BOTCH We Are The Romans (Hydra Head) cd 13.98
Weird and heavy metalcore in the tradition of Coalesce, Isis, Cave-In and other Hydrahead bands. Completely amazing. Maybe even better than the new Coalesce, just for the, uh, weirdness of some of this.

BOTTOM Feels So Good When You're Gone... (Man's Ruin / Clearspot) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The hard-rocking midwestern all-female, uh, hard rock outfit Bottom steps up with debut cd release on Man's Ruin. Heavy, with elements of '90s noise/grunge rock and '70s style swagger. Kinda aggro.

BOTULISTUM Pestilential Terror (Target:Earth) cd 14.98
There's all sorts of metal. Death metal, speed metal, doom metal, power metal, thrash metal, grind metal, tech metal, umm... emo metal, grunge metal, peat metal. Woah! Hold on there. What the fuck is 'peat metal'? Well to be honest, we're not entirely sure. But very much like the 'brown metal' of Lugubrum, there is only one true practitioner of the mysterious black art of 'peat metal' and that would be the strangely named Dutch black metal outfit Botulistum. And while 'peat metal' seems to be some strange subset of black metal, it definitely falls squarely into that batch of black metal we often describe as damaged, demented, bizarre, freaked out, fucked up, definite 'outsider'. You know, Dead Reptile Shrine, Benighted Leams, Furze, Rehtaf Ruo, Spektr, Urfaust and all their black brethren. Strangely enough, one of the fellas in Botulistum also does time in aQ faves Urfaust and he and his partner are also in bizarre black metal outfit Fluisterwoud. And it sounds like it. This re-release features one live 30 minute track recorded at their last show in Belgium in 2004 and originally released as a super limited (to 200) edition and also includes a bonus track called "Mergzuigende Veenpulker", from Acts Of Excrement TerrorismŠOn The Holy Trinity a split with more of their black metal countrymen, Domini Inferni. The sound is definitely black, but it's so murky and psychedelic and confusional, it almost sounds like a black metal Butthole Surfers. Processed vocals, howls and grunts and squeals and shrieks, echo and careen wildly from speaker to speaker, weird riffs, angular and jagged, everything drenched in reverb and room sound, the drums a tribal splatter, the sound of the crowd almost as loud as the band. It's like if Abruptum were from Texas and smoked tons of weed. Or maybe it's actually peat these guys are smoking. The bonus track is like the live track only a little more structured, a huge slab of druggy delirium minus the crowd sounds and with the addition of a ridiculous drum machine, the snares programmed so fast it almost sounds like a mosquito buzzing, but still a glorious blackened sludgy swirl of fucked up guitars and bizarre vocals. This is truly some seriously noisy and fucked up drugged out weirdness. As much for black metalheads as it is for folks into the the Butthole Surfers, Scratch Acid, Violent Students, and other sludgy drug drenched mayhem. Awesome.
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"

BOULDER Ravage & Savage (Tee Pee) cd 15.98
Ohio metal/punk combo, busy making the devil-sign with their hands held high, however with their tongues firmly in their cheeks... But while the vocals betray their punk lineage, the riffs and licks are truly the devil's music. Hot rockin' Flying V worship, that should go down well with fans of Motorhead, Drunkhorse, Lost Goat...in fact, this kicks the ass of The Hellacopters and their ilk, 'cause of the metal element here, however silly it might be. Includes their earlier vinyl-only "The Rage Of It All" lp as bonus tracks. Smart people making dumb metal sometimes doesn't work out so well, but we like this despite the irony.

BOULDER Reaped In Half (Tee Pee) cd 14.98
Ohio punk rockers turned metalheads shed more of their punk rock skin and emerge a bright and bloody hard rockin' butterfly! Hard to tell if this is 'irony rock' or not, but it hardly matters. This is high kicking, devil sign, Budweiser tallboys, T-top camaros, 7-11 parking lot, ass kicking, drug gulping, friday night party metallic rock and roll. Think Hellacopters, Drunk Horse, Grand Funk Railroad, Motorhead and this time around: AC/DC, with the simple stomping 4/4 rhythms and the snake-y noodly riffs. Meathead metal 'n' roll that's mindless and fun as hell!!
RealAudio clip: "Krank It Up"
RealAudio clip: "Live Or Dead"
RealAudio clip: "Ripped In Half"

BOYJAZZ In The City Tonight (Frenetic) cd 13.98
Yep, that's a dumb name. Yep, that's a drum machine. Yep, Boyjazz actually DO kick ass. Seriously, ya wanna rock? We've got a band for you here! They're called, uh, Boyjazz. Ignore their dumb name and enjoy their dumb rawk. This'll give you a buzz quicker than quaffing a six pack of Pabst. Boyjazz are a duo, consisting of Sexmouth and Supertouch (Adam and Aaron to their moms). Sexmouth sings and plays guitar and bass. Supertouch handles the production and the drum programming (although live, oddly enough, he plays real drums, but prefers to program them on record, which actually sounds great). The deal here is fuzzed out, distorted ROCK. Metal, punk, stoner, cock-rock. Simple, catchy riffage with a definite glam vibe (both '70s and '80s varieties of glam). The likes of Grand Funk, T-Rex, Sabbath, Kiss, Crue, are all no doubt influences, and we'd say that this oughta appeal to fans of The Darkness, Drunkhorse, and Andrew W.K. Not only does Sexmouth manage to actually pull off the rawk vocalisms required, he writes lotsa great clever/dumb lyrics. Sample song titles: "You + Me = Fight" and "Tuff Luv". One song, "Swedish Dates", is all about how they're gonna go over and tour Scandinavia and show the Hives & co. a thing or two. Might even be a true story someday. With very few of the dozen songs on this disc even reaching the three minute mark, you know they're all about dealing out the short, sweet, swift ass-kicking your rock needs require. F'n recommended, for when you're in the mood to hear a singer yelling "yeah!" and "all right!"
MPEG Stream: "Potfinger"
MPEG Stream: "Stank On The Halo"

BOZART The Steel Bridge cd 9.98
This new mini-album's got 24 more minutes of mathematical musicality from the Minneapolis/Portland based Bozart. They're just a duo of guitar and drums, playing post rock instrumentals that sometimes totally remind us of AQ-faves The Fucking Champs, though this has got lotsa quiet parts, really chop-sy *and* beautiful, and is really not so metallic throughout as those Champs fucking are. Nor are Bozart as noisy and hectic and "extreme" as some other bands you might equate them with, formula-wise, like Lightning Bolt and Crom Tech/Orthrelm. No, if those bands are Slayer these guys are Opeth. The tracks on "The Steel Bridge" almost seem to alternate between the pretty proggy ones and the epic, heavier metal compositions. There's spacey psych shoegazer stuff, sometimes repetitive like Circle doing a guitar clinic. But then there's also total epic Champsiness as well. And let's not forget the all-guitar, no drums tour de force of track two. Metal that's not so evil, these men cry real tears. This third Bozart release is a fine one.
MPEG Stream: "Pucker Up"
MPEG Stream: "Frost"
MPEG Stream: "Damaging Winds"

BRAIN DONOR Drain'd Boner (Invada) cd 14.98
Good grief, "Drain'd Boner" would be a stupid title, of course, if it wasn't so brilliant, in this case. That clever play on words heralds the return of the Julian "Druid dude" Cope's heavier-than-thou, super-Stoogey "stupor groop" Brain Donor, also featuring members of Spiritualized releasing their inner cock rock axe demons. The resultant splooge comes close to Mainliner, High Rise, Acid Mothers Temple territory, especially on track two, the ten minute "Nagasaki Mushroom" which is a suitably apocalyptic, head nodding heavy guitar grind... meanwhile other tracks like the more uptempo "Where Do We Take U?" (some sort of Hawkwind meets UK post punk ditty) demonstrate the English origins of these pagan rockers. Definitely lots to love here for fans of drunken, droning punk-metal psychedelic sludge! Kinda like Vincent Black Shadow playing the SUNNO))) songbook. Nicely packaged, as well, in a slipcased jewelcase.
MPEG Stream: "Nagasaki Mushroom"
MPEG Stream: "Just About Now"
MPEG Stream: "Metsamor (First Place Of Metal)"

