lived up to their puzzling but oddly pleasing name. Now on Rdtr we get something just a little different. Here Bogus Blimp operate in a realm of glitchy soundtrack noir (actually Rdtr IS a soundtrack, maybe, or at least pretends to be) meant to evoke a futuristic dystopia with a sinister sci-fi feel. So not so circusy as before, more serious...it's electronic post-rock that reminds us a bit of Goblin soundtracks, always a good thing.
MPEG Stream: "Police Chasing Police"
MPEG Stream: "track 11"

BOHREN & DER CLUB OF GORE Black Earth (Wonder) cd 17.98
We've been championing this fantastic German dirge-jazz band for years. Now Mike Patton has gotten into the act, doing a domestic release of the most recent Bohren disc, 2002's Black Earth, on his Ipecac imprint. So we have this now, instead of the import, although strangely enough it ends up that this US version is $2 MORE expensive than the one we used to stock...hmm. But if you missed it before, it's worth two bucks for the second chance to get into this great band.
What we said upon its original release: Black Earth is the dark as night new album from an old AQ fave. Is it the heaviest album on this list? It is if you understand Bohren's concept of "quiet heaviness", using their self-described "horror jazz" instrumentation of subtly-brushed drums, down-tuned double bass, sparse piano, Fender Rhodes, mellotron, and melancholic saxophone to create an atmosphere of heaviness "which is otherwise only achieved using distorted guitars and lots of noise."
Our appetite was whetted for his release by an email from Bjoern Eichstaedt (of Caacrinolas), our German friend who originally introduced us to Bohren. He described a recent Bohren concert in which the band played in a cubic room, the walls painted completely black, on a black stage, without light -- all wearing black suits. Live, they used two basses for maximum bottom end. He spoke to them afterwards and learned that black metal is their main influence, noticing also that they were all wearing t-shirts from such bands as Immortal. Yet Bohren's music is far from loud and fast. Metallic or not, it's certainly DOOM. Creeping, plodding, yet gorgeously, sleepily melodic. Each note played on the piano, each hit of the snare, carries great weight, and beauty. Their music falls like thick drops of liquid into a still, dark, black pool, rippling the surface with unknown echoes. Foreboding, and entrancing. Certainly more than deserving of this disc's black on black, skull embossed packaging.
The sultry, smoky saxophone introduced on their previous album Sunset Mission is still in evidence, though not so much as before. When it's present, it only adds to the noir-ish vibe, great for wandering the rainy streets of night-time San Francisco with this playing in your Walkman, let me tell you. And compared to Sunset Mission, this new album definitely extends Bohren's methods to further extremes: slower, moodier, dronier, lovelier: "heavier". Quite quietly heavy, indeed.
MPEG Stream: "Midnight Black Earth"
MPEG Stream: "Skeletal Remains"
MPEG Stream: "The Art Of Coffins"

BOHREN & DER CLUB OF GORE Black Earth (Wonder) 2lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now on (double) vinyl. "Black Earth" is the dark as night new album from an old AQ fave. Is it the heaviest album on this list? It is if you understand Bohren's concept of "quiet heaviness", using their self-described "horror jazz" instrumentation of subtly-brushed drums, down-tuned double bass, sparse piano, Fender Rhodes, mellotron, and melancholic saxophone to create an atmosphere of heaviness "which is otherwise only achieved using distorted guitars and lots of noise."
Our appetite was whetted for his release by an email from Bjoern Eichstaedt (of Caacrinolas), our German friend who originally introduced us to Bohren. He described a recent Bohren concert in which the band played in a cubic room, the walls painted completely black, on a black stage, without light -- all wearing black suits. Live, they used two basses for maximum bottom end. He spoke to them afterwards and learned that black metal is their main influence, noticing also that they were all wearing t-shirts from such bands as Immortal. Yet Bohren's music is far from loud and fast. Metallic or not, it's certainly DOOM. Creeping, plodding, yet gorgeously, sleepily melodic. Each note played on the piano, each hit of the snare, carries great weight, and beauty. Their music falls like thick drops of liquid into a still, dark, black pool, rippling the surface with unknown echoes. Foreboding, and entrancing. Certainly more than deserving of this disc's black on black, skull embossed packaging.
The sultry, smoky saxophone introduced on their previous album "Sunset Mission" is still in evidence, though not so much as before. When it's present, it only adds to the noir-ish vibe, great for wandering the rainy streets of night-time San Francisco with this playing in your Walkman, let me tell you. And compared to "Sunset Mission", this new album definitely extends Bohren's methods to further extremes: slower, moodier, dronier, lovelier: "heavier". Quite quietly heavy, indeed.
RealAudio clip: "Midnight Black Earth"
RealAudio clip: "Skeletal Remains"
RealAudio clip: "The Art Of Coffins"

