GENERAL SURGERY / THE COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINERS split (Razorback) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

GENGHIS TRON Board Up The House (Relapse) cd 14.98
It's generally a pretty bad idea to have a pun as a band name. Once in a while, if the band is pretty good, and you put some effort into it, eventually you can get used to it and forget it's a pun (Jucifer), sometimes you don't even realize it's a pun until you finally say it out loud (Vulture Club), sometimes it never gets any easier to say or type (Cream Abdul Babar), and once in a while, VERY rarely, it's actually a pun that makes sense, and suits the music, and thus is actually a perfect name for the band. That just so happens to be the case with Genghis Tron, who combine a punishing super complex grinding downtuned metallic onslaught (like a musical Genghis Khan) and tons of synths and video game sounds, and electronics and glitchery (like the video game Tron?), which is a chocolate-and-peanut-butter combo that is tough to beat.
We've always dug Genghis Tron, but something seems to have happened since the last record. The way we remember it, the old Genghis Tron wielded a non stop torrent of super spazzy buzzy synthgrind, we even described their sound as "synthcorespazzmetalfusion", but Board Up The House, while retaining plenty of spazz and buzz and grind, is a much more mysterious beast, much darker and dronier, with the gnarled blasts of hypergrind, peppered with awesome fuzzy synthy Gary Numan style new wave, all dour and moody, with crooned robotic vocals, tangled swaths of minor key synthdrone, Autechre like skitter, super spare minimal old school electro, some gorgeous washed out dreamy drift, and while some of those sounds end up tangled up with jagged shards of downtuned chug, or churning Neurosis-y sludge, or chaotic screamo freakouts, much of the time the band lets those sounds sprawl, creating gorgeous darkened soundscapes, very cinematic and epic, intense and majestic. It's like John Carpenter jamming with Pig Destroyer sometimes. Very few of the heavy songs make it to their ends without being awesomely complicated by the band's weirdo electronic proclivities, but somehow, instead of sounding like pointless genre hopping, or some infuriating ADD drive aggro rock band, the diverse parts are fused seamlessly, to the point where some soft synth shimmer couldn't sound more perfect than sandwiched between a wall of stumbling grind and a blast of hyperspeed Iron Maiden style guitar harmonies. And actually, the ratio of electronic weirdness and dark droned out synthscapes to full on mathgrind leans WAY more heavily toward the former this time around. And it definitely suits them.
The clincher is the 11 minute closer, "Relief", which is a gorgeous, post rocky dirge, all clean vocals and languorous riffing, the track builds to some serious chugging crescendos, and even offers up a few breathless skittery ambient interludes, but when the band lock into THE RIFF, the one they pound away at for the last 6 minutes, it's total drone-doom-kraut-groove nirvana, a loping seasick drum part, underpinning a slithery minor key riff, thick and relentless, glistening with harmonies, the various melodies slipping in and out of the churning groove, vocals and synths soaring in the background, another one of those parts we wish would go on for another 40 minutes, so much so that we've been driving everyone crazy by playing this track over and over and over.
Like we said above, we always dug this band, but even so we definitely weren't expecting a record this dense and epic and melodically mature. Fans of heavier stuff, of groups like Pelican, Conifer, Isis, Tides, Ice Bound Majesty, as well as dronerock combos like Pharaoh Overlord, Circle, Cave, might get WAY into this record, assuming they can dig some of the more manic freaked out stuff. And this just might be the disc to get Genghis Tron out of the synthspazzgrind ghetto. That is if they even want out.
WAY RECOMMENDED!!
MPEG Stream: "Board Up The House"
MPEG Stream: "Endless Teeth"
MPEG Stream: "Things Don't Look Good"

GENGHIS TRON Board Up The House Remixes Vol. 3 (Relapse) 12" 18.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

GENGHIS TRON Board Up The House Remixes Vol. 5: Remixed By Nadja + Tim Hecker + Dudes You Can Trust (Crucial Blast / Relapse) 12" 11.98
Now this is the one we've been waiting for!! The final installment in the 5 part Genghis Tron remix 12" series. For some reason we only ever reviewed the Temporary Residence 12" (each was on a different label), but there were other volumes on Lovepump United, Relapse and Anticon. We're predicting (hoping for) an eventual cd compilation release, but for now, this is the GT remix record not to miss. Nadja. Tim Hecker. Not sure who Dudes You Can Trust are, but they had us at Nadja and Tim Hecker.
Hecker's mix obliterates the original, in fact, if we didn't already know it was a remix, we probably would assume it was a proper new TH track. All warm and washed out and glistening and gauzy and sun dappled and woozy and blissy and dreamy, organic and shimmery, it's the sound that everyone shoots for, but only Tim Hecker seems to have perfected. The fact that there's a Genghis Tron track in there somewhere only makes it even cooler.
Dudes You Can Trust, which we just learned is actually one of the Genghis Tron guys, most definitely have a Nadja / Jesu vibe happening, the original track is stripped down and then bathed in dense shimmer, until most of the extraneous sounds peel back, leaving just a super minimal rumbly buzz, over a looped drum fill, before slipping into a brief stretch of lo-fi Ariel Pink like FM radio drift, and then finally a bit of glitchy minimal electro (!). Weird, but cool.
Nadja's remix takes up the whole of side 2, the first half of which is all minimal and drifty, with muted electronic bloops and bleeps, subtle effects, all very abstract and ambient, barring some barely there glitchy skitter.
Eventually, bits of the original jam burst through, a pounding howling metallic crunch, that sounds like it could have been looped or processed, but there's no time to figure it out for sure, as it quickly blisses out again into a haunting swirling whoosh of blissed out almost new wave shimmer, draped delicately over the remnants of the original track. So cool.
Needless to say, essential. LIMITED as all of the volumes are, this one is pressed on wicked red and green splatter vinyl!

GENGHIS TRON Cloak Of Love (Crucial Blast) cd ep 10.98
Aaaargh, a band name only an Andee could love... yes, Genghis Tron does rank right up there with, ahem, Corn On Macabre and Cream Abdul Babar, don't ya think? Actually Allan likes the name too. At least, it made him wonder, what does this band sound like? Well, first here's what the label says, then we'll critique:
"The debut EP from Poughkeepsie-based trio GENGHIS TRON. Cloak of Love is a virulent pop mutation that seamlessly splatters acrobatic shred and machine gun blastbeats across soaring synth pop anthems and electronic melodies. Five tracks of absurd brutalia and electro pop glory."
And it's true, some of this does sound like M83 being attacked by Discordance Axis. Some foofy '80s ish electro-dance beat will start up, only to be obliterated by a thunderous shitstorm of aggro axe shrapnel. But although they do make a successful effort at trying something new, Genghis Tron don't really strike quite as even a balance between their blastbeats and synthpop melodies as the description on the disc's obi might lead you to believe. A "virulent pop mutation"? Well it definitely leans heavier on the metal than the pop. Clearly they're more schooled and skilled in the latter. The "pop" elements, if there really are any, come in the form of brief keyboard noodles and retro-techno grooves, but actually that's more about instrumentation rather than style or structure. Alright, we don't wanna get totally sticky about the technicalities, but geez, the aforementioned obi description sure did raise our expectations. But then again, we should have known all that was too good to be true. So let's enjoy Genghis Tron for what they are. Less a true synthesis of synth-pop and metallic blasting than a spazzy collision of the two with the metallic stuff definitely getting the upper hand, the metal secure in crash helmets and seatbelts while the pop gets thrown from the vehicle, crushed on the roadway. But it does make for a spectacular crash, something that fans of The Locust and Mr. Bungle and Knodel and Melt Banana and Schizoid and Agoraphobic Nosebleed and The Daughters oughtta find rubberneckingly riveting. Depending on how you feel about such (diverse) bands, by the time the not-quite-13 minutes of music here are over, you'll either be pressing play again with a big smile on your face, or already have left the room, plotting the destruction of whomever was playing it to annoy you.
MPEG Stream: "Rock Candy"
MPEG Stream: "Laser Bitch"

GENGHIS TRON Dead Mountain Mouth (Crucial Blast) cd 14.98
Genghis Tron might have a joke name, but their music comes across as serious business. Not played for laughs, anyway. They blenderize genres like electro pop, grindcore, techno, screamo, and heavy metal into a delicious smoothie packed with blasting "boosts" and nutritious noise. Their name is still silly, but also fairly descriptive. The power and might of metal meets the computer age of music making! It's 100mph headspinning mayhem and sorta new wavey '80s synth pop sensibilities in collision, one or both of 'em subverting the other, it's not clear. Those of us here into The Locust and An Albatross and Horse The Band and the like were all thumbs up for GT's hyperkinetic debut ep Cloak Of Love and are equally stoked on Dead Mountain Mouth, which spreads their love all over ten tracks, a whole half-hour plus of gonzoid synthcorespazzmetalfusion. Very cool.
Note too, they have a few tracks on one of our recent Records Of The Week, the Drummachinegun compilation!
MPEG Stream: "Dead Mountain Mouth"
MPEG Stream: "Greek Beds"

GENOCIDE (NIPPON) Black Sanctuary (Shadow Kingdom) 2cd 15.98
Yes, the "(Nippon)" in their name means that these genocidal gents are from Japan. Also, they're from the '80s, and very VERY metal. Makes for a cool combo! We'd never heard of 'em until this deluxe reissue recently appeared, but don't doubt it's a cult classic, as we were immediately were struck by the awesome metal craziness of this band. They've got wild dual guitars, evil riffage, and most significantly, truly over the top vocals. INSANE vocals. Dynamic, dramatic high pitched wailings and demonic lower register declamations... Mercyful Fate fans will definitely enjoy this, the guy sounds like an unhinged student of King Diamond, also somewhat like Messiah from Candlemass, but possessed by sinister Japanese spirits, laughing and screaming.
Black Sanctuary was first released in 1988. Musically, the band play classically influenced trad metal (not quite thrash or speed, but sometimes fairly doomy), manic yet melodic, and pretty much hellishly heavy for that sort of thing, though there is one wimpy, almost new agey tune, an instrumental with acoustic guitars and weepy keyboards. What happened? Dunno but as soon as that's over they start killing again, so it's just a weird interlude (on a weird album)! If you picked up the Slauter Xstroyes reissues we listed recently, and are ready for some even more outrageous underground '80s metal with ridiculously expressive vocals, look no further.
It's a nicely done reissue, the cd booklet contains a band history (1979 through the present day!) as well as the lyrics, the English portions of which are exceedingly strange and cryptic, perhaps because of the translation, perhaps not. At the band's request, Shadow Kingdom has provided brand new cover art, but the original cover is also included on the back of the cd booklet, which we always appreciate (so you have the option of which to use, flipping it over if you want). And, there's a whole bonus disc included of demo tracks, different recordings from the album versions.
MPEG Stream: "Last Confusion"
MPEG Stream: "Living Legend"
MPEG Stream: "Doomsday [demo]"

GENTLEMANS PISTOLS At Her Majesty's Pleasure (Rise Above / Metal Blade) cd 14.98
Hey, all right! This British band is back, at long last, with their 2nd album, and once again sound like a blast from the past (the past circa 1972 or so) even though they're from this day and age. We're almost sorta surprised they're not from Sweden, usually it's Swedish bands like Witchcraft, Graveyard, Horisont, and Noctum who do the bellbottomed retro-rawkin' thing this damn well, but heck the bands Gentlemans Pistols most sound like - Sabbath and Zeppelin - were from England, so it's in their blood after all. We wuz big fans of their self-titled debut a few years back, and are damn happy to hear 'em kicking out the jams once more, this time with new axe slinger the one and only Bill Steer (Carcass, Napalm Death, Firebird) on board, GP's upping the ante on all others in the realm of '70s styled stoner rock with their wailing vox, crunchy fuzz guitar riffage, and hard to beat bouncy energy. They're delivering the goods here, is what we're sayin'. A dozen new songs, all catchy and heavy and authentically '70s proto-metal sounding, they could hold their own with Pentagram and Hard Stuff and Leaf Hound and Highway Robbery, etc.... and they've got a sweaty muscularity to 'em that makes 'em more of a powerful proposition than just some kind of imitation or approximation. They're real, and rockin'. A ripping good time. Another one of those bands, in our view, that should be HUGE, and would be if we ran the rock n' roll world! F'ing recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Comfortably Crazy"
MPEG Stream: "Midnight Crawler"
MPEG Stream: "Some Girls Don't Know What's Good For Them"

