THULSA DOOM ...And Then Take You To A Place Where Jars Are Kept (Dark Reign) cd 13.98

THULSA DOOM She Fucks Me (This Dark Reign) cd 11.98
You like that so-called stoner rock? You like them Queens of the Stone Age? Then pay attention: Norway's Thulsa Doom boys are back with a follow-up to their fine "The Seats Are Soft But the Helmet Is Way Too Tight" full-length. The five songs on this not-quite twenty minute cdep are perhaps even better than those on their undeniably rockin' debut (though with less harmonica). We're talking quality stuff here: heavy, catchy, kick-ass songs with fat, fuzzy guitar sounds and odd, gotta-think-about-'em lyrics (try "Cities After Cheese" for a song title/concept). You can't throw a stone anywhere in Scandinavia without hitting a stoner rock band, but please don't throw it at these guys, 'cause they're freakin' good! We're reminded of Thin Lizzy (a bit 'cause of singer Papa Doom's vocal style), the kick-out-the-jams garage rock of the Hellacopters and their ilk, and, we'll stress again, the BIG GUITARS and pop smarts of the aforementioned Queens Of The Stone Age (and Kyuss too of course). Unlike that new Queens album, though (as good as it is) this is all killer, no filler, no messing around with in-jokes and so forth -- indeed, sometimes eps are better than full albums 'cause you can really get into each song, and they're all pretty great on this lil' disc. Destined for big things, if the world was fair (which it ain't, but we'll still keep rootin' for Thulsa Doom).
RealAudio clip: "Birthday Pony"
RealAudio clip: "Cities After Cheese"

THULSA DOOM The Seats Are Soft But the Helmet Is Way Too Tight (This Dark Reign) cd 13.98
Yet more Scandinavian stoners getting high and rocking out. Groovy, fuzzy stoner rock, complete with wailing harmonica (!) and a vocalist that sounds quite a bit like Phil Lynott. The guitar sound is all Kyuss, warm and HUGE, with Queen style harmony guitars and Grand Funk vocals. And then there's that harmonica...
Fans of Thin Lizzy, Zen Guerilla, Kyuss and the like will eat this up!
RealAudio clip: "Centerfold Blues"
RealAudio clip: "You Go First"

THUMLOCK Emerald Liquid Odyssey (High Beam) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Stoner rockin' heaviness from Down Under. Pretty great, especially on jammin' and getting jammier instrumental juggernauts like "Etherel Blue". Definitely in the upper echelon of the new wave of stoner rock (along with Ufomammut, Astrosoniq, and The Want) of bands that don't merely copy Kyuss (although there's good bands that do that too).

THUMLOCK Sojourns Lucid Magic (High Beam) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Stoner rawk alert! It wasn't easy, but we finally got a few import copies of the new release from Austrialia's Thumlock, sent over on the slow boat from Down Under. Maybe it's their fantastic/silly/crappy album artwork, or mystic/cryptic/ridiculous titles, but we dig this band. To be sure, their approach to the stoner rock genre is, well, kinda generic -- yet varied & interesting & well done. Urgent rather than laid back, Thumlock are a bit more 'metal' than most, with a flair for majestic riffs and Thin Lizzy licks tossed in among the Queens of the Stone Age style grungy desert rock and Monster Magnetic wah wah psych guitar jams.
RealAudio clip: "Neotrantor"

THUNDERBOLT Apocalyptic Doom (Agonia) cd 15.98

MPEG Stream: "The Omen / Apocalyptic Doom"
MPEG Stream: "Spadnie Smiertelny Cios..."

THUNDERBOLT Inhuman Ritual Massmurder (Mercenary Musik) cd 14.98

THUNDERBOLT The Burning Deed Of Deceit (ISO666) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yet another blackened recommendation direct from the unholy oracle, otherwise known as AQ comrade in evil, Wrest of black metal horde Leviathan:
When asked to review a couple of discs for Aquarius, I was psyched to find they were among my favorite cds of '03. "The Burning Deed of Deceit" is this Polish artist's third official release and it is definitely Satanic Blackened Metal at its sharpest. Thunderbolt is created almost solely by Paimon, with a session drummer and keyboardist. Paimon, definitely from the school of Snorre Ruch (mastermind behind Thorns and father of the Norse guitar attack), writes hymns with ferocity not felt since early Immortal or old Satyricon. Noteworthy also is the fantastic drum playing and natural drum sound. Levitating blasts, odd time signitures and abrupt tempo changes make up this six song epic. Highlights include "Die With Your Religion" for its hauntingly dischordant keyboard and "The One Who Sleeps", which trudges through the fields of the righteous, the spell broken only by a melancholy acoustic interlude. The soundtrack to a blood-ritual in the name of the one with horns. Hail Satan!!!
MPEG Stream: "Die With Your Religion"
MPEG Stream: "Lord Of Creation"

THURSAR Journey To Jotunheim (Hekaloth) cd 17.98
For any one who's been keeping track, this is record number four from the mad genius behind the damaged brilliance of Xynfonica, Shevalreq and Gluttony. The master of the most important modern musical instrument, THE GUITAR SYNTH. Whose records are either twisted inspiration, or fractured insanity, most likely both. Music to some folks ears, utter garbage to others'. You know where we stand. And if you don't, read on...
The concept behind not just this record, but everything this guy does, is to take a guitar synth and jam out, with the sound of the guitar synth all weirdly atonal and creepy. Then wrap those creepy atonal jams around some high falutin' concept, Vikings, the Roman Empire or something like that, and then the piece de resistance, add some intense growling metal vocals over the top. Sounds insane, and it IS insane, but it's so twisted that we just can't get enough. And we can't be alone since the mysterious man behind the guitar synth keeps churning them out!
Xynfonica was meant to be orchestral, Shevalreq was 'world music', and Gluttony was 'jazz', this time the sound is based on Asian and Eastern instruments, not the real instruments obviously, but the settings on the guitar synth, so stuff like kotos and sitars, but synthesized! The lyrical concept this time around is based on the travels of a group of Danes, as they brave the Arctic Ocean to reach the kingdom of Jotunheim. There are plenty of lyrics, and liner notes so you can understand what's going on, as well as pictures of the synthesized instruments, a guitar, a sitar, lutes. The cover is pretty fantastic too, a giant gold statue, and some Viking archers, squaring off atop big Indian drums! Yep. We're not sure we get it either, but we love it.
So what does it sound like? Well actually, it sounds almost exactly like the other discs. Which is not a bad thing at all. More more more, we always want more. If anything it's even more insane and twisted sounding. The chords warble, the notes are uneven, the tempos shift and stutter, crunchy distorted electric guitars collide with synthesized sitars, long stretches of warped wah wah, the vocals raspy and demonic, the sound often morphing mid phrase into some murky orchestral sprawl, or some tangled freaked out synthpsychdrone weirdness.
Way recommended, essential for keepers of the first three keys (Xynfonica, Shevelreq, Gluttony) obviously, but equally essential for lovers of the weird and the obscure, the freaky and the fucked.
MPEG Stream: "Escape From The Doomed City"
MPEG Stream: "Thorkel's Arrival"
MPEG Stream: "Catalogue Of Heroes"

THY GRIEF ETERNAL Swathed In Black / On Blackened Wings / Outro (Rise Above) 12" 16.98
Originally recorded in 1991 and never actually released, Thy Grief Eternal is the band that would later become Eternal and then of course later still, the mighty stoner sludge behemoth Electric Wizard. But back in '91, Jus Osborn and his merry band of metalheads soundee completely different, as it was 1991, and in the UK, Thy Grief Eternal sounds like they would have been right at home on Earache, alongside Carcass, Napalm Death, Godflesh and the like. Pounding industrial sludge doom, with grunted gutteral death metal style vocals, pounding relentless drumming and BIG RIFFS, very sludgy and crusty, much more akin to the ultra slow, monochromatic dirge of funeral doom, as they had yet to discover the groove that would play such a crucial part in their later sound.
Two lengthy tracks. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!