BOHREN & DER CLUB OF GORE Geisterfaust (Wonder) cd 16.98
Not metal -- not remotely. So why did they get written up in Terrorizer magazine? Well this German four-piece isn't exactly a jazz band either, even though they utilize such instruments as Fender Rhodes electric piano, vibraphone, double bass, and saxophone. No, they're actually really really heavy though it's always hard to explain how something this quiet and this pretty can be "heavy". But you'll feel it when you hear it. Their special brand of Teutonic, minimalist, noir-jazz influenced "heaviness" is not to be denied. And so it makes sense that they like grim black metal and that people who like grim black metal like them. A very special band, certainly unknowable to some, but very well liked 'round here. So we were pretty excited to hear that the release of this new album Geisterfaust ("Ghostfist") was impending. And it does not disappoint. Five tracks for the five fingers of the Ghostfist (skeletally represented in the cd digipak). Almost one full hour.
Thusly, a Bohren album cannot be properly absorbed in little snippets. The time frame within which their compositions work is not conducive to quick scans or distracting environments -- even the shortest of the five tracks here isn't much less than eight minutes in length, and the opening track "Zeigefinger" is a 20+ minute experience. So, when I got my copy of this (oooh) I took it home and drew the curtains, lit the candles (well, ok I didn't really light any candles, but could have), and assumed a relaxed pose in order to let the music of Geisterfaust infiltrate my consciousness. Which it did. At Bohren's usual glacial pace, which utterly starts to alter one's perception of time. The long songs are endless...then over. Eternity telescoped. So spare and melodious. Like magnified drops of rainwater, falling on the petals of a shivering flower. The vast space of Bohren's music makes the listener concentrate, and gives each and every note (a vibraphone chime, perhaps, surrounded by a nimbus of a gentle cymbal-strike's shimmer) extra weight and meaning. The Bohren aesthetic certainly holds that less is more. Even though there's guests -- a tuba player and a choir, even -- augmenting the basic Bohren quartet on several of these tracks, you're never overwhelmed with sound, but with silence. And the sheer *subsonics* that a band with two bassists can generate. Geisterfaust flows exquisitely, the listener's pulse rate slowing. Calm. Cool. Bliss. Stupor. So gorgeous, soo heavy. There we go again. This IS heavy. You'll see.
Basically it's like some utterly slow crushing doom band (the Melvins at their most monolithic -- Khanate -- Caspar Brotzmann Massaker -- Corrupted -- Gore) with their instrumentation transposed into the "jazz" realm. The snare only brushed. The distorted electric guitar replaced with the tinkle of a Rhodes piano. Notes not riffs. Played like a dirge, with hints of drone, sombre and sad, but beautiful. There's only a smidgen of saxophone (dreaded by some) that is brought in only at the very end of the last very track, one that is almost speedy by Bohren standards, to act as the light at end of the tunnel, the sun's rays just over the horizon...
Our friend Bjoern in Germany (of Caacrinolas), who first turned Allan and thus AQ on to Bohren five or six years ago, emailed excitedly about the release this new album (that's often when we hear from Bjoern, actually!). Here's a quote from his email: "...fucking amazing!!! Better probably than anything they have done before! You need this for AQ!!! It will sell zillions of copies!" Well of course. As a follow up to the Ipecac-released Black Earth, this is an even greater triumph. Brilliant.
MPEG Stream: "Daumen"
MPEG Stream: "Kleiner Finger"