GENTLEMANS PISTOLS At Her Majesty's Pleasure (Rise Above) lp 33.00
NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!!
Hey, all right! This British band is back, at long last, with their 2nd album, and once again sound like a blast from the past (the past circa 1972 or so) even though they're from this day and age. We're almost sorta surprised they're not from Sweden, usually it's Swedish bands like Witchcraft, Graveyard, Horisont, and Noctum who do the bellbottomed retro-rawkin' thing this damn well, but heck the bands Gentlemans Pistols most sound like - Sabbath and Zeppelin - were from England, so it's in their blood after all. We wuz big fans of their self-titled debut a few years back, and are damn happy to hear 'em kicking out the jams once more, this time with new axe slinger the one and only Bill Steer (Carcass, Napalm Death, Firebird) on board, GP's upping the ante on all others in the realm of '70s styled stoner rock with their wailing vox, crunchy fuzz guitar riffage, and hard to beat bouncy energy. They're delivering the goods here, is what we're sayin'. A dozen new songs, all catchy and heavy and authentically '70s proto-metal sounding, they could hold their own with Pentagram and Hard Stuff and Leaf Hound and Highway Robbery, etc.... and they've got a sweaty muscularity to 'em that makes 'em more of a powerful proposition than just some kind of imitation or approximation. They're real, and rockin'. A ripping good time. Another one of those bands, in our view, that should be HUGE, and would be if we ran the rock n' roll world! F'ing recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Comfortably Crazy"
MPEG Stream: "Midnight Crawler"
MPEG Stream: "Some Girls Don't Know What's Good For Them"

GENTLEMANS PISTOLS s/t (Candlelight) cd 14.98
Blimey, this is our favorite pure heavy rock n' roll album in a month of Sundays, pretty much, well since the Birds Of Avalon debut a few lists back anyway. '70s stylings to the max, fully indebted to the likes of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and the MC5. And paying those debts with freshly minted $100 bills. (If only, in a perfect world these guys would be raking it in like Wolfmother.) Signed to the Rise Above label over in England, home to Electric Wizard and Witchcraft and sundry other sterling stoner/doom outfits, this British band is indeed kinda Witchcrafty, if Witchcraft were more single-mindedly concerned about kicking out the jams... like a more cock-rock Witchcraft perhaps. Certainly Gentlemans Pistols are as much convincingly "out of time" as those Swedes, a bellbottomed retro-rockin' good time that ought to get your head to banging with such should-be car stereo staples as "Just A Fraction", "Widow Maker", and the MC5-ish high energy "Out Of The Eye" amongst the ten equally rad tracks on offer here. Gentlemans Pistols win us over with confident melodic vox, an abundance of catchy riffs, and a bit of clever... what's up with the song title "Parking Banshee"? They're sly ones, these guys, even when displaying some slightly cheesy, lemon-squeezin' rawk and roll lyrics that we suspect are halfway tongue in cheek, on the track "Heavy Pettin'" in particular, which is a slower, bluesy number a la Zep's "Dazed And Confused"... Definitely an album for Pentagram and Leaf Hound and even Raging Slab fans... Recommended, rockers!!
MPEG Stream: "Just A Fraction"
MPEG Stream: "Out Of The Eye"
MPEG Stream: "Widow Maker"

GENTLEMANS PISTOLS s/t (Rise Above) lp 29.00
Now on vinyl! A bit pricey as it's an import, but a killer record so for vinyl freeks it's probably worth it.
Blimey, this is our favorite pure heavy rock n' roll album in a month of Sundays, pretty much, well since the Birds Of Avalon debut a few lists back anyway. '70s stylings to the max, fully indebted to the likes of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and the MC5. And paying those debts with freshly minted $100 bills. (If only, in a perfect world these guys would be raking it in like Wolfmother.) Signed to the Rise Above label over in England, home to Electric Wizard and Witchcraft and sundry other sterling stoner/doom outfits, this British band is indeed kinda Witchcrafty, if Witchcraft were more single-mindedly concerned about kicking out the jams... like a more cock-rock Witchcraft perhaps. Certainly Gentlemans Pistols are as much convincingly "out of time" as those Swedes, a bellbottomed retro-rockin' good time that ought to get your head to banging with such should-be car stereo staples as "Just A Fraction", "Widow Maker", and the MC5-ish high energy "Out Of The Eye" amongst the ten equally rad tracks on offer here. Gentlemans Pistols win us over with confident melodic vox, an abundance of catchy riffs, and a bit of clever... what's up with the song title "Parking Banshee"? They're sly ones, these guys, even when displaying some slightly cheesy, lemon-squeezin' rawk and roll lyrics that we suspect are halfway tongue in cheek, on the track "Heavy Pettin'" in particular, which is a slower, bluesy number a la Zep's "Dazed And Confused"... Definitely an album for Pentagram and Leaf Hound and even Raging Slab fans... Recommended, rockers!!
MPEG Stream: "Just A Fraction"
MPEG Stream: "Out Of The Eye"
MPEG Stream: "Widow Maker"

GENTLEMANS PISTOLS The Lady (Rise Above) 7" 9.98

GERONIMO s/t (Three.One.G) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It was sort of inevitable that this disc would end up being an aQ record of the week. But before we tell you the strange tale of how we got to this point, how we discovered this band and this disc, let's offer up a quick, succinct, three word description that might render the rest of this rambling review moot:
CAVEMAN THIS HEAT.
Sold? We would be. Imagine Man Is The Bastard transported back to the early seventies and let loose in This Heat's Cold Storage recording studio, or take the black hypno kraut noise of former aQ record of the week, Aluk Todolo and strip it down to its bare essence, a sound based almost entirely on rhythm. A pounding, Neanderthal groove, pelted with squelches, and laced with a strangled inhuman mewling, huge chunks of grinding minimalism and long swaths of dreamy shimmering bliss, an ultra intense slab of kraut-doom power violence for sure.
The weird thing is, the first time we hear Geronimo was several years ago, when Circle came to play some shows on the West Coast, and so I (Andee) was happily drafted to drive them around, roadie for them, all that stuff. So one of the shows was at Arthurfest in LA Circle were playing with SUNNO))), in a way-too-small seated theater, based on how many angry folks were turned away (as in HUNDREDS!). I spent the whole time, running back and forth, up and down the stairs, trying to sneak as many people into the show as possible, through the emergency exit, the backstage door, every time I went back out I would run into someone who wanted me to get them inside. While this was all going on, a band started playing, and they were AMAZING. A bunch of cholo looking dudes, handkerchief headbands, all sort of just standing there, behind huge racks of busted looking equipment, making the most unholy racket, a gorgeously destructive rib cage rattling pummel, eventually I had to stop running back and forth, cuz this band was totally sucking me in, and so I just sat down on the floor and let the band's vibrations wash over me, the floor literally shaking violently with every note.
Well, we later discovered they were called Geronimo, but no one knew anything about them, and the folks waiting for Circle and SUNNO))) didn't seem to get it or be that into it at all. We never got to talk to them in the chaos of getting Circle sorted. And eventually it sort of just slipped my mind.
So flash forward two years to the end of 2007, when we highlighted that No Skull Left Unturned comp a list or two back, collecting the various offshoots of Power Violence pioneers Man Is The Bastard. And we were particularly taken with the band Sleestak, a doomy math rock variant on MITB's bassy grind, and their sound reminded us of THAT band, the one that opened for Circle back in 2005. Then we sort of randomly stumbled across this here disc, and suddenly everything clicked, THIS was the band we saw and loved so much, and whaddayaknow, Geronimo just so happens to feature folks from both Man Is The Bastard and Sleestak. And it sounds even better than I remember, heavier, groovier, way more fucked up and WAY more freaked out. So here's a song by song breakdown of this devastating chunk of brutal beauty and monstrous minimalism:
The opener, the 18 minute "Firewater", is perfectly placed to test the listener's mettle, an endless epic stretch of looped high end klaxons and choked cymbal crashes, like a metal intro stretched into an entire song. All around this constant crunch and whine, whip flurries of electronic glitch and crunch, swaths of grinding crumbling analog buzz, while beneath it all a rumbling minimal bass line lopes lazily, until about half way through, when the track suddenly switches gears, and turns super abstract, minimal smears of drone and muted feedback, LOTS of space, and huge percussive crashes spread WAY out. It's like a super minimal abstract doom. But with bits of atonal keyboard and strangled vocals. Like the rhythm section of Khanate scoring a Dario Argento movie. That soaring high end from the beginning of the track returns, along with some speaker destroying analog buzz, still spaced out around long stretches of silence, finishing off with a brief burst of intense fury, distorted vocals, thick wall of crumbling distortion, If you survive the first track, then track two, "Headdress", is your reward, a short sharp shock of rhythmic groove, it's all about the drums, a simple, killer rhythm, the drums slightly distorted, locked into a relentless loop, while all around it, malfunctioning synths and skittering shards of glitch and skree soar and swoop, until it too shifts suddenly, into a mathy breakdown, another mesmerizingly minimal and hypnotic looped drum fill, pounding its way through a sky filled with creaks and groans and whirs and garbled grinding lo-fi squelch, finishing off with another furious blast, this time a spray of super distorted bass riffing, howled ultra effected vocals, and total drum destruction.
"Spiritwalker" offers up another side of Geronimo, the strange homemade electronics muted and smeared into much softer shapes, allowed to drift and shimmer, the drums a muffled pulse, lots of low end rumble and whir, darkly droning and cinematic, thick swells of minor key melodies, over a wasteland of glitch and buzz, slow motion tribal percussion, everything wrapped in a gauze-y haze of psychedelic textures, low end murk, and abstract FX, a gorgeous soundscape, of slow black krautrock ambience. "Medicine Man" is another brief chunk of abstract doom. A simple plodding rhythm, a thick grinding rumbling low end synth, huge blasts of effects-drenched crunch, and ominous spoken vocals and shrieked demonic howls,
And then there's "Facepeeler", which begins with a propulsive drum part, a serious metallic jam, huge bass riffs, shrieked maniacal vocals, and speaker shredding, super stereo panned effects, until suddenly the song slows down into a lurching doomic plod, the drums blown out and in the red, locked into another super simple, but completely intense and relentless slow motion rhythm, again, the sky full of FX, squealing and grinding and buzzing and screeching, but now sprawled over Geronimo's angular what-the-fuck minimal math doom, are some of the most fucked up and intense vocals ever, alternately growling, roaring, howling, whispering and mewling, it sounds a bit like an industrialized Wolf Eyes-ian Oxbow, until you realize that the vocals in question belong to one David Yow, of Jesus Lizard and Scratch Acid (if only Qui sounded this bad ass). The suddenly it begins to sound like some Jesus Lizard outtake, slowed down, pulled apart and run through a bank of rusted and duct taped effects. One of those songs that easily could have been stretched out to the length of a whole record. Abrasive and brutal and hateful and super intense and heavy as fuck, but somehow weirdly hooky, and impossibly catchy, it's almost like having your pain and pleasure centers swapped, so having that anvil dropped repeatedly on your head ends up feeling so so divine. Definitely the song we keep coming back to, and playing over and over and over and over...
Finally, the band finish things off with the uncharacteristically mellow "Prints Tie", wrapped around a fluid almost jazzy bassline, drifting keyboard melodies, and shuffling abstract percussion, the Neanderthal electronics are still present, but used much more sparingly, gorgeous and glimmering, a soft smeared minimal workout that almost sounds like a more lo-fi Necks. Super dreamy and darkly shimmery, and just pretty enough to almost make you forget the 47 minutes of glorious sonic punishment you just endured. Almost.
So so so recommended. The minute we threw this one, we knew, THIS WAS THE ONE. Definite contender for record of the year (and actually, since I got it in December, it WAS my record of the year for 2007, even having only had it less than a month!) Folks who dug the Aluk Todolo will for sure dig this too. Likewise if the idea of, say, Mammal doing This Heat songs sounds cool to you too. Basically anyone into brutal rhythms and abstract minimal heaviness NEEDS this...
MPEG Stream: "Headdress"
MPEG Stream: "Facepeeler"
MPEG Stream: "Spiritwalker"

