JABLADAV Dead As Duck (self-released) cassette 3.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
For a band that didn't exist for very long, only had one record and who have been broken up for years now, SF's mighty Weakling still cast a pretty long shadow. We still sell Dead As Dreams like crazy, more and more people are professing their undying love for Weakling's black grandeur every day, and band after band, some more subtly than others are displaying in their music, some serious Weakling worship. Wolves In The Throne Room are a recent example, they obviously expanded on the sound but there are moments where WITTR are a dead ringer for Weakling. Then there is Jabladav, who almost come off as a sort of Weakling homage, what with the very Dead As Dreams-ish title, the album artwork, and of course Weakling topping the thanks list, which also includes Burzum, Darkthrone, Black Flag, Ildjarn and Wolves In The Throne Room. But Jabladav, seem to approach metal from a distinctly non-metal background. It's subtle, but noticeable. Black Flag in the thanks list should give you some indication. Not that this isn't black and buzzy, heavy and thrashing and brutal, it is, one man, just guitar bass, mellotron and drums, but there is a distinctly post rock, punk rock vibe that permeates much of Dead As Duck. Take out some of the thick swaths of dramatic keyboards and insane bursts of double kick drumming, and sometimes you're left with some very Greg Ginn-ish angular metallic post punk. But when all is said and done, Jabladav whip up some serious black skree, with buzzy crunchy guitars dominating the mix, some murky drumming, bits of bass here and there, a little keyboards, mostly instrumental, but when there are vocals, they are a haunting croon, much like the madman in Urfaust. There are even some dreamy folky interludes. Fucking awesome stuff for sure. We've been playing this like mad since we got it. So if you dig any of the aforementioned bands (we might even include in the list Earl Shilton, Carcass, even the Champs maybe) you'll definitely love this! LIMITED TO TWENTY COPIES, each cassette hand numbered.
MPEG Stream: "Dead As Duck"
MPEG Stream: "Waiting For A Winter's Decention"
MPEG Stream: "Zarqawi Mortus"

JABLADAV Dead As Duck (self-released) cd-r 7.98
For a band that didn't exist for very long, only had one record and who have been broken up for years now, SF's mighty Weakling still cast a pretty long shadow. We still sell Dead As Dreams like crazy, more and more people are professing their undying love for Weakling's black grandeur every day, and band after band, some more subtly than others are displaying in their music, some serious Weakling worship. Wolves In The Throne Room are a recent example, they obviously expanded on the sound but there are moments where WITTR are a dead ringer for Weakling. Then there is Jabladav, who almost come off as a sort of Weakling homage, what with the very Dead As Dreams-ish title, the album artwork, and of course Weakling topping the thanks list, which also includes Burzum, Darkthrone, Black Flag, Ildjarn and Wolves In The Throne Room. But Jabladav, seem to approach metal from a distinctly non-metal background. It's subtle, but noticeable. Black Flag in the thanks list should give you some indication. Not that this isn't black and buzzy, heavy and thrashing and brutal, it is, one man, just guitar bass, mellotron and drums, but there is a distinctly post rock, punk rock vibe that permeates much of Dead As Duck. Take out some of the thick swaths of dramatic keyboards and insane bursts of double kick drumming, and sometimes you're left with some very Greg Ginn-ish angular metallic post punk. But when all is said and done, Jabladav whip up some serious black skree, with buzzy crunchy guitars dominating the mix, some murky drumming, bits of bass here and there, a little keyboards, mostly instrumental, but when there are vocals, they are a haunting croon, much like the madman in Urfaust. There are even some dreamy folky interludes. Fucking awesome stuff for sure. We've been playing this like mad since we got it. So if you dig any of the aforementioned bands (we might even include in the list Earl Shilton, Carcass, even the Champs maybe) you'll definitely love this! LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each disc hand numbered.
MPEG Stream: "Dead As Duck"
MPEG Stream: "Waiting For A Winter's Decention"
MPEG Stream: "Zarqawi Mortus"

JABLADAV Drunk As Duck (self-released) cd-r 4.98
Not one, but TWO new releases from this one man, Weakling worshipping black metal misanthrope, known as Jabladav, but maybe this one doesn't count, as it was recorded under the influence, HEAVILY under the influence, and thus is a bit of a stumbling, lurching mess. But what a glorious mess it is. If it wasn't called Drunk As Duck (a reference to the debut Jabladav record Dead As Duck) and if it didn't have a cover image of discarded corks from (presumably) bottles drunk, and if there wasn't an apology in the liner notes asking the listener to listen with a sense of humor, if NONE of that were present, we probably would have just assumed this was some super wacked, freaked out, damaged lo-fi black metal record, and we would have loved it just as much as we do now, maybe even more.
Take the normal sound of Jabladav, lower the dexterity level, slow things down a bit, make it a bit doomier, a bit murkier, add a bit more stumble, a bit more warble, and fuck, if your not left with something truly deranged and warped.
Way less mathy and complex than Jabladav proper (due, we assume, in no small part, to inebriation), the sound on Drunk as Duck, is a lurching doomic black metal, which at times reminds us a bit of Xasthur, or more specifically, the legion of Xasthur influenced black buzzers, with it's murky miserablism, it's stumbling rhythms, but a little hooch isn't enough to remove all of Jabladav's instrumental prowess, so plenty, of that tangled riffing, and Greg Ginn like gnarled guitar freakouts still surface here and there, but they tend to be draped over murky buzzing plods, or funereal dirges. When the tracks do occasionally burst into blast mode, instead of sounding shitty, or bad, or amateur, it just sounds, well, weird, chaotic, confusional, often splintering into abstract freakouts, or meandering black jams, but that stuff sounds amazing. We wouldn't dare say we like this better than Jabladav proper, but damn if we don't like it almost as much.
There seems to be a lot more keyboards going on too, adding a definite moody creepy vibe to the proceedings, but what can we say, even wasted, this guy can craft some truly demented black brilliance.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES! Each one hand numbered.
MPEG Stream: "Light Has Died"
MPEG Stream: "Burzum La Chimay"
MPEG Stream: "Thangoraium"

JABLADAV Entisaikainen Herra Hihkasis Atilaa Menna Pilver (self released) cd-r 2.98
Mysterious one man band Jabladav has proven that he is much more than just a Weakling tribute, offering up his admitted Weakling inspired black buzz infused with strange gnarled Greg Ginn-ish guitaring, and furiously fucked up post rock mathed out weirdness. Grim and buzzy, but also damaged and seriously and gloriously freaked out. He also proved he could drone with the best of them on the recent 3K Hum release, a slab of deep dark dense dronology that definitely holds its own amongst the legends of drone.
So in the spirit of 3K Hum comes this latest Jabladav release, limited to only 50 copies, so we won't get too in depth, needless to say, we were pretty much sold when Mr. Jabladav emailed us to tell us about this new release, and wrote "I've never heard a Buddha Machine sound so evil." Well, heck, what else did we need to hear? Nothing in fact.
So we got as many of the 50 as he could spare and here it is!
Recorded live, using a Buddha Machine, a piano, a Casio and a handful of effects, Jabladav has created a doomy and dark ominous drift. The Buddha Machine's loops transformed into creeping lowend sprawl, bits of distortion and decay lace these long tones, a subtle throb, a deep resonant pulse, murky and muddy and sinister, spaced out, but blurred and smeared into dark dreamlike drones.
LIMITED TO ONLY 50 COPIES!!! We got way less than that. Packaged in a slim dvd style case, full color artwork and booklet, each disc signed, and numbered, the booklet signed and the insert numbered too.
MPEG Stream: "Entisaikainen Herra Hihkasis Atilaa Menna Pilver (Excerpt)"

