MORK GRYNING Pieces Of Primal Expressionism (No Fashion) cd 14.98

MORK GRYNING s/t (Black Lodge) cd 17.98

MORKER Hostmakter (Northern Silence) cd 14.98
We had never really heard Morker before. Our first experience with them was on a split lp with Draugsang which was too limited and too expensive for us to get enough to list (we actually do have a couple copies in stock, just ask), but we liked what we heard so we decided to get a handful of the new full length, number two from these Swedes it's pretty excellent.
We spend a lot of time focusing our energies on things that are damaged and demented and fucked up and bizarre and not always entirely musical, but once in a while it hits the spot, especially metalwise to get a blast of something heavy and brutal and black but still melodic and catchy, and thus we have Hostmakter, a gorgeous collection of melodic black metal, which reminds us alternately of old Dimmu Borgir, Dissection and Dark Tranquility, all bands we most definitely love, and who traffic in a style of black metal that seems to have fallen out of favor, or maybe we've just been too preoccupied with the seedy filthy underbelly of black metal to notice. Whatever the reason, this disc is hitting the spot for sure, each track is epic and hooky and melodic, the vocals still raw and raspy, the guitars still buzzing and frenzied, but those black elements are wrapped around something much more musical, melodies soar, guitars tangle up in Maiden-ish harmonies, there's definitely a power metal element too, the songs are peppered with interludes and breakdowns, arpeggiated clean guitars, doleful piano, all providing brief respite from Morker's epic majestic black bombast.
Definitely recommended.
MPEG Stream: "I Flodens Forsande Brus"
MPEG Stream: "Segertag"
MPEG Stream: "Mitt Arv"

MORKHEIM Danske Hymer Til Morket (NOTHingness) cd-r 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It's been a while since we heard from NOTHingness records, but they're back, after a year-long hiatus, with a killer slab of heathen funereal slow motion dooooooooooooom. By now we shouldn't really need to go into too much detail about all those extra 'o's but, needless to say, Danske Hymer Til Morket is massive, and glacial, sloooooooow, and ultra heavy, a tarpit trudge through an expansive landscape of warm washed out synths, slow plodding drums, and downtuned distorted guitars, spread out like the thick black wings of some beast, completely blotting out the sun and smothering the earth in thick pitch black shadow.
Unlike a lot of the funeral doom we've been digging lately, the sound of Morkheim is actually quite melodic, reminiscent of the classic UK doom bands like Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride, but of course slowed waaaay down and dipped in filth, left to crawl bloody and broken across a soundscape of lurching, slithering rumble and buzz.
The keyboards that wash over everything here definitely remind us of ultradoom legends Skepticism, and it's easy to hear Moss and Esoteric and the like, but it's the melodies, and the synths, and the strange mix of the classic and the modern, that results in some strange hybrid, epic and majestic, dark and droning, brutal and black, that makes Danske Hymer Til Morket so interesting. Just check out the album closer, an all acoustic Viking lament, with just simple fingerpicked guitars and soaring majestic vocals, that manages to somehow sound just as heavy and intense as the trudging pummel of the rest of the record.
LIMITED TO 111 COPIES!!!
MPEG Stream: "Ragnarok"
MPEG Stream: "De Gamles Dod"

MORKOBOT Morto (Supernatural Cat) cd 17.98
This futuristic-psychedelic Italian band from the Malleus/Ufomammut outer space orbit has come back to visit Earth again, blasting and baffling our senses with the intense radiation of the three long tracks that comprise this 40 minute disc/trip. As with their previous Monstro, the trio of Lin, Lan and Len again indulge in heavy, throbbing, occasionally spaced-out instrumentals with a rhythmic, industrial edge - something like Godflesh gone postrock amok. Or imagine the soundtrack to an alien autopsy that mixed up the internal organs of Lightning Bolt, Shellac, and Ufomammut. Sick.
MoRkObOt's guitars (both basses!) are distorted and drilling, laced with noise and FX, that gives way to moody electronic expanses, brushed with restrained, jazzy drumming. Indeed, we said "occasionally spaced-out" but maybe it's the other way around, the bulk the album actually consisting of near-ambient void-drone interrupted by the frantic panic of urgent, abrupt riffage and rigid clangorous rhythms. While this idiosyncratic band doesn't sound like most of the "doom" music we sell, believe us it's plenty ominous and intense, the doom it portends (a catastrophic asteroid impact? our sun going nova? the eventual heat-death of the universe?) not in doubt.
MPEG Stream: "Morto part I"
MPEG Stream: "Morto part II"
MPEG Stream: "Morto part III"

MORKOBOT MoStRo (Supernatural Cat) cd 24.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Weird name. Weird band. Cool band! First thing to note: this is from the same folks who brought us Ufomammut's Lucifer Songs. In fact, Supernatural Cat is Ufomammut's label. And yes, as we were hoping, MoRkObOt are another HEAVY, spaced-out band of freaky Italians. But while Ufomammut sound like Electric Wizard playing Hawkwind songs, these guys exhibit a more precise -and- alien sounding technique in their all-instrumental compositions, which are definitely very heavy and DISTORTED a la Ufomammut. It's as if Ufomammut built a spaceship, took off from Earth, went up into outer space, and found these guys already there, orbiting some far off galaxy in a blinking robot vessel!!
The MoRkObOt trio -- Lin on bass and synth, Lan on bass, and Len on drums -- obviously have a lot of the same influences as Ufomammut, including the aforementioned Hawkwind, Pink Floyd, and Godflesh... with the latter influence maybe more prominent here, though this isn't all darkly depressive, instead it's sometimes almost energetically happy, like these guys have been popping pills they bought in a shady spaceport cantina. Some tracks are all about repetitive rhythmic pummel... or jaunty, twisting riffery... others feature passages of ominous synthy ambient drone and disturbing sound FX... it's all very psychedelic and sci-fi sounding, like a band jamming around the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. By the time you've experienced the last track, the 23+ minute "Poldon", you're waaaay out in space, maybe never to return... We pretty sure that this will appeal to fans of Titan and Zombi and Circle, and of course the other bands mentioned above!
Another thing to note: these REALLY swank and elaborate, hand-printed, hand-assembled packages (for the cd and the 10" both, they're equally cool lookin', and come in various random colors) are LIMITED. The cd contains a 500 numbered copies of the cd, 500 numbered copies of the vinyl (which, by the way, contains a much shorter version of "Poldon" than the cd does). Both formats feature a wire-bound booklet featuring cool artwork for each track, Voivod-style! Ufomammut's "Malleus Art Lab" is responsible for all the far out art, design, and execution.
MPEG Stream: "Zorgongollac"
MPEG Stream: "Cammut"
MPEG Stream: "Poldon"

MORKOBOT MoStRo (Supernatural Cat) 10" 19.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Weird name. Weird band. Cool band! First thing to note: this is from the same folks who brought us Ufomammut's Lucifer Songs. In fact, Supernatural Cat is Ufomammut's label. And yes, as we were hoping, MoRkObOt are another HEAVY, spaced-out band of freaky Italians. But while Ufomammut sound like Electric Wizard playing Hawkwind songs, these guys exhibit a more precise -and- alien sounding technique in their all-instrumental compositions, which are definitely very heavy and DISTORTED a la Ufomammut. It's as if Ufomammut built a spaceship, took off from Earth, went up into outer space, and found these guys already there, orbiting some far off galaxy in a blinking robot vessel!!
The MoRkObOt trio -- Lin on bass and synth, Lan on bass, and Len on drums -- obviously have a lot of the same influences as Ufomammut, including the aforementioned Hawkwind, Pink Floyd, and Godflesh... with the latter influence maybe more prominent here, though this isn't all darkly depressive, instead it's sometimes almost energetically happy, like these guys have been popping pills they bought in a shady spaceport cantina. Some tracks are all about repetitive rhythmic pummel... or jaunty, twisting riffery... others feature passages of ominous synthy ambient drone and disturbing sound FX... it's all very psychedelic and sci-fi sounding, like a band jamming around the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. By the time you've experienced the last track, the 23+ minute "Poldon", you're waaaay out in space, maybe never to return... We pretty sure that this will appeal to fans of Titan and Zombi and Circle, and of course the other bands mentioned above!
Another thing to note: these REALLY swank and elaborate, hand-printed, hand-assembled packages (for the cd and the 10" both, they're equally cool lookin', and come in various random colors) are LIMITED. The cd contains a 500 numbered copies of the cd, 500 numbered copies of the vinyl (which, by the way, contains a much shorter version of "Poldon" than the cd does). Both formats feature a wire-bound booklet featuring cool artwork for each track, Voivod-style! Ufomammut's "Malleus Art Lab" is responsible for all the far out art, design, and execution.
Was $29. Just 2 of these left...
MPEG Stream: "Zorgongollac"
MPEG Stream: "Cammut"
MPEG Stream: "Poldon"

MORNE Asylum (Profound Lore) cd 13.98
We had never really heard of these guys before, fronted by a Polish ex-pat named Milosz Gassan, a legend apparently in the European metallic crust punk scene, having played in Filth Of Mankind (who we had heard of), their debut album apparently a huge favorite of Fenriz and Nocturno Culto of Darkthrone, so much so, that they incorporated the Morne logo into the artwork of their Circle The Wagons record!
Joined by a crew including members of Grief and Disrupt, Morne's metallic crust is in a big way beholden to the mighty Neurosis, the same sort of heaving metallic majesty, epic songs, crushing riffs, bellowed angry vox, but laced with plenty of moody melody, just check out the sprawling 17 minute opener, which has everything you could want in a doom crust metal epic, the sound shifting from crushing bombast, to more blissed out piano flecked meander, the guitars unfurling spidery minor key melodies one second, crumbling downtuned riffage the next, the track slipping into some dark psychedelia midway through, a warm whirling low end shimmer, all blurred guitar buzz and delicate melody, minimal muted drumming, slowly building to a a sort of post rock smolder, darkly dreamy, before finally finishing off with a blast of churning, chugging, epic doom sludge pummel.
And so goes the rest of the record, at its core a Neurosis-y doom-sludge, but with the songs drifting in different directions, lots of post rock action, the sounds laced with shimmery drones and meandering rhythms, hypnotic and cyclical, while other tracks slip into something more post punky and gothic gloom, the reverbed plink of minor key piano, the mournful melodies, that transform some stretched into an almost doom pop, and still others get seriously metal, unfurling fierce riffy chug and pounding downtuned crunch, and finally, the almost operatic, chamber music opening of the closer, which too eventually gives way to another bad as bout of surprisingly melodic metallic churn.
Definitely recommended for the usual suspects, fans of post-metal, doom sludge, and all stripes of epic heaviness, think Neurosis, Isis, Pelican, A Storm Of Light, Seidr, U.S. Christmas, VYGR, Mouth Of The Architect, Conifer, Tides and all the rest.
MPEG Stream: "Asylum"
MPEG Stream: "Edge Of The Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Nothing To Remain"

MORTIFERA Vastiia Tenebrd Mortifera (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.