BRAIN DONOR Drain'd Boner (Invada) lp 26.00
Good grief, "Drain'd Boner" would be a stupid title, of course, if it wasn't so brilliant, in this case. That clever play on words heralds the return of the Julian "Druid dude" Cope's heavier-than-thou, super-Stoogey "stupor groop" Brain Donor, also featuring members of Spiritualized releasing their inner cock rock axe demons. The resultant splooge comes close to Mainliner, High Rise, Acid Mothers Temple territory, especially on track two, the ten minute "Nagasaki Mushroom" which is a suitably apocalyptic, head nodding heavy guitar grind... meanwhile other tracks like the more uptempo "Where Do We Take U?" (some sort of Hawkwind meets UK post punk ditty) demonstrate the English origins of these pagan rockers. Definitely lots to love here for fans of drunken, droning punk-metal psychedelic sludge! Kinda like Vincent Black Shadow playing the SUNNO))) songbook. Nicely packaged, as well, in a slipcased jewelcase.
MPEG Stream: "Nagasaki Mushroom"
MPEG Stream: "Just About Now"
MPEG Stream: "Metsamor (First Place Of Metal)"

BRAIN DONOR s/t (Mister E) cd 13.98
Stooges. That's not what these guys are, but it's who they'd like to be! As in Iggy and the. They wanna be your dog and do a damn good job of it. A couple years ago we reviewed an import album and single from this band, the "stuporgroup" brainchild of psych rawk aficionado Julian Cope (of The Teardrop Explodes, now equally well known for his expertise in such subjects as krautrock and megalithic Europe), featuring Cope plus collaborators Thighpaulsandra (of Coil) and some pseudononymous guys from Spiritualized (Doggen and Kevlar). This domestically released cd compiles the key tracks from Brain Donor's 2001 Love Peace & Fuck album (the one we listed) and their Too Freud To Rock'n'roll, Too Jung To Die album from 2003.
As we said before, they play propulsive, heavy Stooges-style punk rock (Iggyish vox, loads of distorted psychedelic/metal guitar skree), packing a lot of rock action into these tracks. Pure Detroit worship, done by guys who know what they're doing! With amps set to 11, titles like "My Pagan Ass" and the band done up in full glam regalia, it's hard to say this is more than dumb, good fun, but really that's enuff isn't it? Hopefully they'll follow up this release with a new album soon (supposedly being recorded here in San Francisco with members of Monoshock!)...otherwise we'll be left waiting for the next Mudhoney, or a Thee Hypnotics reunion, to get our Stoogey rock fix.
MPEG Stream: "My Pagan Ass"
MPEG Stream: "Shaman U.F.O."

BRAINBOMBS Stigma Of The Ripper / Street Cleaner (tUMULt) 7" 4.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Who would have thought that the joyous occasion of the first tUMULt 7" vinyl release would also bring such sadness and despair. But sadly it's true, the Brainbombs are no more. But thankfully, they've gone out with a bang. The bang being this grungy, scuzzy, pummelling 45 rpm, two song farewell kick in the face. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Sweden's Brainbombs, think prime Stooges, recorded in a smelly sweaty basement, on a boom box, amidst scattered porno mags, corpses, weapons and human excrement. While a whining vocalist spits up mysogynistic and misanthropic tales of hyper violence. Then add in the occasional bleat of a demented-jazz trumpet and some fucked up fuzzy blown-tweeter bass. So good. And these two tracks are some of the best Brianbombs material ever. The A side starts with a stuttery, super distorted beat before the sky collapses and you're buried in a pile of violently squirming barbed wire guitars, while a ghostly, sort-of-Eastern melody weaves surreptitiously through the melee. Track two trawls similarly dark territory, a 'Fun House'-ish dirge with a warbley trumpet melody desperately trying to keep from being sucked under by the muck and grime. While the Brainbombs may be dead, they have not entirely ruled out the possibility of more mayhem in the future. But for now, this is a suitably brutal and brilliant epitaph. On thick white vinyl. And we mean THICK. Maybe the thickest vinyl we've ever seen!! Seriously, it's like a ceramic salad plate or something!

BRAINBOMBS The Grinder / Mommy Said (Kenroc) 7" 4.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Holy fuck! The return of the Brainbombs! We thought they were dead and gone, but thank the gods of misanthropic sludge, these Swedish masters of the vile, ultra-violent, vicious, grungy garage-sludge-jazz dirge have returned. Two short blasts of Stooges-ish fuzzed out and filthy garage rock, filtered through the misanthropic lyrical lens of Whitehouse and the sludgy sieve of the Melvins. Or something like that. Who cares? You know the Brainbombs rule and you know you need this record and you know we should be on our knees begging for mercy at the feet of one of the best bands ever!

BRIMSTONE Carving A Crimson Career (Nuclear Blast) cd 14.98
Digipak. Brimstone play melodic, Hammerfall-style metal with raspy black metal-style vocals.

BROBDINGNAGIAN TortureStainedDisaster (Rusty Axe) cd ep 5.98
By now, most metalheads know all bout Encyclopedia Metallum, pretty much the ultimate online resource for all things metal. Need to know what member of some band is in another band, what year some demo was released, what a band's particular lyrical themes are, it really is pretty amazing. Like a heavy metal Wikipedia. But unlike Wikipedia, bands and entries have to be approved by the moderators before they make it onto Encyclopedia Metallum, and there are some rules. Which ends up producing some pretty heated and amusing flame wars, mostly by bands who were rejected for one reason or another, usually for not being metal enough!
We stumbled on one such exchange regarding this record right here, but the strangely named Brobdingnagian. Who according to the Metallum head honchos were just not metal enough. Too noisy, too droney, to be honest, it all seems a bit arbitrary, cuz to our ears, this is pretty fucking black, and pretty goddamn heavy, and most definitely metal.
That said, much of this ep is pent not blasting or buzzing, but droning, and rumbling, and crashing industrially, which as far as we're concerned is pretty excellent. Think Abruptum, Emit, that sort of thing, but injected with the occasional blast of furiously blasting blackness. The opening track begins with soft sheets of feedback, rumbling downtuned doom guitar, mysterious voices buried in the mix, the feedback creating truly creepy textures over the lumbering plod, before the band launch into a frenzied blown out super raw black metal freakout, buzzing guitars, harsh vox, blasting drums, eventually petering out leaving another long stretch of deep droning ambience. The second track is way more abstract, and a bit industrial, a harsher Wolf Eyes, tons of feedback and high end buzzing, a crunchy machine like rhythm, that sounds like trucks being dropped from a crane, clouds of hiss and glitch, almost like a lo-fi noise rock Khanate. The title track offers up another sprawling expanse of doomy minimalism, buried beneath a sea of glistening crackles and campfire buzz, thick corrosive rumbles, and more harsh hellish vocals, until the track stumbles back into another raw blast of super primitive black metal fury, and the closer is almost all lasting buzz, off kilter and freaked out, heavy and black, and be sure to stick around for the hidden bonus track, where the band take on a cover that should for sure prove their metal meddle.
MPEG Stream: "Smeared Face In The Ruins"
MPEG Stream: "Harvester Of Disease"