JABLADAV Primland (self-released) 2cd-r 27.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
What began as an homage to legendary SF black metallers Weakling, and maybe even a joke (not a ha ha joke, more of a fucking around, we're bored so we might as well record some grim black metal joke) has pretty rapidly morphed into a serious black metal contender amongst weirdo black metal aficionados.
Jabladav is a one man band who owes as much to Weakling as they do to Black Flag. Their first release, Dead As Duck, was a gnarled Greg Ginn-ified blast of intense blackness, blown out guitar buzz, insane blasting drums, some killer riffing and huge heapings of black atmosphere, channeling Weakling through all sorts of random not-that-black business, drone, post rock, math rock, no wave, and yeah Black Flag. The thing was, whatever inspired it, was soon eclipsed by how fucked up and far out the finished product was. A baffling and fucking genius collection of convoluted black buzz. Hot on the heels of the debut, came a second disc, Black As Pitch, which was like part two of Dead As Duck, but expanding the sound, making it even more metal, more chaotic, the songs got longer, and way more complex, even introducing some intensely blackened ambience. Which led to the next record, 3K Hum, a mostly ambient affair, huge stretched out slabs of glacial blur, massive roiling low end rumble, shimmering black ambience, hypnotic and mesmerizing, and while ambient, still extremely dense and heavy.
As if that weren't an exhausting spurt of creativity, now, not all that much later, comes the latest from Jabladav, the even more expansive and sprawling 2 cd-r set Primland, two hours of incredibly tangled black riffing, super blown out buzz drenched production, creepy keyboards, and deep dark ambience, super mathy drums, demonic vocals, all wound into super extended black jams, shot through with head spinning Ginn-ish squiggly leads, stop start riffing, but all strangely melodic, a moody mournful undercurrent beneath the roiling black heaviness. And the drums, shit, the drumming is insane, WAY up in the mix, louder than the guitars even, mathy and calculus complicated, like the guy was sitting at the top of a concrete stairwell in a 40 story building, each landing mic-ed, and then proceeded to hurl drum kit after drum kit into the black abyss, only in such a way that the resulting crash and clatter coalesced into impossibly deranged black rhythms.
But then out of nowhere, there'll be a track, all murky and muddy, lo-fi and practice space style, that sounds like it could be some lost nineties BM demo. EXCEPT, it's Jabladav, so even those tracks, are layered with slow doomy tones, deep rumbling chimes, and raspy vocals, threatening to swallow up the thrashing blackness below.
The tracks are definitely tweaked, and damaged, and a little bit spaced out and acid fried, druggy and mathy, but at their core they are pure black, the riffs are blown out, recorded so loud and in the red, the chords threaten to crumble. The record careens wildly from stumbling doomic Burzum style lope, to manic crazed thrashing black blasts, often both in the same song, the strange production only adds to the mood and weirdness, the songs on Primland even more epic and far out and convoluted and fucked than any of the Jabladav we've heard before, which is saying a lot. WAY recommended black metal weirdness/brilliance.
While they last, we have the ULTRA LIMITED, wax sealed wooden box version. If it's too pricey for you, hold off and we'll relist the normal version once these are sold out, but c'mon, this music deserves more than a jewel case. These are hand assembled, hand stained wood boxes, with a removable lid, that slides out, inside are the two cd-rs, in jewel case, and a printed color insert. The box is sealed shut with a silver wax seal. Each box signed and numbered on the bottom. But be warned, these are not had crafted keepsakes, the kind on a glass shelf at your grandma's house, no, they look grim and ancient, like the music within, weathered and worn, they're beautiful, but they look like they were unearthed from some cursed tomb, left on a shelf in a locked room, in an abandoned house, where they were discovered years later. Meaning that they are not perfect, the coloring is different on each, as is the wax seal, and the seal is quite fragile, so no matter how carefully packaged, the seal might crumble, or come off in transit, but you have to remove the seal anyway if you want to listen to the music.
You have been warned...
MPEG Stream: "Black Snow"
MPEG Stream: "Lodona"
MPEG Stream: "Vin Den Orden Jag Levandre"

JABLADAV Primland (self released) cd-r 10.98
Primland was originally released as a super limited (100 copies) double cd, housed in a hand painted, custom built wood box, sealed with wax, and thus had a price tag to match. The box is now out of print, but Primland is now available as a much more affordable single disc, and while the box and the second disc may have been discarded, that hardly detracts from the impact of this serious slab of crushingly twisted blackness from one man black metal maven Jabladav...
What began as an homage to legendary SF black metallers Weakling, and maybe even a joke (not a ha ha joke, more of a fucking around, we're bored so we might as well record some grim black metal joke) has pretty rapidly morphed into a serious black metal contender amongst weirdo black metal aficionados.
Jabladav is a one man band who owes as much to Weakling as they do to Black Flag. Their first release, Dead As Duck, was a gnarled Greg Ginn-ified blast of intense blackness, blown out guitar buzz, insane blasting drums, some killer riffing and huge heapings of black atmosphere, channeling Weakling through all sorts of random not-that-black business, drone, post rock, math rock, no wave, and yeah Black Flag. The thing was, whatever inspired it, was soon eclipsed by how fucked up and far out the finished product was. A baffling and fucking genius collection of convoluted black buzz. Hot on the heels of the debut, came a second disc, Black As Pitch, which was like part two of Dead As Duck, but expanding the sound, making it even more metal, more chaotic, the songs got longer, and way more complex, even introducing some intensely blackened ambience. Which led to the next record, 3K Hum, a mostly ambient affair, huge stretched out slabs of glacial blur, massive roiling low end rumble, shimmering black ambience, hypnotic and mesmerizing, and while ambient, still extremely dense and heavy.
As if that weren't an exhausting spurt of creativity, now, not all that much later, comes the latest from Jabladav, the even more expansive and twisted Primland, a hellish chunk of incredibly tangled black riffing, super blown out buzz drenched production, creepy keyboards, and deep dark ambience, super mathy drums, demonic vocals, all wound into super extended black jams, shot through with head spinning Ginn-ish squiggly leads, stop start riffing, but all strangely melodic, a moody mournful undercurrent beneath the roiling black heaviness. And the drums, shit, the drumming is insane, WAY up in the mix, louder than the guitars even, mathy and calculus complicated, like the guy was sitting at the top of a concrete stairwell in a 40 story building, each landing mic-ed, and then proceeded to hurl drum kit after drum kit into the black abyss, only in such a way that the resulting crash and clatter coalesced into impossibly deranged black rhythms.
But then out of nowhere, there'll be a track, all murky and muddy, lo-fi and practice space style, that sounds like it could be some lost nineties BM demo. EXCEPT, it's Jabladav, so even those tracks, are layered with slow doomy tones, deep rumbling chimes, and raspy vocals, threatening to swallow up the thrashing blackness below. The tracks are definitely tweaked, and damaged, and a little bit spaced out and acid fried, druggy and mathy, but at their core they are pure black, the riffs are blown out, recorded so loud and in the red, the chords threaten to crumble. The record careens wildly from stumbling doomic Burzum style lope, to manic crazed thrashing black blasts, often both in the same song, the strange production only adds to the mood and weirdness, the songs on Primland even more epic and far out and convoluted and fucked than any of the Jabladav we've heard before, which is saying a lot. WAY recommended black metal weirdness/brilliance.
MPEG Stream: "Black Snow"
MPEG Stream: "Lodona"
MPEG Stream: "Vin Den Orden Jag Levandre"

JABLADAV Primland II (self released) cd-r 10.98
Primland was originally released as a super limited (100 copies) double cd, housed in a hand painted, custom built wood box, sealed with wax, and thus had a price tag to match. The box is now out of print, but Primland is now available as two much more affordable single discs, the first of which we reviewed a few lists back, a serious slab of crushingly twisted blackness, this is the second disc, the abstract ambient accompaniment to the first disc's more furious fucked up heaviness. But in its own, way just as intense and black.
Whereas Jabladav typically sounds a bit like some gnarled tangled up hybrid of Black Flag and SF black metal legends Weakling (Jabladav began as an homage to Weakling in fact), this second Primland disc is something else all together, a collection of sprawling dronescapes, thick with crumbling drones, black ambience, abstract piano, long drawn out epics, expansive worlds of bleak and blackened mystery. Think MZ412 or the more recent Nordvargr / Drakh collaborations, this is brooding, haunting, malevolent minimalism, but shot through with plenty of texture and mood, layered sounds woven into organic slow moving black drifts, bits of percussion surface here and there, jarring amidst the bleak slow shifting backdrop, streaks of sound that resemble strings, the piano pounding out doomy almost-melodies, drones swelling and throbbing and pulsing beneath, some of the layers processed into dizzying loops, super hypnotic and truly strange.
One track does flirt with heaviness, offering up a sport of crumbling dirgedrone, but wrapped in static, and grinding electronics, oozing over deep dreamy swells, disembodied squalls of processed noise, so distorted they threaten to blow your speakers, before being reeled in, and swallowed whole by an impossibly thick wall of dense black hole low end, shot through with glimmering upper register tones and streaks of fragmented melody.
The final track is like a slow motion raga, all hypnotic buzz and slow burning minimalism, the speed shifting subtly throughout, the track oozing and swerving and slithering, playing tricks on the listeners ears, invoking a glorious disorienting sort of audio sea sickness, woozy and druggy, and strangely irresistible.
No metal to be found here, but that's not the point, taken with disc one, this completes Jabladav's high concept Primland epic, a massive chunk of confusional outsider black art, combining dense blackened minimalism with cracked and damaged black metal weirdness, the two halves somehow reflected in each other, both able to stand on their own, but together, making up a singular organic sonic entity.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each one hand numbered.
MPEG Stream: "Primland"
MPEG Stream: "Faith"

JACULA In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum (Black Widow) cd 16.98
BACK IN STOCK AT LONG LAST!!! We've been out of this for ages, after making it a Record Of The Week last summer on list number 221. We wish we would have been able to get it back in time for Halloween but it was not to be. But this record is great anytime of the year, so grab it now if you haven't already. It's a bit cheaper too this time around as well. Here's our rave review from before:
What's the scariest and creepiest of instruments? Could it be the downtuned electric guitar, that sound that marks all things dark and heavy and brutal and grim? Or could it be the cello with its soaring keening deep throated moan? Well we might posit, especially in light of this Jacula record, that the creepiest of all instruments is most certainly the church organ. Surprising that an instrument used chiefly to inspire and praise can illicit such utter unease and create such a pervasively creepy ambience. And that's pretty much what Jacula is all about, creepy ambience. Thick and haunting washes of warm rich church organ drone, resonant and reverberant, sometimes accompanied by simple pounding drums or mournful folky guitar melodies or wild psychedelic freakouts or soaring female operatic vocals or even occasional lyrics spoken ominously in Italian, but more often than not it's just the massive and ominous swells of a church organ. So effectively and utterly evil sounding. Jacula are sort of like a doom metal soundtrack to a Dario Argento movie. Goblin meets Skepticism! A Krautrock Thergothon? But is's not all mellow murky moodiness, tracks three and four, "Triumpratus Sad" and "Veneficium", both feature seriously fuzzed out, almost punk rock riffs, that sound about a decade before their time, insistent and completely heavy, even more so when they're eventually joined by a pounding one-drum beat or strident atonal piano or wild swirling progrock keyboards. Amazing! It's no wonder we sold the first couple of copies we got in of this to members of local black metal bands Ludicra and Leviathan!
In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum (literally "The Poison Is Always At The End"), which was supposedly recorded in an English castle, was originally released in an edition of only 300 copies in the late sixties and has been completely unavailable until just recently (this reissue cd is not entirely new, but it took us until now to get enough copies to list). Formed in 1968, Jacula even counted a medium as a member of their band who we assume was critical to the process of creating this record, considering that In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum was "Composed By Spiritualist Seance (1966-1969)" Woah! And for those of you well versed in sixties and seventies prog, be aware that this reissue is NOT the same as the Jacula record released in the early seventies (1972's Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus), even though for some strange reason Black Widow has given it pretty much the exact same cover.
MPEG Stream: "Ritus"
MPEG Stream: "Magister Dixit"