BOHREN & DER CLUB OF GORE Midnight Radio (Epistrophy) 2cd 24.00
Here's an old favorite -- a former AQ Record Of The Week in fact -- that we've been unable to get for a long time now, until just this week that is. So we thought we'd better relist it, especially since when we relisted the Ipecac reissue of Bohren's most recent album Black Earth we sold a whole bunch of copies to folks who'd missed it the first time, and this one is perhaps even more essential not to miss! So here's a portion of our review from the first time we had this:
At last, we've managed to import some copies of this fantastic 1995 album by this mysterious German instrumental band! I (Allan) discovered them via a friend in Germany (an AQ-customer who, like many others, has been so kind as to turn *us* on to stuff: it's a two-way street). I was visiting for the 1999 total solar eclipse (well, among other things; I was also in the land of schnitzel for a metal festival...) and heard a tape of this sprawling double cd set in the context of a late night, post-eclipse, wine-drinking get-together. But when I finally got a hold of the actual album some weeks later (we couldn't even find one in the local record stores, my friend had to special order it and send a copy to me in the States), I was happy to discover that it wasn't merely my memories of the wondrous eclipse that had imbued Midnight Radio with such a gorgeous sense of darkness and dread, but that it really was an amazing album!
After Midnight Radio, Bohren released Sunset Mission (later followed by Black Earth). If the now out of print Sunset Mission album was the ultimate noir-jazz soundtrack to a hypothetical first person shooter video game set in afterdark Berlin, then this aptly-titled previous double cd set, (sans saxophone, an addition to the Sunset lineup) is the perfect accompaniment to a late night autobahn death ride, cruise control on, cigarettes burning. There's even a moment, two hours or so into it, when sun starts to come up over the horizon (you'll hear what we mean when you get to the end of the second disc).
Now, we're always talking about "hypnotic" music here at AQ, but this is music for when you're *already* hypnotized, slumped near bed at home or cruising down that infinite highway at 3am, aware of only your own thoughts and the darkness all around made even more black by your headlights. (Maybe this is what some of those unexplicable people who I saw driving around during the eclipse were listening to...for two very long minutes anyway.) Heavy, heavy bass notes, glacially deployed, crushingly beautiful slow-motion guitar and dark, liquid pools of piano, with a narcotized drummer who must be passing in and out of consciousness to occasionally brush his snare and hi-hat. Midnight Radio enters into the tiny pantheon of somehow similarly intended doomy double cd sets beloved of AQ (Esoteric's Pernicious Enigma and Epistomological Despondency, Corrupted's Llenandose de Gusanos). Of course, Bohren is not at all metallic like those two outfits, but is knowing of the same gloombliss. Slow and low, and highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "3"
MPEG Stream: "5"

BOLDER DAMN Mourning cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We just got a few copies of this kinda-hard-to-find cd reissue of a much harder to find (only 200 copies pressed!) 1972 lp by a hard rock band from Florida who are kinda legendary for their song "Dead Meat", a over-15-minute opus of proto-doom metal, which appears here as the album closer. Combining sub-Cooper schlock horror stage theatrics and sub-Sabbath riffage, "Dead Meat" was Bolder (sic) Damn's very own dumb-rock "Black To Comm" (that's a reference to the MC5's infamous lengthy live show-closer, although "Dead Meat" isn't as intentionally avant-garde of course). Pretty cool, if not the holy grail that it's advertised as (also, a la "Black To Comm")! The rest of the album preceding "Dead Meat" is decent heavy rockin' stuff that today would be considered "stoner rock". Echoes of the James Gang, MC5 and, uh, Frijid Pink? The band broke up not long after this LP was recorded, thanks to the draft, giving "Mourning" kind of a lost classic status -- although we're not saying it really *is* a classic, just something for connoisseurs of obscure '70s hard/boogie rock (you know who you are). Only a few cds in stock, not likely to be back again...
RealAudio clip: "Got That Feeling"
RealAudio clip: "Dead Meat"