MORTUALIA s/t (Northern Sky Productions / Greivantee) cd 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ultra grim and frosty, gloriously plodding midtempo black metal from Finland, dirgey and completely hypnotic. Featuring at least one member of the mighty Horna. This is ultra simple, dense and buzzing, with riffs that are more like static streaks of black buzz, the drums a caveman thud. Most of the tracks here break or come close to breaking the 15 minute mark, and most have no more than two parts, sometimes just one, usually a simple buzz, sometimes a haunting minor key melody, but always drenched in distortion, and always completely mesmerizing and dronelike. These sound like songs that have been playing forever, and will continue to play forever, and we've just stumbled across them, observing them briefly before moving on, leaving Mortualia to buzz and drone into the ether. But it's not just the riffing and the hypnotic plod, the vocals are utterly insane. Not Bethlehem insane, or even Silencer insane, they are much more feral and mewling, the closest we've come to capturing the sound of Mortualia is Burzum meets Oxbow!! An anguished, tortured shriek, equal parts demon, wild animal, and possessed child, draped over an endlessly blown out blackened droning riffscape. So good.
MPEG Stream: "The Blue Silence"
MPEG Stream: "In Bleak Loneliness"

MORTUUS De Contemplanda Morte (Ajna) cd 13.98

MPEG Stream: "Penetrations Of Darkness"
MPEG Stream: "Astral Pandemonium"

MORTUUS INFRADAEMONI Imis Avernis (Cold Dimensions) cd 14.98

MOSES Changes (Shadoks Music) cd 17.98
1971 strikes again! Proto-metal freaks, rejoice! Connoisseurs of the "early heavy" have reason to be excited about this, the lone album from this raw n' heavy psychedelic blues rock power trio from Denmark, originally released in '71, finally available as a legit cd reissue complete with liner notes and vintage photos in the cd booklet.
Recalling Vincebus Eruptum era Blue Cheer (big time!!) and early, bluesy Black Sabbath a bit too, Moses deliver blown-out, fuzz-bombed, acid-laced, hairy hippy proto-metal of Biblical proportions. Full of stoned vocals, loping riffs, and lots of wailing, wasted acid rock guitar soloing (worthy of Blue Cheer's Leigh Stephens and/or Randy Holden), Changes is highly recommended to anyone whose interest has been piqued by anything we've just mentioned or referenced. There's six songs here, nothing complex, certainly catchy though, what more to say? Each one provides the good vibes of ye olde primitive proto-metal, starting with the thudding blues brutality of title track "Changes" (which has nothing to do with the Black Sabbath piano ballad of the same name, by the way). Later on, "Beginning" gives the drummer some, ready for some DJ to mine for a crude breakbeat. "Skaev" is the only one here sung in Danish, but the lurching, surging riffage requires no translation. We're glad the final track, 7 minute track "Warning" is in English, though, 'cause we're getting a kick out of the lyrics, a story of a "straight" falling in with a turned-on crowd, which include lines like: "...and suddenly the girl gives him two feeling good pills, eat them if you can, a little after in a big discussion, forgotten everything about his wife, moving with the others in a big procession, he shouts out, this is life!" Awesome.
So, anyone into early Blue Cheer, Randy Holden's Population II, and the recently reissued Speed Glue & Shinki from Japan, stuff like that, will dig Moses for sure. Also, having just reviewed a bunch of '70s garage fuzz monsters from Africa, like Ngozi Family and Witch, we're hearing a lot of similarities here (minus the African thing, of course, but not the fuzz and groove). We bet if we said this was from Zambia or Nigeria, people would be freaking! Denmark is less "exotic", but that's not what's important when banging your head to these 1971 sounds.
MPEG Stream: "Changes"
MPEG Stream: "I'm Coming Home"
MPEG Stream: "Skaev"

MOSES Changes (Valhalla) lp 17.98
REISSUED ON VINYL!!
1971 strikes again! Proto-metal freaks, rejoice! Connoisseurs of the "early heavy" have reason to be excited about this, the lone album from this raw n' heavy psychedelic blues rock power trio from Denmark, originally released in '71.
Recalling Vincebus Eruptum era Blue Cheer (big time!!) and early, bluesy Black Sabbath a bit too, Moses deliver blown-out, fuzz-bombed, acid-laced, hairy hippy proto-metal of Biblical proportions. Full of stoned vocals, loping riffs, and lots of wailing, wasted acid rock guitar soloing (worthy of Blue Cheer's Leigh Stephens and/or Randy Holden), Changes is highly recommended to anyone whose interest has been piqued by anything we've just mentioned or referenced. There's six songs here, nothing complex, certainly catchy though, what more to say? Each one provides the good vibes of ye olde primitive proto-metal, starting with the thudding blues brutality of title track "Changes" (which has nothing to do with the Black Sabbath piano ballad of the same name, by the way). Later on, "Beginning" gives the drummer some, ready for some DJ to mine for a crude breakbeat. "Skaev" is the only one here sung in Danish, but the lurching, surging riffage requires no translation. We're glad the final track, 7 minute track "Warning" is in English, though, 'cause we're getting a kick out of the lyrics, a story of a "straight" falling in with a turned-on crowd, which include lines like: "...and suddenly the girl gives him two feeling good pills, eat them if you can, a little after in a big discussion, forgotten everything about his wife, moving with the others in a big procession, he shouts out, this is life!" Awesome.
So, anyone into early Blue Cheer, Randy Holden's Population II, Speed Glue & Shinki from Japan, stuff like that, will dig Moses for sure. Also, having reviewed a bunch of '70s garage fuzz monsters from Africa, like Ngozi Family and Witch, we're hearing a lot of similarities here (minus the African thing, of course, but not the fuzz and groove). We bet if we said this was from Zambia or Nigeria, people would be freaking! Denmark is less "exotic", but that's not what's important when banging your head to these 1971 sounds.
MPEG Stream: "Changes"
MPEG Stream: "I'm Coming Home"
MPEG Stream: "Skaev"

MOSS Cthonic Rites (Aurora Borealis) cd 15.98
An all time doooooom favorite finally back in print and back in stock. Now with revised and expanded artwork, including new text from Seldon Hunt.
Abject, miserable, mournful, agonized, anguished, tortured and tormented ultra mega doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom! That's right. We've officially reached an all time high in o's (40 in case you were counting), and an all time loooooow in DOOM. Every time we hear from these crushing creeps they've pushed it even further into the deep dark damnable depths, forcing us to add more and more o's. That's right, it's the return of Moss, the UK's heaviest, slowest, sludgiest slow motion downtuned doom metal behemoth. Moss take the paint peeling acidic abrasiveness of Khanate and combine it with the warm suffocating murk of bands like Skepticism or Thergothon, or even AQ faves Nadja (who did a split with Moss a while back). Ultra minimal and nearly static in its sludginess, with the simple caveman plod of the drums the only thing keeping this from turning into a full on drone, this is like one HUGE riff, pulled and stretched into two epic streaks of fuzz and pound, with vocals that might even give Alan Dubin from Khanate a bit of a fright, like a demon howling through a mouthful of broken glass and rusty bottlecaps, teeth black with the blood of a thousand vanquished souls, the sound that finally comes out is a noxious black cloud that causes everything it touches to wither and die, totally blown out and so harsh it makes our throats sore just listening to it.
But like the best sludge / doom, there is some sort of subtle melodic undercurrent going on, maybe it's deliberate and these guys are on some whole other musical level or maybe it's just some chance occurrence, some strange alignment of overtones or some lucky bit of abstract composition, it hardly matters, the end result is somehow both hauntingly beautiful and horrifically harsh, there's definitely some dark beauty hidden beneath Moss' black sludge exterior, but the joy of music like this is the fact that the music's beauty is buried and bruised, battered and brutalized, the sonic search for the beauty within is like wading waist deep through boiling hot pitch, ears plugged with hot tar, all the while being showered from above by the tears of angels.
MPEG Stream: "Crypts Of Somnambulance (excerpt)"
MPEG Stream: "The Gate (excerpt)"

MOSS Cthonic Rites (Aurora Borealis) 2lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This long time AQ dooooooooom classic now available on vinyl, a deluxe gatefold double lp, with all new artwork, including killer gatefold black and white grimnity from AQ customer and mind blowing artist Justin Bartlett, also a massive poster with more eye popping Bartlett brutality. Also includes a mysterious parchment insert, one side adorned with cryptic drawings and runes, unreadable text and evil diagrams, and some original text from Seldon Hunt on the other...
Abject, miserable, mournful, agonized, anguished, tortured and tormented ultra mega doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom! That's right. We've officially reached an all time high in o's (40 in case you were counting), and an all time loooooow in DOOM. Every time we hear from these crushing creeps they've pushed it even further into the deep dark damnable depths, forcing us to add more and more o's. That's right, it's the return of Moss, the UK's heaviest, slowest, sludgiest slow motion downtuned doom metal behemoth. Moss take the paint peeling acidic abrasiveness of Khanate and combine it with the warm suffocating murk of bands like Skepticism or Thergothon, or even AQ faves Nadja (who did a split with Moss a while back). Ultra minimal and nearly static in its sludginess, with the simple caveman plod of the drums the only thing keeping this from turning into a full on drone, this is like one HUGE riff, pulled and stretched into two epic streaks of fuzz and pound, with vocals that might even give Alan Dubin from Khanate a bit of a fright, like a demon howling through a mouthful of broken glass and rusty bottlecaps, teeth black with the blood of a thousand vanquished souls, the sound that finally comes out is a noxious black cloud that causes everything it touches to wither and die, totally blown out and so harsh it makes our throats sore just listening to it.
But like the best sludge / doom, there is some sort of subtle melodic undercurrent going on, maybe it's deliberate and these guys are on some whole other musical level or maybe it's just some chance occurrence, some strange alignment of overtones or some lucky bit of abstract composition, it hardly matters, the end result is somehow both hauntingly beautiful and horrifically harsh, there's definitely some dark beauty hidden beneath Moss' black sludge exterior, but the joy of music like this is the fact that the music's beauty is buried and bruised, battered and brutalized, the sonic search for the beauty within is like wading waist deep through boiling hot pitch, ears plugged with hot tar, all the while being showered from above by the tears of angels.
MPEG Stream: "Crypts Of Somnambulance (excerpt)"
MPEG Stream: "The Gate (excerpt)"