BROCAS HELM Black Death (Eat Metal Records) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Man, is it just me (Allan) or is Brocas Helm the best band ever?? Don't answer that...I know the answer. They are. If true old school cult fantasy heavy metal rock and roll is your thing, you might even agree. We listed the reish of their 1984 debut Into Battle last list, now here's further proof of their mastery (or my insanity), 1347's, no, I mean, 1988's Black Death! It's been on cd before, but this new reissue is a superior version, adding five bonus tracks from their 1989 demo Helm's Deep and also a bonus mpeg video clip of "Prepare For Battle" being played live with (extra guitar craziness) at an unspecified date in the early '80s.
They've been described as "Iron Maiden on acid" (by Martin Popoff) and that's a good call. Especially on this album, wherein Brocas Helm's mighty medieval metal is cloaked in a miasma of spaced-out psychedelic effects, a claustrophobic production courtesy of their own home studio "The Caverns Of Doom". Brocas Helm's frantic yet majestic songs claw through the mists, guitarist/vocalist Bobbie Wright's over the top guitar shred and faux-British enunciation always triumphant, forevermore...
I'm serious. Maybe you have to see 'em to really understand. But they one of the best metal bands ever. If you don't believe me, just ask the guys in Slough Feg. Ok, maybe they're biased, since if they'd started 15 years before they did they'd BE Brocas Helm... but Brocas are gods. That is my faith, and Black Death a holy relic.
MPEG Stream: " Black Death"
MPEG Stream: "The Chemist"

BROCAS HELM Blood Machine / Skullfucker (Gargoyle) 7" 4.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
At long last, two new tracks on wax from these San Francisco metal legends! If you're into '80s metal, you need to know about Brocas Helm. Their first album came out in '84, their second in '88, and we're still waiting for their third! But, despite their glacially slow pace of releases, this new single now exists. Melodic, rough edged vocals, lots and lots of guitar, bass and drums, killing riffs and utter old school rock and roll heavy metal attitude; think Iron Maiden, Thin Lizzy, Riot, and Bay Area thrash, all twisted into Brocas Helm's unique fantasy metal concoction. Perhaps only to the taste of the discerning few, but if you're one of them, be proud. I am. BROCAS HELM RULES!! Fans of Slough Feg and Manilla Road, in particular, should pick this up. Limited to a 1000 and going fast (yeah, that seems absurd, but really: it came out last month and they've already sold through half of them, to die-hard metal fans and collectors around the world). Clear red vinyl.

BROCAS HELM Defender Of The Crown (self-released) cd 11.98
You'd half-expect to have to venture to a far off foreign land and besige the walls of a lofty, mist-enshrouded castle in order to obtain metal this "true", but the legendary Brocas Helm hail from here in San Francisco and bring these discs straight to us. It did, however, take them SIXTEEN years to release this, their third album, the long awaited follow-up to 1988's Black Death! That's right. And the wait was indeed worth it, for fans like myself anyway. After all, it's got some of my (Allan's) favorite metal songs *ever* on it, like "Time Of The Dark"! A simply classic galloping metal steed, of which there's a whole herd here. If you're lucky enough to live in SF and smart enough to go see these guys, you'll already be familiar with some of the songs on this disc (like that aforementioned favorite) -- likewise if you're a fan who possesses their last two rare 7" singles or decade-old demo tape. But there's also stuff here too I'd never heard before, all living up to the Brocas Helm standard of questing metal might. Although recorded, as always, in their home studio the Caverns of Thunder, this IS certainly their best sounding release...but being polished and tight and up-to-date is not what these guys are about anyway. They're on their own planet, where '80s metal reigns supreme but someone put drugs in the drinking water.
Speaking of drinking, there's two songs about drinking on here: one's a not very PC, hopefully tongue-in-cheek tune called "Drink and Drive" (one of the lyrics goes: "Drink and drive/drink and drive/got mothers against me/but I'm still alive"). The other is a grandiose metal statement entitled "Drink The Blood Of The Priest"! Silly and/or Satanic, sure, but damn I like 'em. Anyway that should give you an idea of the sort of punkish eccentricity the Brocas Helm troops muster. I probably can't really convey how good these guys are, and how metal...they have years of experience, unconquerable enthusiasm, and basically just know how the heck to ROCK.
This was self-released for reasons known only to the band, as there were no dearth of dedicated cult metal labels in Greece and Germany who'd have loved to put this out...no matter, though the self-release does LOOK self-released too, which perhaps gives it more of an appropriately '80s underground vibe anyway. Y'know, old Manowar, Cirith Ungol, Omen, Manilla Road. So as you might guess, this is probably ESSENTIAL for any fan of The Lord Weird Slough Feg. By some cosmic coincidence, they just happen to live in the same city, and had a lot of the same influences...and are equally insane. Really it's absurd how alike they sound (and though they're fans of one another, they both already sounded the way they did long before having a metal rendezvous here in SF). So any 'Feg fan ought to get this for sure. And here's hoping that we won't have to wait another 16 years for more from these guys (I might be too old for this by then!)...
MPEG Stream: "Ghost Story"
MPEG Stream: "Defender Of The Crown"
MPEG Stream: "Time Of The Dark"

BROCAS HELM Into Battle (Eat Metal Records) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
YES! It's about time this was reissued! A cult metal fave, this debut record from San Francisco underground true metal masters Brocas Helm was originally released on LP by a label called First Strike back in 1984. The only cd edition of this was released in Germany long, long ago and is just as tough to find as the vinyl itself, not to mention that it was a budget release without even a track listing in the cd booklet, just a catalog of other cd reissues by various '80s contemporaries of Brocas Helm like Iron Angel, Trouble, Leatherwolf, Tokyo Blade, and Wendy O. Williams! Now, more than 20 years after its first appearance, here's a much more reverently presented cd reissue complete with five bonus tracks (from their 1983 Into Battle demo) and, better yet, a bonus live mpeg video of the band (with 2 guitar lineup) performing Allan's favorite Brocas Helm track, "Ravenwreck", live at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco in '83, in front of a crowd of raging 'bangers. About the only thing to complain about this reissue is that for some dumb reason they've put some new and not so great cover art on the front, with the album's original (and to be fair, also not so great) art only included inside the booklet, thumbnail sized...why??
But that hardly matters, what's important is that now a new generation of metal fans can hear why this band is mentioned alongside the legendary likes of Cirith Ungol and Manilla Road (if you're wondering who those bands are, well, just think Iron Maiden but way more obscure).
Into Battle is a proud and powerful album of hyperkinetic epicks. It's fantasy metal that pounds beers and gobbles acid and loves to rock and roll, weaving in psychedelic elements as well. The songs are about wizards and warriors, but also with lyrics actually about guitars and amplifiers too! Definitely inspired by the NWOBHM and also '70s hard rock like Thin Lizzy, Van Halen, and Riot, Brocas Helm's debut might have catapulted them to commerical success in the '80s metal world if only more people had ever heard it... though the San Francisco Bay Area was a hotbed of metal activity, with Metallica, Exodus, Testament, and many others breaking big, Brocas was perhaps just too eccentric and medieval to make it. Fortunately they never gave up, so the brave and bold can STILL go see these guys play and slay here in San Francisco now and then. They've released two other albums since Into Battle, those being 1988's Black Death (also just reissued on Eat Metal, to be reviewed here next list) and after a sixteen year wait, 2004's Defender Of The Crown! All are brilliant, with Into Battle being both essential for fans and the obvious place to start if you're new to the band. With their galloping tunes, heroic vocals and guitar shred, Brocas Helm are metal incarnate. If you like their spiritual brothers (nephews?) Slough Feg, you'll like Brocas Helm!!
MPEG Stream: "Ravenwreck"
MPEG Stream: "Into The Ithilstone"

BROCAS HELM Into Battle (Eat Metal Records) picture disc 15.98
Now on picture disc vinyl!!
YES! It's about time this was reissued! A cult metal fave, this debut record from San Francisco underground true metal masters Brocas Helm was originally released on LP by a label called First Strike back in 1984. New generation of metal fans can hear why this band is mentioned alongside the legendary likes of Cirith Ungol and Manilla Road (if you're wondering who those bands are, well, just think Iron Maiden but way more obscure).
Into Battle is a proud and powerful album of hyperkinetic epicks. It's fantasy metal that pounds beers and gobbles acid and loves to rock and roll, weaving in psychedelic elements as well. The songs are about wizards and warriors, but also with lyrics actually about guitars and amplifiers too! Definitely inspired by the NWOBHM and also '70s hard rock like Thin Lizzy, Van Halen, and Riot, Brocas Helm's debut might have catapulted them to commerical success in the '80s metal world if only more people had ever heard it... though the San Francisco Bay Area was a hotbed of metal activity, with Metallica, Exodus, Testament, and many others breaking big, Brocas was perhaps just too eccentric and medieval to make it. Fortunately they never gave up, so the brave and bold can STILL go see these guys play and slay here in San Francisco now and then. They've released two other albums since Into Battle, those being 1988's Black Death and after a sixteen year wait, 2004's Defender Of The Crown! All are brilliant, with Into Battle being both essential for fans and the obvious place to start if you're new to the band. With their galloping tunes, heroic vocals and guitar shred, Brocas Helm are metal incarnate. If you like their spiritual brothers (nephews?) Slough Feg, you'll like Brocas Helm!!
MPEG Stream: "Ravenwreck"
MPEG Stream: "Into The Ithilstone"