THY SERPENT Death (Spinefarm) cd 14.98

TIA CARRERA Cosmic Priestess (Small Stone) cd 15.98

TIA CARRERA The November Session (Australian Cattle God) cd 13.98
This record is impossible to figure out. When we first threw it on we thought 'oh great, another slow sludgy doom sort of band' but then almost as quickly as we thought that, we stopped, because suddenly it sounded nothing like that, it totally blossomed, opening up into this completey abstract chunk of big booming drum, downtuned fuzz guitar free jazz post rock psychedelic groove doom. Or something. One minute they'll be splattering random drum figures and the guitars will be scraping and squirming and freaking out, then suddenly the drums will just click, and a MASSIVE sixties psych groove will unfold as the guitar goes total Hendrix apeshit and spins wild-man-blues/notes-bending-all-over-the-place/druggy and deliriously buzzy and blown out LEADS into dizzying webs of searing white hot fuzz. Which of course results in glorious full on Hawkwind meets Comets On Fire meets LSD-march, postrock krautrock psychrock freerock Ur-jams. Endlessy throbbing and pulsing and completely mesmerizing. Some tracks twist and wriggle and writhe into sweat soaked, blood drenched full on rock blow outs, while others settle into impossibly static exercises in tension and drone, almost like a much free-er version of Dutch hypno-metal gods Gore.
Underneath it all the bass wanders and burbles sounding fretless or underwater, as if it was some sentient creature that just happened to be in the same room as the guitar and drums, and every once in a while just happens to fall in along side whatever crazed groove is being flung wildly about. The drums are as much the focus as the guitar, they sound huge, like the band is set up in an airplane hangar, sloppy and all over the place but tight and ferocious too. The whole while cascading sheets of distorted guitars swoon and sway and hug the chaotic drumming before once again exploding into some fuzzed out Hendrixian speaker blowing meltdown.
And for those of you who don't know who Tia Carrera is (ummm... Wayne's World?), do yourself a favor and next time you stay home sick from work, discover the oh so guilty pleasure that is the TV show Relic Hunter!
MPEG Stream: "Scenic Oversight"
MPEG Stream: "Doom"

TIA CARRERA The Quintessential (Small Stone) cd 14.98
Hopefully you already are familiar with this Texas heavy psych band with the not-so-heavy name. We've reviewed a couple of their releases before - most recently, a way-cool 7" of all Lungfish covers, and previously, their massive November Session (we still have a handful of that cd in stock, so go read our review of it and snatch one up!).
THIS new disc comes to us via the Small Stone label, who've been getting much props from us lately (for the likes of Obiat, Iota, Sons Of Otis, and Los Natas) though we already knew the Tia Carrera was gonna be good. And it is. Freeform jammin' blown out psychedelic wahwah'd guitar wailin' freakdom here that we wouldn't hesitate to recommend to fans of Boris and Earthless and Pearls & Brass. And ol' Jimi Hendrix for that matter. Of course, if you're already into TC, we need only say that this new disc is another slab of dizzy distorted genius from them.
Oh yeah, if you're partial to Earthless in particular, by the time you're in the middle of the 22 minute "Unnamed Wholeness", the second track of The Quintessential, you'll have a new favorite band. Those into Tokyo Flashbacking acts like LSD-march and Up-Tight might think so too.
But then, surprise! While most of the album is all electric and instrumental, the fifth and final track is a strummed acoustic number, melodic and gentle, with stoned effected vocals and pretty guitar pickin', like Led Zep in the sunshine on the backporch getting baked. Really nice!
MPEG Stream: "Unnamed Wholeness"
MPEG Stream: "Gypsies"
MPEG Stream: "Hazy Winter"

TIDES From Silence (Teenage Disco Bloodbath) cd 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
BACK IN STOCK!!
The Tides made a miraculous journey last year from the reject pile of a very shortsighted local music magazine into the loving arms of aQuarius where it quickly became a unanimous favorite and a big seller. Taking all the things we love about this new post rock / dirge metal hybrid that has been kicking our asses, Pelican, Isis, Minsk, Conifer, Mare and the like, and subtly twisting it into something all their own. Where as the last Tides record alternated between rhythmic moodiness and metallic bombast, From Silence manages to be a little less overtly heavy, and a lot more moody and brooding, dark and dolorous, with slow subtle grooves and warm washes of hypnotic dreaminess, basically just good old post rock minus the metal. Although the metal is still indeed present, just in very subtle ways, more felt than heard, informing the songs and the riffs, giving the music a sort of ominous, sharp edge, lurking just below the surface. However, fear not, for the final 11 minute track is apparently where Tides had been keeping all the metal riffing missing from the first two tracks. What starts as a spacious swoonsome jam, all downtuned guitars, softly strummed, shuffling drums and wide open expanses of swooshing ambience, erupts about halfway through into a thoroughly chugging pummel, crunchy and lurching, pounding and swaying like a much groovier Neurosis before blissing out into a washed out psychedelic drift that threatens to float away completely before the hammer falls again and that gorgeously chugging riff returns to lay waste to any and all in its way.
MPEG Stream: "The Sight"
MPEG Stream: "Unveiled"

TIDES Resurface (Teenage Disco Bloodbath) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We love post rock. There. We said it. And we certainly love when our post rock is delivered with a healthy dose of metallic crunch! And indeed, there's been a bit of a post rock resurgence around these parts lately, from regular old post rock instrumental rhythmic workouts to massive metallic onslaughts, and everything in between. Needless to say we're digging every minute of it. So along comes a band called Tides, whose particularly epic and excellent brand of metallic post rock comes to us in a rather roundabout way. A friend of ours works for a magazine that has a VERY narrow stylistic focus. And we do mean VERY. So anything sent to the magazine that falls even slightly outside this focus ends up in what is lovingly referred to as the reject box. And this dutiful friend goes through the reject box and discovers and delivers to us gem after gem, whose only reasons for being cast into this box of rejection seems to be wholly unique and original attempts at music making. Whether it's too metal, not punk enough, too weird... whatever it is that keeps those folks from listening to something tends to be precisely what makes us LOVE IT. Thus we have Tides. A mysterious instrumental outfit that explores similar sonic territory as Isis, Pelican, Conifer and the like. Not at all what you'd expect from a label called Teenage Disco Bloodbath. Dirge-y fuzzy stoner grooves, huge undulating riffs with wailing keening melodies, majestic and mournful, relentless and epic, often splintering into stretches of blissy tripped out space rock, and sublime dreamy interludes of subtle drumming and acoustic guitar, slow building and gorgeously propulsive. All stretched over a framework of murky, moody post rock mesmer. Totally hypnotic, completely rocking and intensely emotional. Definitely one of our new favorites. Fans of Isis, Neurosis, Pelican, Circle, Old Man Gloom, Conifer, and all things post rock, metal and beyond should definitely check this out.
MPEG Stream: "Resurface"
MPEG Stream: "By The Droves"

TIDES / GIANT split (Teenage Disco Bloodbath) cd 9.98

MPEG Stream: TIDES "The Invisible"
MPEG Stream: GIANT "Horned And Blind"

TIDFALL Instinct Gate (Nuclear Blast) cd 14.98
Super technical, brutal and melodic black/death metal with a slight industrial tinge. Lots of keyboards, blast beats, churning downtuned riffs, Emperor-ish guitar melodies and howled/growled vocals. Nothing earth shatteringly original but still really good. This is the kind of stuff my housemate Erik goes crazy for. So if you dig In Flames, Soilwork, late era Carcass, and that sort of thing, this is right up your alley.
RealAudio clip: "Children Of Man"
RealAudio clip: "Prophecy Horizon"