GERSCH, THE s/t (Tortuga Recordings) cd 12.98
A resurrected slab of blown out heaviness from this druggy sludgerock combo, featuring a current member of metallic post rock heavyweights Isis and the Red Sparowes. You won't hear much epic moodiness or brooding metal lope here though. Most folks compare the Gersch to bands like Sabbath, Sleep and Kyuss which is definitely fair, but if you ask us, we're hearing a whole lot more Amphetamine Reptile, like a total timewarp back to the good ol' Amrep days, you know, Halo Of Flies, the Cow Bullies, Lubricated Goat, Unsane, Surgery, Tar, Killdozer, the Cows, Boss Hog, Helmet, Vertigo, King Snake Roost and the rest...
What's weird is that the recording quality sounds genuinely old, almost as if it could have been recorded in the seventies, although the band sounds just a wee bit too metal to actually be from way back then. But the combination of Amrep style heaviness and that seventies production, makes for a deadly combo, and had us imagining the miraculous discovery of some lost tape from this weird band from 1971 called the Gersch, who were somehow channeling the spirit of Sabbath though a super chaotic metallic freaked out buzz. By now you should be able to tell whether this is your cup of tea or not. It most certainly is ours. A steaming hot cup of dense jagged guitars, convoluted mathy rhythms, chugging downtuned grooves, shouted and grunted vocals buried in the mix, massive slabs of rumbling low end, all stretched and twisted into churning, thrashing, pounding seventies-via-nineties metallic RAWK. Awesome!
MPEG Stream: "Listwish"
MPEG Stream: "Magnificent Desolation"
MPEG Stream: "Residue Three"

GESEWA / UTTER BASTARD Rising Sun Fuckers / Kusottare Yankee (Bloodbath) cd 9.98
As much as some of us love grind, we definitely don't get enough grind on the list. This split cd, released we think to coincide with a Japanese tour, features unknown to us until now Japanese grinders Gesewa, and SF grindlords Utter Bastard, who since have broken up, but who happen to feature aQ pal Roberto behind the kit.
Gesewa definitely hit the spot, the songs mostly clocking in at less than 30 seconds, aren't so much blazing fast, although there are bursts of extreme grind, instead, Gesewa are of the weirdo, pounding metallic what-the-fuck school of grind, sharing more in common with say Bathtub Shitter than Unholy Grave. Lurching start stop arrangements, plenty of D-beat pound, wild hysterical dueling vocals, one grunty and low, the other shrieky and high, the guitars downtuned and chuggy, plenty of buzz and chaotic noise drenched thrashing, pretty awesome stuff.
Utter Bastard are much more technical and heavy than their twisted and bizarre Japanese compatriots, and tend toward a more classical grind sound, pounding and relentless, the guitars frenzied and furious, the drums pounding and blasting, with mathy complex arrangements, but UB too offer up some bizarre dueling vocals, only here and there, but for the most part, they chug and churn, spewing out some seriously crusty classic American grind. Rad stuff for sure. Too bad they're no more.
Beautifully designed cd as well, super striking layout, with liner notes and lyrics inside.
MPEG Stream: GESEWA "Gesewa"
MPEG Stream: GESEWA "Eikounohibi"
MPEG Stream: GESEWA "Watarase Suicide"
MPEG Stream: UTTER BASTARD "Morning Broke"
MPEG Stream: UTTER BASTARD "Broke Down Man"

GESTAPO 666 Black Gestapo Metal (Goatowarex) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

GHASH Forest Of Perpetual Pains (Gungnir Productions) cassette 4.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
With a name like Ghash, we kind of expected some sort of old school crusty punk, but this is some seriously unhinged and hateful buzzing blackness. Beginning with a weird ambient dronescape, complete with guttural growls and anguished wails, the band quickly stumbles into some of the strangest midtempo black metal we've heard in a while. Minus the drums, we'd be in serious Abruptum territory, simple riffs, repeated over and over, hovering in swirling fields of black ambience, with completely fucked up, reverb drenched, demented vocals, the sound is so abject and miserable, mournful and hopeless. The ultimate depressive suicidal blackness, but the drums... the drums change everything. Super simple and rigid, no fills, hardly any cymbals, just a never wavering machinelike midtempo beat. It's so relentless it sounds like it must be programmed, and the riffs are locked in perfectly with the drums, making it sound like this black buzz machine. A neverending loop of riff and drum beat, while over the top those vocals wail and howl, so doused in effects they sound like strange animals howling at the moon. Completely bizarre but totally mesmerizing. AWESOME.

GHAST May The Curse Bind (Todestrieb) cd 14.98
We were all prepared to write this review thinking that this Ghast, from Wales, was in fact, the same as the Ghast whose last two split albums we had reviewed recently. The sound was quite different, but hey, bands do that all the time. Thankfully, we dug a little deeper and discovered that indeed there are two different Ghasts, one French Canadian, one Welsh!
This Ghast is the one from Wales, and since they are in fact not the Ghast we already knew and loved, they are totally new to us, but there's plenty of room in our shrivelled black hearts for two different Ghasts, which is a good thing as we're starting to think we love these guys too. Where the -other- Ghast traffic in a crumbling lo-fi slow motion blackened doom, the Welsh Ghast, on So May The Curse Bind, their first proper full length, up the black quotient quite a bit. Right out of the gate, opening track "Crawl, Blighted And Afraid" explodes in a flurry of punkish blast beats, harsh vokills and buzzing frenzied riffage, raw and primal and a bit lo-fi, this is definitely frosty and grim sounding, but before too long the band can no longer resist the black hole pull of doom, and the tempo slows to a lurch, the blast beat transforms into a pound, the riff churns and chugs, occasionally, spinning out into little squalls of furious buzz, the melodies minor key and epic, a relentless black doom dirge, that shifts back to blasting buzz to finish off in a blaze of blackened fury.
The rest of the tracks follow a similar path, veering back and forth between stumbling chaotic frenzy and lumbering doomic crush, buried within the murk and the mire though are haunting hook filled melodies and surprising guitar harmonies, which add a bit of texture and color to the blurred blackness. A few of the tracks slip into a D-beat pound, others stretch out into woozy seasick almost-waltzes, while "Pale Robe" slows everything waaaaay down for a weary depressive crawl through clouds of Burzumic buzz and spidery minor key guitar melodies, a sort of black doom ballad, melancholy, miserable, and weirdly beautiful.
MPEG Stream: "Crawl, Blighted And Afraid"
MPEG Stream: "Give Your Wrists"

GHAST May The Curse Bind (The Flenser) 2lp 24.00
The debut cd from these Welsh black metallers was a HUGE hit with the grim black metalheads around here, and now it's finally available on vinyl, deluxe colored vinyl in a full color gatefold to boot! And as a bonus, it includes the Ghast tracks from their way limited cd-r split with Helvette!! Here's what we said about the record proper when we first raved about the cd version back on list #307:
We were all prepared to write this review thinking that this Ghast, from Wales, was in fact, the same as the Ghast whose last two split albums we had reviewed recently. The sound was quite different, but hey, bands do that all the time. Thankfully, we dug a little deeper and discovered that indeed there are two different Ghasts, one French Canadian, one Welsh!
This Ghast is the one from Wales, and since they are in fact not the Ghast we already knew and loved, they are totally new to us, but there's plenty of room in our shrivelled black hearts for two different Ghasts, which is a good thing as we're starting to think we love these guys too. Where the -other- Ghast traffic in a crumbling lo-fi slow motion blackened doom, the Welsh Ghast, on So May The Curse Bind, their first proper full length, up the black quotient quite a bit. Right out of the gate, opening track "Crawl, Blighted And Afraid" explodes in a flurry of punkish blast beats, harsh vokills and buzzing frenzied riffage, raw and primal and a bit lo-fi, this is definitely frosty and grim sounding, but before too long the band can no longer resist the black hole pull of doom, and the tempo slows to a lurch, the blast beat transforms into a pound, the riff churns and chugs, occasionally, spinning out into little squalls of furious buzz, the melodies minor key and epic, a relentless black doom dirge, that shifts back to blasting buzz to finish off in a blaze of blackened fury.
The rest of the tracks follow a similar path, veering back and forth between stumbling chaotic frenzy and lumbering doomic crush, buried within the murk and the mire though are haunting hook filled melodies and surprising guitar harmonies, which add a bit of texture and color to the blurred blackness. A few of the tracks slip into a D-beat pound, others stretch out into woozy seasick almost-waltzes, while "Pale Robe" slows everything waaaaay down for a weary depressive crawl through clouds of Burzumic buzz and spidery minor key guitar melodies, a sort of black doom ballad, melancholy, miserable, and weirdly beautiful.
MPEG Stream: "Crawl, Blighted And Afraid"
MPEG Stream: "Give Your Wrists"

GHAST Terrible Cemetery (Todestrieb) cd 10.98
This Ghast thing continues to confuse. There's the sick and sludgey Canadian Ghast, and then there's these guys, a Welsh blackened doom horde whose sound is similar enough to keep us constantly wondering if we've got the right Ghast. Both bands traffic in slow and low and heavy, serious doooooom for sure, but the Canadian Ghast are filthier and crustier, more a twisted sludge, like Bunkur or Moss, whereas these guys are more classically black doom, their sound melodic, but still grim and black, flitting easily from epic doomed trudge to frenzied blasting blackness. We've been digging their May The Curse Bind record A LOT (it was also just reissued as a swank double lp!) and had been DYING for more, and finally here it is, in the form of Terrible Cemetery.
First, how amazing is the name Terrible Cemetery, it almost sounds like one of the guys in the band let his kid name the record, grim and scary maybe, but also sorta dorky, which just makes it cooler. The music though does sort of evoke a scary cemetery, the opening track a haunting loping bit of midtempo minor key blackness, with a KILLER main riff, seriously harrowing, lumbering melodic doom, rife with sick guitar buzz, plodding drum pound and maniacal screeching vocals, the second half finds the sound shift into full on black metal, with still more killer riffage, weirdly melodic, wound around a relentless blast beat, and more shrieked vox, total classic (c)old school black buzz for sure, raw and filthy and EVIL.
The 20 minute title track is up next, "TERRIBLE CEMETERY", and right away it sounds like it, buzzing bass plod, spare skeletal drum pound, then clouds of frenzied buzzing guitar, howled demonic vokills, the vibe mournful and menacing, a gorgeously abject miserablist black doom death march, super emotional and intense and heavy, the track explodes in a brief stretch of gnarled black buzz, the guitars droned out and melodic, lending the blackness a strange sense of melancholy, only to shift back into a gorgeously epic plodding dirge, again epic and majestic and gloriously fraught with emotion, and like the first track, totally classic black metal flecked TRUE DOOM!! TROOOOOOOOM!!
MPEG Stream: "O Akhea Rheon"
MPEG Stream: "Terrible Cemetery"