BROKEN PROMISES Dying Before The First Step (Good Life) cd 14.98
This is one of the coolest, weirdest takes on the metalcore sound we've heard. Broken Promises are from Belgium, and their sound is equal parts full on metalcore mayhem, and dynamic restraint (read: space). The first song is epic, with a repeating, muted guitar chug, that goes on way longer than you would possibly expect, straining to explode, but kept on a tight, repetitive (almost droning) leash, with plenty of space and only the occasional full band blast. Like a stripped down, deconstructed black metal band, whose songs slowly build into crushing riffs backed by relentless, martial rhythms. We imagine that Broken Promises is really into that one part from Metallica's song 'One' (the 'I can not see, I can not hear...' part with the staccato machine-gun-like double kick), 'cause this is like they've turned that into a whole record, where the band lurches, and stops, lurches, and stops. An endless array of insane dynamics and starts and stops, but spread out to give each instrument almost too much room to breathe. Really great.
RealAudio clip: "Preparation: The Ultimate Drug"
RealAudio clip: "Self-Destruction: The Reason I Hit Myself"

BRONSON Waste Creeps (No Dice) cd-r 7.98
We sold out of these right quick, which was a surprise considering how we got them in the first place (see below), but we finally managed to get a handful back in, so if you missed out on it the first time around, you get one more chance, CREEP!
We got this crazy message via email one day:
"I am one of Paul Kersey's neighbor's kids. He told my dad to let him come over and jam with us from time to time. Last night we made some more songs. He scared us some, because he said now was the time to have the songs listened to. So then we recorded all our songs on to my computer. Please play them in the record store. Mr. Kersey said for me to find out where the songs can be played to creeps."
So of course we emailed and said "Right here!". Plenty of creeps here who want to hear some crazy rock noise from a band called Bronson, or maybe Bronson Wastes Creeps, we're not sure. So the discs showed up, and feature a picture of Charles Bronson on the cover pointing a gun at the camera, but the barrel of the gun is a microphone. And the songs are called things like "What Do You Do When Your Son Is A Creep", "Punk Rock Creeps", "Streets Without Creeps", you get it.
For those who don't know, Paul Kersey is the character Bronson plays in Death Wish, and thus, the sound of Bronson (Wastes Creeps), is a sort of filthy punky Stooges-y jam, chaotic stumbling drumming, guitars wrapped in distortion and phaser, chunky riffing, sort of a not as intense Brainbombs maybe, a bit of space rock, but over the top of those jams, Paul Kersey spits a stream of obscenities, an endless monologue about various weird shit, even some atonal karaoke style singing. Some of the tracks are just Kersey blathering on and on over a field of random samples, lots of creep bashing, goofy and dumb, but just wacked enough that weirdo music freaks will go nuts for this. Definitely something you might here on WFMU at 3am, which obviously means recommended, but only for the sort of folks into weird goofy shit, and who are up listening to freeform radio in the middle of the night. You know who you are.
MPEG Stream: "Beaurocratic Rat Fuck"
MPEG Stream: "Streets Without Creeps"

BROWN JENKINS Angel Eyes (Moribund) cd 14.98
Second release from this mysterious one man black metal band from Texas. The debut Brown Jenkins record, Dagonite, was a bit of a sleeper hit around here. It took people a while to warm up the very unmetal name (although as we mentioned it is from a Lovecraft story) and the strange murky blurred sound. Not everybody though, the weirdo black metal obsessives here were all over Angel Eyes in a heartbeat. How could we not be, a black metal band that trafficked in a strange woozy ethereal murk, whose songs didn't buzz so much as ooze, the riffs slippery and slithery, the bliss out factor pretty high for something this grim and heavy.
We were a bit surprised to see a new record show up so hot on the heels of the first, but we're psyched. We had just about played that first one down to a little plastic nub. So here's record number two, and damn if the murk of the original doesn't sound a little bit buzzier this time around. But somehow even still, it manages to merge the murk of Dagonite with a more Burzumy buzz, and the result is another record that manages to sound both true, grim and black, but unlike almost any other black metal record you've heard.
The tempos are slow, midtempo bordering on doom. The sound is depressive and dark, minor key and miserable, the guitar parts are languorous and arpeggiated, the chords pulled apart into cascades of notes, each one wreathed in that strange murky buzz, the drums pound away, but they almost don't enter into the equation as they're so buried in the mix. The vocals a haunting howled wooly mammoth bellow bordering on death metal gurgle. When the tracks do speed up, they transform into some drone-y hypnotic post rock, the guitar parts blurred into near static streaks of fuzz, but they quickly slip back into some sort of plodding doomic trudge or mesmerizing slow motion lurch.
The sticker on the front of the cd compares Angel Eyes to a cross between Jesu and Bathory, while someone else says Hellhammer/Burzum crossed with Swans/Earth. And there are definitely elements of those matchups, we also hear some twisted blackened post rock a la Deathspell's Kenose, but none of that accounts for the twisted Ginn-ish riffs, the off kilter atonal melodies, that totally unique buzzy murk, to us it sounds more like Morbid Angel, played at 16 rpm, broadcast through busted 1000 watt speakers, heard through a pair of earmuffs, but that's just the sonic element, the songs too are pretty unique, and those DO sound pretty Swans-y, from seasick sway to relentless pound, to lugubrious crawl, stopping, starting, speeding up, slowing down, each track some sort of blown out, extended riffdrone post punk, black metal doom jam, and once again we can't get enough.
MPEG Stream: "Black Procession"
MPEG Stream: "Angel Eyes"

BROWN JENKINS Dagonite (Moribund) cd 15.98
Brown Jenkins sounds like a pretty unlikely name for a black metal band, until you realize it's from an HP Lovecraft story. And the cover is sort of an unlikely image for a black metal record as well, just two hands playing a guitar, against a field of black. But then Dagonite is a very unlikely sounding black metal record.
This one man band from Texas, manages to weave an incredibly drone-y doomy black web, no furious buzzing or relentless blasting. Instead, it's murky and woozy, warbly and dissonant, heavy on the drone and the atmosphere, there are barely any vocals and when they do surface, they are more moans and howls than actual vocals, just another layer of blacknoise. The tempos go from mid, to total doom, but are more complicated than normal, with a bit of mathiness to them, a definite post rock vibe, sometimes the black fog dissipates, allowing the riffs to lock in and actually sort of groove, but even then, it's weirdly haunting and ominous, and not really rocking, more sort of lurching and seasick.
Sometimes Brown Jenkins sounds like Velvet Cacoon slowed waaaay down, at other times they sound like a damaged druggy Ved Buens Ende, lots of loping arpeggiated melodies, and woozy riffage, but even when they're referencing other bands, they sound totally unique, a weird dark, drugged out fucked up black heaviness, as creepy and atmospheric as it is pummeling and relentless. Some sort of blackened slowcore, or post-doom blackness, fuck, who knows what to call it, but whatever it is, it's awesome. One of our favorite black metal (or whatever) records of last year (yeah, we're just getting around to reviewing it now) which will totally whet your appetite for their new record, which should be coming out soon! Can't wait.
MPEG Stream: "Blessed"
MPEG Stream: "Dagonite"