TIDFALL Nucleus (Nuclear Blast) cd 14.98

TIGER THROAT s/t (Rusty Axe) cd-r 5.98
We were WAY skeptical of the claim that Tiger Throat sounded like "an Instrumental Bone Awl thrown into a blender with Mono and HEALTH", but it kind of really does, and even though such a description would piss off the misanthropic Bone Awl, we're pretty into it.
This are only three songs (even though there are 10 actual tracks, the rest are weird noisy interludes), but those 3 songs cram in a crazy amount of wild spastic drumming, frenetic buzzing riffage, and all manner of blown out glitch and skitter. The record opens with a soaring almost Cave-like fuzzy hypno krautrock workout, pounding and epic and melodic but still pretty raw and frenzied, until part way through the track crumbles, the song lurching through a field of downtuned guitar groan, grinding effects, backwards drumming, only to explode in an almost D-beat blast, while somehow remaining poppy as fuck, like a more fractured and melodic Ancestors? Whatever you compare these guys to, it works, the track winds down into something more slowcore and post rock, all loping drums and sprawling downtuned buzz. All kinds of sounds worm into the mix. And even though it thrashes pretty hard, it's also catchy and sort of fun. Plenty of weird electronic parts (the HEALTH influence) mixed with the aforementioned thrashy, punkish energy. Pretty unique in parts, pretty psychedelic and very melodic.
The second track is way more dirgey and doomy, but in a sort of spaced out post rock way, the guitar shimmering and ringing out, not really distorted, the drums WAY in the red, very practice space sounding, until the track shifts gears and the guitars explode, and vocals come in, super processed and warped, the whole track music and vocals seems to undulate and twist, like a sonic funhouse mirror, but it's also probably the blackest moment on the record, it goes on for a few minutes, but we were sort of wishing it would KEEP going. So rad.
The final track opens with a mathy manic start stop, you can hear a band member breathlessly counting it off in the background, the result is a lurching squelchy skronky no wave-ish electronic noise rock jam, that gets more and more dense and harsh as the track progresses, finally spilling into a rad hypnotic dirge, the guitars are all overblown while the drumming is teetering on the edge of distorting, the track winding up with a cool staccato grinding metallic outro.
Probably not metal enough for most metal heads, even with the Bone Awl / Ancestors references, it's obvious from the artwork and band name that the black metal influence, while definitely there, is more sort of abstract and just another part of the noise, that said, adventurous metalheads line up here, and for the rest of you, who dig noisy, hooky, electronic, metallic, psych rock weirdness, this is WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "An Arch Between Two Crossings"
MPEG Stream: "This Brave Waning Light"

TIGERSHARK Demo + 2 (The Perpetual Motion Machine) cassette 4.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
From the same label that brough us the amazing September Songs tape from Souvenir's Young America comes another blast of furious rock, this time, not epic metallic post rock, instead, Virginia's Tigershark traffic in old school post punk noiserock with a bit of a metal bent. AmRep, Jehu, Dazzling Killmen, you know, grinding angular guitars, big riffs, convoluted rhythms and crushing drumming, howled vocals, tons of lurching breakdowns, stop start arrangements. Not a lot of bands do this sort of stuff any more and it's a real shame, cuz listening to this band totally hit the spot, it had us fighting the urge to head bang and air guitar like it was 1995 all over again. The label mentions bands like The Melvins, His Hero Is Gone, Akimbo, Baroness, and sure, we hear some of that, but it's much more classic sounding, heavy and catchy, intense and brutal, weird enough to keep it interesting, but not so much 'experimental' as creative and original. A fresh new take on an old sound that we had been missing like crazy.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. On blood red cassettes with super pro full color artwork.

TIME CRYPT {Cruel Science} (Hospital Productions) cassette 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A few weeks ago we got a killer batch of 'metal' tapes from Hospital Productions, two of which we reviewed, the 2nd album from Vegas Martyrs, and the debut from death-obsessed doom flecked black metal weirdos Curved Blade, both of which sold out and went out of print crazy quick.
In the same batch we also got two other releases, twisted lo-fi outsider sci-fi death metal weirdness from a band called Time Crypt, and super blown out noise metal damage from Terrorism. The bummer is that we intended to check these out, and then order more to review, but before we knew it, both of these were sold out and out of print as well. But we do still have THREE copies of each, they're both bizarre and baffling and perfect for folks into fucked up confusional metal, so at least a few folks will get to check them out...
Time Crypt unleash a stumbling blast of midtempo lo-fi blackened death metal, the guitars jagged and buzzy, the drums buried in the mix, the vocals a snarly grunt one minute, a reverbed bellow the next, there are occasional bursts of frenzied blast, but they quickly collapse into more lurching lumbering chug and churn, some weird little bits of keyboard surface here and there, the production is damaged and off kilter and perfectly fits the music, which is chaotic and trancey and buzzy and bizarre. We're digging this big time. Too bad we only have 3 copies...
Also features some killer dead astronaut artwork!

TIONTOROTHED s/t (The End Of All Good Metal) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, MAINLY BECAUSE IT WAS AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE! HEE HEE! SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Imagine if you could have a band that was just the best parts of, say, DestrucTION, KreaTOR, GorgorOTH, and EnslavED. Or maybe even SuffocaTION, AnnihilaTOR, MorgOTH, and DeceasED. Well, imagine no more. TIONTOROTHED arrive to usher in THE END of all good metal. The first band that is simultaneously genre defying AND genre defining. Like the END of every classic metal song, the END of every classic album, all seamlessly joined together into the ultimate metal band, the sort of band that in name and in deed represent THE END of all good metal!
MPEG Stream: "Altars Of Pleasure"
MPEG Stream: "Infernal Damnation Overkill"

TITAN A Raining Sun Of Light & Love For You & You & You (Tee Pee) cd 15.98
Our favorite Brooklyn-based stoner space rockers are back, with their first proper studio album (the limited Paradigms cd, and the self-released cd-r we've had before were both live recordings, apparently). If you liked those, you'll like this -- though they get up to some new tricks here as well. In fact, we weren't sure we were even listening to Titan when we first put this on, as the first of the four tracks found here starts off all folky for a minute, with strumming and singing that could be Comus or Devendra... before blasting into loud, distorted, truly TITANIC heavy instrumental psych rock powered in part by some extremely proggy keyboard action. It's like ELP jamming with Comets On Fire, or Tarantula Hawk gone '70s, or a much heavier, blow-out n' drugged-up Crime In Choir! A wild torrent of amp-ed up, cosmic crunch, spiralling energetically.
The following tracks have their blissed out interludes, and droning FX, and mantric rhythmic pulses, and other bits of weirdness (field recordings of what might be crickets chirping, and a fan blowing, are mixed in at one point), but that heavy space prog riffola isn't lacking either. Definitely there's plenty here to appeal to fans of the abovementioned bands, as well as, oh, AMT, Circle, Zombi, Ufomammut, Boris, Mammatus, and MoRkObOt among others... in a word, recommended!!
MPEG Stream: "track 1"
MPEG Stream: "track 3"

TITAN A Raining Sun Of Light & Love For You & You & You (Tee Pee) lp 15.98
Our favorite Brooklyn-based stoner space rockers are back, with their first proper studio album (the limited Paradigms cd, and the self-released cd-r we've had before were both live recordings, apparently). If you liked those, you'll like this -- though they get up to some new tricks here as well. In fact, we weren't sure we were even listening to Titan when we first put this on, as the first of the four tracks found here starts off all folky for a minute, with strumming and singing that could be Comus or Devendra... before blasting into loud, distorted, truly TITANIC heavy instrumental psych rock powered in part by some extremely proggy keyboard action. It's like ELP jamming with Comets On Fire, or Tarantula Hawk gone '70s, or a much heavier, blow-out n' drugged-up Crime In Choir! A wild torrent of amp-ed up, cosmic crunch, spiralling energetically.
The following tracks have their blissed out interludes, and droning FX, and mantric rhythmic pulses, and other bits of weirdness (field recordings of what might be crickets chirping, and a fan blowing, are mixed in at one point), but that heavy space prog riffola isn't lacking either. Definitely there's plenty here to appeal to fans of the abovementioned bands, as well as, oh, AMT, Circle, Zombi, Ufomammut, Boris, Mammatus, and MoRkObOt among others... in a word, recommended!!
MPEG Stream: "track 1"
MPEG Stream: "track 3"

TITAN Pilzmarmelade (Wakusei) lp 17.98
AT LAST, here's the vinyl lp version of what's been a long-out-of-print cd-r. And what a super deluxe vinyl version this is!!
Plizmarmelade is a single 40 minute long track, starting off skronkily aggressive, with the noisy bite of a Lightning Bolt, before getting building into a relentlessly energetic, almost... jaunty... crazy crunching howling throbbing bass groove, like Zombi or Circle or Pharaoh Overlord on happy pills, freaking out on the guitar solos and sci-fi effects!! Acid Mothers Temple would be proud of this. Eventually the pills wear off and things fade into a calmer, deeper, droned-out zone, still way out in space. Wow. Basically krautrock from Brooklyn, that's the deal here. If you dug their Paradigms and Tee Pee releases, this should turn you on too. Big time. And folks who have been digging stuff like
White Hills and the Heads and other practitioners of modern spaced out heavy psych, will likely go nuts for this too.
And rather than the way the cd-r originally was packaged with beat-up homemade covers, these lps look AMAZING. Incredible matte finish jackets, covered with fantastic romantic medieval style illustrations of dragons and forests and swords and knights and fair maidens; inside, a printed inner sleeve as thick as some records' actual jackets, covered in wild acid drenched psychedelic colors and more trees and cool sixties style text, the record pressed on gorgeous milky sunburst yellow vinyl.
And as if you even needed to be told, CRAZY LIMITED!
MPEG Stream: "Pilzmarmelade [excerpt 1]"
MPEG Stream: "Pilzmarmelade [excerpt 2]"