GHAST / ABANDONER split (At War With False Noise) cd 13.98
We're pretty sure we have this Ghast thing all sorted out, there's a Ghast that's Welsh, and whose May The Curse Bind just got reissued on vinyl, who traffic in a sort of doom laced black metal, then there's this Canadian horde, whose sound is way more filthy and fucked up, a sort of glacial blackened crawl, all downtuned sludge, crumbling distortion, and harsh gurgled demonic vokills, not to mention the strange swirl of grit and grime and buzz and hiss that seems to surround everything they do like a glorious black sonic cloud of hiss and crackle. And that's precisely what you get on these two tracks, two extended filthfests, crushing, lumbering dirges, each a lurching sonic behemoth, howling and hateful and despondent and depressive and heavy and brutal as fuck. These ultradoom crawls creep malevolently along, the vocals sometimes doused in reverb, sometimes just grunting and gurgling demonically, melodies played out over minutes, buried in the murk and mire, super dynamic, and a little bit bizarre, especially the second track, the vocals sounding almost like a Muppet, the sonic death march being bombarded by strange electronics and streaks of skittery static. Pretty goddamn great. These guys should really get the same love bands like Moss and Bunkur and Corrupted do...
We'd never heard of Abandoner before, but apparently, they're a sort of blackened post industrial drone outfit made up of members of US doom sludge juggernaut Unearthly Trance. Weirdly enough, UT would have been a perfect sonic match for Ghast, maybe too perfect, so instead, we're treated to, or punished by, Abandoner's caustic soundscapes, all wild bolts of feedback, strange processed noises, loads of buzz, and rumble, guitars not so much played and allowed to spew gouts of crunch and howl and skree, everything wrapped in a hazy field of murky thrum, laced with damaged electronics, noisy, but not NOISE, more like a sort of even more twisted, less melodic Wolf Eyes? But definitely cool stuff, and an interesting foil to Ghast's monstrous downtuned black doom trudge.
MPEG Stream: GHAST "Le Bouc Noir"
MPEG Stream: ABANDONER "Lament For Gilroy"

GHAST / RAPE-X split (Obskure Sombre) cd 11.98
Some seriously grim blacknoise weirdness here...
We first heard from Ghast on their split with Yoga, we were pretty obsessed with both bands and have been on the hunt for more from both ever since.
So Ghast have returned, on yet another split, offering up two more loooong tracks of their unique not-quite-doom, a dirgey crawl, that spends as much time shimmering and buzzing as it does pounding and lumbering. The opener here is 21 minutes of grinding corrosive soft buzz, think Tunnels, Wolf Eyes, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, that sort of thing, deep whirring low end, drifting beneath clouds of metallic buzz, plenty of fuzz and hiss, beneath it all, there does seem to be some sort of thick tarpit like riffing, but it's WAY down, more like a distant drone than anything overtly metal, but it does lend the track a serious sense of dread and foreboding, as if any second the track might splinter into pieces and explode into crushing doom, but it never does, instead ratcheting up the tension, like the soundtrack to some super abstract foreign horror film. An actual rhythm dose seem to develop, but it's cobbled together using hissy white noise, ominous whirring synths, buried and blurred vocals, and a super drawn out low end melody, creeping and creeping before the low end drops out leaving just a sea of high end electrical buzz, and weirdly enough the sound of sheep (!). The second track clocks in at nearly 12 minutes, and again, is more ambient than anything, bits of crackle, melted tape loops, field recordings, processed electronics, all blurred into a strange undulating drone, peppered with fragments of melody, some buried riffing, which finally crawls up from the murk, and the band, for the first time in nearly half an hour, launch into some lurching lumbering doom. But the sound is not massive or crushing, instead, it remains murky and muted, more bass heavy than anything, if there is guitar it's tuned WAY down and is locked in with the rumbling bass, the rhythm mechanical and machinelike, with a definite industrial vibe, the track slipping into brief stretches of ambient drone-like shimmer, before the band lurches back into action, pounding away, stripped down, but still heavy and doomy and mysteriously grim.
Rape-X existed until now, as an MP3 file someone sent us a looong time ago, a half hour slab of blown out metalnoise, industrial drone weirdness. We'd notice it on the computer every once in a while and fire it up, and always think, "wow, this is pretty great, I wonder when they'll have a record". Well here it is. And Rape-X is a pretty good match for Ghast, seeing as they traffic in a similarly abstract doomy ambience, falling closer to Wolf Eyes or Blue Sabbath Black Cheer than any classic sort of doom. The vocals are huge part of the sound, and are harsh and super processed, demonic and maniacal sounding, giving the track a bit of a Whitehouse feel, ranting and proselytizing over a constantly shifting backdrop of blackened noise and droning harsh ambience. A glorious metallic cacophony, wreathed in hiss and skree, a bit like a way more static Sunroof!, the sound roiling and churning below the surface like some rough black sea, while that hellish voice continues to testify, the unholy scripture from some lost black gospel.
Caveat Emptor, though: these have a pressing defect, it's minor, but it's definitely noticeable. The band was contacted about it, but apparently there's some bad blood with the label, so there will never be a new, corrected version, so we figured we would list it anyway, since otherwise it's pretty amazing, and the defect is so slight. Basically, the problem is, there's a digitial click at the beginning of each track. Annoying, distracting, yes, but it doesn't affect the songs themselves, so if you can handle that (you can also edit out the clicks yourself on your computer when you import it into your iTunes or whatever), then by all means pick this up, some seriously abject and harrowing doom-ed blacknoize.
MPEG Stream: GHAST "Tetanos"
MPEG Stream: RAPE-X "Civil Servant: I The Cop"

GHAST / YOGA split (TDS / Choking Hazard) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yoga is a pretty unlikely name for a black metal band. But then Yoga are a pretty unlikely sounding black metal band. So much so that we're not even sure they really are black metal. Or metal. But they are. Sort of.
The sound of Yoga takes the lo-fi practice space recordings of grimmest of the BM outfits, and combines it with the murky muddy noise drenched blur of bands like Wold. But then take it even further rendering their sound so muted and lo fidelity that even when they're blasting furiously, it still sounds like a busted music box or an old black metal 78. And then there's the fact that Yoga spend a good amount of their time not blasting blackly, but instead, crafting synth heavy Goblin style film music, all throbbing bass and buzzing synths, creepy minor key melodies and tons of haunting ambience. Those songs too are wreathed in a foggy night-on-the-moors sort of murk, which ties those songs closely to the more blackened ones.
The strange combination of grim and Goblin, the tripped out fucked up recording quality, the damaged arrangements, the looped hypnotic quality, turn Yoga into something totally out there, most likely way to abstract and psychedelic and deliriously lo-fi to appeal to folks looking for grim buzzing blackness, but for the rest of you, if you can try to imagine some impossible mix of Philip Jeck, Wold, Goblin, the Skaters and some of the super weird EEE unblack bands, all produced by John Maus and Ariel Pink, then you will flip for this.
The other band on this split, Ghast, are also not at all typical black metal, although they are much more distinctly metal than Yoga. Their sound is a super spare, slow motion blackened doom, still plenty lo-fi, the drums murky and down in the mix, the guitars more of a distant moan, sometimes soaring to the forefront, before drifting off again, the vocals super distorted and effected and harsh. All around this plodding blackness, creepy drones soar and shimmer, wail and keen, offering up a mournful abstract backdrop for Ghast's miserablist blackdoom. There's also a live track, where Ghast's sound is transformed into a crumbling blown out blackened drone, sounding almost like a metal band playing from behind a brick wall, the whole thing captured using a mic in a bucket of dirty water. The result is pretty fantastic, only the drums are at all identifiable, and then just barely, all the other instruments have been transformed into a mesmerizingly damaged, murky, muddy, sludgey pulsing drone. Awesome.
We got these direct from the band, and got the last copies, so once we run out, we might not be able to get more...
MPEG Stream: GHAST "La Noche Del Terror Ciego"
MPEG Stream: YOGA "Deep With-in The Cave Of Sesame"
MPEG Stream: YOGA "Littlefoot"

GHAST / ZOMBIE BLASPHEMY split (Lost Rivers Product) cd 9.98
Must suck to be Ghast, considering that pretty much every review has to start with "not to be confused with the OTHER Ghast", so it probably sucks for the OTHER Ghast too. But in this case, we're not talking about the Welsh black doomlords, we're talking about the Quebecois black doomdronedirge horde Ghast, with an umlaut over the 'A', whose sound is a much more raw and filthy proposition, droned out and blackened, and who strangely enough seem to only release splits. Their first with avant black metal weirdos Yoga, their second with blacknoize horde Rape-X, and now, this one, a brand new split with Japanese ultra doom sludge outfit Zombie Blasphemy.
As always, Ghast do not disappoint, offering up two lengthy slabs of abject, nihilistic slow motion creep, lumbering, lurching, troglodytic crush, the guitars massive sprawls of low end buzz, feedback everywhere, like Eyehategod doused in (more) cough syrup, a funeral crawl, a throbbing cloud of buzz and thrum, the vocals a beastly grunted howl, way off in the distance, keening high end skree plays out a melody stretched out over minutes, the riffing glacial and oozing and black, the track gathering momentum eventually, but peaking at a plod. Somehow, the other Ghast track is even MORE minimal and abstract, loose drumming laid over a haze of feedback and amp buzz, distant sirens, almost ambient, no riffs, just soft swirls of guitar noise, and some strange mewled vox, all the while the drums pounding sporadically and erratically, the last few minutes, the various strands seeming to come together to form something much more dense and droney, still black and abstract, but a strange sort of chanted sludge raga ritual. Awesome.
We had never heard Japanese sludgelords Zombie Blasphemy before, but much like their sonic compatriots in Coffins, they traffic in slow and low extreme doom, with an awesome guitar sound, so distorted it sounds like your speakers are fried, the vocals an impossibly guttural grunt, this is Moss / Corrupted style doom, but even more sludgey and crusty, the guitars occasionally offer up wild tangles of unhinged spidery melodies, almost leads, draped over the woozy warped lumbering chug and churn, the band do crank the temp here and there, but even then, the sound is SO blown out, and low fidelity and in the red, it turns everything into a glorious blackened noise drenched buzzy blur, and when they unfurl some wild psychedelic leads during the final track, it almost sounds like some sort of Tim Hecker / Merzbow mash up. So good. Total metal noise drone doom radness. For sure need to hear more from these guys. And hell, wouldn't hurt to finally get a non split Ghast full length too.
Totally recommended blast of twisted noise drenched extreme heaviness, two different, but equally twisted and genius takes on ultra slo-mo doom drone sludge...
MPEG Stream: GHAST "Jeanne D'Arc"
MPEG Stream: ZOMBIE BLASPHEMY "Cutthroth Machinery"

GHASTLY CITY SLEEP s/t (Robotic Empire) cd 10.98

GHOST Opus Eponymous (Rise Above / Metal Blade) cd 14.98
There's been so much hype about this Swedish metal outfit, before we had ever heard a note, we had heard ABOUT them, seen amazing pictures of the band playing live, the vocalist with a face painted like a skull, dressed in robes like some demonic priest, the album cover, a creepy seventies oil painting of that same vocalist, hovering demon like over an old haunted looking church, their satanic lyrics, their epic heaviness, so we were prepared for something seriously demonic and devastating, black metal or at least black-ISH metal we were assuming, so when we finally heard it, we were lured in by the sound of a church organ, so far so good, haunting and mysterious, and then the first song kicks in, thick buzzing metallic bass, pounding drums, okay, so not black metal, but heavy, fuzzed out, a little psychedelic, and then the vocals, woah, sounding a lit like Voivod weirdly enough, soaring majestically over chugging churning, and them suddenly, so POPPY, the song shifting gears, slipping into something way more melodic, replete with oooh's and aaaah's and some strange liturgical sounding crooning, some cool seventies style organs too, so it may not be what we were expecting but we were loving it, so then the next song started, and wow, even less metal, more like classic rock, seventies psych, a surprise, but fuck it, still pretty damn killer, the guitars still plenty heavy, and then the chorus, holy shit, a dead ringer for Blue Oyster Cult, total hooky pop, and it was then that we realized we were totally hooked.
C'mon, chugging satanic metal meets dark psychedelic rock meets Blue Oyster Cult? How rad is that?! The Answer is VERY. The vocals occasionally sound a bit like King Diamond, the band slipping into some Mercyful Fate-isms here and there, but a way poppier, more psychedelic, less overtly metal version, the leads are awesome. And it's pretty cool to hear actual singing and real melodies and a sort of classic psych rock formula with these explicitly Satanic lyrics.
"Death Knell" gets a little doomy, and features the refrain "Six Six Six" amongst other evil ramblings, but the song is far from fierce and heavy, instead it's trippy and broody and mysterious and haunting, the vocals wreathed in reverb and draped over muted guitars, fuzzy organs, with some cool dynamic stop/starts, as well as some tolling bells and a few definite Sabbathisms. We were sort of hoping "Prime Mover" was a Zodiac Mindwarp cover, but instead it's a pretty stellar original, droned our layered high end guitars wrap around a chugging churning riff, the bassline buzzy and ominous, again, a super dynamic arrangement, maybe one of the heaviest jams on the record, a little mathy, the guitars thick and fierce, and then the vocals come in, and the sound shifts to something more melodic and moody, drifty and creepy and psychedelic.
So yeah, don't be misled by the hype, or the satanic imagery, this isn't black metal, or really strictly metal, but if the idea of some awesomely Satanic psychedelic seventies styled heaviness, a sort of more metallic and WAY more evil and over the top classic rock, sounds like your sort of thing (and why wouldn't it?), then you'll probably love this as much as we do.
Killer packaging too, the aforementioned cover art, a sweet slipcover, and of course lyrics, so you can sing along and perform your own little musical black masses at home.
MPEG Stream: "Con Clavi Con Dio"
MPEG Stream: "Ritual"
MPEG Stream: "Satan Prayer"