JALDABOATH Hark The Herald (Death To Music) 3"cd-r 13.98
Another three inch chunk of demented black metal weirdness from the UK. If you love the grim bizarre buzz of Old Forest, who recently returned after nearly 7 years, and whose own 3" cd-r we reviewed a few lists back, or the medieval madness of Meads Of Asphodel, then odds are you're gonna love Jaldoboath. From the same strange land, and featuring at least one dark knight who has done time in both Meads and Old Forest, Jaldoboath sound a bit like the Meads mixed with power metal thrashers Bal Sagoth, if they were a bit less serious and had recorded a holiday album. Seriously. The guitars gallop, the riffs and melodies are soaring and triumphant, the vocals are gurgly and growly, but there are horns, fanfares, fluttering flutes, jaunty little jigs, strange little sound effects, proggy organs, it's almost like listening to the strangely metal court musicians of King Arthur's court in some alternate reality.
Songs like "Bring Me The Head Of Metatron", "Seek The Grail", "Hark The Herald" and "Da Vinci's Code", each track plays like the theme music for some insane medieval Monty Python metal sitcom. On "Seek The Grail" you can almost picture the credits, the freeze frames as each character is introduced, and the horns, make it sound almost ska at times. "Jargue De Molay" is the least goofy, playing instead like some metallized Emerson Lake And Palmer, with awesome organ jams, creepy crackly breakdowns, a wicked main riff, all peppered with hand claps, blasting double kick, minor key trumpets, throbbing bass.
But then right after that comes the title track, which has a strange sing song vocal line, over a lopped trumpet fanfare, and a very holiday sounding main melody. Like a legion of musical mall Santa's gone metal and marauding through the hordes of innocent holiday shoppers. But then the last track swoops in, sounding a bit like Tool filtered through UK black metal buzz, all brooding buzz, Eastern sitar like melodies, and crooned baritone vocals. Over the top and dramatic, and weirdly hooky. WTF?
So fucking far out. But if like us, you're already a loyal knight of the Meads round table and sometime dweller in the Old Forest, well then this is just the sort of thing you can't get enough of.
WAY recommended, but only for truly twisted musical souls...
And like the Old Forest 3"cd-r also on Death To Music, SUPER LIMITED!!!
MPEG Stream: "Hark the Herald"
MPEG Stream: "Da Vinci's Code"

JAZKAMER Metal Music Machine (Smalltown Supernoise) cd 16.98
Savage Pencil cover art. Gothic font. Grim graphics. Black metal sonics. So this is the new Jazzkammer?! Metal Machine Music sees this Norwegian electronic noise duo changing their name (slightly) and suddenly adopting a black/death/doom metal sound. Maybe in this case we should say Metal, using the capital M for it like The Wire magazine does. Not sure what inspired this new direction, we'd hate to think it was just that in avant-experimental-indie circles Metal is now 'cool', and that they thought hey if SUNNO))) can do it, why not us? But chances are that being from Norway they're well aware of the black metal scene and dig a lot of the same stuff about it that we do, the perhaps unintentional avant-gardisms of bands like Abruptum for instance, and figured it was time to delve into it fully themselves. What matters, anyway, is how did Jazkamer's Metal Machine Music turn out? Well, we like it! First off, Jazkamer, as opposed to Jazzkammer, is not a duo, they've brought in some other folks to help out, including a real ringer -- Ivar Bjornson of AQ fave Viking black prog metallers Enslaved!! So we're taking it pretty seriously already.
The first track, "Friends Of Satan" is a pretty harsh intro, and should serve to weed out listeners who AREN'T in fact friends of Satan. It's a blurred, blasting battery of drums and distortion, not unlike that sampled death metal disc by Francisco Lopez, Untitled 104. Or the Dave Lombardo track on Jonathan Bepler's Cremaster 2 soundtrack. The chorus of anguished vokills at the end of the track further nail down Jazkamer's black metal ballsiness. They'd be pleased to know that someone here asked, when this was playing, "What's that? Besides headache-inducing?" Following that, we encounter one of this album's main events, the 16:51 "The Worms Will Get In", a study in slow-motion, doom-dirge minimalism a la SUNNO))), Earth, and Khanate. Simple but effective. When it ends, it's a jarring segue into the next track, the jagged "Abomination". Probably the thing on here that most sounds like it could be from a "normal" black metal album, albeit with No Wave / Voivodian influences. Next up, the title track, that's along the same lines as "Abomination" but, like, ten times noisier. And then, the finale, the 12 and a half minute "Occult Glider" that's a menacing ambient fuzzed-drone soundscape, beautiful and powerful.
We're impressed. Our doubts were quashed. Better than any Jazzkammer album we'd previously heard, as a matter of fact!
MPEG Stream: "Friends Of Satan"
MPEG Stream: "The Worms Will Get In"
MPEG Stream: "Occult Glider"

JAZKAMER Metal Music Machine (Ass Piss) lp 16.98
NOW ON VINYL!
Savage Pencil cover art. Gothic font. Grim graphics. Black metal sonics. So this is the new Jazzkammer?! Metal Machine Music sees this Norwegian electronic noise duo changing their name (slightly) and suddenly adopting a black/death/doom metal sound. Maybe in this case we should say Metal, using the capital M for it like The Wire magazine does. Not sure what inspired this new direction, we'd hate to think it was just that in avant-experimental-indie circles Metal is now 'cool', and that they thought hey if SUNNO))) can do it, why not us? But chances are that being from Norway they're well aware of the black metal scene and dig a lot of the same stuff about it that we do, the perhaps unintentional avant-gardisms of bands like Abruptum for instance, and figured it was time to delve into it fully themselves. What matters, anyway, is how did Jazkamer's Metal Machine Music turn out? Well, we like it! First off, Jazkamer, as opposed to Jazzkammer, is not a duo, they've brought in some other folks to help out, including a real ringer -- Ivar Bjornson of AQ fave Viking black prog metallers Enslaved!! So we're taking it pretty seriously already.
The first track, "Friends Of Satan" is a pretty harsh intro, and should serve to weed out listeners who AREN'T in fact friends of Satan. It's a blurred, blasting battery of drums and distortion, not unlike that sampled death metal disc by Francisco Lopez, Untitled 104. Or the Dave Lombardo track on Jonathan Bepler's Cremaster 2 soundtrack. The chorus of anguished vokills at the end of the track further nail down Jazkamer's black metal ballsiness. They'd be pleased to know that someone here asked, when this was playing, "What's that? Besides headache-inducing?" Following that, we encounter one of this album's main events, the 16:51 "The Worms Will Get In", a study in slow-motion, doom-dirge minimalism a la SUNNO))), Earth, and Khanate. Simple but effective. When it ends, it's a jarring segue into the next track, the jagged "Abomination". Probably the thing on here that most sounds like it could be from a "normal" black metal album, albeit with No Wave / Voivodian influences. Next up, the title track, that's along the same lines as "Abomination" but, like, ten times noisier. And then, the finale, the 12 and a half minute "Occult Glider" that's a menacing ambient fuzzed-drone soundscape, beautiful and powerful.
We're impressed. Our doubts were quashed. Better than any Jazzkammer album we'd previously heard, as a matter of fact!
MPEG Stream: "Friends Of Satan"
MPEG Stream: "The Worms Will Get In"
MPEG Stream: "Occult Glider"

JONNYX AND THE GROADIES s/t (self-released) cd 5.98
One of our favorite "party black metal records"(WTF?) finally back in stock!
So what kind of a name is JonnyX And The Groadies anyway? Well, quite possibly the only appropriate monicker for the world's only "Party Black Metal" band. Huh? What? C'mon, you heard us. PARTY BLACK METAL. That's right. Might not sound good, at least to all you grimmer than grim blackmetalheads, but it is, in fact it's a heck of a lot more interesting than most black metal we hear these days. And actually the 'party' aspect isn't as obvious on record. Live they seem to be a serious blast, wild and goofy and explosively spastic, with pointy metal axes (as in guitars, although we imagine their might be actual axes as well) and goofy outfits and plenty of mayhem and destruction. But on record, it's all skull encrusted synths and upside down crosses, um... tight pants and foot long spikes, and, well, wild windmilling hair and white belts? The most unholy union of buzzing black metal and insanely aggro spastic screamo EVER. Grinding buzzing guitars, demonic shrieks, programmed blast beats and a thick wall of majestic keyboards. Think maybe Drop Dead, Arcturus, Teen Cthulhu, The Locust, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Behead The Prophet No Lord Shall Live, and Cradle Of Filth all packed into a sweaty filthy Portland Basement, playing before some strange mix of metalheads, emo kids and the walking dead! Huge thick blasts of grim black metal segue into fuzzy squelchy ambient synth break downs and then slip into some moody midtempo near-doom, before exploding again in a blast of barbed buzz. Awesome! Nine tracks, the first eight, brief blasts of blackness, all clocking in at under two minutes, the final track, "Unmortal", a massive 14 minute blackened synth doom juggernaut.
MPEG Stream: "Gauntlet Of Iron And Fear (Give The Doom A Hand)"
MPEG Stream: "Fog Of Blood"