TITAN Pilzmarmelade (self-released) 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.
BACK IN STOCK! VERY LAST COPIES EVER (though there's talk of a vinyl release at some point)!!
Remember a couple lists back we reviewed a Paradigms disc by a mysterious, very cool instrumental space rock band called Titan? We told the story of how, some months previous, these guys had sent us some cd-rs to check out, but with no contact information. And then when they finally did follow up with an email, and we tried to order some, we got no response! So we never ever got those cd-rs, but the Paradigms cd was a nice surprise.
Well, of course what happened was this: the slightly-flakey-but-nice Titan folks (hey this IS some kinda stonery drug rock, so some flakiness is to be expected, eh?) read our review, and emailed to see if we still wanted the cd-rs.... only they didn't have the one they'd sent us originally any more. But they did now have a new cd-r release, recorded at the same sessions as the Paradigms cd release. Plizmarmelade is a single 40 minute long track, starting off skronkily aggressive, with the noisy bite of a Lightning Bolt, before getting building into a relentlessly energetic, almost... jaunty... crazy crunching howling throbbing bass groove, like Zombi or Circle or Pharaoh Overlord on happy pills, freaking out on the guitar solos and sci-fi effects!! Acid Mothers Temple would be proud of this. Eventually the pills wear off and things fade into a calmer, deeper, droned-out zone, still way out in space. Wow. Basically krautrock from Brooklyn, that's the deal here. If you dug their Paradigms release, this should turn you on too.
We do have a bunch of these, but since they're cd-r's in home-made looking (silkscreened) digipacks, chances are they're limited...plus who knows if Titan will email us back if we need more...so get 'em while you can.
NB. the covers are all kinda beat up, that's the way they are!
MPEG Stream: "Pilzmarmelade [excerpt 1]"
MPEG Stream: "Pilzmarmelade [excerpt 2]"

TITAN Sweet Dreams (Relapse) cd 15.98
Brand new blast of spaced out prog-tastic heaviness from this Brooklyn quartet, and holy shit, everything we loved about their last one, A Raining Sun Of Light & Love For You & You & You, is even MORE this time around, more heavy, more proggy, more keyboards, the songs way more epic, total cosmic super distorted loud as fuck space prog metal bliss out, like ELP crossed with the Fucking Champs, stir in some Comets On Fire, Tarantula Hawk, Crime In Choir, La Otracina (with whom they share members), and of course some Yes and Osanna and New Trolls and loads more of that sort of '70s stuff, cuz this time it's definitely the prog that has been cranked way up, synths all over the place, every song like a non stop synth / guitar / drum battle to the death, totally exhausting and exhilarating and over the top, epic and majestic and complex and intricate and melodic and somehow catchy as hell.
Barring the 3 minute synth interlude "Synthasaurs", which sounds more like some sort of Goblin / Tangerine Dream / John Carpenter hybrid, the other 4 tracks are total progged out super jams, almost entirely instrumental, the melodies constantly mutating and intertwining, the keyboards unleashing wild flurries of notes, the bass and drums holding it all together, dense and thick and powerful, the guitars wailing and flailing and howling, constantly parrying with the keyboards, there are organs too, thick and fuzzy and gloriously distorted, like a supercharged Deep Purple, Titan are like the prog version of all those Hawkwind worshipping space rock groups, who take the psychedelic tripped out outros and stretch them into whole songs, Titan seem to do the same thing with prog, taking short bursts of classic prog, adding all sorts of metallic chug and modern psych rock crunch and stretching them out into gloriously endless sprawling epics, this stuff is so fierce and frantic and the pace so relentless and dizzying.
This stuff RULES. Heavy and spacey and proggy and mathy and fucking incredible, pretty much everything we could possibly want in a band. Comes in a swank diecut digipak too!
MPEG Stream: "Sweet Dreams"
MPEG Stream: "Synthasaurs"
MPEG Stream: "Maximum Soberdrive"

TJOLGTJAR Five Tjolgtjarian Keys (Suffering Jesus) cd 7.98
"Reissue of the Five Tjolgtjarian Keys + The Gate To Vruguun (2003) and Nuun Raaguun Skuulkuun (2002) Demos comes with a Bonus Track "Devil,Take Me" and marks the first time these recordings have been pressed to CD"
MPEG Stream: "The Second Key - Mysterion"
MPEG Stream: "The Third Key - Therinium"

TJOLGTJAR Halloween (Dipsomaniac / Rusty Axe / Illinoisian Thunder) cd 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We've never really listed any releases by Midwestern lo-fi black metal combo Tjolgtjar, at least not knowingly. Let your mind wander back a list or two, to a band called Xexyz, a bizarre stumblingly blackened horde who employed a Nintendo game system in lieu of a keyboard, even going so far as to cover (or re-imagine) their favorite 8-bit video game theme songs, transforming them into a truly freaked out bleeping buzzing black metal. Well, we later discovered that this Xexyz band, was in fact essentially a permutation of mighty Midwestern black metal warriors Tjolgtjar. Which makes a lot of sense when you hear their latest, Halloween, a tribute of sorts to the classic eighties slasher flick of the same name. And it's another far out, what-the-fuck blast of damaged and demented black metal. Made even moreso by the fact that about half of the tracks are in fact blackened versions of music from the movie.
The opener will be immediately recognizable to anyone who was a horror movie obsessed nerd in the eighties, that ubiquitous theme song, here rendered in buzzing guitar and pounding drums, complete with relentless double kicks WAY down in the mix. Fucking genius. Track two is more incidental music from the movie, that creepy, stalking song that kept surfacing throughout the movie, here incorporated into the bands buzzing black verses, an ultra lo-fi riff beneath harsh gargled vocals, but always returning to that theme. Still sends shivers up our spines, and somehow it sounds even scarier all blackened up. It's hard to always tell which bits are actually from the movie, some parts are obvious, but it all sounds ultra creepy and like perfect horror movie music. We still wonder why someone hasn't had some grim black metal band score their film. Someday...
The rest of the record blasts through various motifs from the movie, usually set amidst stumbling black blasts of grim buzz, a couple tracks are just creeped out keyboard ambience, haunting and droney, with bits of dialogue from the movie popping up here and there, truly spooky. And so fucking brilliant. And demented. Dementedly brilliant! Anyone who bought that Xexyz disc NEEDS this, and should probably pick up any Tjolgtjar they can find. We'll definitely be listing more in the near future.
And be sure to stick around for the bonus track, an unbelievably annoying metallized version of that song the kids sing in the movie "Eight more days to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...", gradually counting down the days until it's "No more days til Halloween...". Ssssssscary...
MPEG Stream: "Night Of The Living Dead"
MPEG Stream: "Judith Myers"
MPEG Stream: "Mask Of Michael Myers"
MPEG Stream: "The Myers House"

TJOLGTJAR The Tjolgtarian Mass (Baphomet) cd 11.98

MPEG Stream: "The Ceremony Of Tjolgtar"
MPEG Stream: "Exorcism Spell"

TJOLGTJAR Voices From the Center of the Earth (Illinoisan Thunder) 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.