BROWN JENKINS Welcome The Bitterness (God Is Myth) 3"cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest entry in God Is Myth's ongoing series of 3"cd-r homages to horror author H.P. Lovecraft, and this one was really a no-brainer, inevitable considering the mysteriously monickered Brown Jenkins in fact took his name from a Lovecraft story (as did about a million other bands, but Brown Jenkins is one of the stranger ones) and whose music is obviously influenced by Lovecraft's writing. And according to the liner notes, Brown Jenkins is also influenced by Joy Division, Burzum, Bethlehem, Voivod, Godflesh, Possessed, Morbid Angel, Slayer, Merzbow, Gang Of Four, etc. Sounds like our kind of metal band. And BJ is in fact our kind of metal band, as we've gone on and on about in past reviews of Brown Jenkins full lengths, all of those disparate influences wound into a dark and gloomy blackened metal, that hardly adheres to the strict tenets of BM, instead, stretching them to their limits, incorporating blissed out drones, odd off kilter chords, strange melodies, as well as shades of pop, new wave and goth, but all wound into something distinctly, if not traditionally, BLACK METAL.
So here, Umesh, aka Brown Jenkins, gets to honor the man who plays such an important part in his music.
The sounds here are not particularly Lovecraftian, the lyrics are though, the music itself is twisted and angular, obtuse chords, mid tempos, the guitar not so much buzzing as thick and layered with lots of finger picking, melodies and chords shifting, more loping than blasting, the Voivod influence is especially prevalent here, tightly wound, almost new wavish at points but more sort of dark and moody, washed out, black metal for sure, but more mathy than buzzy. The closing track sounds like a black metal Codeine, a moping slowcore wrapped in jagged shards of black metal guitar, a descending melody, melancholy and minor key, before slipping into something more propulsive but no less 'downer'.
Like the full lengths, this is challenging off kilter stuff, especially for the grim black hordes, but it's most certainly buzzy and black enough to push all those black metal buttons, while remaining melodic and moody enough to fit on that mixtape right between Codeine and Seam.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES. Already sold out and out of print. We got only TWENTY, we tried to get more, but that's all they would let us have, and like past installments these for sure disappear quick. Packaged in a normal slimline cd case, with black and white covers, liner notes and lyrics, and a sepia printed cardstock insert with a photo and a brief biography of Lovecraft.
MPEG Stream: "Broken "
MPEG Stream: "Second Silence"

BRUJERIA Brujerizmo (Roadrunner) cd 15.98
Mexican drug-lords playing metal? Ok, nobody believes that anymore. But will you believe that there's members of Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir on here? Well, apparently that's drummer Nick Barker. Anyhow, the mysterious metal might-be-Mexican supergroup known as Brujeria have a new record.

BRUJERIA Mextremist Hits (Kool Arrow) cd 16.98
Greatest hits record from the only metal band made up of Mexican drug lords on the run. Or not. This band of extreme metal bandits may or may not contain members of Faith No More, Fear Factory, Cradle of Filth, and Dimmu Borgir. But they most definitely spit out some of the vilest, heaviest splatter metal this side of the border. Noisy, heavy, sloppy and mean. You like this record. Trust us. You don't want to end up like the dude on the cover. Includes a different mix of their deadly serious 'Marijuana' (played to the tune of the Macarena!)
RealAudio clip: "Machetazos"
RealAudio clip: "Brujo Cirujano"
RealAudio clip: "Marijuana"

BRUJERIA Raza Odianda (Roadrunner) cd 15.98

BRUTAL TRUTH Goodbye Cruel World! (Relapse) 2cd 14.98
How a band perpetually stoned, can be this fast and chaotic and tight is anyone's guess. Brutal Truth were probably the most brutal and creative metal/grind band ever. Recording tons of split 7's and 10's and several full lengths, ranging from not-produced-at-all lo-fi hardcore to mega-produced monstrous grinding metal. After a somewhat amicable breakup, this posthumous collection is their last release: 56 tracks, mostly live (which is where they really shined) plus a bunch of covers (Boredoms, Sabbath, Sun Ra). Blindingly fast, skull-crushingly heavy. Too bad they're gone.

BRUTAL TRUTH Sounds Of The Animal Kingdom (Relapse) cd 13.98
NYC grindcore kings newest full-length. Features a Sun Ra cover (!) plus 20 so more blasts of metallic mayhem.

BUCKET FULL OF TEETH IV (Level-Plane) cd 13.98

BUFFALO Average Rock n' Roller (Aztec) cd 21.00

BUFFALO Dead Forever (Aztec Music) cd 24.00
Some of the AQ shoppin' stoner rock contingent certainly know Buffalo, an honest to gosh band of Australian proto-metal pioneers from the early '70s. 'Specially since we JUST last list raved about the Aztec label's newfangled reissues (digipacks, remastered, bonus tracks) of two of their other more Monster Magnet than Monster Magnet ever wuz albums, Volcanic Rock ('73) and Want You For Your Body ('74). As promised then, we also got this, the Aztec reissue of their prematurely tired-of-living debut from 1972, which you're also gonna want! Dead Forever (nice title, they had a knack for that) was originally released on Vertigo, and at the time Buffalo were probably tipped as an Aussie version of Vertigo best sellers Black Sabbath. Close, no cigar, but what they're smoking has its charms anyhoo. This album's a graveyard of grinding dirgey yeah-yeah-yeah rockers, the kind that demand (as the back cover literally does) you to "play this LOUD". You've got to 'cause this band's lurching riffs and electric psychedelic blues bashings need all the help they can get since producers back then didn't yet know exactly what real metal required (though this remastered edition is sounding heavier than the one we'd heard before). True, this has a few quiet, balladic numbers on it (not bad ones either) but will be 'specially valued for trudging lead-foot boogie blooze proto-DOOM like you get with the album-closing title track coffin-nail-hammerer, or their cover of Free's "I'm A Mover". For folks who also dig the similarly lost and wasted, stoned guitars and wailing vocals of such acts as Captain Beyond, Randy Holden, Juan de la Cruz, Toad, Leafhound, and Sir Lord Baltimore.
This reish has five bonus tracks, two from pre-Buffalo band Head's 1971 7" single, and three other non-album singles tracks from Buffalo circa '72, including a cover of Chuck Berry's "No Particular Place To Go".
MPEG Stream: "Leader"
MPEG Stream: "Pay My Dues"

BUFFALO Karma (Dias De Garage) cd 12.98
First off, this is the current, stoner rock Buffalo from Argentina, not the '70s stoner rock Buffalo from Australia. We reviewed this Buffalo's Temporada de Huracanes album a couple years ago, and also their more recent split with Astroqueen. Now they're back with an equally rockin', and equally Kyuss-y / Queens Of The Stone Age-y follow up. Yep, they might owe ol' Josh Homme a royalty check or two, but you can't fault 'em for doing what they do, really damn well. They've got big fuzzy guitars and big, desert rock melodies, that's for sure. Lots of moody / heavy dynamics. If you like their countrymen Los Natas, you should definitely give these guys a listen too. Imported on the slow boat from Argentina, so you gotta be patient if we run out...
MPEG Stream: "Una Casa"
MPEG Stream: "Karma"