JUMALHAMARA Slaughter The Messenger (Hammer-Of-Hate) cd ep 10.98
We've gotten to a really weird place in our music obsession, as evidenced by the fact that sometimes a recommendation against, is almost stronger than a recommendation FOR. Sounds weird but it's true. We have friends at other stores, who will tell us something is terrible, they hated it, but then will add "you might like it though." And the weird thing is, they're usually right (that we'll like it). We've developed such a taste for the bizarre, it's sometimes hard to tell if something is bad, or so fucked up it's genius.
However, one of those friends recommended against buying this very record, very vehemently in fact. Hard to recall, but it was something along the lines of it not being very metal and being all jangly and wussy. Fair enough. But they are from Finland, and they do have a song called "Discover The Pigtail"! Those two pieces of critical info were enough to overrule our friend's warning, and we're so glad they were.
This latest ep from Finnish black metal, psychedelic post rock horde Jumalhamara is AMAZING. Three songs, all on the long side, with a sound that is pretty difficult to pin down. It is easy to see why someone questing for serious black metal grimness might be disappointed. The record begins with the sound of children, laughing, playing, and what sounds like oinking pigs, a field recording of some village, until the band ROAR into action, pounding out a fierce blast of blackened buzz, grinding and intensely heavy, but it literally only lasts for about 10 seconds, then the band drifts off into some washed out hippy psych territory, all crooned reverbed vocals, lazy sun baked melodies, simple hand drums, slippery minimal bass, streaks of dubbed out distorted guitar, but for the most part, this is almost like some blackened Finnish Grateful Dead. Near the end there's even some fuzzy organ, the guitars get a bit heavier, the vocals moaning and chant-like, but it never really explodes, just gets thicker and more dense, while still seeming jammy and druggy. So awesome. Almost like a slightly heavier, way more fucked up black metal version of the recent Dead Man record.
"Discover The Pigtail" begins with glistening harmonics, which are soon joined by some strange off kilter drumming, tangled riffing and howled vocals, the cool thing about this track is that those harmonics never go away, so even as the band slithers and sprawls, spewing out a sort of buzzy blackness, the glistening shimmer totally shines through, diluting the heaviness, turning what might be something raw and heavy into something way more bizarre and trippy, at times it almost sounds like two records playing simultaneously, they drift in an out of sync, all very dizzying and gloriously tweaked.
The final track is the briefest of the bunch, and begins as a grinding gnarled and blackened doomic dirge, but not typically sludgy and murky, instead it's super dense and layered, the drums doing much more than pounding away, stumbling and skittering, beneath streaks of high end guitar, and chugging blown out riffage, the cymbals sizzling, the whole track recorded super hot and in the red, blasting and pounding and twisting until it fades out.
Definitely not really black metal, more like some sort of twisted doom-ed post rock avant psych, but still plenty heavy and really fucking great!
MPEG Stream: "The Swing"
MPEG Stream: "Discover The Pigtail"

KALEIDOSCOPE #4 magazine 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We're always on the lookout for new weird music magazines, and we're fairly sure this might be our new favorite. To begin with, it's put out by one of the guys in weirdo black metal outfit Circle Of Ouroborus. Plus just have a gander at the contents, loads of AQ faves and a few bands we have yet to hear, but definitely sound promising. Blissy black metallers Amesoeurs and Amesoeurs offshoot Alcest, Finland's Ride For Revenge, Japanese metallic black ritualists Arkha Sva, Swedish suicidal black doomsters Hypothermia, Irish black metal cult Primordial, German black metal warriors Secrets Of The Moon, pagan folk legends Current 93, Australian one man metal horde Grippiud and Italian blackdeath warkult Blasphemophagher. As if that weren't enough, a bunch of record reviews, tons of cool photos, and every page is decorated in the margins with that cool pencil art that adorns all the Circle Of Ouroborus discs. Awesome!

KALEIDOSCOPE #5 magazine 10.98
Latest issue of this kick ass metal mag from long time aQ favorites, black metal geniuses (maniacs?) Circle Of Ouroborus, who, when not crafting twisted damaged folk flecked stumbling blackened buzz, put together a seriously excellent 'zine, covering a super varied selection of very AQ worthy outfits.
Number 5 features NY based primitive black metallers Ash Pool, Japanese doomsters Coffins, Danish doom combo Sol, legendary Norwegian black metallers Trelldom, German blackened death metallers Drowned, death metal legends Incantation, stoner doom trio Ramesses. And even some new-to-us stuff: Australian black thrashers Denouncement Pyre, and four super obscure black death doom bands with only demos to their names: Arvet from Finland, Ignivomous from Australia, Exorcism (we're not sure where they're from) and another Finnish band Profetus.
In addition to all that stuff, there's a bunch of reviews, as well as a killer primer on Finnish black metal, and each page has a cool hand drawn border with demons and flames and upside down crosses, skeletons, and in addition to all the various band photos, there are tons of creepy hand drawn illustrations.

KAMPFAR Kvass (Napalm) cd 17.98
For some dumb reason, we love saying the name of this Norwegian black metal band... but mispronouncing it like "Campfire" with a pirate-y drawl. Campfarrr! Dunno why we enjoy that so much. It's the same with Finnish black metallers Barathrum. "BATHROOM" we call 'em, or maybe "Barthroom". And we chuckle like idiots. None of this is fair to Kampfar (or Barathrum for that matter). Kampfar are in fact very much a not-funny, totally true and serious Nordic pagan black metal proposition, having released several cultish albums in the past, efforts easily the equal of their more famous peers like Gorgoroth and Darkthrone and Enslaved in their early days. Actually we didn't even know they were still around, Kvass is their first album in SEVEN years! And thus, happily, that classic '90s style Norwegian black metal is what you get! Six long, heavy tracks with rasping vox, raw riffage, and some Viking folky bits as well. Frosty and spikey and grim, with lots of slower parts and majestic melodies underneath all the ice. Yah, Kampfarrrrr!
MPEG Stream: "Lyktemen"
MPEG Stream: "Til Siste Mann"

KATATONIA Last Fair Deal Gone Down (Peaceville) cd 16.98
After making the recent domestic release of their "Tonight's Decision" opus our "record of the week" on the last AQ-L, we are now very happy to present this BRAND NEW album from these Swedish gods of melancholy. Genius heavy downer pop that will appeal to everyone from Katatonia's core audience of doom-death metal freaks to Jeff Buckley fans to goths to alt. rockers with a clue. Like its predecessor, "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" continues their trademark sound of hypnotically-catchy, psychedelic, melancholic rock, still reminding us of Pink Floyd, Red House Painters, The Cure, and, of course, Katatonia's ever-heavy doom/death metal roots. There's no Jeff Buckley cover (or covers of anybody else) this time, but this new album does seem more varied than "Tonight's Decision", and perhaps more daring and dangerous. There's the inimitable Katatonia brand gloom-pop of "Teargas", the trip-hop/electronica beats that surface on "We Must Bury You", the delicacy of "Sweet Nurse" and the somewhat Tool-like vocal/guitar parts of "Clean Today". Katatonia's mastery of the mixture of melody and heaviness is worthy of fellow AQ-faves Opeth and Agents of Oblivion. This import (no word yet on any domestic release) comes packaged in a handsome, four-way folding digipak. The sticker on the front goes so far as to say "Probably the best Peaceville album -- ever!!" and while we'd have to say that Darkthrone and Pentagram might have some arguments with that, the statement is not idle hyperbole. Recommended! If you dug "TD" you know you're going to want this!
RealAudio clip: "Teargas"
RealAudio clip: "I Transpire"
RealAudio clip: "Passing Bird"

KATATONIA The Great Cold Distance (Peaceville) cd 16.98
We've said it before but it bears repeating, whenever we hear metal bands cover their teenage influences, especially Depeche Mode or the Cure (why do all metal bands LOVE those two bands?), we always secretly wish there would be a band who just actually sounded like that. Not a metal band being ironic or retro, but a heavy heavy band who made incredibly dark and depressing emotional music. Ultra personal and epically miserable. Thus we are massive fans of Katatonia.
Imagine a doom metal Cure, or a metallized Depeche Mode. Katatonia may have started life as a serious doom/death metal band, channeling Paradise Lost, with thick downtuned grinding buzzing guitars, and harsh black metal vocals, but with the release of their classic Discouraged Ones record, they switched to clean vocals and the sound of the band followed suit. A massive, gloomy and dreamy doompop. Exactly what we had been wishing for. Catchy as heck, heavy as hell, but totally morose and melancholy. Since then the band has continued to polish and hone their epic commercial doom, with each record finding them moving closer and closer to MTV rock, but without losing their edge, managing to stay creepy and heavy. But shit, their songs are so good and so catchy, and intense and emotional, it was only a matter of time before these guys blew up. It hasn't happened yet, but listening to The Great Cold Distance, it can't be long now. Lots of moody expanses of bass and drum groove, sprinkled with minor key guitar jangle, bookended by massive chugging metallic choruses, hooks everywhere, gorgeous crooned vocals, dark depressing lyrics, really moody and evocative and so so heavy. There is no reason these guys shouldn't be up there with Tool and the Deftones. They definitely travel the same sonic path, although Katatonia definitely display more of a true doom heritage. But c'mon, all that moody heavy rock that the oh-so-depressed generation Z lap up like Prozac, how have they not discovered Katatonia? If we were 15 again, and hated school and just broke up with our girlfriend, and were always fighting with our parents, we can guarantee you we'd be dressed all in black, wandering around our neighborhood late at night, after everyone was asleep, with The Great Cold Distance blasting in our headphones. And pretty much every track on here would sure as hell make it on all the mix tapes we ever made. But since we're not, we'll just have to make do, luxuriating in these lush depressive epics, wallowing in each glorious wash of miserable metallic doom pop!
Very recommended!!
MPEG Stream: "Leaders"
MPEG Stream: "Deliberation"
MPEG Stream: "My Twin"