TO BLACKEN THE PAGES A Semblance Of Something Appertaining To Destruction (Colony) cd 10.98
The world needs another SUNNO))) or Earth like it needsÉ well, it doesn't. Nor does it need another Slint, or a Mogwai, or a Justice, or an Animal Collective. Every time a band blows up, suddenly a million bands are there to get sucked along in their wake. But never was this phenomenon more egregious than with the new wave of doom/drone/dirge outfits. At the risk of repeating ourselves again, it seems like every band, heavy or otherwise, that features at least one member with a "drone side project" or a "minimal doom side project", barely keeping ahead of the various people dabbling in back metal, but we digress.
Like most things, it probably seems easy, but isn't. The whole leaning your guitar against the amp and letting it go, sure we joke about that in reviews, but it's way harder than that. Compare the millions of ho-hum guitardrone cd-r's to something like the last amazing record by Vulture Club (we still have some, if you haven't bought one, you should, really). It's like night and day. So we're always pretty cautious when we hear about a new guitar drone group or some doomdirge record we oughtta dig.
But once in a while, a group comes along, who only just barely fit into that whole genre, skirting it, creating something totally their own, with just the merest hints of sounds more familiar, like all great bands, borrowing and stealing freely, but not just regurgitating those sounds right back at us, instead, spreading them out in some underground lab, pulling them apart, exploring how they tick, dissecting them, then attempting to put them back together again, with some of their own parts, some sounds and songs that have been fermenting in a dusty corner of said lab, the results then something new, a patchwork of sounds, that in the right hands, can be deftly woven into something beautiful, something dark and mysterious, something like this.
A Semblance Of Something Appertaining to Destruction is the latest from the mysteriously monickered To Blacken The Pages, part four of an ongoing series in sound, a sprawling dirgescape that owes much to meandering post rock, downtuned slow motion sludge, drifty abstract doom, and the sort of heavy doomic countrified sludge that Earth has been exploring over the last few records.
Three tracks, the shortest 11 minutes, the longest nearly 18, each a dusty, moonlit drift, simple minor key twang, slowed down space rock riffage, streaks of feedback and buzzing distant drones, swirling FX, layers of guitar fuzzy and druggy. The opener, more than Earth or SUNNO))) or any of those, sounds much more in line with Loop or Spacemen 3, a drugged out soporific riff, that lumbers a little too slow to rock, even a little too slow to constitute any sort of groove. Instead, it's a dreamy droney drift, heavy and mutedly chuggy, churning onward through a sky of whirls and swirls and rumbles, underpinned by plenty of buzz and fuzz and blur. It's like a super slowed down way more abstract Loop, which we probably don't need to explain to you is in fact a very good thing.
The second track introduces drums, which do little to up the propulsion, this is still weary, dreary and delightfully spaced out. A super spare, abstract doomy lope, the sky above criss crossed with high end guitar skree, the drums supporting another blown out slow motion space rock riff, the whole track trudging across an endless expanse of shimmery buzz and swirling space-y effects. Everything muted and mumbly and lazily mesmerizing.
The final, longest track, ditches the drums, returning to the lazy smoky sprawl of the opener, but this time even more abstract, the central guitar part, drifting well below the constantly shifting layers of sound, coruscating high end, over billowing deep rumbles, a glacial, stately, almost funereal anti-groove, perfect late night, drift off, trip out slow motion space rock krautdrone. Fans of Earth and Expo '70 will dig especially, as in some ways, this does sound like a strange hybrid of the two, although all of you into the slow dreamy droney heavy minimalism would do well to check this out.
MPEG Stream: "Trek In"
MPEG Stream: "A Semblance Of Something Appertaining To Destruction"

TO BLACKEN THE PAGES Bogland (Colony) cd-r 9.98
It's been ages since we've heard from Irish one man drone/dirge/doom guitarscaper Paul McAree, not since a 2009 collaboration with fellow axewrangler/soundscaper Korperschwache, and while we were assuming nothing much had changed, and were simply in for another fantastic sprawling landscape of smoldering low end dronemusic on this new TBTP, Bogland is in fact a whole 'nother sort of thing. Not that you'd know it by the opener, which is exactly what we expected: a hushed, feedback drenched slo-mo shimmer, all long layered tones, and haunted twang, laced with strange sci-fi FX, trippy and woozy, landing somewhere right between Earth, and Barn Owl, and SUNNO))), but taking that sound and spacing it out big time, drifty and abstract psychedelic dronemusic. And it sounds as good as ever, a whole hour to whisk us away to some other plane.
But then something happens around track two, McAree doing his best Jandek, unfurling a murky bit of raw-blooz balladry, all angular detuned guitar, and warbly mumbly vocals, weirdly trancey and hypnotic, some serious outsider dirge folk for sure. We of course expected the sound to slip right back into dreamy droneland, but whattayaknow, McAree had something else in mind, a sprawl of gnarled mangled minimalism, a strange bit of abstract Derek Bailey like guitar action, scrapes, and weird truncated melodies, atonal chords, buzz and warble, there also seems to be a weird wheezy backdrop way off in the distance, subtly swooping effects, but that gnarled guitar is definitely the centerpiece. And for all its strangulated churn, it actually ends up being pretty mesmerizing as well.
The rest of the record offers up variations on those sounds, definitely leaning more toward the tweaked angular guitarscapes and Jandekian croon, occasionally wedding weird scrapey abstract guitars to lush layered shimmer, or unfurling thick rumbling low end, dirgey and dark, still shot through with weird guitar squiggles, but blurry and smeary, but really barring the opener and closer, both of which hew closer to the TBTP sound of old, this record is kind of a warped singer/songwriter affair, filtered through a cracked chunk of experimental guitar, resulting in something weird, and weirdly wonderful.
MPEG Stream: "Sodium Haze"
MPEG Stream: "Bad Heart"
MPEG Stream: "Wintering Out"
MPEG Stream: "Battered Heart"

TO BLACKEN THE PAGES Crow's Nest (Colony) 12" + cd-r 8.00
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
The return of Irish one man guitar dronedoomdirge noisemaker, Paul McAree aka To Blacken The Pages, with his first vinyl release, and to commemorate, McAree mixes it up a bit, offering up at least one side dramatically different from what we're used to hearing on TBTP records up until now.
Originally recorded for a sound exhibition in Dublin, "Crow's Nest" strips away most of the thick rumbling distorted guitars we might have been expecting, leaving a strange haunting bit of effects drenched shadowy sound in their place, the result though is quite pleasing, much more mysterious and otherworldly, lots of delay and reverb, bits of clang and crunch sent spinning into the ether, here and there long notes ring out, the overall sound is super spare and abstract, soft tangled melodies, the guitars smolder instead of roar, plenty of scrabble and scrape but smeared and blurred into solar flares of Sunroof!-ed sound, but unlike the raga-like ur-drone of Sunroof!, the sound and sounds here are way more spaced out, both figuratively AND literally. Warm washes of feedback bathe the whole track in a rich glow, and strange little flutters surface here and there, like some alien birdsong.
The track on the B-side is more similar to past TBTP outings, but McAree manages to meld the old sounds, with the new sounds found on the flip, the same strange assemblage of high end crunch and scrape and squiggle, but set in a landscape much more black and buzzy, thickly layered, undulating sea of sound, blown out an streaked with feedback, the weird effected shards of melody, drifting on that thick, rumbling undercurrent. Dense and drone-y looped and hypnotic sounding here and there, but for the most part a massive organic sprawl of minimal psychedelic guitar drone dreaminess.
Housed in a simple black 12" style sleeve with the middle holes cut out, a printed obi with all the artwork and liner notes, and comes with a black cd-r, packaged in its own sleeve with a proper insert, containing, both the tracks, but a WAY extended and remixed version of the B-side!
MPEG Stream: "Crows Nest"
MPEG Stream: "Crowsun"

TO BLACKEN THE PAGES None (Colony) cd 10.98
Highlighted last list, we had A Semblance Of Something Appertaining To Destruction, the most recent disc from Dublin, Ireland's To Blacken The Pages. Now we've got their prior release, None, released just a month or two earlier in 2008, which is essentially the part I to A Semblance's part II. Don't get 'em confused (and we'll try not to, too), 'cause they do look virtually identical, the same almost-black-on-black no-color scheme for the cover photo and logo. The black-on-black music is similar too, of course, but different and equally essential for anyone who loved the minimal doomdrone instrumental ambience of that other disc. And again, there's three tracks. 13:45, 16:10, and 8:06. Each stately, somnolent, fuzzed out and, this time, drumless... heavy in a restrained, spacey, spacious way.
Track one, "Alien", tiptoes in, super slow, individually suspended guitar notes one at a time connecting the dots of melancholic melody over a void of silence. Then, suddenly, the needle jumps. DISTORTION. An electric crackle and buzz. The song is still super sloooooow and sparse, but each note is now planetarily weighted with rumbling vibratory effect, surely speaker shredding if it all happened at once, and at volume. An underlying howling hum begins, buried beneath but gradually filling all that empty space with its own not so silent emptiness. The next piece, "None", starts with an eerie electric wind, and some sparse Earth-style guitar strum over it, reverberant and lonely, before sheer fuzzdrone kicks in, fuzzdrone nirvana to our ears, that continues in like manner on final track of the disc, "As If Forever"... Ah, yes, so glacially good. For fans of Earth, SUNNO))), Expo '70, Bohren & Der Club Of Gore, Slomo, Boris, Skullflower, Nadja, etc. All at their darkest yet dreamiest.
To Blacken The Pages is actually a solo project, the work of one guitar wielding, amp abusing man, Paul McAree. We're told he has a non-solo side project coming up, a band called Slaves Of War Orphan Farm (!) that is supposed to be a worthy offering of Les Rallizes Denudes worship! Can't wait to check it out...
MPEG Stream: "Alien"
MPEG Stream: "None"