GHOST Opus Eponymous (Rise Above) lp 33.00
Now we've got the import vinyl of this hot occult item, hail Satan!
There's been so much hype about this Swedish metal outfit, before we had ever heard a note, we had heard ABOUT them, seen amazing pictures of the band playing live, the vocalist with a face painted like a skull, dressed in robes like some demonic priest, the album cover, a creepy seventies oil painting of that same vocalist, hovering demon like over an old haunted looking church, their satanic lyrics, their epic heaviness, so we were prepared for something seriously demonic and devastating, black metal or at least black-ISH metal we were assuming, so when we finally heard it, we were lured in by the sound of a church organ, so far so good, haunting and mysterious, and then the first song kicks in, thick buzzing metallic bass, pounding drums, okay, so not black metal, but heavy, fuzzed out, a little psychedelic, and then the vocals, woah, sounding a lit like Voivod weirdly enough, soaring majestically over chugging churning, and them suddenly, so POPPY, the song shifting gears, slipping into something way more melodic, replete with oooh's and aaaah's and some strange liturgical sounding crooning, some cool seventies style organs too, so it may not be what we were expecting but we were loving it, so then the next song started, and wow, even less metal, more like classic rock, seventies psych, a surprise, but fuck it, still pretty damn killer, the guitars still plenty heavy, and then the chorus, holy shit, a dead ringer for Blue Oyster Cult, total hooky pop, and it was then that we realized we were totally hooked.
C'mon, chugging satanic metal meets dark psychedelic rock meets Blue Oyster Cult? How rad is that?! The Answer is VERY. The vocals occasionally sound a bit like King Diamond, the band slipping into some Mercyful Fate-isms here and there, but a way poppier, more psychedelic, less overtly metal version, the leads are awesome. And it's pretty cool to hear actual singing and real melodies and a sort of classic psych rock formula with these explicitly Satanic lyrics.
"Death Knell" gets a little doomy, and features the refrain "Six Six Six" amongst other evil ramblings, but the song is far from fierce and heavy, instead it's trippy and broody and mysterious and haunting, the vocals wreathed in reverb and draped over muted guitars, fuzzy organs, with some cool dynamic stop/starts, as well as some tolling bells and a few definite Sabbathisms. We were sort of hoping "Prime Mover" was a Zodiac Mindwarp cover, but instead it's a pretty stellar original, droned our layered high end guitars wrap around a chugging churning riff, the bassline buzzy and ominous, again, a super dynamic arrangement, maybe one of the heaviest jams on the record, a little mathy, the guitars thick and fierce, and then the vocals come in, and the sound shifts to something more melodic and moody, drifty and creepy and psychedelic.
So yeah, don't be misled by the hype, or the satanic imagery, this isn't black metal, or really strictly metal, but if the idea of some awesomely Satanic psychedelic seventies styled heaviness, a sort of more metallic and WAY more evil and over the top classic rock, sounds like your sort of thing (and why wouldn't it?), then you'll probably love this as much as we do.
MPEG Stream: "Con Clavi Con Dio"
MPEG Stream: "Ritual"
MPEG Stream: "Satan Prayer"

GHOUL Raping Soul (Battlecruiser / Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another 'metallic' masterpiece from the Battlecruiser label, the side label of Campbell Kneale's Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label, specializing in all things metal or sort of metal. However the metal found on Battlecrusier releases is not the metal of Maiden or Priest, nor is it the metal of Carcass or Napalm, instead, this is the metal that occurs when drone obsessed minimalist noisemakers take a stab at invoking the beast: everything from from ultra-repetitive riffing, to blissed out expanses of slow motion dooooooom, to smeary stabs of grind, to pounding industrial metal pummel.
The couldn't-be-more-aptly-named Ghoul hit us which just might be the creepiest BC release yet. A haunting plodding doomscape constructed from slowed down Krautrock and Skinny Puppy scraps, with rumbling bass thuds and a skeletal rhythm cobbled together from chopped and clipped vocals, malfunctioning synths, and a distant swirl of Earth-en guitars. Imagine an electro Skepticism, or Red Lorry Yellow Lorry jamming with Sunn 0))). Weird and weirdly hypnotic. Not heavy per se, but quite dark and evil and grim and spare and spooky. As with all things Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, this is VERY VERY LIMITED!!!
MPEG Stream: "Raping Soul (excerpt)"

GIAMON The Old Buried Memories (Rusty Axe) cd ep 5.98

GINNUNGAGAP Return To Nothing (Misanthropic Agenda) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Managed to get a final batch of these. So one more chance to pick this up and then they really are gone for good. A little more expensive this time around as well. Ginnungagap is a term from Norse mythology that means something like "seeming emptiness" and that's a great name for this project, which sounds like it emanates from some abyssal void or abandoned cave or something. Ambient sinister drone improv, reminding us a little bit of House of Low Culture or even Thuja, if they were more creepy and liquid-sounding. Ginnungagap is a trio consisting of Khanate / SUNNO))) dude Stephen O'Malley on guitar, Khanate's Tim Wyskida on gong and tympani, and Gerritt Wittmer (who runs the Misanthopic Agenda label, and records solo as Gerritt) on computer. Packaged in a gold-printed, flat oversized cardstock sleeve, this disc consists of two tracks: "Return To Nothing" being a live recording about a half-hour in length, followed by Gerritt's remix "Nothing To Return" for about 20 minutes more. Like so much Khanate / SUNNO))) related stuff, it's of course a limited edition release...in fact, it's already out of print. We supposedly have the last copies. So...act fast if you want one. Sorry!
MPEG Stream: "Return To Nothing"

GINNUNGAGAP Return To Nothing (Misanthropic Agenda) lp 15.00
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
The music from Ginnungagap's long out of print Return To Nothing cd is available again, however briefly, on vinyl, super swank swirled yellow vinyl in fact, and limited to 500 copies...
Ginnungagap is a term from Norse mythology that means something like "seeming emptiness" and that's a great name for this project, which sounds like it emanates from some abyssal void or abandoned cave or something. Ambient sinister drone improv, reminding us a little bit of House of Low Culture or even Thuja, if they were more creepy and liquid-sounding. Ginnungagap is a trio consisting of Khanate / SUNNO))) dude Stephen O'Malley on guitar, Khanate's Tim Wyskida on gong and tympani, and Gerritt Wittmer (who runs the Misanthropic Agenda label, and records solo as Gerritt) on computer. Packaged in a gold-printed, flat oversized cardstock sleeve, this disc consists of two tracks: "Return To Nothing" being a live recording about a half-hour in length, followed by Gerritt's remix "Nothing To Return" for about 20 minutes more. Like so much Khanate / SUNNO))) related stuff, it's of course a limited edition release...
MPEG Stream: "Return To Nothing"

GIROUX, ANNICK Hellbent For Cooking: The Heavy Metal Cookbook (Bazillion Points) book 27.95
The lucky few who managed to snag a copy of Canadian metal mag Morbid Tales #6, also got a glimpse of something pretty spectacular, strange and unexpected: a heavy metal cookbook, recipes from famous rockers, their own peculiar and particular metal food faves, compiled by Morbid Tales editrix Annick "Morbid Chef" Giroux, who has now taken her love of metal, and food, and that little cookbook supplement, and expanded it to a full on, honest to goodness cookbook.
And it's awesome. We really can't imagine a metalhead who wouldn't want this, even if they never planned on actually making all the recipes. Pretty much the perfect gift for the metaller in your life, and who knows, maybe this cookbook will be the catalyst for some homemade meals. Although some of these recipes might have you thinking twice. Some sound delicious for sure, and the pictures are appropriately appealing, but others maybe not so much, and some seem to be purposefully disgusting, something only a very drunk metalhead would eat. But that's part of the fun of the book. We wanted to make a bunch of these before we reviewed it but ran out of time. We will though, already have a few bookmarked.
For all her troo metal cred, editor Giroux is just too cute, on the cover in her metal patch-ed apron and huge knife, or on the dust cover chowing down on a sausage, heck the book is even dedicated to her grandmother, but let's get to the meat of this here cookbook. Every recipe features a full color photo (which at first glance seem like standard cookbook photos, until you begin to notice various metal items in the background, leather jackets, spikes, album covers, beer cans, wine bottles, etc.), the band logo and bio, the ingredients and instructions from the chef, as well as a little note from the Morbid Chef, her own take on each recipe. Some highlights include: Mummified Jalapeno Bacon Bombs from Chris Reifert of Autopsy/Abcess, Candied Sweetbreads On A Bed Of Sacred Heart from Balsac The Jaws Of Death from Gwar, Fried Egg Rigor Mortis Cure from Ustumallagam Of Denial Of God, Devil's Porridge from Montalo of Witchfynde, Welfare Nachos from Jason Decay of Cauldron/Goathorn, Bull Testicle Surprise from Tomas 'Necrocock' Kohout of Master's Hammer (and while many of the recipes have funny metal names and in fact are something else entirely, this one is in fact bull testicles!), The Stew Of True Doom from Karl Simon of Gates Of Slumber, Thundering Beef Brisket from Lips of Anvil, Doro's Black Forest Cake from Doro of Warlock, Beer Pizza Crust from Olaf Zissel of Tankard, New Orleans Blood Red Beans And Rice from Mike IX Williams of Eyehategod, Shellfish Crossfire from King Ov Hell of God Seed/Gorgoroth, and we could go on and on...
More than 100 recipes from more than 30 countries, other bands contributing their favorite delectables include: Abigail, Accept, Amebix, Anthrax, Tygers Of Pan Tang, Uriah Heep, Thin Lizzy, Trouble, Electric Wizard, Destruction, Mayhem, Melechesh, Death SS, Judas Priest, Budgie, Impaler, Brutal Truth, Mutiilation, Lord Vicar, The Lord Weird Slough Feg, Piledriver, Pentagram, Rigor Mortis, The Rods, S.O.D, Stiny Plamenu, Warpig, Kreator and more more more.
Separated into sections for: appetizers and side dishes, beef, pork, lamb, poultry, seafood, vegetarian, desserts, even drinks (of course - and many of the food recipes include instructions to drink beer WHILE MAKING the food, not just when eating it), with lots of awesome illustrations, photographs, record covers, it's pretty epic, and totally metal, and we really can't recommend this enough. As Giroux says in her intro, making a meal is a great excuse for drinking and listening to metal! INDEED!!!