KATATONIA Tonight's Decision (Peaceville) cd 13.98
We listed this before when it was only available as a super-expensive, hard to get import. And even then we were like, you gotta get this, it's amazing! Now, at long last it's been issued domestically, at reasonable price -- and it's even been repackaged in a slipcase (jewelbox inside), with two previously unreleased bonus tracks! So now there's nothing to keep us from making it record of the week, which Tonight's Decision so totally deserves. It's the follow-up to 1998's Discouraged Ones, a record that threw everyone for a loop, with clean singing and an hypnotic, almost Cure-like (but ultra-heavy) sound, refining their earlier and harsher black metalish doom-death style. This time around, these Swedes are even more mellow and depressed. They even do a great Jeff Buckley cover (better than the original we think)! In fact, the more we listen to it, the harder it is to understand why they're not huge. They should be huge, but they're ghettoized as a European metal band on a metal label. Don't take this the wrong way, but if Katatonia could somehow get into heavy rotation on MTV or your local alternative rock radio station, they'd be SO popular. But never fear, it's still metal. Just artful, gloomy, doomy, post-death metal with enough melody and emotion and atmosphere to make you cry. Really, one of the best metal records of the year. Yet, one that supposed non-metal fans could easily love as well, for its gloom-pop brilliance. Highly Recommended to all!!
They actually have a new album as well, Last Fair Deal Gone Down, coming out sometime later this year (maybe even later than that in the U.S.) and we can't wait!
RealAudio clip: "Nightmares By The Sea (Jeff Buckley)"
RealAudio clip: "Black Session"

KATHARSIS 666 (Norma Evangelium Diaboli) cd 17.98
If there is a black metal label these days that truly defines elite and kult and grim it's for sure gotta be Norma Evangelium Diaboli. So far they've released the utterly amazing Funeral Mist, the most recent Deathspell Omega, the Katharsis Kruzifixion album, and now this, a reissue of Katharsis' first album the appropriately titled 666. We loved Kruzifixion but were informed by Wrest from Leviathan that 666 was way better. And while it's maybe not WAY better, it is pretty fucking great and a lot weirder. Just the first song alone lets you know what sort of hellish ride you're in for, obviously there's the requisite buzzing riffs, chaotic blastbeats, demonic vocals, but there's something about it that sounds truly posessed and just a bit fucked. The vocals occasionally slip into freaky falsetto screams, the whole thing is drenched in reverb so it sounds like you're witnessing some sort of black metal ritual in a cave you stumbled upon at the base of a huge dark mountain. By the end of the track the vocals and the riffs get all tangled up and become a slowly devolving swirl of black metal chaos, splattered drums and howls of "666, 666, 666, 666" drift up from the abyss as the whole track slowly slips into some subterranean netherworld. And it goes on and on like that, brittle buzzsaw riffs are repeated mantra like over pounding thrashing drums and squiggly alien sounding leads and creepy black ambience all swaddled in massive amounts of delay. But unlike a lot of black metal, 666 is full of actual songs, catchy songs too, not just a series of BM riffs strung together. No, like Satyricon or Immortal or more appropriately in this case, Darkthrone, these are the sort of black metal invocations that actually get stuck in your head. Nothing quite like humming some little melody while you're walking down the street only to realize it's "Raped By Demons" by German "Kommando Metal" outfit Katharsis. Fuck yeah. And if somehow you forget that you are listening to transmissions from the darkest pits of BM hell, the liner notes not only advise that you "Listen in darkness and at maximum volume" but also to "burn your local church!"...
MPEG Stream: "666 (Hohelied Der Wiedererweckung)"
MPEG Stream: "Thy Horror"

KATHARSIS Kruzifixion (Norma Evangelium Diaboli) cd 17.98
From the label that brought us the amazing Deathspell Omega that we listed a few months back, comes yet another missive from the black metal underground, this time it's the German horde Katharsis and it doesn't get much more grim than this. A buzzing blasting winter wind of thrashing riffs and furious blast beats. Primitive and lo-fi and totally brutal and ferocious. You'll be sold in the first ten seconds, with the opening scream, a terrifying glass shattering shriek, like a flock of angry ravens, over a throbbing fuzzed out riff. The whole record is a mesmerizing slab of droned out black metal riffery, all soul shredding buzz and warm subterranean buzz. Fans of ultra raw black metal will definitely be blown away. Packaged in a cool black on metallic silver sleeve with the image of a crucified black metal ghoul.
MPEG Stream: "The Chosen One"
MPEG Stream: "Luziferion"

KATHARSIS VVorld VVithout End (Norma Evangelium Diaboli) cd 17.98
Similar to the West Coast axis of US black metal, Leviathan, Xasthur, Draugar, Crebain, etc... there is another less geographically based hub, centered around French label Norma Evangelium Diaboli, a label that has managed to gather up most of the super intense, ultra progressive new wave of black metal bands: Deathspell Omega, Funeral Mist, Antaeus, Katharsis... Every record gorgeously designed, and inside each, all manner of black metal conventions twisted into uniquely hellish shapes. It's a bit surprising NED hasn't swooped in and tried to add Leviathan to their elite black brood. But while Leviathan is indeed twisted in his own way, there is definitely a distinctly European feel to the bands on NED.
Where as DSO are like a black metal Slint, with epic arrangements of black buzz and plenty of brooding post rock passages, and Funeral Mist are a grim black horde with massive production, creeped out ambience and thick swaths of impossibly pummeling brutality, Katharsis are a spastic, "Kommando Metal" blast of blackened thrashing drums and buzzing insect guitars, bizarre reverb drenched psychedelic leads and freaked out vocals that scream, howl, growl and shriek, all smeared into massive black squalls of relentless blackthrash. This German outfit are not about subtlety, their sound is intensely furious burst after harsh hellish blast of ultra intense, brittle and buzzy black metal, channelling the old school classics through their own cracked and screwed perspective.
But it's the epic album closer, the 16 minute title track "VVorld VVithout End" where the band really push the limits, and take their own peculiar black metal into totally new realms, slowing down to a buzzing Burzumic midtempo lope, slipping into a weirdly propulsive groove, when suddenly insane falsetto vocals, and keening high end lead guitars whirl into a bizarre super dramatic, super tense minor key crescendo, then returning to the same buzzy groove. This happens a few more times, before everything sort of collapses into thick swirling thrashing chaos, multiple vocals, some shrieking, some grunted and spoken, bits of hysterical laughter, tangled and convoluted buzzing riffs, angular melodies, all crashing and slamming into each other, drunkenly slipping from lightning fast blast to lugubrious crawl to midtempo lurch in a dizzying fade to black. So goddamn good.
And as with all NED releases, amazing packaging!
MPEG Stream: "Eden Belovv"
MPEG Stream: "Kross Fyre"
MPEG Stream: "Vvitchdance"

KEEP OF KALESSIN Agnen: A Journey Through The Dark (Avantgarde Music) cd 13.98
The sophomore release from this up-and-coming Norwegian black metal band crushes and kills just as much as their amazing 1998 debut did. Heavy and complex, a surefire hit with fans of Satyricon and Immortal.

KEEP OF KALESSIN Armada (Candlelight) cd 14.98
Not sure what band leader Obsidian C.'s day job is, maybe he's a doctor or a lawyer or plays guitar on tour with Satyricon, 'cause whatever he does it obviously keeps him pretty busy, to the detriment of his band getting releases out in a timely fashion. Between their 2nd and 3rd release was a span of five years, and now it's been like two years since that 'comeback' ep came out. So, Obsidian and Co. are not rushing it, which is good. Plenty of time to craft a solid piece of Norwegian black metal fury, pure black/death/thrash art, which is what Armada is! Insane drumming, lots of unexpected twists (Spanish guitar!), technical flourishes, original and intense. This band, whose 1999 debut Through Times Of War we heralded as being on the level of heavyweights Emperor, Enslaved, Immortal, and Satyricon, still deserve to be mentioned in such illustrious company, even if they don't get as much recognition from the metal-buying masses.
MPEG Stream: "Crown Of Kings"
MPEG Stream: "The Black Uncharted"

KEEP OF KALESSIN Reclaim (FaceFront) cd ep 13.98
Black metal fanatics ought to remember the band Keep Of Kalessin, who released two albums on the Avantgarde label in '98 and '99, including the magnificent debut Through Times Of War, a disc that placed Keep Of Kalessin (in our minds at least) in the forefront of a second wave of Norwegian black metal acts, following the lead of such bands as Satyricon and Emperor. But, after those two records, nothing at all was heard from KoK. Until now. Though, this isn't quite the same Keep of Kalessin, as guitarist/composer Obsidian C. has shed his previous bandmates, replacing them with none other than Frost (Satyricon, 1394) on drums and Attila (Mayhem, Tormentor, Aborym) on vocals!! While we wish former members Ghash, Vyl, and Warach were still on board, we'll admit that Obsidian C. sure found some excellent, well-qualified replacements! Musically, this is fast, fierce, devastating black metal in the tradition of KoK's previous efforts. Indeed, one track is a re-recording of a cut from the first KoK album. With their dark synth atmospheres and gradiose, raging metallic assaults, we hope the five songs on this new Reclaim ep aren't all we'll hear from KoK for the next five years!
MPEG Stream: "IX"

KEEP OF KALESSIN Through Times Of War (Avantgarde Music) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Norwegian black metal, very much in the style of heavyweights Emperor, Enslaved, Immortal, and Satyricon (the later most of all). A very impressive debut, very heavy stuff indeed. Recommended! (Allan and Andee both took one home...)