BUFFALO Mother's Choice (Aztec) cd 21.00

BUFFALO Only Want You For Your Body (Aztec Music) cd 21.00
We LOVE this band. You should love this band. How can you not, that is if you're lookin' for some proto-metal, psychedelic stoner '70s rawk action?? Buffalo is 100 percent the Real Deal. These Aussie rockers were basically what Monster Magnet (and all the other bands in the modern "stoner rock" scene) would have liked to be, doing it first and best back in the day. Once upon a time, we used to stock a 2-on-1 reissue of Buffalo's Volcanic Rock and Want You For Your Body albums (from '73 and '74, respectively) but that's been out of print for ages now. So we're super thrilled that the Aztec label from Down Under has brought Buffalo back into circulation, as part of a '70s reissue campaign featuring a bunch of other Aussie acts we're eager to check out, like Coloured Balls (reviews pending). Both of these Buffalo discs are authentically heavy '70s cock-rock from the band we've judged to be Australia's answer to, if not Black Sabbath, at least Grand Funk... no, better n' heavier than that. Sir Lord Baltimore, for sure. Did we say cock-rock? Hell, there's even a penis on the cover of Volcanic Rock! The lyrics are of the sort that amusingly confuse being sexist with being sexy (a la Spinal Tap), as in Want You's lead off track "I'm A Skirt Lifter, Not A Shirt Raiser", and they're delivered with much gusto and backed by some powerful guitar riffing that blows those stoner rock bands of today out of the (bong)water.
Volcanic Rock is unstoppable, definitely an aptly titled album. Music for rolling Mad Max style on the highways across the Australian outback. Bonus tracks include the single versions of crucial cuts "Sunrise (Come My Way)" and "Shylock". Want You For You Body is equally awesome, and features the powerful "Dune Messiah". Killer vocals on that one and you can't get much more '70s than a song about Frank Herbert's popular sci-fi classic, short of writing songs about Tolkien! Bonus tracks include a live version of "United Nations". And the fact that you can't get both albums on one disc anymore is made up for by the presence of the aforementioned bonus tracks on each cd, digital remastering, thick booklets, and generally nice presentation in digipacks.
So if you're a patron of our "proto-metal" section, into Blue Cheer and Bang and Leaf Hound and the like, you've gotta get Buffalo!!! Same deal if you're a fan of Kyuss, Monster Magnet, Heavy Rocks style Boris, etc... Highly recommended.
[Also available, is the Aztec reish of Buffalo's debut Dead Forever, which we'll list next time!]
MPEG Stream: "I'm Coming On"
MPEG Stream: "Dune Messiah"

BUFFALO Temporada de Huracanes (Dias De Garage) cd 12.98
Another recent release from the same Argentinian stoner rock label that brought us that weird-ass Dragonauta album we highlighted on our last list. If the Dragonauta is somewhat akin to the more "progressive" direction taken by their fellow countrymen Los Natas on recent albums, then Buffalo hews closer to early Los Natas -- that is, they are heavily into the "desert rock" cult of Kyuss. Catchy, heavy, groovy stuff with some definite Josh Homme worship in the guitar dep't. But Kyuss isn't their only influence, as the first track "Gracias" makes clear -- it's a recording of someone fumbling with a cassette deck, playing snippets of classics by everyone from Sabbath to ZZ Top to the Misfits. But Buffalo come closer to Kyuss -- or actually, Homme's even more successful, post-Kyuss outfit Queens Of The Stone Age -- than anything else. And they're damn good too. Whatever they lack in originality they make up for in energy and attitude and musical talent. Not to mention that taking after QOTSA requires some measure of eccentricity -- spacey prog keyboards, musique concrete elements, and acoustic folk jams do get incorporated into their stoner rock ass-kickery as well. Good stuff! Includes live video Quicktime clips as well.
NB. not to be confused with the '70s Australian band Buffalo, though I'm surprised these guys weren't aware of those far-off forerunners to their sound.
MPEG Stream: "Rio Arriba"
MPEG Stream: "Pescando En La Marea"

BUFFALO Volcanic Rock (Aztec Music) cd 21.00
We LOVE this band. You should love this band. How can you not, that is if you're lookin' for some proto-metal, psychedelic stoner '70s rawk action?? Buffalo is 100 percent the Real Deal. These Aussie rockers were basically what Monster Magnet (and all the other bands in the modern "stoner rock" scene) would have liked to be, doing it first and best back in the day. Once upon a time, we used to stock a 2-on-1 reissue of Buffalo's Volcanic Rock and Want You For Your Body albums (from '73 and '74, respectively) but that's been out of print for ages now. So we're super thrilled that the Aztec label from Down Under has brought Buffalo back into circulation, as part of a '70s reissue campaign featuring a bunch of other Aussie acts we're eager to check out, like Coloured Balls (reviews pending). Both of these Buffalo discs are authentically heavy '70s cock-rock from the band we've judged to be Australia's answer to, if not Black Sabbath, at least Grand Funk... no, better n' heavier than that. Sir Lord Baltimore, for sure. Did we say cock-rock? Hell, there's even a penis on the cover of Volcanic Rock! The lyrics are of the sort that amusingly confuse being sexist with being sexy (a la Spinal Tap), as in Want You's lead off track "I'm A Skirt Lifter, Not A Shirt Raiser", and they're delivered with much gusto and backed by some powerful guitar riffing that blows those stoner rock bands of today out of the (bong)water.
Volcanic Rock is unstoppable, definitely an aptly titled album. Music for rolling Mad Max style on the highways across the Australian outback. Bonus tracks include the single versions of crucial cuts "Sunrise (Come My Way)" and "Shylock". Want You For You Body is equally awesome, and features the powerful "Dune Messiah". Killer vocals on that one and you can't get much more '70s than a song about Frank Herbert's popular sci-fi classic, short of writing songs about Tolkien! Bonus tracks include a live version of "United Nations". And the fact that you can't get both albums on one disc anymore is made up for by the presence of the aforementioned bonus tracks on each cd, digital remastering, thick booklets, and generally nice presentation in digipacks.
So if you're a patron of our "proto-metal" section, into Blue Cheer and Bang and Leaf Hound and the like, you've gotta get Buffalo!!! Same deal if you're a fan of Kyuss, Monster Magnet, Heavy Rocks style Boris, etc... Highly recommended.
[Also available, is the Aztec reish of Buffalo's debut Dead Forever, which we'll list next time!]
MPEG Stream: "Shylock"
MPEG Stream: "Freedom"

BUFFALO Volcanic Rock/Want You For Your Body (Second Battle) cd 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Fans of the currently popular "stoner rock" contingent (Fu Manchu, Monster Magnet, Kyuss, that sort of thing) should definitely check out this 2-on-1 reissue of some authentic heavy '70s cock-rock, from Australia's answer to, if not Sabbath, at least Grand Funk...no, better than that. Did we say cock-rock? Hell, there's a penis on the cover. The lyrics are of the sort that confuse being sexist with being sexy, but are delivered with gusto and backed by some powerful riffing that could teach some 90's bands a thing or two for sure. If these dudes were around today, chances are they'd have a picture disc 10" out on Frank Kozik's Man's Ruin label...

BULL ANGUS s/t (Skyf Zol) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
'70s heavy rock from Poughkeepsie...rockin'.

BULLET Heading For The Top (Black Lodge) cd 15.98
We were thinking, there's got to be a bunch of aQ customers who got that last Pharaoh Overlord album, the 'NWOFHM' biker metal meets krautrock masterpiece Pharaoh Overlord #4, and not only really liked it (we know plenty of you did!) but also maybe weren't already into the METAL side of the Pharaoh Overlord #4 equation and then realized, "Hey, these metal riffs are pretty cool! I like this stuff!" And want to hear MORE. Now, we can't really come up with another album quite like PO#4 but what we can suggest is a honest-to-god metal record with riffage along those lines. Not all super-repetitive and hypnotically extended the way PO do it, but still simply, irresistably headbangin', and almost equally high-concept, obsessed with leather, spikes, sex, bikes, and metal itself. Check out a sampling of song titles: "Midnight Riders (Riding Free)", "Raise Hell", "Turn It Up Loud", and "Bang Your Head" (compare with the likes of "Ridin'" and "Demons In The Rising Sun" on PO#4).
We're thinkin' all this 'cause Heading For The Top, the debut album by Swedish metallers Bullet crossed our path right about the same time that PO#4 was in heavy rotation 'round here, and we were struck by certain similarities. Both bands are heavily influenced by '80s metal stalwarts AC/DC, Judas Priest, and Accept. In fact, the singer for Bullet's glass-gargling screech bears an uncanny resemblance to that of Accept's camo-clad frontman, Udo Dirkschneider. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. If you know who Udo is, we could just say, hey, Bullet have made a great, greasy living tribute to that brand of '80s earthdog party metal and leave it at that. Come get it, metallians! But that might not be the case with most of our customers, sad to say. So for this review, we're gonna continue working the Pharaoh Overlord angle. It's true, if you dug the riffs on PO#4 we probably don't need to tell you about the '80s metal bands you probably also should hear. But the band Bullet is doing this here (well, Sweden) and now, and unlike the classic metal bands mentioned above, could probably really use your cd-buying dollars for beer money -- and they deserve 'em just as much if not more than the Pharaoh Overlord dudes as far as delivering the goods metal-wise goes! As metal as PO#4 was, we wouldn't quite call it REAL metal. But Bullet sure is. Catchy, stripped down, ready to rumble rock n' roll METAL like it used to be. And if they sound 'too much' like AC/DC to you, well, so does AC/DC themselves every time out and that's still cool, so why not these guys too? Ok, enough. We just dug this album and are hoping a handful of you, PO fans or not, will dig it too. Just doing our heavy metal duty!
MPEG Stream: "Midnight Riders (Riding Free)"
MPEG Stream: "Rock Steady"