BOLT THROWER Those Once Loyal (Metal Blade) cd 14.98

BONE AWL Bog Bodies / Magnetism Of War (Goatowarex) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Man, this one sure has been a mess, apologies to all the folks who waited months and months, but this completely killer slab of raw primitive grim blackness is now FINALLY back in stock. We originally listed it ages ago, sold out, and then tried to order more, and suddenly everything went wrong, our first box of lps got lost, and it took forever to get in touch with the label to get more, they finally showed up out of the blue after almost 9 months, but they were missing sleeves and there weren't enough covers. So we finally got it all sorted out, and we have a bunch of these in stock, for sure for the very last time. Once we run out these are gone for good. In fact since these showed up, we haven't heard a peep from the label, even after repeated emails, so if you want one of these, and you really should, then grab it while you can, once these are gone, these are truly and finally gone for good.
Since we first discovered local primitive black metal outfit Bone Awl, on a tip from Leviathan's Wrest, we've been pretty much totally obsessed. As have most AQ customers considering how fast we fly through their limited cassette only releases.
So finally, two of those long out of print demos (so long out of print in fact that we never actually had ANY) reissued on super deluxe 180 gram vinyl. Two demos, one on each side. Bog Bodies on side A, originally released as a cassette in 2003, limited to 300 copies, now LONG out of print, and on side B, Magnetism Of War, originally released as a cassette in 2002, limited to 150 copies and also long out of print.
So this vinyl reissue, is also of course limited. Only 400 copies. Each sleeve is cut and paste style, to sort of keep with the aesthetic of the Bone Awl cassettes and as you can well imagine, this stuff is SICK SICK SICK. Bone Awl play super lo-fi black thrash, simple throbbing, furious and fucked up. Murky and primitive, just guitar and drums, manned by the brilliantly named duo of He Who Gnashes Teeth and He Who Crushes Teeth! Simple riffs pounded into your skull, a crushing static black buzz, that is totally trancelike in its simplicity. Tape hiss wraps it's blackened tendrils around downtuned guitars, the drums a simple pounding framework, the vocals a guttural demonic howl. Actually, Bone Awl sound strangely like some sort of black metal Brainbombs, and we shouldn't have to tell you how goddamn good that sounds. As far as we know this is already out of print at the label. We have 25 or 30 copies, and once they are gone, they are GONE FOR GOOD.
LIMITED TO 400 COPIES!!

BONE AWL By Ropes Through Dirt (Worship Him) cassette 4.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Wrest from Leviathan had been bugging us forever to carry records by local black metal horde Bone Awl for ages. And we usually trust him when it comes to all things black, However there were a few problems, the first being that we always thought he was saying Bonall, or some other one word variation. The other problem was as far as we could tell they didn't really have any proper releases. Well, we finally managed to track down the guys in Bone Awl and discovered that they did indeed have a bunch or releases, they just happened to consist of several out of print 7"s and a couple cassettes. So we figured what the hell, cd-r's may be the cool cult format, but if that's the case, then it's time to head back to cassettes, the true underground format. So we managed to get a handful of Bone Awl's last two cassettes, and we're happy to report that they're both packed with minimal blackened thrash, 'goat metal' Wrest would probably call it, murky and primitive, simple riffing smeared into dense droney slabs of galloping black metal crush, from just a two piece band of guitar and drums (played by He Who Gnashes Teeth and He Who Crushes Teeth!). But while the lineup is minimal the sound is still thick and snarlingly fierce. Imagine a stripped down Darkthrone (if you can): a single riff pounded mercilessly into submission, gruff gargly vocals buried in the mix, sloppy and raw recorded super hot and totally blown out. This is true underground black metal for sure. By Ropes Through Dirt is the older title and was limited to 500 copies. We have about ten copies and that's it, it's already out of print. Up To Something is the most recent, released last year, and is also limited to 500 copies, we have a bunch but they're going fast and will most likely be gone for good pretty soon.

BONE AWL Meaningless Leaning Mess (Nuclear War Now! Productions) lp 12.98
For the latest installment in their ongoing, all-analog blackened onslaught, local raw, primitive, black-thrash duo Bone Awl unleash another full length lp, the third by our count, not including a clutch of limited run cassette tapes and 7"s. And as always, it's another fantastically furious and filthy slab of relentlessly pounding buzz, hateful howl and sheer black force. 
For the uninitiated, Bone Awl are the duo of He Who Gnashes Teeth and He Who Crushes Teeth, just guitar and drums, but the two are a whirling dervish of harsh negative energy, not so much blasting and buzzing black metal style, as pounding and pulsing, a blown out D-beat style garage thrash pummel. Every track takes a single black riff, and pounds it into the ground, the guitar a swirling cloud of dark energy, the drums some sort of harnessed chaos, hewing closer to the abject blown out pound of the Brainbombs than perhaps any of their more metal forebears. No real blast beats to be found, instead the sound is a blackened punk rock, crusty and crumbling, on the verge of total collapse, barreling hellward with unstoppable momentum.
Pressed on super thick 180 gram vinyl, housed in a thick cardstock inner sleeve, printed with lyrics, and housed in a gorgeous black and white poster sleeve, that opens to be pretty massive. The whole thing tucked in a plastic jacket with a sticker affixed to the front. And as always, probably crazy limited...