MOSS Cthonic Rites (Aurora Borealis) 3lp 49.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We have exactly THREE COPIES of the super limited, and LONG OUT OF PRINT, -TRIPLE- lp version of Moss' Cthonic Rites. That's right, the double lp PLUS a whole extra lp! We never listed these, we got a handful for pre-orders, but we somehow ended up with three extras, so first three mailorders get em.
This long time AQ dooooooooom classic now available on vinyl, a deluxe gatefold TRIPLE lp, with all new artwork, including killer gatefold black and white grimnity from AQ customer and mind blowing artist Justin Bartlett, also a massive poster with more eye popping Bartlett brutality. Also includes a mysterious parchment insert, one side adorned with cryptic drawings and runes, unreadable text and evil diagrams, and some original text from Seldon Hunt on the other...
Abject, miserable, mournful, agonized, anguished, tortured and tormented ultra mega doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom! That's right. We've officially reached an all time high in o's (40 in case you were counting), and an all time loooooow in DOOM. Every time we hear from these crushing creeps they've pushed it even further into the deep dark damnable depths, forcing us to add more and more o's. That's right, it's the return of Moss, the UK's heaviest, slowest, sludgiest slow motion downtuned doom metal behemoth. Moss take the paint peeling acidic abrasiveness of Khanate and combine it with the warm suffocating murk of bands like Skepticism or Thergothon, or even AQ faves Nadja (who did a split with Moss a while back). Ultra minimal and nearly static in its sludginess, with the simple caveman plod of the drums the only thing keeping this from turning into a full on drone, this is like one HUGE riff, pulled and stretched into two epic streaks of fuzz and pound, with vocals that might even give Alan Dubin from Khanate a bit of a fright, like a demon howling through a mouthful of broken glass and rusty bottlecaps, teeth black with the blood of a thousand vanquished souls, the sound that finally comes out is a noxious black cloud that causes everything it touches to wither and die, totally blown out and so harsh it makes our throats sore just listening to it.
But like the best sludge / doom, there is some sort of subtle melodic undercurrent going on, maybe it's deliberate and these guys are on some whole other musical level or maybe it's just some chance occurrence, some strange alignment of overtones or some lucky bit of abstract composition, it hardly matters, the end result is somehow both hauntingly beautiful and horrifically harsh, there's definitely some dark beauty hidden beneath Moss' black sludge exterior, but the joy of music like this is the fact that the music's beauty is buried and bruised, battered and brutalized, the sonic search for the beauty within is like wading waist deep through boiling hot pitch, ears plugged with hot tar, all the while being showered from above by the tears of angels.
MPEG Stream: "Crypts Of Somnambulance (excerpt)"
MPEG Stream: "The Gate (excerpt)"

MOSS Eternal Return (Fuck Yoga / SuperFi) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The most recent Moss record, previous to this, besides being an awesome chunk of crusty ultra doom, was a bit of a debacle, at least in terms of release and format. The outrageously expensive 10" format, was in fact meant to be a DOUBLE 10", but was not, although the price seemed to still reflect the missing second record. Then the cd came out, including TWO extra tracks, a Discharge cover, which had already been on a split with Monarch, and the 11+ minute "Eternal Return", both of which were apparently meant to be included as that second 10". Or something like that. Needless to say, vinyl folks missed out on "Eternal Return", and the Discharge cover too if they missed out on the Monarch split, even though they sort of already paid for 'em. So the bad news, or maybe the good news, depending on your perspective, and financial situation, is that the third proper Blind Drugged Moss track, "Eternal Return", which was included on the Tombs Of The Blind Drugged cd, but has never been on vinyl, is NOW actually ON VINYL. And it's gorgeously packaged and elaborately presented, so the only downside of that is shelling out another $17 to finally get that track, "Eternal Return", on wax, but c'mon! It's Moss!!
The track itself is a killer, it's Moss, so by now most of the aQ faithful should know what you're getting into, crushing, pummeling, doom drone dirge heaviosity, or as we described them in the Blind Drugged review:
All anguished and distorted, with distended guitar and bass strings hanging loose and low, vokillizations of sheer misery and madness torn from the singer's throat like a still beating bloody heart ripped from the sacrifice, and bits of bent and battered drum kit scattered across the rancid tundra that is Moss's metallic soundspace!
Indeed. We love Moss, and they RULE, and this is definitely worth the price of admission, just seems a tiny bit frustrating having to piece together Tomb Of The Blind Drugged one expensive chunk of vinyl at a time, but hell, we think Moss are worth it.
And the packaging, wow! A thick fold out cardstock gatefold, with not one, but TWO Japanese style obis, one along the side, one holding the sleeve shut right in the middle, plus inserts, a poster, all pretty spiffy. And CRAZY LIMITED.

MOSS Sub Templum (Candlelight) cd 14.98
It's been a while since we've had to employ multiple 'o's in a review. A bit of a death of doom it seems. Or at least the sort of doom that requires all those extra 'o's. A loyal customer of ours even whipped up this "doom chart" based on our usage of multiple 'o'd doom in reviews!
And if memory serves, Moss was one of the bands that routinely got described as doooom, or doooooooooom, and sometimes even doooooooooooooooooooooooom. So we were all ready to put finger to key and just let the 'o's roll out, one after the other after the other, until we felt we had conveyed the crushing doom of Moss. That is until we pressed play, and were treated to "Ritus", a five and a half minute soundscape of whirring synths and washed out ambience, of cymbal sizzle and proggy keyboard drones, of whispered voices and buzzing shimmer. Hmmm. The liner notes say it's inspired by Doris Norton, an electronic musician who's also a member of AQ faves Jacula!! An interesting start from one of the sludgiest, crustiest bands around. Doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom. Ahh. That's better. The second track returns us to that dank dark sloooooooooow place Moss call home. Twenty three minutes of downtuned crush, the tempo only slightly faster than the growth of actual moss. But even all gnarled and sludge-y, something has definitely changed. It's not nearly as filthy, and harsh, it's actually weirdly pretty. Almost like it's some more melodic metal record being spun manually with one finger at 3 or 4 rpm. The distortion is still dense, the long drawn out chords seeming to crumble, the drums spaced way out, but somehow still more buys than you're average ultradoom drummer, the vocals are still harsh and howling, but somehow, they too seem to be a bit more smooth, further down in the mix, like another layer of sound, the howls allowed to unfurl into another layer of buzz. It's strange, but we definitely dig. And we're not saying this is NOTHING like old Moss, or folks into Bunkur and Esoteric and the like won't love it, you will, the differences are subtle, and the sound is just a little bit, well, prettier, if you can imagine something bleak and black and harsh and hateful being pretty. Which we can!
The next track, a nine minute dirge, is a bit more raw and rough, most of that prettiness we were blathering on about above is GONE. Shrieking feedback, the drums even slower and more spare, the guitars even more distorted and the vocals throat shreddingly harsh, the tempo slightly accelerated, bordering on Eyehategod territory.
But it's all bout the closer, "Gate III: Devils From The Outer Dark". Clocking in at 35 minutes + and beginning with a churning sea of downtuned rumble and buzz, before the drums finally kick in, and of course by kick in we mean pound sporadically. This track is WAY more than a dirge. It makes the track before it sound like thrash metal. This is slooooooow and so so so so dooooooooooooooooooomy. The guitars thick and corrosive, the chords allowed to ring way out and fade away before the next one drops in to take its place, but weirdly enough, this one too sounds sort of pretty, not like the opening track, but still very dreamlike and mesmerizing. Long streaks of feedback spread out over wide open expanses of minimal thud and warm warped slow motion buzz, when the vocals drop out, it becomes something entirely different, finishing off with several minutes of thick low end drone, the guitars rumbling and wrapped into a thick nearly static pulse, something truly hypnotic and almost spacey, but without sacrificing a single one of those extra 'o's.
Definitely a progression, a band can only pound and plod for so long, but so subtle that the casual listener might not even notice. "Oh yeah, heavy, slow, dooooooom", but as with most music, deep listening reveals a whole lot more going on beneath the surface, and once your ears lock on to that stuff, even the sounds on the surface begin to sound different.
WAY RECOMMENDED for the doom-ed amongst you. And just cuz we knew you were waiting for it, Sub Templum could very well be doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom disc of the year!!
MPEG Stream: "Subterraen"
MPEG Stream: "Dragged To The Roots"

MOSS Sub Templum (Rise Above) 2lp 29.00
Finally this dooooooooomy Record Of The Week from list #295 is available as a deluxe double lp!!
It's been a while since we've had to employ multiple 'o's in a review. A bit of a death of doom it seems. Or at least the sort of doom that requires all those extra 'o's. A loyal customer of ours even whipped up this "doom chart" based on our usage of multiple 'o'd doom in reviews!
And if memory serves, Moss was one of the bands that routinely got described as doooom, or doooooooooom, and sometimes even doooooooooooooooooooooooom. So we were all ready to put finger to key and just let the 'o's roll out, one after the other after the other, until we felt we had conveyed the crushing doom of Moss. That is until we pressed play, and were treated to "Ritus", a five and a half minute soundscape of whirring synths and washed out ambience, of cymbal sizzle and proggy keyboard drones, of whispered voices and buzzing shimmer. Hmmm. The liner notes say it's inspired by Doris Norton, an electronic musician who's also a member of AQ faves Jacula!! An interesting start from one of the sludgiest, crustiest bands around. Doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom. Ahh. That's better. The second track returns us to that dank dark sloooooooooow place Moss call home. Twenty three minutes of downtuned crush, the tempo only slightly faster than the growth of actual moss. But even all gnarled and sludge-y, something has definitely changed. It's not nearly as filthy, and harsh, it's actually weirdly pretty. Almost like it's some more melodic metal record being spun manually with one finger at 3 or 4 rpm. The distortion is still dense, the long drawn out chords seeming to crumble, the drums spaced way out, but somehow still more buys than you're average ultradoom drummer, the vocals are still harsh and howling, but somehow, they too seem to be a bit more smooth, further down in the mix, like another layer of sound, the howls allowed to unfurl into another layer of buzz. It's strange, but we definitely dig. And we're not saying this is NOTHING like old Moss, or folks into Bunkur and Esoteric and the like won't love it, you will, the differences are subtle, and the sound is just a little bit, well, prettier, if you can imagine something bleak and black and harsh and hateful being pretty. Which we can!
The next track, a nine minute dirge, is a bit more raw and rough, most of that prettiness we were blathering on about above is GONE. Shrieking feedback, the drums even slower and more spare, the guitars even more distorted and the vocals throat shreddingly harsh, the tempo slightly accelerated, bordering on Eyehategod territory.
But it's all bout the closer, "Gate III: Devils From The Outer Dark". Clocking in at 35 minutes + and beginning with a churning sea of downtuned rumble and buzz, before the drums finally kick in, and f course by kick in we mean pound sporadically. This track is WAY more than a dirge. It makes the track before it sound like thrash metal. This is slooooooow and so so so so dooooooooooooooooooomy. The guitars thick and corrosive, the chords allowed to ring way out and fade away before the next one drops in to take its place, but weirdly enough, this one too sounds sort of pretty, not like the opening track, but still very dreamlike and mesmerizing. Long streaks of feedback spread out over wide open expanses of minimal thud and warm warped slow motion buzz, when the vocals drop out, it becomes something entirely different, finishing off with several minutes of thick low end drone, the guitars rumbling and wrapped into a thick nearly static pulse, something truly hypnotic and almost spacey, but without sacrificing a single one of those extra 'o's.
Definitely a progression, a band can only pound and plod for so long, but so subtle that the casual listener might not even notice. "Oh yeah, heavy, slow, dooooooom", but as with most music, deep listening reveals a whole lot more going on beneath the surface, and once your ears lock on to that stuff, even the sounds on the surface begin to sound different.
WAY RECOMMENDED for the doom-ed amongst you. And just cuz we knew you were waiting for it, Sub Templum could very well be doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom disc of the year!!
MPEG Stream: "Subterraen"
MPEG Stream: "Dragged To The Roots"