KERMANIA Ahnenwerk (Van) cd 13.98
By now, avid readers of the AQ list should be well aware of German black metal horde Ruins of Beverast, responsible for one of our favorite black metal records EVER. Then of course there's Nagelfar, the band that came before RoB, who were responsible for another of the greatest black metal records of all time, Virus West. If that weren't enough, these guys also run an amazing record label, responsible for the RoB record, the Nagelfar reissue, the deluxe double lp version of the only release from SF's very own doomlords the Gault, and two brand new releases, the super blazing blackness of Funeral Procession, and this, the very Ruins Of Beverast-like debut from fellow countrymen Kermania!
Much like RoB, Kermania, are as much about atmosphere and mood, ambience and melody, as they are about blackness and buzz. This is massive, epic, sorrowful, melodic black metal. The opening track is almost 25 minutes long, an expansive journey that touches on all sorts of moods and sounds. From the lilting midtempo intro, with swoonsome clean vocals buried way down in the mix and dark, doleful minor key melodies, to some super harsh hateful suicidal black metal buzz, to drone drenched dream folk, to strange militaristic ambience, to full on and furious black thrash, and back again, culminating in a glorious droning, dreamy chantlike blasting black soundscape. And that's just the first song. Most bands would have called it a record after that... but Ahnenwerk still has more than a half hour left to go.
The second track is brief, but just as epic and majestic sounding, a perfect blend of black buzz and mournful melancholia, this time with killer fuzzed out riffing beneath loud, clear vocals, bookended by blasts of utterly harsh grimness. The whole thing suffused with haunting mournful melodicism. The final track is a seasick waltz, a Viking style folky black metal shanty, with clean vocals and acoustic guitars beneath the black buzz.
But before we get to that, there's another 20 minute plus epic to wade through, beginning with simple strummed guitars, the sounds of horses and footsteps, an hypnotic loping drawn out melody, weird processed vocals, a midtempo trawl through dark nights and long forgotten dreams. Dark and dreary and gorgeously miserable. About halfway through the sorrowful trudge suddenly explodes into a hellishly blasting buzz, all fuzzy riffs and lightning fast blast beats, howled demonic vocals, stopping only briefly to shimmer dreamily, before bursting into black action again. Dizzyingly epic and gloriously despondent. Folks who like their metal harsh and hateful, sad and sorrowful, murky and miserable, will feel right at home...
MPEG Stream: "Schwertes Schaerfe Beichtgesang"
MPEG Stream: "Veitersberg 1487"

KHERT-NETER Arrival Of The Funeral Dogs (ISO666) cd 14.98
Fast and furious death metal from this Finnish band featuring members of the totally amazing Finnish black metal band Horna. No black metal here though, just massive downtuned, super heavy and super fast traditional death metal ala Incantation and Morbid Angel. Pretty great.
RealAudio clip: "Bringer Of Storms"
RealAudio clip: ":S:"

KHOLD Krek (Candlelight) cd 15.98
Whenever anyone asks us what Khold sounds like, we often tell them, well, a bit like a black metal Nirvana. Which is not entirely accurate and maybe not totally fair, but it definitely is the most succinct description we can come up with, and it does at least give you a rough idea of where this Norwegian outfit's sound lies. Or at least how it sounds to us. A surprising amount of 'groove' and catchy riffery for such a grim black metal band. Lurching swaying midtempos, impossibly catchy melodies, plenty of frosty buzz, but the occasional hook that just kicks your head in and makes you want to throw on a flannel and some corpse paint and bang your head like mad. A couple tracks sound like they could have been your favorite Sub Pop singles of the month. Had they existed they would have surely occupied THE prized position in your record collection (the most likely contender on Krek is track three: "Innestengt I Eikekiste"). The whole record sounds like the meanest, heaviest songs on Bleach, painted black, set afire, and set hurtling through the forest and straight to hell. Khold do for black metal what Nirvana did for pop, turning it inside out and taking all the most unlikely elements, and making them sound perfect, like they could never have been any other way. Which is even more impressive in the case of Khold, as BM tends to be a lot more stodgy and resistant to such un-grim concepts as catchiness and hooks and groove. And of course, let's not forget Khold frontman Gard, who as we have mentioned before, puts pretty much all other corspepainted metal dudes to shame with his bulky fuzzy black cloaked visage, his half black face, glowing white pate, and the blackened tendrils creeping up the side of his head as if some black beast from hell is slowly enveloping his body. So awesome.
MPEG Stream: "Innestengt I Eikekiste"
MPEG Stream: "Blod Og Blek"
MPEG Stream: "Krek"

KING DIAMOND House of God (Metal Blade) cd 15.98
His Satanic Majesty returns with another of his trademark concept albums, this one telling a story based around an alternate version of the life of Jesus, one in which he does not die upon the cross... Good stuff, with more high King Diamond screams than ever before, and plenty of classic Andy La Rocque guitarwork.

KLABAUTAMANN Der Ort (Heavy Horses) cd 17.98
Finally back in stock. This amazing chunk of post rock-ed black metal brilliance!! Here's our review from when we first had this in:
A while back we reviewed a killer disc from a German band called Woburn House, who traffic in a killer blend of repetitive hypno rock a la Dutch outfit Gore, but blended with a heaping dose of mathy post rock, a combo that totally kicked our asses. But then we discovered that there was in fact blacker side to Woburn another project by some of the same members called Klabautamann, who were supposed to be a super weird black metal band!! This we had to hear. So after some internet sleuthing, we got in touch with the band and managed to get a bunch of the Klabautamann debut cd Der Ort, and if anything, it's even cooler, and WAY WAY weirder than we would have ever hoped.
Take the first track, it begins like most black metal songs, with a buzzing insectoid riff, which explodes into some epic blackened riffing, we love it already, but then suddenly, the guitars drop out, and leave a skeletal post rock jam, lilting clean guitars, but with blasting double kick drums and growled demonic vocals, a weird combo for sure, but so good. Then the song transforms into some mathy metallic breakdown, before blissing out into some dreamy melodic drift, before bursting back into full on black blast again. And that's just the first track.
The second track begins with acoustic guitars and drums, a dreamy strum and pound that could easily be some weird indie rock band, the vocals kick in, a sort of sing song monotone, with little melodic curlicues underneath, until the song lurches into some complex stop start groove, with wild octopoidal drumming and little bursts of squiggly guitar leads. After a gorgeous classical breakdown, the drums kick in, a blazing blast beat accompanying this lovely finger picked guitar, another bizarre juxtaposition that sounds amazing.
The next track is a dense tangled black angular workout, all impossibly convoluted Voivod-ish riffs over furious drumming, before again breaking into a weird loping post rock jam, punctuated by brief bursts of blazing blackness.
It's hard to explain exactly what's going on, but whatever it is, it's awesome. Every track is dense with riffs and parts, gorgeous clean sections are butted up against filthy frosty blackness, acoustic guitars routinely jam alongside metallic blast beats, crazy complicated riffs are chopped into stuttery fragments, and rearranged around mathy rhythms...
Then there's the final track, a total out of the blue mind blower, a nine minute epic, that is still sort of black metal, but also sounds like Tool or Coheed And Cambria, chugging riffs, wailing vocals, both male and female, all tangled up in killer harmonies, the whole thing shoegazey and kind of emo and super poppy, the guitar weaving elaborate textures, but it's the vocals, so weird and cool, it almost has us wishing the whole record had singing like this. So unexpected and so goddamn great.
After the recently reviewed Lifelover, probably our most listened to new 'black metal' disc for sure!
MPEG Stream: "Der Ort"
MPEG Stream: "Forlorn Sea"
MPEG Stream: "Winternacht"

KLABAUTAMANN Negeder Mand / Tuvstarr (Heavy Horses) 7" picture disc 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ultra limited seven inch picture disc from these German black metallers. But Klabautamann aren't at all your typical black metal group, beginning with the fact that most of them also do time in metallic math rockers Woburn House, who we raved about on a past list. And that math rock pedigree definitely finds its way into the sound of Klabautamann. As always there's plenty of growling demon-vox, blasting beats, and buzzing riffage, but more than half the time is spent in various non-metal forms, from blissed out dreamy folk interludes, to simple slowcore crawls, to weird angular prog workouts. And even in full blasting metal mode, the sound is anything but typical, the buzzing and blasting is infused with haunting melancholy melodies, ultra catchy hooks, weird burbling underwater bass, but all deftly wrapped up in the curious freaked out, gloriously demented black-post-math-metal-whatever that is Klabautamann.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each copy hand numbered, packaged with a cover/sheet of liner notes with the credits and lyrics, and the picture disc is an eye popping full color illustration of dancing gnomes and faeries on one side, a sleeping witch, curled up with here staff and bugle and mysterious book of spells on the other. The best part is the 7" also comes with a cd-r with the tracks from the single, so you can throw those right on your iPod and hang that single on your wall right where it belongs...