BUNKUR Bludgeon (Deserted Factory) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
FINALLY BACK IN STOCK!!
Here's what we had to say about this massive slab of hateful slow motion doom the first time around:
What is wrong with the world today? The sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, babies are coo-ing, breezes are blowing, waves are lapping, clouds are drifting happily across a bright blue sky, but all everybody wants to listen to is hateful evil grim brutal downtuned miserable soul crushing anguished slow motion funereal death drone ultra doom. Not that we're complaining, but it is curious. There's been recent renewed interest in slow motion metal masters Earth, as well as a growing obsession with self-admitted Earth worshippers Sunn 0))), the massive ambient-metal explorations of Japan's Corrupted, the stomping garage psych meets doom drone of the mighty Boris, and a constantly growing roster of similar sonic sickos: Esoteric, Khanate, Asva, Fleshpress, Dot [.], Marzuraan, Ox, Rigor Sardonicus, Sons Of Otis, UFOmammut, Skepticism, Whitehorse, Planet Aids and now Bunkur. We've been trying to track down this cd for ages, and somehow ended up listing and reviewing the Planet Aids cd, a Bunkur side project, before we had even received the Bunkur discs. Well, now they're here and you won't be sorry. This Dutch outfit traffics in massive, miserable, impossibly lugubrious doom metal. This is a single 65 minute track, drenched in reverb and crackling amp buzz, crumbling distorted guitars howled vocals, very loose and spread out, the riffs exist in huge expanses of SPACE, a blackened vacuum of buzz and echo and the occasional trailing off of a vocal growl or a slowly dissipating feedback vapor trial. The kicker here though, and the thing that makes Bunkur so weird (and cool) is the drumming, stumbling lo-fi tripped out rhythms, that drift from plodding caveman pound, to spacious barely there accents, but most surprisingly hover in some strange alternate world of dub. Yep, you heard us, DUB. The drums often demarcate wide open spaces with a strange dubbed out, instantly recognizable: BAP BAP Bap bap bap bp bp bp bp .... a single snare hit that repeats, stuttering into oblivion. Giving the whole thing a weird hellish doom-dub vibe. Like Khanate recording with Lee Perry maybe? Okay, maybe not quite as extreme as that, but the dub is definitely there, whether purposeful or not. And it's really cool. Fans of dismal doom death drone and all things slow and sick will find this absolutely essential. Packaged in super cryptic metallic grey and black packaging with extensive liner notes in a completely unreadable rune font!
MPEG Stream: "Bludgeon (excerpt)"

BUNKUR Bludgeon ( From Beyond / Displeased) 2lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We've sold tons of this Bunkur record on cd. And rightfully so. It's another disc of ultimate dooooooooooom divinity. We're sold out again as we speak, but more are on the way. But as a small handful of you probably realized, there was an lp version too. As all things like this seem to be, it was outrageously limited, and we only had 5 or 6 copies when we listed it. Of course they flew out of here and were gone before we knew it. But here it is, several years later, and we managed to get a final batch of these lps direct from the band, and it's almost worth buying on lp even if you have the cd, cuz it includes a bonus track, a fucking mind blowing doom-ed cover of Burzum's "Erblicket Die Tochter Des Firmaments", originally released on a hyper limited split cd-r with UK doomlords Moss. If you haven't yet checked out Bunkur, and are into the slow and low, for chrissakes, pick this up!
The vinyl is gorgeous, gatefold sleeve, hand numbered, all that jazz... We got a little less than 20 of these, so again, these probably won't last long... here's what we had to say about the rest of the record when we first reviewed it a while back:
What is wrong with the world today? The sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, babies are coo-ing, breezes are blowing, waves are lapping, clouds are drifting happily across a bright blue sky, but all everybody wants to listen to is hateful evil grim brutal downtuned miserable soul crushing anguished slow motion funereal death drone ultra doom. Not that we're complaining, but it is curious. There's been recent renewed interest in slow motion metal masters Earth, as well asa a growing obsession with self admitted Earth worshippers SUNNO))), the massive ambient-metal explorations of Japan's Corrupted, the stomping garage psych meets doom drone of the mighty Boris, and a constantly growing roster of similar sonic sickos: Esoteric, Khanate, Asva, Fleshpress, Dot [.], Marzuraan, Ox, Rigor Sardonicus, Skepticism, Whitehorse, Planet Aids and now Bunkur. We've been trying to track down this cd for ages, and somehow ended up listing and reviewing the Planet Aids cd, a Bunkur side project, before we had even received the Bunkur discs. Well, now they're here and you won't be sorry. This Dutch outfit traffics in massive, miserable, impossibly lugubrious doom metal. This is a single 65 minute track, drenched in reverb and crackling amp buzz, crumbling distorted guitars howled vocals, very loose and spread out, the riffs exist in huge expanses of SPACE, a blackened vacuum of buzz and echo and the occasional trailing off of a vocal growl or a slowly dissipating feedback vapor trial. The kicker here though, and the thing that makes Bunkur so weird (and cool) is the drumming, stumbling lo-fi tripped out rhythms, that drift from plodding caveman pound, to spacious barely there accents, but most surprisingly hover in some strange alternate world of dub. Yep, you heard us, DUB. The drums often demarcate wide open spaces with a strange dubbed out, instantly recognizable: BAP BAP Bap bap bap bp bp bp bp.... a single snare hit that repeats, stuttering into oblivion. Giving the whole thing a weird hellish doom-dub vibe. Like Khanate recording with Lee Perry maybe? Okay, maybe not quite as extreme as that, but the dub is definitely there, whether purposeful or not. And it's really cool. Fans of dismal doom death drone and all things slow and sick will find this absolutely essential. The artwork is suitably bleak and abstract, super cryptic metallic grey and black packaging with extensive liner notes in a completely unreadable rune font!
MPEG Stream: "Bludgeon (excerpt)"

BURIAL CHAMBER TRIO s/t (Southern Lord) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Not to be confused with the recently listed Grave Temple cd we reviewed, The Burial Chamber Trio is basically exactly the same as Grave Temple, just swap out one SUNNO))) for another. So it's still Oren Ambarchi and Attila Csihar, but this time it's Southern (Over)Lord Greg Anderson instead Of Stephen O'Malley, and where as the Grave Temple was a cd, this is VINYL ONLY. And while in some ways there are sonic similarities, the sound of the Burial Chamber Trio is much more aligned with the sounds of the mothership (aka SUNNO)))) than Grave Temple.
Two sidelong tracks, vocals, guitars, bass, and electronics, with Anderson trading in his axe for a bass guitar, Side A begins with swirling clouds of FX, electronics, weird processed vocals, before Ambarchi's guitars roll in, sounding not at all unlike SUNNO))), huge and buzzing, left to drone and rumble and pulse, a blackened mysterious slow motion riff, dripping and crumbling over the black abyss. Speaking of black, this wouldn't have sounded at all out of place on Black One, strangled vocals, the churning riffage, the black ambience, near the end of the side, everything erupts into a furious melee of processed guitarnoise, swooping electronics, damaged voices, everything hissing and whirring and rumbling and shrieking before fading out completely.
The B side is much more tranquil, almost no vocals, even more SUNNO)))-like, the same basic ingredients as the first side, but more spread out and blissed out, the guitar a slow motion wall of sound, cutting a huge swath through a sea of buzz and drone, an endlessly hypnotic ur-drone, that ends up sounding more spacey and psychedelic but still plenty heavy...
LIMITED TO 2000 COPIES. Vinyl only. Amazing black gloss on black matte artwork by Seldon Hunt.