MOSS The Tormented (Apop) cassette 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Besides being one of the filthiest, sludgiest doom bands EVER, Moss also hold the uniquely AQ distinction of being the first band to get 40 'o's in an AQ review. That's right. Moss are most definitely the supreme masters of D-oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo-M. Only that many 'o's in doom can truly represent the sort of twisted anguished glacial drone drenched doom these guys are capable of unleashing. Every thing they touch turns to murky, dirgey mayhem. A blackened, hateful soundscape of slow motion thud and growl, a hellish trudge through a black sonic pit. But we're sure we already had you at 40 'o's!
So what could be more appropriate than a single ninety minute epic lo-fi doom dirge, captured on three microphones and recorded on a fourtrack, then pressed on to a cassette, the grimmest and most cult of formats? Well how about if each cassette was housed in an mindblowingly elaborate, and highly dangerous, welded iron, industrial sculpture-like case? And how about if each cassette 'case' was welded together from nails, and strange rusty hinges, and huge links of chain, stuffed with burnt parchment and actual moss? Doesn't get much more doomy than that.
Seriously though, when we cracked open the two HUGE boxes these tapes came shipped in, and began to unwrap these sharp and jagged works of art, everyone in the store gathered around to see what the next one would look like. Some were like Venus Flytraps made out of nails, others were huge bear trap things wrapped in chains, and spiked with nails. It was like discovering some long buried ancient armory. A dizzying array of sharp edges and hinged nails, weird greased axles that allow pieces of metal to slide open revealing the tape inside, or dense tangles of bent nails melted into tiny cassette coffins. So intense. And amazing looking. And so appropriate to the massive downtuned sludge inside. It's almost like these tapes occurred in nature, and the protective welded iron coating is a warning to wildlife to beware of what poisonous brutality lurks inside. Each case has the band's name welded or soldered on the side, and each contains a parchment like insert with the liner notes. And plenty of moss as well. So awesome.
So here's the complicated part. They're all totally different. Some are huge, and weigh close to 5 pounds, a massive chunk of metal, some are quite not so big, but still equally spikey and dangerously sharp. So the postage will vary depending on which one you get, and due to the intensely spikey and sharp nature of these beasts, if you order them along with anything else, they MUST be shipped separately. And thus will incur an extra shipping charge. Unless you don't mind all your other records having huge nail holes in them and everything ripped to shreds. But let's assume you do mind, and so we'll just figure on separate shipping. But hell, it's so worth it. These are amazing and creepy pieces of art. It's almost just a bonus that inside is a tape of some seriously damaged, harsh and crumbling lo-fi doom.
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES! WE GOT HALF OF THEM! When these are gone, they are gone forever.

MOSS Tombs Of The Blind Drugged (Candlelight) cd ep 11.98
If we had to come up with a four-letter word for doom, that wasn't d-o-o-m, it would be m-o-s-s. MOSS! These UK sludgelords, whose previous full-length Sub Templum was a record of The Week last year, are about as heavy as it gets, Moss sinking to the bottom of the black tarpit of doom below almost all others. Of course, playing so slow, the mere three songs here manage to stretch this way beyond ordinary ep length, each of 'em upwards of ten minutes... and then there's a fourth, hidden bonus track that gets this up to about 40 minutes total, so it's actually almost a full album really. And it's the usual grief we get from Moss: these tracks all anguished and distorted, with distended guitar and bass strings hanging loose and low, vokillizations of sheer misery and madness torn from the singer's throat like a still beating bloody heart ripped from the sacrifice, and bits of bent and battered drum kit scattered across the rancid tundra that is Moss's metallic soundspace... sometimes it eventually all congeals into one massive, melancholic drone, a true thing of beauty, heard for instance towards the end of the title track, upon which Moss employ Hammond organ. What else would you expect from something titled Tombs Of The Blind Drugged?? Tombs to which Moss have the "Skeletal Keys" and plan an "Eternal Return"...
We mentioned a bonus track, it's the Discharge cover Moss did that originally appeared on their split 7" with Monarch. "Maimed And Slaughtered" is slowed from a 45rpm blitz to an unrecognizable 16rpm bludgeon... Here's what we said about it in our review of that now out-of-print 7": Moss transform Discharge's punky stomp into a barely moving morass of sludgy pound. Sounding very much like Eyehategod, with simple pummeling drums, howled vocals, and of course guitars tuned as low as they can go before the strings drop off like wet noodles. On top of all the murk, drift weird high end streaks of surprisingly melodic feedback, giving the whole track a haunting and ominous vibe.
FYI, Tomb Of The Blind Drugged is also coming out on vinyl, as a limited double 10" record, minus the Discharge cover we think. Also minus track three, "Eternal Return", which apparently appears on a separate 12" we've yet to track down. We DO have a bunch of the 10" preordered, but the ltd. digipack cd version got here first.
MPEG Stream: "Skeletal Keys"
MPEG Stream: "Tombs Of The Blind Drugged"

MOSS Tombs Of The Blind Drugged (Candlelight) 10" 25.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
There's been a lot of drama about this, the vinyl version of the most recent Moss lp. It was apparently meant to be a DOUBLE 10", but ended up being a single (although the price makes it seem like it should still be a double, ugh), of the four songs on the cd, only TWO are on the 10". That said, it is on red vinyl, and comes in a bad ass gatefold sleeve. But it's expensive, and missing songs, but we know for some vinyl trumps all, if that's the case, we have 5 of these left, so grab one while you can.
If we had to come up with a four-letter word for doom, that wasn't d-o-o-m, it would be m-o-s-s. MOSS! These UK sludgelords, whose previous full-length Sub Templum was a record of The Week last year, are about as heavy as it gets, Moss sinking to the bottom of the black tarpit of doom below almost all others. Of course, playing so slow and low, the songs here manage to stretch this way beyond ordinary ep length, each of 'em upwards of ten minutes... And it's the usual grief we get from Moss: these tracks all anguished and distorted, with distended guitar and bass strings hanging loose and low, kokillizations of sheer misery and madness torn from the singer's throat like a still beating bloody heart ripped from the sacrifice, and bits of bent and battered drum kit scattered across the rancid tundra that is Moss's metallic soundspace... sometimes it eventually all congeals into one massive, melancholic drone, a true thing of beauty, heard for instance towards the end of the title track, upon which Moss employ Hammond organ. What else would you expect from something titled Tombs Of The Blind Drugged?? Tombs to which Moss have the "Skeletal Keys"...

MOSS / MONARCH split (Rise Above) 7" 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally back in stock! The ultimate dooooooom tag team matchup. If they gave out Nobel prizes for doom metal, whoever it was that managed to get UK doomsludge combo Moss together with French Sanrio doomsters Monarch, would be a shoe in. And it's not just the killer combo, or the alliterative band names, it's the song choice. As if Moss doing Discharge weren't enough for you, Monarch tackle Turbonegro's all time classic "I Got Erection"!
Moss transform Discharge's punky stomp into a barely moving morass of sludgy pound. Sounding very much like Eyehategod, with simple pummeling drums, howled vocals, and of course guitars tuned as low as they can go before the strings drop off like wet noodles. On top of all the murk, drift weird high end streaks of surprisingly melodic feedback, giving the whole track a haunting and ominous vibe.
Where Moss, turned their song inside out and basically made it their own, Monarch, after a misleading ultra slow count in, do "Erection" pretty straight (ahem), the riff immediately recognizable, same with the "woooooah ooooh" background vocals, so it's up to vocalist Emilie, to make "Erection" her own, and she does, delivering the goofiest, most brilliant lines ever, in a raspy feminine snarl "When I dig a hole... Erection!" It's definitely Monarch at their speediest, and certainly most melodic, and we have to say it sort of suits them. Maybe even better than when black metallers Satyricon covered the same track on a Turbonegro tribute disc some years back, and that was pretty killer too.
And of course, SUPER LIMITED!

MOSS / WOLFMANGLER split (Aurora Borealis) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
ULTRADOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. Or MEGADOOOOOOM. Whatever you want to call it, this is DOOM. Capital D. Lot's of o's. Lots of incredibly slow motion downtuned guitar sludge, pounding caveman drums, and a rumbling bowel churning low-end. This is the first recording we've been able to get enough of to list after a ton of super limited releases and demos. And if this doesn't hit the doom spot something good, then nothing will. Bunkur, Skepticism, Catacombs, Rigor Sardonicous, Esoteric, Planet Aids, Thergothon. And now Moss. The first track is a 15 minute slab of classic funereal doom. Soooooo sloooooow. Sooooooo heavy, crushing, pounding, chugging drone drenched sludge. Recorded live in 2004. The second track is taken from their long out of print split with Nadja, but here, the track is "fucked up and buried", and the result is a massive and abstract ambient soundscape, downtuned guitars are pushed way back into the distance, while in the foreground all sorts of rumble and crackle and what sounds like the burbling of a bong. A druggy, space-y ambient excursion through the massive decaying skeleton of what was once a doom metal beast.
Moss is joined by the brilliantly monickered Wolfmangler. Wolfmangler just happens to be the work of one Smolken who you might know as the man behind Dead Raven Choir! Weird but true. For all his Jewelled Antler folkiness, Smolken made no secret of his black metal obsession. As Wolfmangler, Smolken takes that love of metal and doom and tempers it with his love of folk and country, and the results are truly weird and wonderful. Best exemplified on the track "Survive" a doom-ed version of a Hank Williams Jr. song. Fuzzed out drone guitar, random percussion, weird rubbery bass lines, and growled raspy vocals. Like a black metal Souled American? Johnny Cash covering Skepticism. Something like that. The rest of the WM tracks are weird, slow motion, fuzz drone dirges, with strange barely there melodies, occasional guitar twang, and lots of ominous ambience!
Amazingly packaged in a vellum sleeve, printed in black on the outside, so the inside has a weird x-ray negative effect. Includes an insert for each band printed on thick vellum. SO NICE!
Limited to 500 copies. We got 50 of those and will not be able to get more! So act fast!
MPEG Stream: MOSS "Abortion Clinic"
MPEG Stream: WOLFMANGLER "Survive"

MOTLEY CRUE Too Fast For Love (Motley / Eleven Seven) cd 14.98
Tommy Lee is the reason Andee got a cowbell back in the day!

MOTLEY CRUE Too Fast For Love (Motley / Eleven Seven) lp 21.00
Tommy Lee is the reason Andee first got a cowbell back in the day!