GIRTH Living In Truth (Hector Stentor) cd 9.98
FINALLY BACK IN STOCK!
Wow! This is one for all of you always seeking out the ultimate mathy heaviness. Girth are a guitar and drums duo from up Seattle way, and they dish out some seriously deranged, detailed, devastating instrumental mayhem here. There's a dozen songs on this 42 minute debut and they're all hella herky and jerky and heavy. Did we just say Hella? Well that'd be one comparison, along with Bozart and Breadwinner, though Girth are way more of a metal-riffed monster that those bands, something of which we totally approve. Girth's spazzy string-strangulation and amazing octopoidal drumming is balanced by their crushing low-end chunk and high-tension rocka rolla, and there's even some nice, calming interludes of post-rockish near melody. It's sorta like Crom-Tech or Orthrelm, but just a bit less maddening, more musical. At times this could be the Melvins, playing Black Flag's Process Of Weeding Out while on a caffine binge, throwing in some Entombed or Eyehategod riffs while they're at it. Or the Fucking Champs and Slayer as possessor demons doing battle for control of the same host body. The most important point is, that as hectic and heavy as this can be, it manages to be super listenable as well, something that we don't always get from the math core crowd. We like it. A lot. An impressive debut for sure, packaged with some suitably beautifully chaotic yet precise Stephen O'Malley designed graphics.
MPEG Stream: "Defaced By Her Unconscious"
MPEG Stream: "Discreet Rendezvous"
MPEG Stream: "Monopolizing The Pleasure Dome"

GIRTH Sleeper, Awaken! (Web of Mimicry) cd ep 10.98
2nd outing from this mathy heavy outfit!

GLACIIAL s/t (E.E.E. Recordings) 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.
Another frosty blast of mighty white metal. Or unblack metal. Whatever you want to call it, this stuff is blacker in sound, if not in spirit, than much of the so called black metal that comes our way. And as if to prove just how un-evil they are, Glaciial have reclaimed the extra 'i' (like in Celestiial, Mutiilation, etc.) as if to spit in the face of the dark lord. No longer is buzzing black metal strictly the purview of Satan, a new movement of positive, Christian black metal has slowly been making waves, creating a totally mindblowing catalog of bizarre and super original black metal. Buzzing and brutal enough to appeal to the true grim warriors, but weird enough to have -us- all in a lather, and with a positive message that goes down a lot smoother delivered via a face full of corpse painted spike encrusted unblack buzz!
Glaciial is a trio made up of three of the most active members in the Midwestern unblack metal scene, one part Light Shall Prevail (reviewed here a few lists back), one part Flaskavsae and one part Wrathful Plague and the result is again, fucking NUTS!!! The sticker on the cd describes this as fast and atmospheric black metal, but boy does that not nearly do this record justice. It is definitely atmospheric in that the buzz is so pervasive and blown out and thick that it smears into a massive slow shifting whirl of swirling buzz, even though the music it's wrapped around is blazing fast. And there are melodies, these songs have hooks like crazy, but they are buried under a million pounds of black buzz. But it's the vocals. What is it with all these unblack metal bands?! It's like they are all capable of singing in tongues. The Agathothodion we reviewed had some of the weirdest vocals we had ever heard, a moaning drifting croon, like a smeared falsetto. But the vocals here take the cake. We might go so far as to say most fucked and most amazing vocals EVER. A hissing rasp that alternately sounds like a Tuvan throat singer with a tracheotomy or a Sleestak. A swirling reverbed distorted raspy whisper that whips over the icy backdrop like some frozen arctic wind. HHHHHHHZZZZZZHHHZZZZZZZ. Awesome. And when the band slows down and dooms out it's seriously fucking frightening.
Get down on your knees and bask in the divine unblack glory that is Glaciial!!
MPEG Stream: "Frozen Epitaph"
MPEG Stream: "Atheistic Death"
MPEG Stream: "Digging My Own Grave"

GLITTER WIZARD 0 Black Lotus / Witches Limbo (Sans Escape) 7" 6.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Heard about this on Tom Lax's Siltblog, which is funny 'cause this band is from right here in our backyard, and are also not exactly shitgaze or whatever other noisy underground rock aesthetic we thought Siltbreeze was all about. Lax mentioned classic heavy psych/metal peeps for the ages like Deep Purple, Hawkwind, and Monster Magnet in his review and yep, all present and accounted for (if inebriated and high as fuck, no surprise) in GW's sound, to some extent. Super stoner retro rockin' here, well with retro sounds but not sounding like any actual old band that's for sure, A-side "Black Lotus" starts off all full of gobblin' space synth soundz, then begins pounding down the riffs like Sleep or something a bit later on, while on the flip, "Witch's Limbo", they keep on rockin', no not like Dokken but more like Danava (w/ all them synths) and Priestess and other current bands creating the past anew. Interestingly, the other tracks we've heard from 'em, on their MySpace, are way more overtly garagey punky, in a ? and the Mysterians, Lyres, mebbe even Stooges style, but here it seems they're heavy metalling it (the magazine and the music) a bit more. So, two cool tunes, and now we're put on notice to go see these glittering wizzes next time they play, we're especially curious to see if they get all glammed up live to go with their name. (AQ staffer Jon has seen 'em and sez they do!)

GLORIA DIABOLI Gate To Sheol (Battle Kommand) cd 13.98

MPEG Stream: "The Kingdom Of Flesh And Decay"
MPEG Stream: "Above As It Is Below"

GLORIOR BELLI Manifesting The Raging Beast (Southern Lord) cd 15.98
France pretty much has the market cornered on modern progressive black metal. Deathspell Omega obviously, Hell Militia, Amesoeurs, Alcest, Peste Noire, Mutiilation, Blut Aus Nord, Aluk Todolo, Spektr, Angmar, Wolfe, and now you can add Glorior Belli to the list.
Deathspell fans will go apeshit for these guys, their buzzing blackness is all mathy and post rocky, songs lurch and sway, some songs are thick furious blasts, relentless and dense with black grit, the sound massive and crushing, while others are sprawling post black doomscapes, the guitars unwinding into fractured melodies, the drums stuttering through convoluted tempos, and even the blasting black numbers, more often than not splinter into super angular blackmath workouts.
Manifesting The Raging Beast somehow manages to be raw and grim, but simultaneously super dense and incredibly heavy, the production is incredible, the guitars are thick streaks of luminous melody, wound into black thunderbolts, the drums sound like sticking your head in a cement mixer full of anvils, as much as we love us some super lo-fi tinny 4-track buzz, it's kind of awesome to have a record sound this powerful, especially a black metal record. The riffs are kick ass, and catchy, and the band are not afraid of a groove, so much of the record is spent lurching through weird black waltzes or swinging in strange time signatures before exploding back into soul shearing blasts. And it's that balance between relentless black onslaught, and strange tangled weirdness that keeps this record sounding so amazing.
Definitely for fans of DSO, Funeral Mist, Katharsis and other like minded progressive black metal hordes...
MPEG Stream: "From Darkness There Springs Light"
MPEG Stream: "Deadly Sparks"
MPEG Stream: "Sinister Resonance"

GLORIOR BELLI Manifesting The Raging Beast (Southern Lord) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
France pretty much has the market cornered on modern progressive black metal. Deathspell Omega obviously, Hell Militia, Amesoeurs, Alcest, Peste Noire, Mutiilation, Blut Aus Nord, Aluk Todolo, Spektr, Angmar, Wolfe, and now you can add Glorior Belli to the list.
Deathspell fans will go apeshit for these guys, their buzzing blackness is all mathy and post rocky, songs lurch and sway, some songs are thick furious blasts, relentless and dense with black grit, the sound massive and crushing, while others are sprawling post black doomscapes, the guitars unwinding into fractured melodies, the drums stuttering through convoluted tempos, and even the blasting black numbers, more often than not splinter into super angular blackmath workouts.
Manifesting The Raging Beast somehow manages to be raw and grim, but simultaneously super dense and incredibly heavy, the production is incredible, the guitars are thick streaks of luminous melody, wound into black thunderbolts, the drums sound like sticking your head in a cement mixer full of anvils, as much as we love us some super lo-fi tinny 4-track buzz, it's kind of awesome to have a record sound this powerful, especially a black metal record. The riffs are kick ass, and catchy, and the band are not afraid of a groove, so much of the record is spent lurching through weird black waltzes or swinging in strange time signatures before exploding back into soul shearing blasts. And it's that balance between relentless black onslaught, and strange tangled weirdness that keeps this record sounding so amazing.
Definitely for fans of DSO, Funeral Mist, Katharsis and other like minded progressive black metal hordes...
MPEG Stream: "From Darkness There Springs Light"
MPEG Stream: "Deadly Sparks"
MPEG Stream: "Sinister Resonance"

GLORIOR BELLI Meet Us At The Southern Sign (Candlelight) cd 13.98
What is it about France? For years now, this unsuspecting nation has been churning out some of the most vile, merciless, and best black metal on the planet. Groups like Deathspell Omega and Blut Aus Nord have set a new standard that expertly blends bizarre, progressive experimentation with a blackened attack that only a fool would criticize for not being "true". The results are undeniable, and it should be clear that among those redefining black metal for a new age, the French are at the top of the heap. For some reason, Glorior Belli has yet to receive the attention bestowed on many of their countrymen, but, Satan willing, things will definitely change with the arrival of Meet Us At The Southern Sign, the band's third album.
Glorior Belli may not be the weirdest of the bunch, but FUCK do these guys know how to conjure up the perfect blend of crushing brutality with a well defined sense of off kilter, seasick melodies and an overall approach that simply rocks. With that said, this album does come across as something different, but not in a "listen to my oscillator" kind of way. Maybe the weirdness here is relative, since we're talking about a band that is relentlessly metal at the heart of it all, but Glorior Belli's more lumbering numbers, such as opener "Once In A Blood Red Moon" almost come across as what present day Earth might sound like if they gave it all up to the dark side. It's hard to come out and say this, surely many will disagree, but some of this *almost* moves with the flow of the blues. It's doomy. It's dirgey. It sounds like the black metal version of waking up in your trailer with a horrible hangover after a night of intense drinking at the local shithole. Mainman Infestvvs's guttural croak is surprisingly similar to the legendary bark of John Brannon, most famous for his work with hardcore gods Negative Approach, but ALSO revered as the crooner for bluesy post-punk crew the Laughing Hyenas. Of course, the artwork could also confirm this bluesy presence, as could the song titles themselves. And then, holy shit, without even looking beforehand, we notice a peculiar song title... "In Every Grief Stricken Blues", another behemoth of mid-tempo, down and out goodness. Fuck, first Diamatragon's Crossroad, now this. Maybe we're in the early stages of a new sub-genre?
With all that said, it is certainly impossible to ignore how insanely, overwhelmingly METAL this is. Fear not, for there are plenty of lightspeed blast beats, grinding dual guitars, and heavy as fuck winding bass grooves, which add a weird mathy element to the maelstrom. All contribute equally to the potent, concentrated assault of Glorior Belli, making this one of the best metal albums of the year. So unbelievably, incomprehensibly awesome, we're stilll trying to wrap our heads around it all...
MPEG Stream: "Once In A Blood Red Moon"
MPEG Stream: "The Forbidden Words"
MPEG Stream: "Meet Us At The Southern Sign"

GLORIOR BELLI O Laudate Dominus (Eerie Art) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We've been trying to track this down for ages after reading about Glorior Belli in Terrorizer. Assorted comparisons to Dissection and Watain and Deathspell Omega and the like had us practically foaming at the mouth. Finally after months of searching we finally managed to get a bunch of these in. The first thing we noticed was how much it looks like the Watain records, or any of the releases on N.E.D. (home to DSO, Ondskapt, Funeral Mist, etc), with a cool woodcut on the cover, arcane black and grey graphics, vaguely religious imagery, everything sort of distressed looking, as if it was taken from some long buried parchment. But what the hell, this band probably -should- be on N.E.D., it would be a perfect fit. Buzzing super technical, ultra raw blackened thrash, with darkly melodic breakdowns verging on post rock, lots of majestic riffing, and stretches of super blasting buzz! The whole thing though has a strangely melodic bent that helps it stand out from other black metal records, an almost indie-rock quality to the melodies, somehow super catchy while at the same time being suffocatingly black and grim. Quite a feat indeed. Anyone who has been digging Watain, Deathspell Omega (especially the newest one), Funeral Mist, or any of that stuff NEEDS this for sure!
MPEG Stream: "O Laudate Dominus"
MPEG Stream: "Poisoned Flesh"