BURIAL CHAMBER TRIO WVRM (Southern Lord) 10" 15.98
Second vinyl only offering from this low end subsonic super group, made up of Greg Anderson (SUNNO))), Southern Lord head honcho), Oren Ambarchi, and legendary black metal vocalist Attila Csihar (Mayhem, Tormentor, Aborym)Š
For this outing, Ambarchi and Anderson are credited with sub bass death throb, while Attila is responsible for undead voices. And that's pretty much what it sounds like, sub bass throbs with haunting undead vocals woven into the heaving roiling mass. There seem to be some guitars in there too, maybe some electronics, but it's hard to tell, it's all smeared into a single swirling blackened mass. When we first listened to it, we played it at 33 (which we're assuming now is NOT the right speed, so hard to tell sometimes), and we thought, wow, this is even slower and sludgier than ever, but once we figured out it was meant to be 45, the sound reverted back, closer to the sound of SUNNO))) or the older records of their forbears Earth. Slow motion riffage, glacial and thick, massive and blown out and super distorted, muffled and murky, a sluggish sprawl of caustic crumbling guitars, the vocals barely audible, a haunting raspy growl way down in the mix, often just sounding like another buzzing bassline, hum and fuzz, dense and intense, all melted down into a viscous black crawl. Occasionally, the random bits of riffage and low end rumble coalesce into truly gorgeous harmonies, lovely and chordal, like some blackened church organ, but for the most part, this is the sound of guitar tones allowed to ring out forever and beat against each other, the air filled with oscillating overtones and strange tonal colorations, all beneath a patina of thick black buzz.
Amazing cover art as well, a gross out gutted worm picture disc, with a transparent skull and bugs insert on one side, and another sick silkscreened artwork overlay on the thick plastic sleeve, all courtesy of Mr. Seldon Hunt.
Recorded live, in January of this year, in Holland. And of course, you had to know this part was coming:
LIMITED TO 3000 COPIES!! And if it's anything like the other Burial Chamber record, it will sell out FAST.

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

BURIED AT SEA Migration (Original Sound Recordings) cd 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Here's a heavy AQ fave, finally repressed after more than a few months MIA, and back in stock! From our New Arrivals list #184 last year:
Buried At Sea are a bulldozer, shovelling clods of earth down your earcanal. Clods of toxic corrosive landfill, to be precise. And if you love heaviness and doom like we do, you'll understand that we mean that's a good thing, and you'll definitely want to pick up this, the first release from a quartet of Chicago doom-mongers who possibly named their band after the Saint Vitus song "Burial At Sea" (and are not to be confused with fellow doomsters Graves At Sea!). Slow, sludgy sickness for doom-heads. Crushing. Feedback. Disturbed vocals (or indeciperable samples?) buried in the mix. And once in a while, the Buried At Sea guys strip the mastodon they're riding down to a skeleton of bones and bask in the beauty of its terrible form (i.e. quiet parts, occasional interludes of even doomier loneliness and despair). Three untitled songs, 39 minutes! Thus it's closer to a full-length than an ep, although ep priced. The nastiness of Khanate meets the post-rockiness of Pelican, with the heaviness of both. The hole they're digging has also previously been excavated by the likes of Electric Wizard, Eyehategod, Warhorse, the aforementioned Saint Vitus, and all the other bands who operate heavy machinery under the influence of drugs and alcohol in hopes of unearthing the long-buried lich-corpse whose Satanic shadow Black Sabbath was but the first to glimpse...sorry...getting a little carried away there! But with their relentless grinding riffage and use of space and dynamics Buried At Sea are worthy newcomers whose Migration is an excellent debut.
MPEG Stream: "track 1"
MPEG Stream: "track 3"

BURIED AT SEA She Lived For Others But Died For Me (Seventh Rule) 12" 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SUPER LIMITED single sided 12" of massive, hyperviolent, downtuned stoner doom sludge. Corrosive and sinister, slow and unbelievably brutal. We raved about the cd a few lists back, and this 12" does not disappoint. Cover art and etching on the non-playable side by Stephen O'Malley (Sunn 0))), Khanate, etc.). One original, and a blistering cover of Eyehategod's "White Nigger" with Brutal Truth's Kevin Sharp guesting on vocals.

BURIED AT SEA She Lived For Others But Died For Me (Seventh Rule) 12" 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SUPER LIMITED single sided 12" of massive, hyperviolent, downtuned stoner doom sludge. Corrosive and sinister, slow and unbelievably brutal. We raved about the cd a few lists back, and this 12" does not disappoint. Cover art and etching on the non-playable side by Stephen O'Malley (Sunn 0))), Khanate, etc.). One original, and a blistering cover of Eyehategod's "White Nigger" with Brutal Truth's Kevin Sharp guesting on vocals.

BURMESE A Mere Shadow And Reminiscence Of Humanity (tUMULt) cd 13.98
Smashed drum kits, blown bass amps, band and audience, drums and guitars, mic cords and stands, tables and chairs, all in a bloody, sweaty, writhing pit in the middle of the club. The return of the four headed hydra, Burmese, San Francisco's grind/noise/sludge behemoth. Cutting a swath of mayhemic brutality and entropic dissonance through the stale SF scene, Burmese make their table-tossing, audience-baiting, tantrum-throwing peers look like charm school graduates. Punk rock Gallants to Burmese's skull crushing, soul poisoning, ear shredding Goofus.
Now with an extra drummer and a renewed, dangerously unhealthy obsession with Whitehouse, Burmese have slowed things down a bit. Gone are the hyperspeed blast beats and in their place are midtempo dirges, stumbling drunkenly through nihilistic, grinding sludge, spewing bile and ultraviolence. Pounding militaristic beats demarcate vast expanses of throbbing feedback, guttural growls, tarpit washes of bowel loosening low-end and 16 rpm grindcore. Things do speed up occasionally into blurry bursts of static and skree, but even then, they eventually devolve back into some sort of primordial and glacial caveman stomp, all murky thud and swampy roar, thick and suffocating and massively heavy. This is some seriously scary shit. Grinding and pounding. Punishing and pummelling. Relentless and brutal.
MPEG Stream: "Ladykiller"
MPEG Stream: "Broken Legs, Broken Face, Blood Everywhere"

BURMESE Men (Load) cd 12.98
From their first release, a chaotic, club destoying blast of downtuned pummel, Burmese have slowly been gravitating, at least sonically, toward what can only be described as a state of Whitehouse. Shedding musical elements one at a time until they were on the verge of becoming pure violent energy. Each song an endless stretch of brutal sound, a barbed bed of uneasy ambience for the ultra distorted ranting and raving vocals. We all though it couldn't get any meaner, any creepier or any heavier. We were so wrong. Burmese's Men is the musical equivalent of the heart stopping pants shitting terror you experience when faced with a spittle spraying, wildly snarling pitbull, hackles raised and teeth bared lunging at you from behind a chainlink fence, you realize that the fence ends a few yards away and there is no gate. This band is fucking scary. On Men, the dual bass, dual drummer lineup manages to compartmentalize, and their Whitehouse obsession becomes just one element in what is a totally devastating doom sludge monstrosity. Shrieked black metal vocals over pounding super distorted downtuned riffs and crushing double drummer pummel. Myabe one of the best band the Bay Area has to offer these days. Certainly the scariest.
MPEG Stream: "Rapewar"
MPEG Stream: "Thumbsucker"