MOTORHEAD Ace Of Spades (Metal-Is) cd 12.98

MOTORHEAD Bomber (Metal-Is) cd 12.98

MOUNT EERIE Wind's Poem (P.W. Elverum & Sun - Creators / Destroyers Of Music) cd 14.98
If there's one thing musicians, and heck, even fans of music hate, it's a dabbler. Someone well established in one arena who decides to dabble in some other sound or scene, often 'slumming', experimenting with a sound or style that they would never integrate into their actual sound. And no one hates dabblers more than metalheads, who came up with a new name for those dabblers, POSERS.
But without a little dabbling, music would remain stagnant, genres would go on forever unchanged, or more likely would die out because everything would have been done. The key is two fold, to dabble, or experiment respectfully, and to then incorporate those borrowed sounds into something new, and original, that while heavily indebted to the new sounds, is also firmly rooted in the original sound. It would make no sense for some punk band to just switch gears and come out with a country record (although it has happened), one would question that band's integrity for sure, how serious could they have been about punk if they could just chuck it for something else without a thought? It makes more sense for that band to infuse their punk with some twang, or add some slide guitar to the thrashing howl, and already, even just describing, it sounds way more interesting.
Needless to say, we were WAY skeptical when we heard that there was a Mount Eerie 'black metal' record in the works. We were never that into Mount Eerie, or the Microphones, it took the recent collaboration with Julie Dorion to win us over, and that record remains one of our favorites. But we had been reading about Mount Eerie mainman Phil Elverum discovering Xasthur and getting the black metal bug. Which is fine, that's sort of what this store is all about after all, but there's a difference between just digging black metal, and suddenly adding black metal to your dark bedroom folk. In theory it sounds like an intriguing combination, but we remained skeptical...
Which proved to be unnecessary, cuz wow, this is a strange and beautiful beast of a record. Right from the start, the title track explodes in a squall of thick corrosive buzz, where does a folky learn to kick up a sound like that? And since BM is not his first musical language, the result is truly unique and strange, there are some lurching strange arrangements, and then of course the black metal is peeled back to reveal some soulful crooning, and the hybrid is just as cool as we hoped it might be, a mournful sad boy Sebadoh like croon, buried amidst heaving walls of crumbling buzz, that explode into furious clouds of caustic crunch, only to recede once again, revealing those sad boy vocals again, and some strange plodding drums alongside a moaning minor key main melody, and the cool thing is, Elverum's distinct melodic style, immediately recognizable since we listened to Lost Wisdom so much, is perfectly fused with the buzzy blasts and blackened atmosphere. Really really cool. And that's only the first track.
As mentioned above, the key to successful dabbling is not abandoning your original sound, since theoretically, the music you make, you make because that's the sound you hear in your head, and your heart, and Elverum continues to craft gorgeous brooding dark folk, the second track, is a wheezing organ driven drone, with hushed angelic vocals, and a haunting deeeeep drone outro, which leads right into a gorgeous reverb drenched bit of mist shrouded drift, all spidery guitars, and warm whirring distant keyboards, and more crooned vocals, all subtly sinister and harrowing, but quite beautiful.
Fear not, that opener was not just a one shot. "The Hidden Stone" is another super distorted blast of blackened heaviness, and again, the magic here is that the buzz and fuzz is wrapped around distinctly UN-black metal melodies and song structures, the result sounds like a blackened Mount Eerie, lilting and sorrowful, but simultaneously distorted and blown out. And the record continues to strike the perfect balance between drifting, droney melodiousness and blackened buzzy crush, the best moments being when the two are fused, which thankfully is most of the time.
"The Mouth Of Sky" unleashes some incredibly cool, over saturated hyper distorted guitars and what sounds like processed cymbals, weaving them into a loping dark melody, the result is a super heavy, noise drenched, metallic shoegaze-y psychedelic blow out, the sort of track we wish was about 10 times longer. "(Something)" clocks in at a little over two minutes, and is obviously an experiment, but is one of our favorite tracks, a super strange, heavily panned, crunchy, distorted rhythmic, looped dronescape which gives way to a soft, shimmery, glistening dreamscape. "Lost Wisdom Pt. 2" is another killer blast of black folk buzz, about as frenzied as any of the blackness here gets, but divided into a strange lumbering tempo, which gives the whole song a sort of seasick vibe, lurching and lumbering and so EPIC, before all the distortion is stripped away, leaving just hushed vocals, a warm distant buzz, and some muted distortion, and the immediately recognizable melody from the original "Lost Wisdom", and finally the record finishes off with a long sprawling slow motion drone-folk drift, the bed of which is all warm organ and softly strummed acoustic guitar, interrupted only briefly before a slow motion explosion of super processed cymbal shimmer, leads into a gorgeous, outro of dark dreamy Neil Young-ness, finishing off like a Mount Eerie record should, haunting, resonant, mournful and melancholy.
Not sure what else to say. It should speak volumes that we were so skeptical and so cynical, and were actually not even all that interested in hearing this, and now here we are proclaiming it our Record Of The Week. We stand before you humbled, but happy, with ears full of this strange confusional sound. Which makes sense really, as lots of our favorite metal these days is some sort of hybrid, some strange mix, or twisted take, and while we will always love the primitive blasting raw buzz of true black metal, we'll never get tired of people pushing that sound, one of our FAVORITE sounds, in new, exciting and unlikely directions. And we definitely can't think of anything less likely than indie folk and black metal...
Incredible packaging, a fold out full color oversized accordion style matte finish booklet, with frosty forest images on one side, lyrics and liner notes on the other, the band name and album title in reflective gold metallic ink.
MPEG Stream: "Wind's Dark Poem"
MPEG Stream: "Through The Trees"
MPEG Stream: "The Mouth Of Sky"
MPEG Stream: "(Something)"

MOUNT EERIE Wind's Poem (P.W. Elverum & Sun - Creators / Destroyers Of Music) 2lp 24.00
If there's one thing musicians, and heck, even fans of music hate, it's a dabbler. Someone well established in one arena who decides to dabble in some other sound or scene, often 'slumming', experimenting with a sound or style that they would never integrate into their actual sound. And no one hates dabblers more than metalheads, who came up with a new name for those dabblers, POSERS.
But without a little dabbling, music would remain stagnant, genres would go on forever unchanged, or more likely would die out because everything would have been done. The key is two fold, to dabble, or experiment respectfully, and to then incorporate those borrowed sounds into something new, and original, that while heavily indebted to the new sounds, is also firmly rooted in the original sound. It would make no sense for some punk band to just switch gears and come out with a country record (although it has happened), one would question that band's integrity for sure, how serious could they have been about punk if they could just chuck it for something else without a thought? It makes more sense for that band to infuse their punk with some twang, or add some slide guitar to the thrashing howl, and already, even just describing, it sounds way more interesting.
Needless to say, we were WAY skeptical when we heard that there was a Mount Eerie 'black metal' record in the works. We were never that into Mount Eerie, or the Microphones, it took the recent collaboration with Julie Dorion to win us over, and that record remains one of our favorites. But we had been reading about Mount Eerie mainman Phil Elverum discovering Xasthur and getting the black metal bug. Which is fine, that's sort of what this store is all about after all, but there's a difference between just digging black metal, and suddenly adding black metal to your dark bedroom folk. In theory it sounds like an intriguing combination, but we remained skeptical...
Which proved to be unnecessary, cuz wow, this is a strange and beautiful beast of a record. Right from the start, the title track explodes in a squall of thick corrosive buzz, where does a folky learn to kick up a sound like that? And since BM is not his first musical language, the result is truly unique and strange, there are some lurching strange arrangements, and then of course the black metal is peeled back to reveal some soulful crooning, and the hybrid is just as cool as we hoped it might be, a mournful sad boy Sebadoh like croon, buried amidst heaving walls of crumbling buzz, that explode into furious clouds of caustic crunch, only to recede once again, revealing those sad boy vocals again, and some strange plodding drums alongside a moaning minor key main melody, and the cool thing is, Elverum's distinct melodic style, immediately recognizable since we listened to Lost Wisdom so much, is perfectly fused with the buzzy blasts and blackened atmosphere. Really really cool. And that's only the first track.
As mentioned above, the key to successful dabbling is not abandoning your original sound, since theoretically, the music you make, you make because that's the sound you hear in your head, and your heart, and Elverum continues to craft gorgeous brooding dark folk, the second track, is a wheezing organ driven drone, with hushed angelic vocals, and a haunting deeeeep drone outro, which leads right into a gorgeous reverb drenched bit of mist shrouded drift, all spidery guitars, and warm whirring distant keyboards, and more crooned vocals, all subtly sinister and harrowing, but quite beautiful.
Fear not, that opener was not just a one shot. "The Hidden Stone" is another super distorted blast of blackened heaviness, and again, the magic here is that the buzz and fuzz is wrapped around distinctly UN-black metal melodies and song structures, the result sounds like a blackened Mount Eerie, lilting and sorrowful, but simultaneously distorted and blown out. And the record continues to strike the perfect balance between drifting, droney melodiousness and blackened buzzy crush, the best moments being when the two are fused, which thankfully is most of the time.
"The Mouth Of Sky" unleashes some incredibly cool, over saturated hyper distorted guitars and what sounds like processed cymbals, weaving them into a loping dark melody, the result is a super heavy, noise drenched, metallic shoegaze-y psychedelic blow out, the sort of track we wish was about 10 times longer. "(Something)" clocks in at a little over two minutes, and is obviously an experiment, but is one of our favorite tracks, a super strange, heavily panned, crunchy, distorted rhythmic, looped dronescape which gives way to a soft, shimmery, glistening dreamscape. "Lost Wisdom Pt. 2" is another killer blast of black folk buzz, about as frenzied as any of the blackness here gets, but divided into a strange lumbering tempo, which gives the whole song a sort of seasick vibe, lurching and lumbering and so EPIC, before all the distortion is stripped away, leaving just hushed vocals, a warm distant buzz, and some muted distortion, and the immediately recognizable melody from the original "Lost Wisdom", and finally the record finishes off with a long sprawling slow motion drone-folk drift, the bed of which is all warm organ and softly strummed acoustic guitar, interrupted only briefly before a slow motion explosion of super processed cymbal shimmer, leads into a gorgeous, outro of dark dreamy Neil Young-ness, finishing off like a Mount Eerie record should, haunting, resonant, mournful and melancholy.
Not sure what else to say. It should speak volumes that we were so skeptical and so cynical, and were actually not even all that interested in hearing this, and now here we are proclaiming it our Record Of The Week. We stand before you humbled, but happy, with ears full of this strange confusional sound. Which makes sense really, as lots of our favorite metal these days is some sort of hybrid, some strange mix, or twisted take, and while we will always love the primitive blasting raw buzz of true black metal, we'll never get tired of people pushing that sound, one of our FAVORITE sounds, in new, exciting and unlikely directions. And we definitely can't think of anything less likely than indie folk and black metal...
Incredible packaging, a fold out full color oversized accordion style matte finish booklet, with frosty forest images on one side, lyrics and liner notes on the other, the band name and album title in reflective gold metallic ink.
MPEG Stream: "Wind's Dark Poem"
MPEG Stream: "Through The Trees"
MPEG Stream: "The Mouth Of Sky"
MPEG Stream: "(Something)"