BONE AWL Not For Our Feet (Klaxon) lp 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally more blasting primitive blackness from this local black metal duo. After a handful of ultra limited tape and vinyl releases and at least one box of lps lost in the mail (folks who are waiting, we are getting more we swear, thanks for being so patient), we've all been left with a Bone Awl shaped hole in our black souls. Originally released on Nuclear War Now, Not For Our Feet (and the accompanying Undying Glare 7", also reissued and reviewed elsewhere on this list) disappeared before we could get our hands on a single copy, so were were psyched to discover that the band had formed their own label and will start to release their own records, beginning with this 9 song blast of pummeling black thrash.
Not For Our Feet is dripping with atmosphere, it's crusty and dark, it's simple, and straight forward, but chaotic and messy, it's wild and unrestrained, but relentless and impossible concise, most songs are stripped down and blown out, one riff, maybe two, sometimes three, never more, the drums are relentless, usually not blasting, but pounding furiously, and the vocals howling above the din, but the sound is so intense and emotional and so very black. There's definitely a D-beat influence, a lot of the time Bone Awl don't even really sound like black metal, more a white hot pounding noise rock outfit, with buzzing insectoid riffing and some seriously blackened tendencies. Which is part of what makes them so appealing. They go from galloping black thrash, to buzzing blast, to simple cavemen pound often in the same song. And the sound itself is as intense as the music, super hot, in the red, needle pegged, speaker shredding, high end buzz and blast that threatens to blow your speakers even at the lowest of volumes.
As with most Bone Awl stuff, not sure how long this will be around, hopefully longer than usual, but don't risk it, this is some of the most intense and visceral, raw and hateful, brutal and punishing music we've heard in ages, black metal or otherwise. You definitely won't want to be left behind.
All new artwork, cool distressed black and brown sleeve with collaged olde English text cover image, includes a printed insert with all the lyrics.

BONE AWL So I Must Take From The Earth... ...And Make It My Own (Hospital Productions) 2x7" 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
While we struggle desperately to get the guys in Bone Awl to bring us more of their cassettes, and while we wait impatiently for the boxes of Bone Awl lps to finally show up after being lost in the postal system for going on three months now, at least we have these here 14 inches of brand new analog Bone Awl to tide us over.
Keeping true to their old school ethos (as in NO CDS!!) the band give us a brand new double 7", released on Hospital Productions (run by the man behind Prurient) and it's just what you might expect. And just what we can never seem to get enough of. Super raw, stripped down two piece black metal buzz. Harsh and hateful, buzzing and brutal, thrashing and totally trancelike. The duo of He Who Gnashes Teeth and He Who Crushes Teeth whip up a frenzy of lo-fi blackened ultra violence, relentless and so sick. We described Bone Awl as sounding a bit like a black metal Brainbombs and that still holds true. Each track, a single riff, guitar and drums, pounded into your skull, over and over and over and over. Fucking awesome!
Probably limited but we got a bunch...

BONE AWL Undying Glare (Klaxon) 7" 4.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Originally released with the Not For Our Feet lp in a super limited cloth bag deluxe version that disappeared almost before we even heard about it, Undying Glare might possibly be primitive black metal combo Bone Awl's harshest, heaviest, noisiest, and thus finest moment yet, which is saying something, especially with a band whose limited release history is pretty much nothing but finest moments.
Undying Glare is three tracks, but they all sort of blur together into one glorious white hot burst of blown out black buzz. And when we say blown out, we mean, completely and utterly in the red to the point where these songs are a breath away from collapsing into straight white noise.
Squeals of feedback give way to a blinding deafening blast of hissing, hateful high end buzz, the guitars have become some sort of impossible noise, merely in the shape of riffs, but when the song kicks in those riff shaped chunks of sound are swallowed up by a wave of pure black noise, the drums and cymbals are all sizzling sibilance, just another layer of hiss and buzz, as are the vocals, all three tracks smeared violently into one sprawling black beast.
Pressed on grey vinyl, one sided, super striking cover art, and again, like all Bone Awl stuff, we have no idea how long these will be around or if we'll ever be able to get more...