TO BLACKEN THE PAGES North (Colony) cd 10.98
The third part in an ongoing series of blackened drone guitar missives from Irish one man slow and low wrecking crew To Blacken The Pages. Fans of the first two TBTP records (None and A Semblance Of Something Appertaining To Destruction) are already well versed in the bleak abstract soundworld this guy can conjure, fusing the low end explorations of groups like SUNNO))), Expo '70, Bohren, Slomo and the like, with something a bit more psychedelic and space-y. Sure, TBTP is capable of unfurling some planet crushing black hole heaviness, but also of tossing handfulls of notes into crystalline expanses of murky reverb, letting the various notes flutter and fall, before tossing out another handful. The first two tracks on North are perfect examples, "Crossing" and "I Am Screes On Her Escarpments", the first begins as a swirling almost static field of slow shifting reverb and delay, peppered with percussive thumps and creaks, sent careening into the ether, while shards of clean guitar, sounding a bit like super mellow Keiji Haino, unfurl like clouds of grey smoke, while underneath, a guitar rumbles and whirs, gradually becoming more and more rifflike, ringing out a bit chaotic and noisy, before slipping into the second which begins with the same sort of reverbed stretch of echoey thumps and creaks, before the guitar thickens into a crumbling corrosive wall of swirling chordal hum and keening feedback, a roiling blackened bit of guitar ambience, infused with melody and moodiness and shot through with strange high end streaks and swoops that are probably effected guitars, but almost sound like children's voices here and there. Quite haunting.
The next few tracks take TBTP's sound in a different direction, the root again being shimmering guitars, but this time the focus is on the voice, a lazy drawled croon nestled down in the mix, that drifts along side the increasingly caustic guitar buzz resulting in a sound not unlike some strange Dead C / Roy Montgomery hybrid, a sort of sun baked noise drenched dronedirge slowcore. Dark and woozy and melancholy and way druggy and drowsy sounding. Later, "To Be Dead" introduces actual drums, and gets all propulsive, a lurching noise rock take on spaced out krautrock, but with the guitars in full on overdrive, a constantly swirling squall of feedback and psychrock freakout. And then the last two tracks are massive billowing clouds of coruscating buzz and skree, blurred into gorgeous multi hued smears of blown out guitar and a gorgeous hazy shoegazey drift, in fact the nearly 15 minute "Night Drive" might be one of the prettiest heavy guitar tracks we've heard in ages, anyone into Nadja or Jesu, will love it, it's like the slow motion metalgaze of those two outfits but stripped of drums and allowed to just sort of hover. So nice.
Needless to say, the drone and dirge and doom obsessed out there probably already added this to their shopping cart (or if they didn't yet, probably should now), anyone who bought the other two records definitely NEED this too, and folks not necessarily into metal, but who still dig on dark drifty hazy heaviness might be pretty into To Blacken The Pages, North in particular...
MPEG Stream: "Crossing"
MPEG Stream: "I Am Screes On Her Escarpments"
MPEG Stream: "Give To The Sea"

TO BLACKEN THE PAGES + KORPERSCHWACHE A Way Dark (Colony) 2cd 10.98
It's been close to a year since we've heard from Irish one man doomdronedirge guitarrorist To Blacken The Pages, we've been pretty obsessed with every record we've heard so far, this being number FIVE, which is also notable for being a collaboration with Korperschwache, an Austin based Skullflower style guitar noise juggernaut, long time faves of some of us here, who somehow has never made it onto the aQ list, even with a ton of strange and limited releases over the last decade, but we'll solve that problem right... Now.
Regardless of the collaboration, a new To Blacken The Pages is always cause for celebration around here, TBTP continually manages to conjure up all sorts of low end fury, from blown out shoegazey drift, to crushing SUNNO)))-like dirgery, to harrowing black ambience, to spaced out kraut drone, more often than not some dizzying mix of all of those. Korperschwache is similarly versatile, leaning toward the noisy and heavy, dipping into extreme harsh noise, but also gorgeous guitardrone ambience, UK industrial style skree, and rhythmic hypnorock riffery. So what this collaboration would actually sound like was pretty much a total mystery.
What we did know, was that this would be some mysterious, dark and heavy shit, which we're happy to report is indeed the case, but there's much more to the gorgeous blackened soundworld these two sonic soundscapers have conjured up here...
Thick swaths or rumbling low end fog underpin delicate fragmented shards of softly reverbed guitar, almost like some sort of SUNNO))) / Scenic mash up, a little Earth twang, a lush, ominous churning driftscape that builds to a full on doomic crush, all hazey and blown out and in the red, before drifting into more slowcore territory, a simple motorik drum machine laced stretch of hypnotic post rock, with swirling melodies and buried in the mix deep vocal croon. Big billowy sheets of black crush splinter into feedback drenched noise rock, the drum machine cranked way up, the guitars corrosive and caustic, like an ultra heavy Loop track gone haywire. The first disc finishes off with two extended tracks of guitar drone, "A New Seat In Hell", and "Shallow", the first muted and murky and minimal, the second exactly the opposite, like recent Skullflower, a speaker shredding onslaught of full on psychedelic guitargrind freakout.
The second disc begins all dreamy and washed out, the drum machine set to lope and lumber, the guitars warm and gauzy, infused with tendril like melodies, the Jesu comparison is certainly apt here, hazy shoegazey and druggy, the perfect lead in to the "Inside The Mariana Trench", an even more spaced out bit of reverb drenched psychedelia, guitars spitting out blinding gouts of keening high end tones, laid over skeletal programmed drums, and a bleary eared swirl of delay and echo and smeared effects, so nice.
"Absent Friends" is a haunting post industrial bit of minimal dronemusic, again peppered with bits of guitar melody, and streaks of mysterious effects, hushed vocals, simple strums, the root sound a lush layered metallic whir, which leads to the final track, the nearly 40 minute "Stranded In The Hertzsprung Crater", a sprawling spacious, abstract epic, which beings thick and distorted, but soon evolves into something much more spare, effected guitars careening over a bleak landscape of hiss and whir and hum, soft arcs of feedback, a haunting barren world of drift and shimmer, a pretty perfect way to end such an epic sonic journey.
Needless to say, totally and utterly recommended, for fans of minimal guitar music, dirges and drones, dark ambience, doom, outsider metal, shoegaze, whatever, this stuff is dark and blissed out, ominous and abstract, dense and heavy and gorgeous.
Will do our best to get more Korperschwache to list, and we'll of course wait patiently for the next To Blacken The Pages, but in the meantime, we'll just stay gloriously lost in the epic and sprawling soundworld of A Way Dark.
MPEG Stream: "Lovecraft"
MPEG Stream: "Sonic Kingdom"
MPEG Stream: "Black Dawn"

TO KILL A PETTY BOURGEOISIE Marlone (Kranky) cd 14.98
We haven't ever heard any of the other records by this strangely monickered duo, and in some ways it's probably that name that kept us from exploring their music in the past. We know, book, cover, band name, check. But with so much stuff to listen to, it's inevitable that something like album cover or band name or label, will influence what you listen to first, or maybe even at all. But heck, it's Kranky, and the album cover is pretty cool, so two out of three ain't bad. And we have to say we're glad we did finally decide to take the plunge, cuz the world of TKAPB is a gorgeously gloomy one, a haunting and otherworldly late night drift through a world dark and ominous, and occasionally downright frightening. Think Grouper, Mazzy Star, Kuupuu, Valet, that sort of gauzy dreaminess, murky and muddy, spacey and druggy, with ethereal female vocals, barely there drum skitter, warm languid bass, the instruments less recognizable as instruments, and more as sound generating devices, each emitting long tones, or soft rhythms, the result is a slow burning jazzy drone-y drift, but TKAPB seems a bit more sinister than the rest of those bands, imbuing their hazy midnight drift, with some deep drones, some jagged shards of distorted crunch. A creepy dreamy slowcore, with hints of something darker, heavier, and noisier. Just check out "The Needle", a loping slow groove, minor key and tense, the vocals sultry and smoky, creeping and crawling, until suddenly something hellish surfaces, a squall of demonic buzz and noise, only a second or two, but it adds such menace to the track, as does a swirling sea of cymbal sizzle and what sounds like a moaning string section. Almost like some sort of doom torch song.
The rest of the record is maybe not nearly so intense, but it is a very dark record, think Portishead, Grouper, Skepticism, and Bohren all wound up in a sprawling songsuite of drummachined black ballads, harrowing love songs, grim ambience and blackened downtempo electronica, with a sound so gauzy and washed out and murky and psychedelic, and yeah, occasionally menacing, that it's impossible for us not to give this our highest recommendation.
MPEG Stream: "You've Gone Too Far"
MPEG Stream: "The Needle"
MPEG Stream: "Villain"
MPEG Stream: "I Hear You Coming, But Your Steps Are Too Loud"