KLABAUTAMANN Our Journey Through The Woods (Vendlus) cd 15.98
REPRESSED! Now on Vendlus, formerly self-released. Here's our review from back on list #266 when we first raved about Our Journey...
Second disc from this mysterious blackened outfit, that just so happens to feature members of AQ faves Woburn House, a modern metallic post rock combo, who knocked our socks off with their recent Message To Ourselves Outside The Dreaming Machine record on UK label Paradigms. Where Woburn house took math rock and metallized it, creating a sound much more akin to some unlikely blend of Shellac and Gore, in Klabautamann, they take the buzzing blur of black metal, and add all sorts of melody and strange convoluted arrangements.
The record opens with the crunch of winter footsteps and glistening arpeggiated guitars, a lilting swoonsome introduction to the record proper, which erupts out of the gates as track two lurches into black aktion, manic drumming, buzzing crusty riffage and growled demonic vocals. But that's where any resemblance to traditional black metal ends. The songs buzz and thrash and pound, but it's so much more melodic, with cool little Iron Maiden-y guitar harmonies, strange mathy breakdowns, all sorts of strange guitar parts lurking around and under the main riff, lots of jangle and shimmer, even at its fiercest, there always seems to be some sort of sweet melody lurking underneath. The riffs too are much more rock than black metal, giving the record another strange twist. Lots of parts even sound like a blackened Treepeople, with multiple guitar lines all tangled up into gorgeous melodic knots. So cool and so weird. Could very well be the perfect gateway black metal band for folks who may have been a bit shy about taking the plunge into the dark side. And for the rest of you, whose musical souls are already tainted, this is strange and twisted, mathy, melodic, buzzy and blackened heaven!
MPEG Stream: "Walking Through Twilight"
MPEG Stream: "Der Nock"
MPEG Stream: "Trolldance"

KOROVAKILL Waterhells (Red Stream) cd 13.98
After a long absence, here's a new, third album from these former Napalm Records recording artists, the sometimes very weird Austrian black metal outfit Korva, now rechristened Korovakill. They've always been one of our favorites, playing unclassifiable epic metal with baroque keyboards and downright bizarre male and female vocals (too silly for some, it must be said) that on their first album even reminded us of the Sun City Girls! The album after that dabbled in electronica, ending up even stranger than some of Arcturus' experiments, but with this disc they rely on more standard, blasting black metal techniques, making for probably their most "accessible" release, but definitely still one for fans of the weird in black metal, along the lines of the aforementioned Arcturus, Borknagar, Enslaved, etc. We haven't had this disc long enough to fully comprehend the watery concept at play here, but "Waterhells" seems to refer to a mythology of the sea that ties together the songs (interesting subject matter for a band from the Alps).
RealAudio clip: "Into The Underwhirls"

KRALLICE s/t (Profound Lore) cd 13.98
It has come to this. Just as we somehow suspected. And desired. Underground guitar maestro Mick Barr, he of such monomaniacal hypershred mosquito-like guitar and drums (or drum machine) bands as Orthrelm, Octis, and Ocrilm, has finally unleashed the bona fide black metal album that we always knew he probably wanted to do. And should do. After all, in our review of the last Ocrilm album, Annwn, released earlier this year on Hydra Head, we'd said that not only did Barr's guitar buzz remind us of black metal music, but that if it were a black metal album it would be one of the best (and most fucked up, too) of the year.
So, now Barr and equally tech-y cohorts guitarist/bassist Colin Marston (that's right, of mathy mindbogglers Behold...The Arctopus!) and drummer Lev Weinstein (Bloody Panda) have started the utterly blackened Krallice, releasing their self-titled debut on the respected Profound Lore label. And the rest of the USBM scene should take notice, these guys mean business. Sure, anybody with a MySpace page can have a black metal band, make a cool unreadable, thorny logo (like Krallice's) and come up with song titles like "Wretched Wisdom", "Timehusk", "Energy Chasms", and "Forgiveness In Rot" (as Krallice have done) but probably not that many can actually back up all those black metal signifiers so seriously with their MUSIC, music of such sheer power and perfection that we find here. Wintry winds are blowing here (i.e. it's not hot air), as majestic melodies ride the crests of tsunami-sized waves of distorted, buzzing guitar. The six mesmerizingly lengthy tracks found on this Krallice disc are quite technically complex, and buzzingly relentless, much as you'd expect from Barr and Co. It's a blasting blizzard, with raging vokills and hyperspeed drumming but most importantly, shreddingly gorgeous guitar leads, densely woven, that build and build always to new forbidden plateaus of melancholic, misanthropic triumph. Imagine maybe the epick grimnity of Weakling or Wolves In The Throne Room, already badass in the guitar department, with an extra dosage of divebombing fretboard squiggle, interstellar energies continually released in the form of six string shred... yes, Krallice certainly "bring it" as it were, and should appeal to both fans of Barr's previous quasi-metallic, mathy mindfucks as well as those looking for quality USBM, advanced structures or not. (Although, in regards to neo-classical shred, they haven't quite unthroned the true Yngwie's of USBM, the late lamented Windham Hell.)
MPEG Stream: "Wretched Wisdom"
MPEG Stream: "Energy Chasms"

KRIEG Blue Miasma (No Colours) cd 16.98
Final black and bleak missive from metal misanthrope Imperial and his black metal horde Krieg. Practically an institution, Krieg spew a particularly hateful and depressive strain of black metal, falling somewhere between the old school (Judas Isacriot) and the new school (Xasthur) of US black metal. A buzzing chaotic blur, mostly plodding midtempos, guitars a droning hypnotic whir, the drums a splattery framework way down in the murky swirl, the vocals squirming tentacles of howl and shriek, tangled amidst the buzzing riffs and the careening rhythms. Not nearly as harsh as past efforts, this final album is downright melodic at times, some classic sounding thrash riffs surface here and there, huge expanses of droning doom metal share the spotlight with the grim black thrash, the melodies minor key and truly sorrowful sounding, some tracks trail off into ambient stretches of white noise guitar, sounding a bit like Total or Hototogisu here and there. Blue Miasma is hate fueled and harrowing, harsh but weirdly mournful and melancholy, even the ultra fast parts end up sort of blissing out into droning doomy miserablism. Fucking Awesome.
Word of warning, Krieg and Imperial have been know to espouse truly abhorrent views, political, racial and otherwise, sort of comes with the black metal territory a lot of the time. It's a personal choice, whether you can enjoy the music and ignore the politics of its creator. You have been warned.
MPEG Stream: "The Great Beast Trembled In Nightmare"
MPEG Stream: "Who Shall Stand Against Me"
MPEG Stream: "The Blue Mist"

KRIEG Patrick Bateman (HCB) cd ep 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is about as raw as black metal can get. Overblown, superdistorted, chaotic, thrashing buzzing brutality. Vocals so loud that at their peak they overload the speakers, and begin to crumble, pushing all the other sounds out of the way. Very creepy and disconcerting. This is supposedly the last Krieg record ever, and what a way to go. An homage to Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho, and the Patrick Bateman that lives in all of us, bloodlust, greed, selfishness and violence. Two dense tracks of head splitting ultraviolence, one which splinters into a creepy militaristic march, with heavily reverbed drums, and the most anguished howls of fury imaginable. The other three tracks are samples taken from the movie of American Psycho, which seems to be Krieg's perfect filmic muse.
MPEG Stream: "II"
MPEG Stream: "IV"

KRIEG / BAEL The Church / Bleeding For Him (Akedia Rekordz) picture disc 16.98
Super limited (500!) picture disc reissue of these two slabs of black brutality. One side features Bael, who spew forth an ugly, super blown out, ultra distorted black thrash, furious and so fast it often slips into a black blur (reminds us a bit of Diamatregon). Super lo-fi and recorded way too hot (in a good way), all the levels in the red, you can practically feel the evil seeping through the speakers. Originally released in 2003, features a bonus track with Imperial from Kreig on vocals! The flipside features the mighty Krieg, and it's a vinyl reissue of The Church mini cd from way back in 2001. Mega murky and also extremely lo-fi, but where Bael are blasting and blinding, Kreig are muddy and murky and mournful. Plodding midtempo depressive black metal, blasting drums over fuzzed out riffs, hateful and harsh. Also includes an exclusive bonus track, a cover of Earth's "Charioteer" which is awesome. Clean guitars picking out a majestic melody, a spare melodic dirge, meditative and hypnotic, with creepy snatches of conversation mixed in, not heavy as in huge guitars and pounding drums, but heavy like ominous and subtly dark. Cool. Weird that Nachtmystium covered the same Earth track as a bonus track on a recent cd. Hmm....
Black and white picture disc, one side is a blurry washed out photo of some ruins or old church, the other side features a creepy diseased hand.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!

KRISIUN AssassiNation (Century Media) cd 12.98
Another blast from these Brazilian death metal lunatics!!

KROHM A World Through Dead Eyes (Moribund) cd 16.98
We first discovered Krohm after Wrest from Leviathan suggested we check them out, if we were in the mood for some super dirgey, cold and miserable, almost doom-like suicidal black metal. When aren't we? And whaddayaknow? He was right. Nortt, Xasthur, even some Leviathan are the main touchstones for Krohm's super mournful doomic black metal. Nary a blast or furious riff to be found. Instead this is midtempo buzzing blackness. Like Malefic from Xasthur, Numinas from Krohm, weaves a bleak depressive instrumental back drop, all fuzzed out guitars, simple martial drumming, thick slabs of bass rumble, above which he drizzles haunting and heart breaking guitar melodies, peppered with his way down in the mix howls. This is a sea sick drift across a pitch black sonic ocean. Lurching and loping, riding the gentle swells, each track a sort of sea sick waltz, or a death march across a muddy swamp, trudging head down, eyes cast Earthward, body racked with sorrow, a sky full of cold rain. A soul as black as your broken heart, dead and done beating forever, walking and wandering and waiting for the ground to swallow you whole. So awesome.
Essential for fans of Xasthur and Nortt and all manner of depressive black doom...
MPEG Stream: "I Suffer The Astal Woe"
MPEG Stream: "A World Through Dead Eyes"

KRUZWEG OST Iron Avantgarde (Napalm) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Austrian metallers Silenius (of Summoning) and Martin Schirenc (Hollenthon, ex-Pungent Stench) have crafted this disturbing and confusing collage of sampled sounds. If I knew more German we might have a better idea of their intent, but what we can tell you is that this combines snippets of fascist-era speechifying, ominous horror-movie keyboards, folky themes, WWII sound effects, militaristic drumbeats, electronic noise, mysterious dialogue, and brief industrial-dance interludes. It's a bit like being trapped in a bunker circa 1944 as the bombs fall, tuned into a shortwave radio that is somehow, at moments, picking up a Rammstein broadcast from the future. A very intriguing and creepy listen indeed.