BONE AWL Up To Something (Klaxon) cassette 4.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Wrest from Leviathan had been bugging us forever to carry records by local black metal horde Bone Awl for ages. And we usually trust him when it comes to all things black, However there were a few problems, the first being that we always thought he was saying Bonall, or some other one word variation. The other problem was as far as we could tell they didn't really have any proper releases. Well, we finally managed to track down the guys in Bone Awl and discovered that they did indeed have a bunch or releases, they just happened to consist of several out of print 7"s and a couple cassettes. So we figured what the hell, cd-r's may be the cool cult format, but if that's the case, then it's time to head back to cassettes, the true underground format. So we managed to get a handful of Bone Awl's last two cassettes, and we're happy to report that they're both packed with minimal blackened thrash, 'goat metal' Wrest would probably call it, murky and primitive, simple riffing smeared into dense droney slabs of galloping black metal crush, from just a two piece band of guitar and drums (played by He Who Gnashes Teeth and He Who Crushes Teeth!). But while the lineup is minimal the sound is still thick and snarlingly fierce. Imagine a stripped down Darkthrone (if you can): a single riff pounded mercilessly into submission, gruff gargly vocals buried in the mix, sloppy and raw recorded super hot and totally blown out. This is true underground black metal for sure. By Ropes Through Dirt is the older title and was limited to 500 copies. We have about ten copies and that's it, it's already out of print. Up To Something is the most recent, released last year, and is also limited to 500 copies, we have a bunch but they're going fast and will most likely be gone for good pretty soon.

BONE AWL / THE RITA split (Klaxon) cassette 4.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The return of the Bay Area's very own lo-fi black thrash terrorists Bone Awl, and holy fuck is this stuff fierce. Brutal and chaotic and lo-fi as always, but for this cassette, they've teamed up with Canadian harsh noise outfit The Rita and the two bands sound perfect together. When we first put this on we assumed it would follow a traditional split release format, one band plays their songs, then the other band plays theirs, or at least each band gets their own side of the tape. But no, here, the bands switch back and forth, and The Rita's noisy dronescapes sound almost like they could be Bone Awl's ambient interludes. In fact, we assumed the first track WAS the intro to a Bone Awl song until we figured out what was going on. Bone Awl are a two piece killing machine, who spew a downtuned and murky, pounding midtempo thrash drenched in tape hiss and fuzzed out noise, turning their thrash into some weirdly dirge-y black Brainbombs thing. The Rita take the same sort of sonic grime and murk, but instead of harnassing it into some sort of metallic framework, they let it soar skyward, unchained and uncontrollable, all the meters pushed into the red, smearing the buzz and fuzz into crumbling Merzboic masses of snarling, slithering scuzz drenched power electronics. Together these two hordes whip up a gloriously noisy, punishingly harsh, druggy and buzzed out expanse of free noise thrash dirge brutality, and we LOVE IT!
Super limited as always. We've got about 30 so act fast.

BONE AWL / VOLKURAH / HAMMER / VORDR Vinland / Finland (Northern Sky Productions) cassette 4.00
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 handful more of these back in stock. Not sure how long they'll last...
Bone Awl!!! You know you want it. We can't seem to keep their shit in stock. It flies out of here everytime we get a new title. We're still waiting on two huge boxes of Bone Awl lps to finally arrive. Sorry for the folks who are still waiting. We're as frustrated as you are. AND we're still waiting for the sort of flakey band members to come by and bring us more copies of their old cassettes.
But thankfully, we just got a new tape in to tide you over! Yep, you heard us tape. These guys are old skool. No cds, just tapes and vinyl. All super lo-fi and primitive, visually and sonically.
Vinland / Finland was previously available as a super limited lp on Grievantee (now WAY out of print, so don't ask) and now as a super limited tape on Northern Sky. Four different bands, all brutal, primitive, and ultra grim black metal, Bone Awl (USA), Hammer (Finland), Volkurah (Canada) and Vordr (Finland). We obviously love Bone Awl as do you all it seems, and we are super into Vordr (although we've never been able to get enough copies of their discs to list), we had never heard of either Hammer or Volkurah, but both fit comfortably along side the other two.
So if you're in the mood for some stripped down, ugly, crusty black brutality, then this is exactly what you've been hankering for. And as much as we hate to say it, this is of course super limited. And while we did get a whole bunch, they still probably won't last long.