MOURNER s/t (Paradigms) cd 11.98
Long awaited debut from Nashville doomlords Mourner (featuring members of long time aQ faves Loss), their first for the mighty Paradigms label (who also released this week's ROTW from Murmuure), and while we were all ready to haul out the extra 'o's (as in doooooooooooooooom), seeing as this is indeed a seriously epic and sludgey collection of extreme slow motion heaviness, multiple 'o's just don't quite do this stuff justice. Sure it's slow, and low, and sick and sinister, and blackened and brutal, but it's also weirdly pretty, and strangely melodic, surprisingly lush, just check out the list of instrumentation for your first clue: harmonium, Echoplex, noise, drones, tape loops, field recordings, all wound into the more typical guitar, and drums doom metal arsenal. The record starts out seriously doom-ed, a harsh cackling wicked witch vokill rasp, over murky rumbling bass, crushing spare drum pound, distant haunting shimmer and epic downtuned slowcore chordal crush, sounding almost like a prettier Khanate, the sound creeping and crawling, about as close as anyone has come to channeling slowcore legends Codeine though pure doom, but it doesn't take long for Mourner to distance themselves even further from the doom hordes, the vocals suddenly slipping into a super dramatic King Diamond like falsetto, giving the sound an even more melodic (and hauntingly dramatic vibe), and then the heaviness is peeled back entirely, leaving just some gorgeous skeletal clean guitar, draped over minimal super sparse drumming, the vocals a reverbed growl, the result is something doomy, but more just lovely and mysterious. The track slips back into heaviness, those KD vocals returning too, the song a woozy lumbering dirge that eventually fades out, leaving a bizarre slowed down voice, over a warm softly whirring choral outro.
The comes the 28 minute, two part "Still", a sprawling ambient doom epic, the band laying out a hazy, softdrone backdrop, over which, the guitars occasionally crash, vocals growl and mumble and gurgle and groan, the sounds occasionally coalescing into some sort of impossibly glacial doom death march, but just as often blissing out into something much more ethereal and washed out, clouds of cymbal sizzle, SUNNO)))-like riffscapery, plenty of tripped out effects-drenched drift, whispery clean guitar laced shimmer, some surprisingly pretty almost post rocky bits of melodic meander, hazy layered drones, with the second half being the more traditionally doomy, eventually locking into some seriously devastating lumber and pummel, still atmospheric, and subtly melodic, but heavy as fuck, until finally, the band slips back into something abstract and avant, a slowly unfurling soundscape of muted crunch and rumble, of hushed vocals, clean tendril like guitar lines, all manner of soft focus murk, peppered with the sounds of birds way off in the distance.
Most definitely recommended for the usual slow and low obsessives into Moss, Bunkur, Monarch, The Body, Khanate, Fleshpress, Celestiial, Nadja, Skepticism, Trees, Wicked King Wicker and the like, but Mourner is just weird and melodic enough to maybe reach beyond the doom metal loyal, and open up a whole new world of sound to folks who might not have dared in the past.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES! Packaged in a cool printed brown paper sleeve, with a printed 4 panel insert.
MPEG Stream: "The Death Posture"
MPEG Stream: "Still I"

MOURNFUL CONGREGATION The Book Of Kings (20 Buck Spin) cd 13.98
We recently reviewed The Unspoken Hymns, an odds and collection from Aussie ultra-mega-doooooomlords Mournful Congregation, and somehow, as we mentioned in that review, it was the very first record from MC we had ever listed (excepting their 4 way split with Loss, Orthodox and Otesanek, which weirdly enough just got reissued and is relisted elsewhere on this week's list!). Here we are a few weeks later, and we've got a brand new full length from MC, their fourth full length since 1994, and it's a sprawling crushing collection of slo-mo funereal doomdirge miserablism, which manages to sound modern, but also straight out of the nineties, reminding us in equal parts of diSEMBOWELMENT, Thergothon, Esoteric, Winter, Skepticism and the like, but there's a huge melodic component, these songs are harrowing, and emotional, darkly melancholic, in some ways it almost sounds like My Dying Bride or Paradise Lost at 16rpm, a mournful depressive dirge, the vocals a rumbling inhuman demonic bellow / gurgle, over plodding glacial pound, and long droned out riffage, all wrapped in spidery minor key melodic leads. It's dark and depressive, but also majestic and epic, this is not the sort of abject sludge creep of Bunkur and Moss and the rest, the sound of Mournful Congregation is much more beholden to classic doom, atmospheric and lush, rife with clean chant like vocal, swirling reverbed ambience, clean guitars, stretches of almost liturgical sounding loveliness, giving way to skull caving crush, only to slip right back into another sprawl of strangely blackened dronefolk.
The 12 minute "The Bitter Veils Of Solemnity" is all acoustic, spare drums, steel string almost-Appalachia, hushed whispered reverbed vox, gorgeously moody and mysterious, acting as a sort of intro to the insanely epic closing title track, which clocks in at a whopping 33 minutes, and is essentially a slo-mo prog doom epic, slipping from doomic churn, to swirling almost psychedelia, to classic metal chug and back again.
Definitely recommended for fans of ANY of the aforementioned bands, as well as anyone into epic slo-mo melodic heaviness, which we would imagine might just be a whole lot of you...
MPEG Stream: "The Catechism Of Depression"
MPEG Stream: "The Waterless Streams"

MOURNFUL CONGREGATION The June Frost (Enucleation) cd 15.98

MOURNFUL CONGREGATION The Unspoken Hymns (20 Buck Spin) cd 10.98
It's been a while since we hauled out the extra o's, but really it's sorta impossible to describe Australian ultra doomlords Mournful Congregation without a bunch of em, cuz this is truly some epic, grim, funereal dooooooooooooooooooooom. Which avid readers of the aQ list will understand as shorthand for creeping glacial tempos, mournful, melancholy melodies, tarpit riffage, deep bellowed vox, pounding slow motion drums, atmospheric and fantastically depressive and miserable. The strange thing is, these guys crank out records like crazy, yet this is the first time we've reviewed a proper record of theirs, the only other time they've made it on the list, was via the Four Burials record, a split with Loss, Orthodox and Otesanek. And actually this collection right here gathers up various tracks from splits and comps, INCLUDING a partially re-recorded version of their song from that split, which we described thusly:
"Legendary purveyors of true doom, Australia's Mournful Congregation, whose sound is sad and sorrowful, melancholy and miserable, a gorgeously epic lugubrious crawl, super melodic, but totally washed out and painted in sweeping shades of black and grey. Think Skepticism, Thergothon, Esoteric, Asunder, the sort of dark, slow motion, soul stirring creep we could listen to forever."
Which indeed pretty much describes everything here, fans of the above mentioned bands who are somehow not already fans of these guys might as well start here. Five tracks, 43 minutes, including the aforementioned Four Burials track, as well as their tracks from the tribute to Thergothon, a split 10" with Stone Wings, a split 7" with Stabat Mater, and a split 7" with Worship, although we were definitely wondering how they managed to cram 8+ minutes onto a 7". Regardless, the sounds here are epic and dark, mournful and melancholy, crushing and gloriously despondent, the perfect soundtrack for black thoughts and broken souls, and essential doooooooooooooom for sure...
MPEG Stream: "Left Unspoken"
MPEG Stream: "The Epitome Of Gods And Men Alike"

MOURNING DAWN For The Fallen... (Total Rust) cd 9.00
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
It can get a bit frustrating when bands play the "don't categorize us" game, especially when they very easily fall under well defined reference points on the sonic spectrum, but Mourning Dawn go at it with a bit more sincerity, aiming simply, in the words of their label, "to play their music and to play it in the most depressive way". Fortunately, these blackened Parisian doomsters pass this self-imposed challenge with flying colors, churning out 8 weighty songs at a mostly midtempo lurch with a heavy dose of glacial atmosphere. The album title, not to mention songs like "In Flanders Fields" and "Dead Youth", and the booklet featuring variations of a the same image of a war torn no man's land, help set the, um, depressive nature of the album that seems to have some sort of WWI theme. Of course, that's great for all us history majors (speaking), but the band certainly has the goods to deliver on such bleak themes, with super slow, ultra melancholy melodies, tortured vocals, and weird crystalline guitars that make their way into the chaotic, overloaded doomscapes. Moments of post-rock grandeur surface occasionally, but most of For The Fallen... is like being wrapped in a fuzzy blanket of suicidal doom metal. Just how we like it.
MPEG Stream: "God Damn The Sun"
MPEG Stream: "Dead Youth"

MOURNING DAWN s/t (Total Rust) cd 13.98
Another back room find. A little stash of this utterly amazing slab of gorgeously melancholy doom. If you missed this one before check it out, you won't be sorry...
You know that Ed Wood movie, where the guy is sitting on his throne, atop a pile of gold, waving his arms dramatically, shouting "More gold!!! Mooooooore gold!! Sometimes we feel like that, only instead of gold, it's doom we're after. "Moooore dooooooom!!! Mooooore doooooooom!!!" And the powers that be seem to have heeded our call. And indeed blessed us with more doom.
This time around it, it has come in the form of French outfit Mourning Dawn, who traffic in an epic and majestic blackened doom.
Huge mournful riffs, simple plodding drums, but unlike most doom, the vocals are a blackened shriek, closer to Xasthur or Weakling than any traditional doom band. Harsh and raw, the vocals drift atop a relentless flow of classic doom. This is not so much filthy and funereal as it is epic and timeless. Less Moss and more My Dying Bride, more Solitude Aeturnus and less Esoteric. But this is not nearly as polished as that might lead you to believe, Rough edges still abound, but the root of Mourning Dawn's sound definitely lies with Cathedral, and My Dying Bride, Katatonia, Paradise Lost, and the like. Doom certainly, but with plenty of death and black swirled into the mix.
The songs are intense and emotional, dark and sorrowful, soaring melodies wrapped around dense slabs of sonic misery, gorgeous stretches of plodding doom joining blasts of midtempo buzz, but everything, always, wrapped in a black fog of abject misery, a neverending melancholia that seeps into every note like spilt blood. Killer.
MPEG Stream: "From The Torrent & The Fountain"
MPEG Stream: "Grey Flood"