TOAD s/t (Second Battle) cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Why does anyone bother with the current crop of "stoner rock" when there's so much better stuff made back in the original stoner age (the '70s) now being reissued?? If you're into the Man's Ruin roster, and prone to buying albums by the latest Swedish Kyuss clone, yet don't have, say, Lucifer's Friend, Flower Travellin' Band, Leafhound, Captain Beyond, or Buffalo reissues in your collection, it's time to get with the program! Not that that's easy, since much of the good old shit is definitely obscure and unheralded. For instance, we hadn't ever heard of this Swiss band Toad until a kindly customer sold back a bootleg cd with an intriguing cover a couple years ago. Now, here's a legit reissue of the same album thanks to the freaks at Second Battle. This self-titled disc is the first and best of Toad's three LPs, serving up hard-rockin' stoner psych in the best blues-based tradition of early Blue Cheer and Led Zep. The first track "Cotton Wood Hill" will offer a clue about the lineage of this band, as Toad's rhythm section played on the classic LP of that same title by acid-fried Krautrockers Brainticket! Toad boasts an excellent vocalist put to good use on the more melodic parts of their sometimes quite long songs, but a large part of the LP is occupied by heavy (HEAVY) jamming instrumental excursions featuring the killer guitar of one Vic Vergeat. This is genuine heaviness, circa 1971. This reissue features four bonus tracks, including their spacey cover of Hendrix' "Purple Haze", a suitable choice indeed. Toad, dude.
RealAudio clip: "Cotton Wood Hill"
RealAudio clip: "Life Goes On"

TOAD s/t (Akarma) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Toad's eponymous debut is an underground proto-metal classic, one we've had before when it was a Second Battle reissue and are pleased to stock again now that Akarma has reissued it again. It's cheaper than the previous edition and comes in one of those gatefold sleeves too. Here's our original review talkin' 'bout Toad:
Why does anyone bother with the current crop of "stoner rock" when there's so much better stuff made back in the original stoner age (the '70s) now being reissued?? If you're into the Man's Ruin roster, and prone to buying albums by the latest Swedish Kyuss clone, yet don't have, say, Lucifer's Friend, Flower Travellin' Band, Leafhound, Captain Beyond, or Buffalo reissues in your collection, it's time to get with the program! Not that that's easy, since much of the good old shit is definitely obscure and unheralded. For instance, we hadn't ever heard of this Swiss band Toad until a kindly customer sold back a bootleg cd with an intriguing cover a couple years ago and we got clued in (and then found the legit reish to stock).
This self-titled disc is the first and best of Toad's three LPs, serving up hard-rockin' stoner psych in the best blues-based tradition of early Blue Cheer and Led Zep. The first track "Cotton Wood Hill" will offer a clue about the lineage of this band, as Toad's rhythm section played on the classic LP of that same title by acid-fried Krautrockers Brainticket! Toad boasts an excellent vocalist put to good use on the more melodic parts of their sometimes quite long songs, but a large part of the LP is occupied by heavy (HEAVY) jamming instrumental excursions featuring the killer guitar of one Vic Vergeat. This is genuine heaviness, circa 1971. 1971!!
Just two bonus tracks, "Stay" and "Animals World" on this reish, not the four Second Battle included.
MPEG Stream: "Cotton Wood Hill"
MPEG Stream: "Life Goes On"

TOADLIQUOR The Hortator's Lament (Southern Lord) cd 13.98
Nasty ugly feedback filled sludge metal in the tradition of Eyehategod and Grief (or more obscurely, Negative Reaction and Soul Preacher). Apparently this disc reissues vinyl-only tracks from back in 1994 and other rarities by this rather obscure doomcore band. We don't even know where they're from, but we're glad they're not our neighbors. The vocals might just be toooo anguished for some (I personally liked 'em -- until I realized the sound I was digging was supposed to be singing, not some sort of distorted horn). Anyway if you're into the ugly n' heavy then this Southern Lord release has yer number. Dark psychedelic thud from a black hole space, with weird touches like keyboards (I think, though maybe it's the vocals again??) and let's not forget their cover of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" sure to please everyone who loved Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
MPEG Stream: "Also Sprach Zarathustra"
MPEG Stream: "Tatterdemalion: the Gladiators' Debasement..."

TODAY IS THE DAY Blue Blood (Rage Of Achilles) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Blue Blood" is the second live album from the twisted math-metal band Today Is The Day. Recorded while on tour in support of their Relapse debut "Temple Of The Morning Star" at Okay's Corral in Madison, Wisconsin in 1998, this set featured Today Is The Day mastermind Steve Austin on guitar, voice, samples, and bass, backed by Chris Reeser on keyboards and Brad Elrod on drums. Always an amazing live band, Today Is The Day cranks out an impressive set, colliding methamphetamine laced metalcore riffs with complex rhythmic onslaughts. Most of the tracks come from the aforementioned "Temple" album with a couple older tracks from their AmRep days, but nevertheless finds Today Is The Day in their more recent demonic / Satanic persona. While the sound quality is pretty good, "Blue Blood" appears to be a board mix as the vocals are pretty loud, while the guitars a bit soft. A minor criticism, though.
RealAudio clip: "08"

TODAY IS THE DAY Kiss The Pig (Relapse) cd 15.98
Ready for another sound beating from this misanthropic and rather artsy metalcore outfit, who're always an AQ fave? Their last album, Sadness Will Prevail, was a sprawling, sometimes flawed masterpiece of moody, metallic experimentation. With Kiss The Pig, the Steve Austin Trio offer up a more concentrated dose of blasting, misanthropic ugliness and art, with song titles like "This Machine Kills Fascists" and "Bees Wax And Star Wars". Emotionally and musically extreme, it's a dissonant, mathy drubbing for the ears, fast and fierce, influenced by hardcore and black metal. The vocal effect used on Austin's vocals makes him sound like a troop of evil, witchy munchkins storming the gates of some tiny castle...like the music, distorted, insane!
MPEG Stream: "Mother's Ruin"
MPEG Stream: "Don't Tread On Hope"

TODAY IS THE DAY LIVE Till You DIE (Relapse) cd 14.98
A live album from an amazing live band. Guitarist / vocalist / producer / mastermind Steve Austin's fucked up super heavy and twisted "metal" band is at its most intense on stage, and this is the (paradoxically?) recorded proof. Math-metal, hardcore, sampling, keyboards, anti-social anger and frustration: all these elements and more collide in Today Is The Day's energetic, ugly, complex, like-none-other sound. Some humor too, as there's unlikely cover versions of "Wicked Game", "Why Don't We Do It In The Road", and "Feel Like Makin' Love" on here alongside a slew of their own psycho-negative metallic toons (mostly drawn from Today Is The Day's more recent, more Satanic albums rather than from their earlier, pre-Relapse AmRep days).