BONG Novum Castellum (Turgid Animal) 3cd 27.00
It always seems to happen this way, we spend ages and ages trying to track down recordings from an elusive band, hearing rumors about 7"s and cd-r's and tapes, and then suddenly, BOOM. Or in the case of these guys, Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom... the recordings come bursting forth, and again, in this case, the sounds spew from speakers and headphones like some viscous black torrent. Which can only mean one thing, the return of drugged out sludge drone mavens Bong. If ever a band was more appropriately named, Bong are ready to take them on. In fact, the only way a band could prevail monicker-wise, they'd have to be called Bong Blood Hell Froth, or Bladed Bong Skullorb, or something, and even with a name all ready for battle, it's doubtful their pathetic sounds would be any match for Bong's thick, sprawling doomscapes of sitar like buzz, churning bottom heavy crunch, and at least on one of the tracks here some serious drum pummel.
Three discs, five tracks, three hours, recorded in pubs, under bridges and in restaurants, one can only imagine the smoldering ruins these guys left in their lumbering drug-doom wake. Their live sound much more rocking then their doomed out minimal records might lead you to believe.
The opener on its own is worth the price of admission, a relentless buzzy, space-y sludgey groove, with some killer drumming, chaotic, mathy, but locked in pretty tight, the cymbals offering up a layer of warm swirling sizzle, the vocals a haunted demonic chant, the rest of the sonic space taken up by woozy washed out buzzing sitar like strings, a sort of Sleep meets Circle meets SUNNO))), a downtuned krautrock crunch, smeared into an endless drug drenched space rock groove. The second half of disc two offers up more of the same, with the drums even more frantic, the band rocking propulsively, not so sludgey as heavy and fierce, the song slipping into a tranced out sonic tarpit partway through, before exploding into a tangled doom-math outro.
The two tracks on the second disc see the drums pulling back a little, letting the guitars and vocals interlock, the result some sort of ritualistic groove, albeit wrapped around some serious percussive heft, the second of the two tracks blissing out pretty nicely, the band slipping comfortably into something a bit more meditative and slowcore sounding, but still the guitars smoke and smolder, the drums, while restrained, still sound urgent, the track seething with dark intensity, and minimal doomic menace.
The final disc, a nearly 40 minute single song set, is the heaviest and densest of the bunch, somehow fusing the blown out ur-drone of groups like Sunroof! with a fuzzed out garage doom space stomp. Think White Hills, the Heads, Monster Magnet, this is the sort of doom that's bursting with barely restrained psychedelia, like watching some black star explode, swirling red and yellow gouts of sonic fire spilling forth from a heaving black hole of sound. The sound lo-fi, lots of noise and reverb and distortion and ambient noise, the sound crumbles and breaks apart here and there, the band slipping easily from ponderous trudge to blissed out shimmer, often merging the two into some soul shearing psychedelic doom.
A few of these tracks were already released, but as a cd-r in a limited run of 50 or something crazy like that, so odds are, like us, you never even saw 'em. These are proper, real cds (NOT cd-r's), packaged in a dvd style case, with printed inserts. And is also limited, this time to 300 copies!
MPEG Stream: "Trillians / January 08 (excerpt)"
MPEG Stream: "Under Byker Bridge Space / 1st June 08 (excerpt)"

BONG s/t (Heidenwut Productions) lp 19.98
Oh Bong. How we have longed for thee. Ever since we first got wind of a stonery slow motion doom sludge outfit called BONG, we knew we had to have it, even the non-bong inclined around these parts became disturbingly obsessed with tracking down the BONG. Finally it's here, so prepare to partake.
Before we get to the music, they're called Bong, two sidelong tracks, one called "Wizards Of Krull", the other called "The Starlit Grotto". The cover is gorgeous a washed out painting in all blacks and browns of some creepy alien landscape, and some strange looking flora or fauna (hard to say which).
(Actually, a customer informed us it's from a painting by J.M.W. Turner!) No info anywhere, except the names of the songs, the last names of the players (one of whom happens to be an aQ mailorder customer!) and the word BONG.
Deep buzzy layered drones, peppered with little bits of banjo-y (?) buzz, creepy and minimal and abstract, cymbals sizzle over the undulating black backdrop, the bass a simple single deep thrum, and then the vocals, deep and ominous and (almost overly) dramatic, which when we first heard them reminded us the Mighty Boosh. The guitars thicken, the drums begin to pound, and suddenly the shapeless miasma begins to take the shape of some seriously drugged out stoner doom sludge. Distorted and downtuned and Sabbathy and sloooooooooooow, that voice begins to chant, the banjo returns only now it's a sitar, and we're neck deep in some primal doomdrone stonersludge ritual and sinking fast!
The second side / track is more of the same, beginning with a smattering of drums before the guitar slither in and the track becomes another plodding chunk of druggy doom, the drums are brief blasts, the riffs so slow they're barely riffs at all, that reverby croon returns, but this track explodes in the second half, the guitars going wild, unfurling swirling clouds of warped and wild wah wah drenched leads, tangled and frenetic, drifting over the churning sludge below, all woven into a dense and drug addled chunk of blown out lysergic and psychedelic dooooooom.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!!!