GLORIOR BELLI O Laudate Dominus (Aquilus Cruoris) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NOW ON VINYL!
(Warning: all of the copies we got are bent in one corner. Unfortunately, that's the way every copy is. The distributor got all bent copies, BUT, the cd is out of print so this is the only way to get this amazing record. We're also selling them for only a few dollars above our cost....)
We've been trying to track this down for ages after reading about Glorior Belli in Terrorizer. Assorted comparisons to Dissection and Watain and Deathspell Omega and the like had us practically foaming at the mouth. Finally after months of searching we finally managed to get a bunch of these in. The first thing we noticed was how much it looks like the Watain records, or any of the releases on N.E.D. (home to DSO, Ondskapt, Funeral Mist, etc), with a cool woodcut on the cover, arcane black and grey graphics, vaguely religious imagery, everything sort of distressed looking, as if it was taken from some long buried parchment. But what the hell, this band probably -should- be on N.E.D., it would be a perfect fit. Buzzing super technical, ultra raw blackened thrash, with darkly melodic breakdowns verging on post rock, lots of majestic riffing, and stretches of super blasting buzz! The whole thing though has a strangely melodic bent that helps it stand out from other black metal records, an almost indie-rock quality to the melodies, somehow super catchy while at the same time being suffocatingly black and grim. Quite a feat indeed. Anyone who has been digging Watain, Deathspell Omega (especially the newest one), Funeral Mist, or any of that stuff NEEDS this for sure!
MPEG Stream: "O Laudate Dominus"
MPEG Stream: "Poisoned Flesh"

GLORIOR BELLI The Great Southern Darkness (Metal Blade) cd 14.98
We've mentioned it before, but it seems like few can touch French black metal when it comes to originally and innovation, whether it's the gnarled twisted post rock flecked ritualistic blackness of Deathspell Omega, or the industrial drone drenched black buzz of Blut Aus Nord, and on past records, French horde Glorior Belli seemed to hew close to DSO's sound, the same sort of mysterious progressive blackness, that was until their 2009 record Meet Us At The Southern Sign, where GB established themselves as perhaps the strangest of the French BM bunch, infusing the usual black blasts and grim buzz with all manner of not-specifically-black-metal elements, whether it's sort of a twangy bit of moody meander, or punkish vocal howls, or some downright nearly blues sounding moments, not to mention a penchant for rocking, and we're not talking buzzing and blasting, we're talking rocking as in rock music, like shredding leads, classic (even Southern at moments) ROCK, which was a subtle element way back when, but recently, especially on this new one, has come to play a bigger and bigger part in GB's sound. In fact much of The Great Southern Darkness is spent rocking and not blasting or buzzing, the opening one two punch of "Dark Gnosis" and "Secret Ride To Rebellion", includes very little of what one might describe as buzzing black metal, instead, there's lots of midtempo rocking, even some doomy dirgery, with slippery seasick riffage and classic metal melodies. And then check out "They Call Me Black Devil", which starts off with some Joy Division / Earth like low slung twang, before launching into what sounds like some post metal Neur-Isis-y groove, the harsh demonic vokills, the only thing really defining the song as black metal, and then the track shifts into a killer mathy super melodic breakdown, hell, pretty much any band on Relapse would kill for a part like that, which speaks to how good these guys have gotten musically, as they toss off parts like that constantly, without batting an eye. And while you're at it, there's also "Negative Incarnate", which indeed has an appropriately EVIL title, but is almost total classic rock, complete with super melodic leads, and a groove that won't quit. But then the second that song ends, comes the band's harshest blast, the furious opening to "Bring Down The Cosmic Scheme", but that grim buzz doesn't last long, as the track shifts gears into something totally melodic and totally crazy catchy, lurching back and forth between blackbuzz and melodic blackened rock. And not to overly stress the lack of actual black metal, the band do offer up plenty of grim blackness, like on the aforementioned track, but more often then not, even at their blackest and buzziest, the sound is infused with something distinctly not black, or there's inevitably some crazy poppy / proggy / ROCKING part is right around the corner. And to be honest, in a world of buzzing and blasting black metal clones, it's records like this that end up sticking the most. And while it took a few listens to really get into what these guys were doing, once we did, we began to have trouble understanding why more bands didn't actually do something similar. Might not be black metal record of the year, but just might have to make up a blackened heavy rock category, cuz we're digging this like crazy.
MPEG Stream: "Negative Incarnate"
MPEG Stream: "Secret Ride To Rebellion"
MPEG Stream: "They Call Me Black Devil"

GLUTTONY Collapse Of The Roman Republic (Liber Primus) (Hekaloth / Cyclops) cd 15.98
Fans of the damaged and deranged, the truly warped and mindbending, the freaky, fucked up and plain baffling, by now should be well acquainted with the mysterious master of the guitar synth, and his bevy of bewildering outfits, two of which we've reviewed on past AQ lists, this being the third, in what we can only imagine is some sort of insane trilogy. Xynfonica came first. A "classical" record, completely composed and performed on the guitar synthesizer. A tripped out, outsider slab of post Peter And The Wolf classical deconstructed, atonal and so so so difficult, oh and did we mention that the other part of the equation was seemingly incongruous raspy evil metal vocals? A totally not-right combination, but for those of us who dig that sort of stuff, it was pretty unbeatable. Then there was the HUGE booklet of lyrics, complete with FOOTNOTES!!!
Then came Shevalreq, part two in the "trilogy", his 'world music' record, where the same atonal angular tones and notes, the howled raspy vocals, were this time wrapped around faux tablas and various other ethnic percussion instruments. If anything, it was even more fucked and amazing. Not to mention the over the top cover art, with miniature jousting knights on horseback ON TOP OF various dat machines and other studio gear. WTF?
So while we anxiously awaited part three, we were fairly sure nothing could top Shevalreq. But oh were we wrong.
The new one is called Gluttony, the name of the record: Collapse Of The Roman Republic, another epic tale of war and death and love and betrayal, this one being his quote unquote jazz record, and fuck if it's not the most amazingly fucked up record EVER. Now in addition to the metallic rasp, the stumbling angular melodies, are lots of synthesized horn stabs, crooning synthesizers, faux vibes and marimbas, synth oboes, synth bassoons, all peppered with some serious twisted tangles of Greg Ginn-esque guitar squall, usually draped over some woozy, smoky dive bar synthjazz. It still sort of sounds like Peter And The Wolf, but it also sounds like the score for some mystery noir z-movie thriller, ripe for some sort of Sam Spade voice over, but instead you get a voice over from some growling bile spewing demon, and the tracks lope on endlessly, the melodies, maniacally off kilter, the whole thing so brilliantly baffling it's almost impossible to listen to the whole thing, but we've come close. Very very close.
Absolutely recommended, but ONLY for those who can handle stuff like this. You know who you are.
MPEG Stream: "Marius Engages The Teutons"
MPEG Stream: "Teutonic Invasion"
MPEG Stream: "Marius Engages The Cimbri"
MPEG Stream: "The Rise Of Sulla"

GNAW This Face (Conspiracy) cd 16.98
Thee extreme / experimental / industrial metal scene has a potential new ruler here, with the doomic and disturbing debut of Gnaw. If you put this disc in your computer's iTunes, you'll see some joker has categorized their genre as "children's music". Ha, don't think so! Unless you want your kids to grow up to be like Alan Dubin, of OLD/Khanate infamy, who provides the blood curdling vokills here, ranging from throat-shredding yowls to creepy stage whispers. He's joined by former members of doomlords Burning Witch, psychfolk weirdos Enos Slaughter and cold, early '80s NYC post-punk Factory Records band Ike Yard (!) for this new project, which seems to take up where Dubin's previous bands left off, but in a direction much more deviant & eccentric.
The claustrophobic chaos of track one, "Haven Vault", ought to determine pretty quick if this is for you or not. Imagine a sped-up Khanate struggling through a windstorm, Dubin bawling wretchedly amidst the buzzing murk and the splatter of improv percussion... then distant, pretty piano notes fade in eerily, one by one... it's like Khanate meets Hazard meets Supersilent, in a nightmare. Extreme indeed, and all right with us! That leads to the next track, one that's calmer and more song-like, yet perhaps even more sinister-sounding, with Dubin's negative vibe lyrics more intelligible, everything backed by a springy-sprongy electronic rhythm. More of a tribal drumming pattern is exhibited on the deep rumble of the third song.
Each track seems to delve further and further into weirdness and woe, with drone and distortion and feedback given free range of the album. The jittery percussion effects a trance-like vibe at times, perhaps allowing Dubin's words deeper, subliminal access to your subconscious (uh oh). But as big fans of both OLD and Khanate, we're all for it, glad to now have Gnaw to push those same buttons, along with other ones we hadn't expected, like the way the singing on "Watcher" sounds almost like Eugene from Oxbow. Or how it sounds like maybe Dubin & Co. have been into some dubstep lately. Or how Gnaw's crunching head nodding heaviness is cracked like Humpty D. Yep, if you like some strange surprises in your grim glitchtronic avant-metal music, and moreover enjoy the varied vokill stylings of Mr. Dubin, you'll want Gnaw's Your Face at your place.
The Conspiracy label has released this on cd (digipack) and of course LIMITED EDITION gatefold vinyl of various colors (we've got any color you want, as long as it's black). They had to leave 2 tracks off the vinyl version, but it does come with a free mp3 download card so you can get the entire album on your computer.
MPEG Stream: "Haven Vault"
MPEG Stream: "Vacant"
MPEG Stream: "Shard"