TODAY IS THE DAY Sadness Will Prevail (Relapse) 2cd 16.98
Praise be! Steve Austin and co. are back, delivering another dose of their unique brand of Satanic math-metallic noise. Sprawling over two discs (labelled X and Y), these tracks are less like songs proper than sonic symptoms of Today Is The Day's aesthetic and philosophical ideas -- and, especially, their darkest emotions.
With wretched rasping vokills, crushing doom riffs, maniac outbursts, and scary, atmospheric sample-littered soundscapes (normally we frown on samples we can recognize, but it *was* neat to hear the bit from Coven, y'know, from American Movie), Today Is The Day convey some dark feelings indeed. The metal parts are quite devastating, but it's perhaps the moodier elements that make this album so striking and creepy. Bass rumble and glitchy electronic synth noise are paired with sad piano tinklings, acoustic guitars are strummed in a backwoods night-time ritual, and there's even some honest-to-god melodic singing (as on the deathly-piano-ballad "Death Requiem" or the great Alice Cooper/Devil Doll styled track "Invincible", reprised from TITD's split cd with 16).
Several of us here at AQ have been TITD fans for a long time, all the way back to their sadly out-of-print "Supernova" debut on the Amphetamine Reptile label. Their rebirth on Relapse (three albums ago) moved them in a decidedly heavier, brutal direction, but, as made plain on "Sadness Will Prevail", their experimental, artistic impulses remain strong.
In some ways, the closest thing we can compare this to is the mighty Oxbow, colliding with the likes of Coalesce and Old Man Gloom perhaps. Easily a contender for "metal" (but not at all entirely metal) record of the year. There's certainly a lot here to like. Some of the production is more lo-fi than we'd expect from Mr. Austin (a well-known producer outside of this TITD career) but still manages to dangle us dangerously at the gaping mouth of hell! And wait for the hidden track at the end of disc two, wherein Austin fucks with some brutal black metal, which just happens to be from the upcoming Leviathan album on Andee's tUMULt label!
RealAudio clip: "Crooked"
RealAudio clip: "Distortion Of Nature"
RealAudio clip: "The Descent"
RealAudio clip: "Death Requiem"
RealAudio clip: "Spaceship"
RealAudio clip: "Flowers Made of Flesh"
RealAudio clip: "Sadness Will Prevail Theme"

TODAY IS THE DAY Supernova (Supernova Records) cd 14.98
Been meaning to get to this one for a while, it's something we absolutely *had* to highlight eventually, the long-overdue reissue of the crucial first album by this now veteran, always visionary noise rock/metal outfit. Mainman Steve Austin (vocals/guitars) has led a vast variety of TITD lineups over the years, having made eight studio albums to date, and Supernova is where it all started. When this first came out back in 1993 on the now-defunct Amphetamine Reptile label, we were immediately entranced and in fact almost frightened by this band's (at the time) fairly unique blend of atmospheric/ambient weirdness (via surreal sampling), melody, and heavy/hard rock action. Surely the most Satanic thing AmRep ever released, next to the God Bullies. Also, at the time, we'd have compared it to the likes of Steel Pole Bathtub, Oxbow, Engine Kid, Neurosis, Pain Teens... more recently, Old Man Gloom maybe.
Supernova's dozen tracks are full of both sheer beauty and terror; cruel, cryptic, compelling. It's a genius avant-metal mutation, ultimately more metallic than we knew back then (perhaps pioneering the "noisecore" genre), the band's violent hardcore/postrock riffage and distorted, angry vokills being moodily morphed with all manner of psychedelic sound FX fuckery and chaotic layers of vocal mumble and chatter, buried in the mix like crossed wires or intercepted transmissions... there's also stretches of proggily Frippish guitar, synth bleep, unidentifiable field recordings, including even some barnyard animal noises heard on one track. Today Is The Day keeps all this under control though, these are truly *songs*, mysterious and mayhemic but never too messy. The line between dreaminess, and nightmarishness, is often erased... they were definitely on to something here, as later output proved, Today Is The Day getting more overtly metal in later incarnations, maybe even more experimentally extreme, but never any more uniquely "Today Is The Day" than on Supernova.
This digitally remastered reissue now comes in a digipack, and the artwork is slightly altered from the original, and there's two bonus tracks too (from the '93 AmRep 7" single, "I Bent Scared"), but otherwise it's the same Supernova we know and love. In a word: Recommended!
Ok, now that that's finally out of the way (hey, it's always hardest to review the albums that you like the most, anxiously wanting to do 'em justice) we'll hopefully get to the *new* TITD album, Axis of Eden, soon. And also the same label's reissue of another TDID AmRep classic, Willpower, the ultra-intense follow-up to Supernova...
MPEG Stream: "6 Dementia Satyr"
MPEG Stream: "Blind Man At Mystic Lake"
MPEG Stream: "The Kick Inside"

TODAY IS THE DAY / METATRON The Descent (This Dark Reign) cd 11.98
In spite of sporting a designwork very much like the recent output from Kozik, this split between stalwart prognosticators of the apocalypse Today Is The Day and Kentucky's bass heavy grind core group Metatron is not on Man's Ruin (who did in fact go out of business a few weeks ago). Today Is The Day delivers two exceptional tracks of negative vibes in the form of their signature pseudo-grind / complex math-rock. They also bridge between Metatron with a weird digital collage that ends up sounding like a lackluster Tribes of Neurot track, but Metatron's explosion of Coalesce-esque grind quickly changes things back over to the darkside. 7 tracks in all for a bit over 30 minutes.
RealAudio clip: METATRON "End Of Light"
RealAudio clip: TODAY IS THE DAY "The Descent"

TODD Big Ripper (Riot Season) cd 16.98
You would most definitely be forgiven for not expecting big things from a band called Todd. And you sure as shit would probably wouldn't expect something this fierce and heavy and fucked up. But once you realize these guys are on Riot Season, and that they count as members (or did at one time) guys from long time aQ faves Shit And Shine, then it all begins to make a bit more sense. Right down to the taking-the-piss monicker.
And Todd most definitely have plenty in common with their way more tweaked and druggy countrymen S+S, but where S+S do their multiple drummered post Buttholes freak out thing, Todd are a bit more riffy and raw, still rhythmic and heavy and blown out and in the red, but more pounding and relentless, maybe more akin to Brainbombs and Rusted Shut and Twin Stumps and White Mice and the Mayyors, you get the drift, howled marble mouthed vox, riffs crumbling with distortion, so much so that half the time they just sound like a wall of fuzz, the bass a wash of bowel rattling rumble, the drums pounding and frantic, the band swing from unhinged Scratch Acid / Jesus Lizard noise rock, to seasick post rock groove, to lurching sludge-y doom, to full on filthy space rock trip outs, to repetitive, looped sounding dirge-y drug rock, there's even some warped twang flecked almost slowcore sounding drift, but even then, the vocals are unhinged, and the amps sound like they're gradually turning to some sort of black goo, and the band eventually stumble back into a filthy field of sonic broken glass and ear shredding pound and howl.
Needless to say, if you dig Shit And Shine, Brainbombs, No Balls, Twin Stumps, Butthole Surfers, Rusted Shut, Oxbow, Hey Colossus, the Anals, Billy Bao, any of that sort of crusty, metallic, noise drenched filth, then these guys will definitely hit the spot.
MPEG Stream: "Track Side Fire"
MPEG Stream: "Happy Easter Florida"
MPEG Stream: "French And Out Of France"

TODD Big Ripper (Riot Season) lp 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 VINYL!
You would most definitely be forgiven for not expecting big things from a band called Todd. And you sure as shit would probably wouldn't expect something this fierce and heavy and fucked up. But once you realize these guys are on Riot Season, and that they count as members (or did at one time) guys from long time aQ faves Shit And Shine, then it all begins to make a bit more sense. Right down to the taking-the-piss monicker.
And Todd most definitely have plenty in common with their way more tweaked and druggy countrymen S+S, but where S+S do their multiple drummered post Buttholes freak out thing, Todd are a bit more riffy and raw, still rhythmic and heavy and blown out and in the red, but more pounding and relentless, maybe more akin to Brainbombs and Rusted Shut and Twin Stumps and White Mice and the Mayyors, you get the drift, howled marble mouthed vox, riffs crumbling with distortion, so much so that half the time they just sound like a wall of fuzz, the bass a wash of bowel rattling rumble, the drums pounding and frantic, the band swing from unhinged Scratch Acid / Jesus Lizard noise rock, to seasick post rock groove, to lurching sludge-y doom, to full on filthy space rock trip outs, to repetitive, looped sounding dirge-y drug rock, there's even some warped twang flecked almost slowcore sounding drift, but even then, the vocals are unhinged, and the amps sound like they're gradually turning to some sort of black goo, and the band eventually stumble back into a filthy field of sonic broken glass and ear shredding pound and howl.
Needless to say, if you dig Shit And Shine, Brainbombs, No Balls, Twin Stumps, Butthole Surfers, Rusted Shut, Oxbow, Hey Colossus, the Anals, Billy Bao, any of that sort of crusty, metallic, noise drenched filth, then these guys will definitely hit the spot.
MPEG Stream: "Track Side Fire"
MPEG Stream: "Happy Easter Florida"
MPEG Stream: "French And Out Of France"