BONG / GNOD split (Box) 7" + cd-r 12.98
A split waiting to happen if there ever was one, both by name, and by sound, blissed out ambient soundscapers Gnod, best know for their split with White Hills, and beloved drugged out space rockers form the UK Bong.
The real bummer is that we tried to get a ton of these and only managed to wrangle TEN. Otherwise this would have been up with the highlights and the review would be about 10 times as long. But since odds are we'll probably get more orders for this than copies we actually have, we'll keep it brief.
Gnod offer up a warbly looped pianoscape, peppered with distant percussive rattles, draped over slow deep ambient swells, all building to a dense blackened rumble. Nice. Bong counter with more of that thing they do, rad tripped out FX drenched space rock, replete with sitar like buzz, kosmiche krautrock drumming, incendiary guitar buzz and deep chanted vocals, the sort of song that could, and probably should go on forever, but here fills up the side with gloriously dense hypnotic psychedelic heaviness.
The 7" comes with a cd-r, with over 50 minutes of extra stuff, one massive 30+ minute Bong jam, and three shorter Gnod tracks. Again we have less than ten, we really did try, all but the very quickest on the trigger, prepare to be disappointed.

BONG / QUTTINIRPAAQ Split (Blackest Rainbow) lp 17.98
We've been dying for more Bong. Ever since we got our ears around their long awaited debut lp a little while back, two side long tracks of crushing Sabbathy slow motion dooooooooom, we've been jonesing for another fix. Which has finally arrived, in the form of this split 12". Bong on one side, and fellow (new to us) doomlords Quttinirpaaq on the other.
Bong sound even heavier and more sluggishly propulsive than on their debut. Like space rock slowed waaaaaay down, Bong unleash a dark, dense roiling dirge drone doom, that slowly and gradually, and yes, druggily develops into something super rocking and ultra heavy. Crushing low end, lugubrious stoner doom riffs, pounding drums, and this time around some buzzing sitar (or at least it sounds like a sitar), adding a woozy Eastern vibe to the otherwise sludge-y proceedings. This is a total druggy lumbering stoned slow motion doom groove drug jam, channeling Monster Magnet, Black Sabbath, SUNNO))) and especially some Electric Wizard. The second half gets pretty rocking, seriously upping the churning downtuned chug, and upping the tempo from plod to rocking plod! It's heavy for sure, but still lo-fi and murky and muddy and mysterious - and that sitar, playing the same melody over and over and over the whole track gives it a super hypnotic and trancelike vibe. So good.
The flipside belongs to the impossible to pronounce Quttinirpaaq who counter with their own chunk of ultra low doom exploration. Beginning all blissed out and space-y and krauty and new age-y, with swirling effects and soft synths all shimmering and glistening over deep sweels of muted feedback, the band easily slip into some serious dronedoomdirge, kicking out a thick wall of downtuned buzz that will have SUNNO))) fans frothing for sure, and then the drums kick in, and the band lock into an impossible slow, ultra doom jam, the drums not so much a rhythm as occasional accents to the crushing crunch of guitars, beneath the surface, headphones reveal all sorts of weirdness going on, strange sonic events, mysterious voices, all churning and roiling underneath the layers of buzz and that impossible slow drum plod, think Khanate, Habsyll, Bunkur, Moss, that sort of thing, but more spaced out and abstract. Killer stuff for sure, and a perfect match for the mighty Bong!
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!! Plain black sleeves with paste on red and black front cover.