GNAW This Face (Conspiracy) lp 15.98
Thee extreme / experimental / industrial metal scene has a potential new ruler here, with the doomic and disturbing debut of Gnaw. If you put this disc in your computer's iTunes, you'll see some joker has categorized their genre as "children's music". Ha, don't think so! Unless you want your kids to grow up to be like Alan Dubin, of OLD/Khanate infamy, who provides the blood curdling vokills here, ranging from throat-shredding yowls to creepy stage whispers. He's joined by former members of doomlords Burning Witch, psychfolk weirdos Enos Slaughter and cold, early '80s NYC post-punk Factory Records band Ike Yard (!) for this new project, which seems to take up where Dubin's previous bands left off, but in a direction much more deviant & eccentric.
The claustrophobic chaos of track one, "Haven Vault", ought to determine pretty quick if this is for you or not. Imagine a sped-up Khanate struggling through a windstorm, Dubin bawling wretchedly amidst the buzzing murk and the splatter of improv percussion... then distant, pretty piano notes fade in eerily, one by one... it's like Khanate meets Hazard meets Supersilent, in a nightmare. Extreme indeed, and all right with us! That leads to the next track, one that's calmer and more song-like, yet perhaps even more sinister-sounding, with Dubin's negative vibe lyrics more intelligible, everything backed by a springy-sprongy electronic rhythm. More of a tribal drumming pattern is exhibited on the deep rumble of the third song.
Each track seems to delve further and further into weirdness and woe, with drone and distortion and feedback given free range of the album. The jittery percussion effects a trance-like vibe at times, perhaps allowing Dubin's words deeper, subliminal access to your subconscious (uh oh). But as big fans of both OLD and Khanate, we're all for it, glad to now have Gnaw to push those same buttons, along with other ones we hadn't expected, like the way the singing on "Watcher" sounds almost like Eugene from Oxbow. Or how it sounds like maybe Dubin & Co. have been into some dubstep lately. Or how Gnaw's crunching head nodding heaviness is cracked like Humpty D. Yep, if you like some strange surprises in your grim glitchtronic avant-metal music, and moreover enjoy the varied vokill stylings of Mr. Dubin, you'll want Gnaw's Your Face at your place.
The Conspiracy label has released this on cd (digipack) and of course LIMITED EDITION gatefold vinyl of various colors (we've got any color you want, as long as it's black). They had to leave 2 tracks off the vinyl version, but it does come with a free mp3 download card so you can get the entire album on your computer.
MPEG Stream: "Haven Vault"
MPEG Stream: "Vacant"
MPEG Stream: "Shard"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES All The Dread Magnificence Of Perversity (Crucial Blast) cd 13.98
We're running out of superlatives, not to mention overly poetic descriptions of filth and blackness and depravity, to describe this one man cinematic black doom noise outfit, but with every record, Mories, the man behind the beast, offers still more glimpses into what lurks below, or within, the sound an ever evolving cloud of black energy, rendered audible in shades of pummeling drum plod, of downtuned melting riffs, of howled and shrieked vocalizations, of Bernard Hermann like strings, all stretched and blurred and smeared and tangled into a veritable symphony of black bleak heaviness.
It's difficult to classify, as every song tends to slip seamlessly from Wolf Eyes like industrial soundscapery, to Godflesh like metal machine crunch, to lurching Abruptum like black ritual, to almost classic sounding black metal buzz, to haunting cinematic dark ambience, each of those elements fully realized, but then hurled into a black sonic vortex, where along with all the various other sounds and shapes and colors it gets mangled and tangles and spewed out on the other side as some almost living thing, a music that is at once threatening and caustic, harrowing and hateful, but also weirdly melodic and almost classical sounding, a definite case of black(ened) beauty.
For those new to the filth encrusted soundworld that is Gnaw Their Tongues, a brief survey of song titles: "My Orifices Await Ravaging", "The Stench Of Dead Horses On My Breath And The Vile Of Existence In My Hands", "The Gnostic Ritual Consumption Of Semen As Embodiment Of Wounds Teared In The Soul", the album title: All The Dread Magnificence Of Perversity, the crown of thorns / blood splattered / bondage cover art, should all give hints as to what sort of sinister sound lurks inside, but again, all of that could point to something much more puerile and simplistic, the sound of Gnaw Their Tongues is something altogether more refined, if a word like that could be applied to something this hellish, but it does sound refined, and composed, epic and majestic, for every bit of sluggish heaviness, there's another part that is hauntingly beautiful, or strangely serene, it boggles the mind how someone creates music like this, it must come from some deep, dark, black part of the soul, and while we ourselves might fear such a place in ourselves, we can't help but be enthralled and obsessed with the sort of sonic darkness that lurks in others.
WAY recommended, as with past GGT releases...
MPEG Stream: "My Orifices Await Ravaging"
MPEG Stream: "The Stench Of Dead Horses On My Breath And The Vile Of Existence In My Hands"
MPEG Stream: "The Gnostic Ritual Consumption Of Semen As Embodiment Of Wounds Teared In The Soul"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES An Epiphanic Vomiting Of Blood (Crucial Blast) cd 14.98
We listed the vinyl version of this amazing chunk of sinister sonics a while back, and as you'll see below, gushed epiphanically, like a crimson fountain of black blood, all about how much this record utterly destroys. Easily our fucked-up, heavy record of the year! Finally, we have the cd version, in a fancy gatefold style mini lp sleeve, and most importantly, with a bonus track not on the vinyl!! So for those of you sans turntable, and those of you who somehow just missed out first time around, and of course those of you who, even though you bought the vinyl, NEED that extra track (and trust us you do, you need everything you can get your bloodsoaked weirdo music obsessed hands on), well here ya go:
You can definitely tell a lot about a band by the names of records and song titles. Case in point: Gnaw Their Tongues. Some song titles: "My Body is Not a Vessel, Nor a Temple. It's a Repulsive Pile of Sickness", "And There Will Be More of Your Children Dead Tomorrow", "Blood Spills Out Of Everything I Touch", "Sound the Horns, the Water is Poisoned". Some album titles: Spit at Me and Wreak Havoc on My Flesh, Preferring Human Skin Over Animal Fur, Dawn Breaks Open Like A Wound That Bleeds Afresh, Spasming and Howling, Bowels Loosening and Bladders Emptying, Vomiting, and now this, An Epiphanic Vomiting of Blood. But then what is it exactly that we can glean from these titles? That the men in Gnaw Their tongues are demented? Sick? Depraved? Probably. But where titles like this might lead one to assume the music attached to the above words would be some sort of hateful harsh white noise, or some sort of near unlistenable Whitehouse worship, the truth is, Gnaw Their Tongues is one of the few bands with an utterly distinctive and recognizable sound. There are very few bands we can think of, even amongst our favorites. You will absolutely never confuse the music of Gnaw Their Tongues with any other outfit. And conversely, you will never hear something that is not them, and assume it is, because NOTHING sounds anything like Gnaw Their Tongues.
So much so that even explaining their sound in a review is fairly difficult. The last GTT review, we resorted to a tale of hell and hellbound journeys, of total annihilation and utter destruction, of death and decay and misery, all in a bid to evoke the same sort of images and visions, thoughts and feelings that are evoked by the sounds these guys produce.
It's definitely not black metal, but it is most certainly black. If forced to describe their sound in some succinct, and non-rambling manner, it might be cinematic operatic orchestral avant industrial doom. But since we can ramble, it might be easier to dig a little deeper.
Every song is epic, like little films, sounds evoking images, evoking thoughts and emotions, horns and orchestral stabs, flutes and strings, are as much a part of the sound as guitars. Probably more so. Thick gristly slabs of buzzing low end, crawl beneath pummeling percussive plod, operatic vocals soar and wail, bits of electronic glitch and whir drift in and out, guitars are downtuned and allowed to spread like toxic oil spills, tracks are peppered with bits of dialogue, and snippets of films, found sounds and mysterious textures, occasionally, harsh hellish blackened shrieks join the fray, as do bits of dark ambience. There is plenty of space, the sound managing to be expansive and open, as well as claustrophobic and suffocating.
It's a bit like a black metal Arvo Part, scoring a lost Hitchcock thriller, so totally intense and emotional and epic, rife with nervous tension and extreme dread. Whenever the sound verges on white noise, or total implosion, the sound abates, leaving Bernard Hermann-ish strings, or some bit of cryptic dialogue, or some strange disembodied rhythm, before spilling forth again like black vomit. The layers of blasphemous sound piling up like blackened bodies, buzzy and filthy and grime-y but so composed, not really that chaotic at all, a controlled chaos perhaps, each sound painstakingly placed to help paint that blood red picture.
An impossible blend of metal, choral, industrial, electronic, ambient, drone, noise and blackness, a gorgeous, and gorgeously infernal concoction, every record, another chapter in some sick saga, hell swallowing the surface dwellers, misery and mayhem overtaking humanity, death and pestilence, the world a graveyard for humanity, such utter depravity conveyed in such epic and dementedly brilliant sounds, which is precisely why Gnaw Their Tongues is quickly becoming one of our favorite bands goingÉ
MPEG Stream: "My Body Is Not A Vessel, Nor A Temple, It's A Repulsive Pile Of Sickness"
MPEG Stream: "Teeth That Leer Like Open Graves"
MPEG Stream: "An Epiphanic Vomiting Of Blood"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES An Epiphanic Vomiting Of Blood (Senor Hernandez / Roadburn) lp 21.00
You can definitely tell a lot about a band by the names of records and song titles. Case in point: Gnaw Their Tongues. Some song titles: "My Body is Not a Vessel, Nor a Temple. It's a Repulsive Pile of Sickness", "And There Will Be More of Your Children Dead Tomorrow", "Blood Spills Out Of Everything I Touch", "Sound the Horns, the Water is Poisoned". Some album titles: Spit at Me and Wreak Havoc on My Flesh, Preferring Human Skin Over Animal Fur, Dawn Breaks Open Like A Wound That Bleeds Afresh, Spasming and Howling, Bowels Loosening and Bladders Emptying, Vomiting, and now this, An Epiphanic Vomiting of Blood. But then what is it exactly that we can glean from these titles? That the men in Gnaw Their tongues are demented? Sick? Depraved? Probably. But where titles like this might lead one to assume the music attached to the above words would be some sort of hateful harsh white noise, or some sort of near unlistenable Whitehouse worship, the truth is, Gnaw Their Tongues is one of the few bands with an utterly distinctive and recognizable sound. There are very few bands we can think of, even amongst our favorites. You will absolutely never confuse the music of Gnaw Their Tongues with any other outfit. And conversely, you will never hear something that is not them, and assume it is, because NOTHING sounds anything like Gnaw Their Tongues.
So much so that even explaining their sound in a review is fairly difficult. The last GTT review, we resorted to a tale of hell and hellbound journeys, of total annihilation and utter destruction, of death and decay and misery, all in a bid to evoke the same sort of images and visions, thoughts and feelings that are evoked by the sounds these guys produce.
It's definitely not black metal, but it is most certainly black. If forced to describe their sound in some succinct, and non-rambling manner, it might be cinematic operatic orchestral avant industrial doom. But since we can ramble, it might be easier to dig a little deeper.
Every song is epic, like little films, sounds evoking images, evoking thoughts and emotions, horns and orchestral stabs, flutes and strings, are as much a part of the sound as guitars. Probably more so. Thick gristly slabs of buzzing low end, crawl beneath pummeling percussive plod, operatic vocals soar and wail, bits of electronic glitch and whir drift in and out, guitars are downtuned and allowed to spread like toxic oil spills, tracks are peppered with bits of dialogue, and snippets of films, found sounds and mysterious textures, occasionally, harsh hellish blackened shrieks join the fray, as do bits of dark ambience. There is plenty of space, the sound managing to be expansive and open, as well as claustrophobic and suffocating.
It's a bit like a black metal Arvo Part, scoring a lost Hitchcock thriller, so totally intense and emotional and epic, rife with nervous tension and extreme dread. Whenever the sound verges on white noise, or total implosion, the sound abates, leaving Bernard Hermann-ish strings, or some bit of cryptic dialogue, or some strange disembodied rhythm, before spilling forth again like black vomit. The layers of blasphemous sound piling up like blackened bodies, buzzy and filthy and grime-y but so composed, not really that chaotic at all, a controlled chaos perhaps, each sound painstakingly placed to help paint that blood red picture.
An impossible blend of metal, choral, industrial, electronic, ambient, drone, noise and blackness, a gorgeous, and gorgeously infernal concoction, every record, another chapter in some sick saga, hell swallowing the surface dwellers, misery and mayhem overtaking humanity, death and pestilence, the world a graveyard for humanity, such utter depravity conveyed in such epic and dementedly brilliant sounds, which is precisely why Gnaw Their Tongues is quickly becoming one of our favorite bands goingÉ

GNAW THEIR TONGUES Dawn Breaks Open Like A Wound That Bleeds Afresh (Universal Tongue) 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.
We almost missed out on this one completely. Limited to 100 copies or so, we tried to order 40 and were informed they only had a handful left. So we begged and pleaded, and the label agreed to press up 40 more copies just for us, and thus for you. Whew! Since we discovered this band we've become pretty obsessed. As have you all, judging from how quick we sell out of Gnaw records. They're heavy, they're super fucked up, it's not just black metal or sludge, it's some head spinning hybrid equal parts abstract industrial, ambient collageblasting blackness, hyperspeed grind, blackdrone, harsh and hellish, but strangely musical, their last record, the recently reviewed An Epiphanic Vomiting Of Blood (they have a knack for titles too) is pretty much a shoe in for record of the year. Have a look at that review for some serious gushing.
This 3 song ep, is GTT at their most black metal. The first two tracks, while laced with bits of orchestral grandeur, and blown out crumbling bliss, spend most of their time blasting away, but even then, there are bits of melodic flair here and there, the distortion is so thick and intense, the whole thing threatens to blur into some thick whirring drone, the opener has a killer breakdown groove, utterly majestic and epic, before flitting back to the black blast. The second track is another blackened monster, furiously thrashing and convulsing wildly, but it too is peppered with bits of glimmering effulgence, and a middle breakdown where distorted guitars are pitched up and allowed to shimmer ominously like some Bernard Hermann score, before the metal drops back in, transforming the track into a pummeling slow motion Godflesh style industrial dirge that eventually launches itself back into a furious burst of grim brutality.
The final track is the creepiest of the bunch, long drawn out synth drones, wavering ominously, wrapped in bis of whir and metallic buzz, samples distorted and effected drifting amidst the swirling black ambience, the moodiness eventually overtaken by a thick wave of white noise distortion and what sounds like voices screaming in terror, finally splintering into a hellish black frenzy.
Packaged in a mini 3" dvd-style case, with full color artwork, and pressed on a black cd-r. Limited to these 40 copies, once they're gone, might be tough to convince them to make us more again...
MPEG Stream: "Blood Drenched Altars"
MPEG Stream: "Knife... Martyr... Despair"