L'ACEPHALE Mord Und Totsclag (Aurora Borealis) cd 15.98
A year or so back, a strange and mysterious cd was left for us to listen to. An oversized black package adorned with a cryptic white woodcut, all sorts of strange text, in other languages. It took us forever to get around to it, but once we did we were kicking ourselves BIG time. One of the most amazing slabs of buzzing black grimness EVER. With lots of weird ambient and acoustic stuff mixed in. So we got in touch with the band to order a whole bunch, but unfortunately, it was limited to 100 copies and was gone gone gone. 
So here we are a while later and in swoops Aurora Borealis to save the day, reissuing that very same cd-r, as an actual cd, in a a super swank dvd style case, with a printed slipcover, as well as a bunch of inserts and even a poster. But all that stuff is just extra, it's the creepy fucked up black damage inside that we're most concerned with. 
A French band name, a German album title, but the band is in fact from Portland, which is a bit unexpected once the filthy black fog of Mord Un Totschlag comes creeping out of your speakers. The guitars are harsh and buzzing, super high end, whirling and furious, with strange little epic melodies and harmonies surfacing here and there, but for the most part, each track is an extreme blast of buzzing blackness, the drums barely there, a constant pound way down in the mix, and the vocals, even more brittle and acidic than the guitars, threatening to overwhelm everything, a harsh hateful hissy howl. Repetitive and hypnotic, epic and majestic, and ultra grim and raw. Lo-fi but still heavy and relentless. 
These black blasts are separated by haunting stretches of apocalyptic folk, which makes a bit of sense when you realize the band features at least one member of Blood Axis and Waldteufel. Dark, dolorous, downtuned guitars strewn over vast expanses of murk and grime, haunting vocals, crumbling industrial ambience, tolling bells, the final track, "Euntes Ibant Et Flebant" is a black ambient epic, a spare sonic wasteland, with angelic vocals buried in the mix, what sound like bombs exploding in the distance and random low end disturbances way way off, rain, thunder, disembodied voices, simple muted percussion, angular guitars drenched in reverb, a gorgeous sprawl of wartime shimmer, of dismal desolate ambience. 
The record seems to center around the 21 minute "Against A Weeping Sea Of Sleep" which begins as a white hot burst of hellish hateful buzz, the vocals AND guitar blown out almost to the point of becoming pure white noise, until the buzz dissipates, giving way to a simple funeral strum, over a shifting shimmering soundscape of ghostly vocals, and industrial whirs, until the buzz returns, but it's been transformed into a wispy sheet of sound which is draped over a swirling sea of mournful melodies and strummed flamenco sounding guitar, as well as that original steel string dirge, strangely lovely and haunting. The perfect combination of L'Acephale's two seemingly disparate sonic sides. 
Packaged in a dvd style case, housed in a cardstock slipcover, with a huge booklet featuring tons of intense woodcuts, random text, notes on each song, photos, diagrams and drawings, as well as a fold out black and white mini poster. 
MPEG Stream: "Terror Is Our Tenderness"
MPEG Stream: "The Book Of Lies"
MPEG Stream: "Heartless & Miserable"

LASCOWIEC Asgard Mysteries (Dark Hidden Productions) cd 13.98
We've been meaning to review something from this SF duo for a while now, the mysteriously monickered Z.V.H. and V.J.C, who make up the equally mysterious Lascoviec (formerly Angkor Vat). But their demos disappeared before we had the chance, and we've yet to receive the forthcoming split with Hungarian black metal masters Marblebog, but thankfully, Dark Hidden Productions has compiled their first two demos, Gesamkunstwerk and Gunshots Ring Out Over Vinland Streets, both originally released in 2006, onto one cd, and added a few bonus tracks to sweeten the deal.
Lascoviec traffic in droning, hypnotic, trance like black metal buzz, the guitars long washed out streaks, the vocals a distorted croak, often sounding like another layer of static, the melodies are melancholy and sorrowful, some tracks have programmed drums, pounding away machine like under a buzzy blurry blanket of epic majestic chordal whir, others are harsh and chaotic, with the drums lost int he mix, leaving just a thick undulating sheet of acid riffing and tortured vokills. There are plenty of clean guitars, and tranquil folky interludes, but just as many grinding ultra raw blackened dirges, the guitars thick and viscous, the vocals more of a animalistic hiss, the drums a buried throb, here and there dreamy washes of synth surface, but far from being tranquil, they're fuzzy and distorted, and slightly ominous, with a definite Tim Hecker or Philip Jeck vibe. Elsewhere the band craft weird sort of new wave sounding reverbed guitar jam, but still subtly creepy and haunting. Swirls of strings build ominous tension before exploding into super sharp jagged shards of weirdly blown out clean guitar riffing over relentless blastbeats.
And that's sort of what's so amazing about these guys, their sound varies so dramatically, from record to record, but even from song to song, sort of like the EEE stuff, the texture and the production are as critical as the songs and the riff, some are muted and murky and bassy and lo fi, others are sharp and angular, the guitars sonically are all over the place, sometimes soft and subtle, sometimes downtuned and sludgy, sometimes buzzy and brittle, the drums more often than not are buried WAY down in the mix, but that just makes the songs sound freer, as if they could fall apart or drift away at any moment.
Grim and gorgeous, twisted and intense, dramatic and a bit fucked up, long sheets of buzzed out bliss butted up against short sharp raw blasts of true blurred blackness, often getting all tangled up within the same song. What's not to like, this is some seriously amazing shit. Buzzy and black enough for the grimmest of warriors, but tripped out enough for folks into freaky outsider blackness.
Fair warning: Lasoviec are on Dark Hidden Productions, a label with dubious political leanings, and with definite ties to the Pagan Front, the hub for all things NSBM, aka National Socialist Black Metal. Although the band seem to be more concerned with themes cosmic and spiritual, nature and mythology, there are definite racist implications, the link is undeniable, so regardless of the band's stance, the label's is clear, and thus, another instance where the listener has to decide if the music trumps the possible unpleasant politics.
MPEG Stream: "I"
MPEG Stream: "II"
MPEG Stream: "Borghild Darkened"
MPEG Stream: "Outro"

LEADEN Monotonous Foghorns Of Molesting Department (Midwinter) cd 11.98
Some may scoff at the idea of our black metal cassette grab bag. A random selection of wonderful blackened obscurities, all grim and mysterious, abstract and kvlt, offered in bunched of 3, 6,10 or 20. You never know what you'll get, but invariably, every grab bag offers up at least one remarkable gem, one instant classic, and usually more than that. In fact, a close look at some of last year's best of lists, reveals at least a handful of tapes from the grab bags in folks' top tens, which is tough to argue with.
One of the tapes, in one of those grab bags was from this band right here, Leaden, from Italy, who we were immediately smitten with, if one can actually be 'smitten' by something this creepy and bizarre and haunting and confusional. But we were, and still are.
Leaden, with their mysterious logo, the band name in a very classical looking cursive, the amazing album title: Monotonous Foghorns Of Molesting Department, song titles like "Black Apartment Of Depression", "I'm The Filth" and "When Out Seems To Vanish", it seems just too good, like the music couldn't possibly live up to the mystery and magic promised by the packaging, but if anything, the music is stranger, and darker, murkier and WAY more mysterious.
On the surface, Leaden are purveyors of doomy suicidal black metal, but their sound, and their songs bear only a passing resemblance to their brothers in abject buzz.
From the first few seconds of the opening track, a skipping delicate piano figure, peppered with stuttery bursts of static (and no it's not your cd player), the record immediately reveals itself as well out of the ordinary. Even when the band join in, the sound is not heavy and buzzy, instead it's washed out and muddy, weary and worn, the guitars a fuzzy gauzy blur, the drums muted thumps, the vocals harsh, but again smeared into something less jagged and more drone-y and monotonous, the whole vibe dark and dejected, the bass surprisingly active, pulsing and throbbing beneath the streaks of guitar buzz, almost like some sort of Burzum / Joy Division hybrid. At some points, the song stumbles to an even slower doom-ed pace, the guitars transformed into keening soaring tones, while the bass rumbles beneath, the drums even more skeletal. And that song pretty much defines Leaden's sound, the rest of the record following suit. It's definitely black metal, but only barely, instead, it sounds like some sort of blackened goth, or doomy slowcore, all the elements are definitely there, the riffs, the pounding drums, the harsh vocals, but the way they're recorded, arranged, the production, the ambience, the mood, it's all very dark and depressive, but with a distinct doom-pop element running through all of it. Strip away much of the buzz, and you might be hearing something more like Bedhead, or maybe Codeine, it's that sort of timeless musical misery, just rendered in shades of black, and degrees of buzz.
In fact almost every song at one point or another, shifts into some gothy groove, all simple propulsive drumming and doo-doo-doo-doo bassli