MOUTH OF THE ARCHITECT Quietly (Translation Loss Records) cd 14.98

MOUTH OF THE ARCHITECT The Ties That Blind (Translation Loss) cd 14.98
It's getting harder and harder to know what to write about Mouth Of The Architect and the handful of like-minded bands that we love so much. With MOTA we kinda just want to write "THIS BAND RULES!! SO HEAVY AND CATCHY AND COOL. JUST BUY THIS!!! NOW!!!" But since for some reason not everyone does exactly as we say, and often need a little persuasion, we'll dig a little deeper.
Ever since the first metal band started incorporating math rock into their sound, or ever since the first post rock band went all metal (hard to say how it happened, chicken and egg and all that) we have been hooked, BIG TIME! Impossible for us to resist such a perfect chocolate/peanut butter scenario, such bands as Isis, Indian, Conifer, Tides, Pelican, Minsk, Rosetta, who mix all the bludgeoning brutality, the down tuned riffage, the pounding skull splitting drums, the howled throat shredding demonic growl, with all the intricate rhythms, dreamy drones, melancholy melodies, loping dreaminess, krautrocky grooves and meandering moodiness we could ever want.
It sort of makes sense, when you think about it, all of these bands aren't consciously combining two disparate genres, they are just incorporating all of the things we always wanted in a heavy rock band. Post rock bands were often just not heavy enough, metal bands were often not interesting or pretty enough. These bands are both. Everything. Mouth Of The Architect are probably one of our favorites, their sound leaning a lot more toward the massive, heavy, riffy, doom sludge side of the equation, which just makes the pretty parts all that much more special. And the thing about MOTA, is that even at their heaviest, their crushing downtuned riffs are sort of just supercharged mathrock parts, which gives the whole thing a much more moody emotional vibe, gives it a little more groove, makes it a lot more catchy, even subtly so. Not sure what else to say, other than "THIS BAND RULES!! SO HEAVY AND CATCHY AND COOL. JUST BUY THIS!!! NOW!!!"
MPEG Stream: "Baobob"
MPEG Stream: "Wake Me When It's Over"

MOUTH OF THE ARCHITECT The Ties That Blind (Gilead Media / Translation Loss) 2lp 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now on vinyl!
It's getting harder and harder to know what to write about Mouth Of The Architect and the handful of like-minded bands that we love so much. With MOTA we kinda just want to write "THIS BAND RULES!! SO HEAVY AND CATCHY AND COOL. JUST BUY THIS!!! NOW!!!" But since for some reason not everyone does exactly as we say, and often need a little persuasion, we'll dig a little deeper.
Ever since the first metal band started incorporating math rock into their sound, or ever since the first post rock band went all metal (hard to say how it happened, chicken and egg and all that) we have been hooked, BIG TIME! Impossible for us to resist such a perfect chocolate/peanut butter scenario, such bands as Isis, Indian, Conifer, Tides, Pelican, Minsk, Rosetta, who mix all the bludgeoning brutality, the down tuned riffage, the pounding skull splitting drums, the howled throat shredding demonic growl, with all the intricate rhythms, dreamy drones, melancholy melodies, loping dreaminess, krautrocky grooves and meandering moodiness we could ever want.
It sort of makes sense, when you think about it, all of these bands aren't consciously combining two disparate genres, they are just incorporating all of the things we always wanted in a heavy rock band. Post rock bands were often just not heavy enough, metal bands were often not interesting or pretty enough. These bands are both. Everything. Mouth Of The Architect are probably one of our favorites, their sound leaning a lot more toward the massive, heavy, riffy, doom sludge side of the equation, which just makes the pretty parts all that much more special. And the thing about MOTA, is that even at their heaviest, their crushing downtuned riffs are sort of just supercharged mathrock parts, which gives the whole thing a much more moody emotional vibe, gives it a little more groove, makes it a lot more catchy, even subtly so. Not sure what else to say, other than "THIS BAND RULES!! SO HEAVY AND CATCHY AND COOL. JUST BUY THIS!!! NOW!!!"

MOUTH OF THE ARCHITECT The Violence Beneath (Translation Loss) cd 13.98
We've been digging these guys for a while now, one of those bands who take the downtuned metallic crunch of bands like Neurosis, and add all sorts of post and math rock to the mix, a combination that when done right, we pretty much can't get enough of. And the thing is, these guys do it about as good as anyone. This latest disc, a short-ish 4 song ep, just drives that point home. The opening title track has got it all, sick downtuned riffs, bellowed vocals, spidery basslines, incredible super buys drumming, a lurching lumbering weirdly melodic behemoth, with some awesome soaring breakdowns, with what sounds like organ buzzing away beneath it all. One immediately noticeable thing is the shift toward something much poppier. The mix of crushing heaviness and killer hooks and melodies, definitely reminds us of Torche, but unlike the overt poppiness of that band, these guys bury that pop under an avalanche of metal prog and math metal, that turns the pop into something else completely.
These tracks are all over the place, the second track starts out all folky, clean steel string guitar, crooned clean vocals, which gives away to some devastatingly heavy chug and howl, and the track constantly shifts, from soaring epic majesty, to tangled ultra prog stop start stutter, with chiming guitars, and more super complex drumming. "Restore" is about as doomy as they get, somehow channeling both Godspeed and Candlemass into a sort of post metal epic, still rife with pop and progisms, but super moody and mournful and HEAVY.
The whole record culminates in the final track, a cover, and an odd one at that, Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes", which could have been a disaster, a tongue in cheek cock up spoiling a pretty perfect record. But instead, they OWN in, slowing it waaaay down, turning it into a super melodic doomy dirge, that almost sounds more like the Deftones, or Lifelover, or one of those bands unafraid to meld heartfelt pop with heaving heaviness, and it's good, so good that it has us digging a song we definitely could have gone forever without hearing again. It helps that the chorus is transformed into a churning blown out crush, and that the whole song is streaked with screaming howling high end guitar. Awesome.
MPEG Stream: "The Violence Beneath"
MPEG Stream: "Buried Hopes"

MOUTH OF THE ARCHITECT / KENOMA split (Translation Loss) cd 13.98
New release from one of our favorites of this new breed of sludgy metallic post rock, the strangely named Mouth Of The Architect. Their sound, unlike many of their sonic brethren leans much more toward the melodic as is evidenced here on the opening of "Sleepwalk Powder" a lilting, melancholy guitar line, hovering above warm swells of high end feedback, mournful and so so pretty. But don't be fooled, or lulled into thinking this is some sort of post rock dreampop record, oh no, moments later, the drums enter the fray, all tribal and chaotic, until finally the guitars drop. And drop HARD. Suddenly we're in churning, roiling sludge doom country, big riffs roll and rumble, vocals are howled and the whole band lurches like some rampaging behemoth. But beneath it all, remains the melody, the sweetness, the light. It's like Godspeed or Explosions In The Sky, being overtaken by Conifer or Minsk, a huge ugly growling monstrous sound barely concealing glistening harmonies and majestic melodies. A pretty killer combination. The second MOTA track follows a similar path, drawing out its post rock dreaminess nearly to the 10 minute mark before kicking out the jams, this time it's a lurching stumbling groove, minor key and massive.
Kenoma are up next, we'd heard of them but never actually heard them, but they do occupy a similar sonic space as their pals MOTA (and plus they indeed are, in the liner notes, there is an extremely heartfelt note about, the two bands being friends since childhood, and both having had a rough time lately, and how this release was very cathartic, bringing the two bands, these two sets of friends closer than ever before, pretty dang sweet actually). But again don't be distracted by the sweetness, where there is light there is most definitely also dark. Kenoma are more postrock than metal never really unfurling any sort of massive sludginess, rather stretching out in a heavy hypnotic groove, dense tangled guitar lines, killer propulsive drumming, minor key melodies and a big wall of thick rich headspinning sound. Reminiscent of the recently reviewed Shora record but with a bit of that post sludge vibe we can't get enough of. This almost sounds like a super charged Godspeed or a metal Tortoise. Epic and meandering, droney and hypnotic and so killer. Definitely a new band to keep our eyes on. And a perfect match for their pals in Mouth Of The Architect. Definitely recommended. Killer octopoidal artwork too!
MPEG Stream: MOUTH OF THE ARCHITECT "Sleepwalk Powder"
MPEG Stream: KENOMA "The Nature Of Empire"

MRTYU Blood Tantra (20 Buck Spin) 2cd 14.98
We've had some cd-r evidence a while backĘpointing to the existence of some mighty black beast, trolling the midnight forests of the New Zealand wilds, the thing they call Mrtyu, some say it's a man, but what kind of man can spew forth such a noxious cacophony? Some say it is a demon from the depths of hell, unleashed after centuries of incarceration in some hellish underground lair, but how did a demon learn to play a guitar and use a 4 track? We've been led to believe however that Mrtyu is actually the musical Mr. Hyde to one Antony Milton's Dr. Jeckyll. What proof do we have? The cd-r label Pseudo Arcana, run by an entity known as Antony Milton, Nether Dawn, a group fronted by a shadowy figure possibly also Mr. Milton, and then there are of course a couple previous cd-r releases, which are now known to be the work of one Antony Milton. This double disc collection gathers up all existing evidence, including previous releases as well as a brand new previously unreleased sonic document. Why the hubbub? Well, friends, it could be that Mrtyu offer up some of the darkest, blackest, heaviest sounds south of Heaven? That to trudge through Mrtyu's sonic world is a journey to the brink of madness? Perhaps, but the best way to truly understand the fury and glory of the mighty Mrtyu is to listen. Each track a blast of primitive power, each with it's own unique sonic energy.ĘSheets of shimmering feedback drift over crumbly rumbling super distorted guitar background noise. Very static and raga-like, quite reminiscent of Total or Skullflower. A lo-fi doom dirge, with jagged brittle guitars, distorted vocals (not howls or shrieks, but like indie crooning, all 'distorted' up). A brief blast of Melvins-y sludge but with the high end pushed into the red. Almost like a indie pop song, but deconstructed and dipped in stoner sludge. A bitĘof Sunroof!, a bit of Angus Maclise, a lush shimmering drone, with peals of feedback and throbbing smears of downtuned guitar, all tangled into a gorgeously static thrum. Drones cloaked in black, damaged and druggy, ultra distorted guitars, so downtuned and blown out it sounds like some sort of tectonic event, the guitars form the framework for a truly oppressive atmosphere, a swirl of black clouds and Butthole Surfers-esque feedback, while atop it all, a demonic voice intones and howls and squeals like a rusted hinge. Think Khanate meets Abruptum, but filtered through than NZ noize aesthetic. A howling hellish musical journey through the fires of hell, trudging across pits of black pitch, being dragged bloody and screaming through dark demon infested forests. So harsh and beautifully bilious, drones become dirges, dirges become drones, everything cloaked in black and swathed in buzz.
Bow supplicant, pray for forgiveness, wish for survival, bathe in the blood from your ringing ears. All hail Mrtyu.
These musical missives come housed in a hand screened green and blue, three panel cardstock sleeve, adorned with all manner of pagan and tribal imagery, quite striking!
(Psst... the artwork on the discs got swapped at the plant, so the disc marked DISC 1 actually contains the music from disc 2 and vice versa. Just the demon Mrtyu messing with our heads wethink!)
MPEG Stream: "Monk Eats Children"
MPEG Stream: "Fecundity"
MPEG Stream: "Rites Of Death In Body Temple"

MRTYU Durga (Audiobot) cd-r 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The last time we heard from Mrtyu, was a cd-r on Campbell Kneale's experimental metal label Battlecruiser. It was quite the heavy and noisy affair, a head on collision between Skullflower / Total style free skree and throbbing sludgy dirgey doom. And obviously we loved it. Only later did we discover that Mrtyu was none other than Mr. Antony Milton, infamous NZ noisenik and head honcho of the PseudoArcana cd-r label. This is the first full length from Milton and his Mrtyu, and if anything, the sound of Mrtyu has gotten more metal, or at the very least more HEAVY, but without sacrificing the drone element. The first track still channels a bit of Sunroof!, a bit of Angus Maclise, a lush shimmering drone, with peals of feedback and throbbing smears of downtuned guitar, all tangled into a gorgeously static thrum. The second track though finds Mrtyu cloaked in black and playing a much blacker music than before, crumbling, ultra distorted guitars, so down tuned and blown out it sounds like some sort of tectonic event, the guitars form the framework for a truly oppressive atmosphere, a swirl of black clouds and Butthole Surfers-esque feedback, while atop it all, a demonic voice intones and howls and squeals like a rusted hinge. Think Khanate meets Abruptum, but filtered through than NZ noize aesthetic. The rest of the disc is follows a similar path, a howling hellish musical journey through the fires of hell, trudging across pits of black pitch, being dragged bloody and screaming through dark demon infested forests. So harsh and beautifully bilious, drones become dirges, dirges become drones, everything cloaked in black and swathed in buzz.
MPEG Stream: "For The Glory Of The Fallen"
MPEG Stream: "Pyre"

MRTYU Ornate Shroud (Tipped Bowler Tapes / Faunasabbatha) lp 12.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Latest bit of obscure musical alchemism from the mysterious cave dwelling horde known simply as Mrtyu, but around here, also known as Antony Milton, head honcho of the Pseudo Arcana label, and the man behind numerous musical endeavors we dig BIG time: Street, Nether Dawn, Claypipe, With Throats As Fine As Needles, The Stumps, we could go on and on...
Mrtyu was always Milton's outlet for his darker side, a sort of blackened drone metal behemoth, never full committing the the black buzz, always sort of skirting the grim true BM sound, taking elements of that sound and fusing it to his more abstract, folky dronemusic, the results invariably kick ass. On this latest slab, the Mrtyu sound is markedly different, for all the noise and skree and buzz and general heaviness, it's also probably the prettiest Mrtyu yet. As if the ever raging battle between his folkier dronier 'good' side and his buzzier sludgier 'bad' side, has finally tipped to the side of good. But not too good, fear not.
Unlike some of the more grim noise drenched rituals of the past, the first side could almost be one of Milton's other projects. Sure there's plenty of guitar skree, sheets of feedback, and dense layers of soft chaos, but beneath it all lurk gorgeous lilting melodies, each avalanche of crumbling distortion can barely disguise the weirdly pretty, woozy, spidery, dreamy melodies within. Swirled smears of muted buzz wrap around delicate jangle and simple strum, dense cacophonous walls of sound tumble beneath crystalline chordal streaks.
It's not until the B side that things get seriously heavy. A gorgeous little Middle Eastern sounding tangle of melodies drifts over a soft layer of muted feedback, the strings sawed intensely, then suddenly, a buzzy blown out riff comes in, locked and looped, a mesmerizing lurching groove beneath the ever intensifying tangle of melodies, a twisted metallic Easter drone raga (or something) that could have taken up the whole record and we would have been psyched. Thankfully it takes up half of the second side.
The record finishes off with more abstract blackened folkiness, vocals enter the fray, a weird effected mewl, over rumbling distortion and shards of feedback, more squiggly little melodies, and some warm almost tranquil sounding guitar shimmer underneath.
Perhaps not so much for the weirdo metal obsessives anymore, this Mrtyu record will probably find a home with the more avant folk / abstract drone / free noise freaks, although truly adventurous metalheads should definitely not be dissuaded.
LIMITED TO 350 COPIES. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl. Housed in hand screened linen paper sleeves. NICE!

MRTYU The Burning Ground (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.
Managed to get a handful more of these back in, and are most likely the last copies we'll ever be able to get!
Finally, a new release from Campbell Kneale's (Birchville Cat Motel) 'metal' label Battlecruiser. This time from the cryptically named Mrtyu (which we later discovered was a psudonym for Mr. Antony Milton, head of the -other- brilliant NZ cd-r label, Pseudoarcana). And upon first listen, it's not all that metal. Not to say that it's not good, it is. Really good. It just sounds like it might have been just at home on Kneale's more drift / drone / freenoise oriented label Celebrate Psi Phenomenon. Sheets of shimmering feedback drift over crumbly rumbling super distorted guitar background noise. Very static and raga-like, quite reminiscent of Total or Skullflower. But then track two hits and we understand why this is a Battlecruiser release. A lo-fi doom dirge, with jagged brittle guitars, distorted vocals (not howls or shrieks, but like indie crooning, all 'distorted' up). A brief blast of Melvins-y sludge but with the high end pushed into the red. Almost like a indie pop song, but deconstructed and dipped in stoner sludge. Cool. And as always SUPER LIMITED. When these are gone they are indeed gone for good!
MPEG Stream: "track 1"
MPEG Stream: "track 2"

MUINAINEN RUHTINAS Tuskanvuorten Valtaistuin (Tour De Garde) cassette 5.98
Once again, further evidence that the Finnish underground is populated by more than freak forest gnomes and droney hypno psych-rockers...
There is a whole black underworld, a land of evil underground forests swathed in clouds of buzzing riffs, beneath the snowy peaks, and wide expanses of undisturbed woodland, there is a mysterious black cavern, peopled by corpsepainted metal warriors, spikes and leather everywhere, the trees are black with soot, and the sky is lit by firelight, where blurry blasts of black metal wreath this lost world in a hazy hellish glow.
Amidst these black warriors, lurk this particular horde, the tongue twistingly monickered Muinainen Ruhtinas, who spew a gloriously murky and midtempo, raw and primitive black metal. Raw, Finnish, black metal, that should be enough for most of you, Beherit, Uncreation's Dawn, Clandestine Blaze, Pest, that glorious raw buzzing sound, but Muinainen Ruhtinas infuse that raw buzz, with a strange forlorn melodic melancholy. As sad sounding and despondent as it is buzzing and black, minor key and mournful, strangely haunting with deep chantlike vocals buried in the mix, and a warm fuzzy moodiness that seems to wrap every bit of black buzz in thick dreamlike murk.
LIMITED TO 666 COPIES!!!!

MULK Putrilogie (Suprachaotic / Dan's Crypt) cd 13.98
From the same label that brought us the amazing electro-metal / glitch-grind of Whourkr (whose debut is reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, and whose newest records we made our Record Of The Week a while back), comes this equally baffling and brilliant chunk of glitched out electro deathgrind hypermetal from the oddly monikered Mulk, a one man band who basically makes some of the most twisted, complex and convoluted metal ever. With head spinning drum programming, wild gouts of lightspeed blasts and inhuman flurries of beats, chopped up and sliced and diced and reassembled into furious bursts of outsider deathmetal weirdness, laced heavily with strange effects and electronics, the sound constantly stuttering and skittering and transforming, the beats splintering into weird blasts of buzz, the sound glitching out almost as if your cd player were melting, or imagine playing a Morbid Angel record and an Immolation record at 78rpm on two tapes that were recorded on a busted up boombox on old tapes that had been left on the dash in the sun. It's like a futuristic cybergrind Faxed Head! Theres definitely a big drill and bass electronic component, but instead of mixing beats and riffs, this guy mashes them together into a single raging sound. It almost sounds like a death metal record made by Venetian Snares. It's hard to describe, if you dig Whourkr, you definitely need this, and if you're after the heaviest, weirdest most fucked up death metal / deathgrind record EVER, this is most definitely it.
MPEG Stream: "Putr&fact I - Part 2"
MPEG Stream: "Putr&fact I - Part 3"
MPEG Stream: "Putr&fact I - Part 15"
MPEG Stream: "Putr&fact I - Part 16"

MULTICULT s/t (Sleeping Giant Glossolalia) lp 14.98
One of two new releases this week on the Sleeping Giant Glossolalia label, the other, the debut from the new Mick Barr / Brooks Headley duo Oldest reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, and this, the debut from this rhythmic lo-fi post punk noise rock combo, whose sound is a super distorted, lurching, lumbering mathed out monster, all gristly guitar buzz, blown out rehearsal space drumming, the sound fuzzy and washed out, but dense and tense and thick. The songs tangled arrangements of churning downtuned heaviness, of stop/start math rock stutter, angular and chaotic, with the occasional weirdly almost arena-rock sounding chorus, in fact most of the songs have some buried melodies that transform Mutlicult's blasts of rhythmic frenzy into something much more than just noise rock workouts. The basslines are thick but brittle, the vocals a buried bellow, there's definitely an AmRep vibe, but there's also a sort of early eighties UK post punk thing going on, some of the jams downright groovy, everything wreathed in crumbling distortion, but the pop hooks are there somewhere, and seem to surface with repeated listens, but they are subtle, Multicult is more about woozy, dirgey, muddy heaviness, a sound that seems to melt and ooze, almost like someone is dragging their finger along the record as it spins, which only gives the sound an even more tripped out psychedelic feel. For all their pound and crush, the band don't shy away from the rhythms that drive their sound, often striping things way down, and letting the bass and drums take control, it's at those points that Multicult sound more like they could be some lost eighties punk/funk artifact, but as rhythmic (and at times, groovy) as these guys get, they never ever stray too far from another blast of churning skull caving noise rock crunch.
Packaged in a red 12" style sleeve, with a green and yellow sticker.
MPEG Stream: "New Part"
MPEG Stream: "Le Coq Sportif"
MPEG Stream: "Whiteout"
MPEG Stream: "Day Glow"

MURDER IN THE FRONT ROW (OIMOEN, HARALD & BRIAN LEW) (Bazillion Points) book 39.95
Subtitle: "Shots From The Bay Area Thrash Metal Epicenter". From the same folks who brought us the lavish Metalion: The Slayer Mag Diaries tome, and Thomas Gabriel Fischer's Only Death Is Real, comes another treat for any dedicated headbanger. A 272 page hardcover photo book with over 400 early pics of such Bay Area (and Cali) thrash metal legends as Metallica, Megadeth, Exodus, Possessed, Slayer, Death Angel, Possessed, Testament, Vio-Lence, Suicidal Tendencies, and many many more, often several of 'em all together in the same photo. Color and black and white shots, live in action on stage, from the mosh pit, at parties, or ragin' out on the streets. Lotsa long hair, denim jackets, sleeveless t-shirts, beers, sneers and smiles.
Love the shots of Cliff Burton always lookin' badass (and the rest of Metallica all baby-faced). And the one of Lars smashing a Men At Work album on a parking meter. In addition to this treasure trove of rare photos documenting this legendary scene, there's also personal reminiscences of the Bay Area Thrash heyday from a bunch of the movement's key participants, including members of Exodus, Testament, and Vio-lence, as well as zinester/scenester/namer-of-Metallica/radio DJ Ron Quintana, and of course the two fearless photographers who captured on film all the frenzied fast fun times found here. Essay titles include: "I Washed Dishes For Metallica" and "Thirty Years Ago, Music Sucked" (but then there was thrash)...
Good times!! Definitely a nostaglia-fest for anyone who was here back in the day, and hopefully inspiration for young 'uns looking at it now...