HAPPY DAYS Melancholic Memories (Midwinter) cd 14.98
Once again, we were sold before we heard even a single note. A super suicidal, ultra depressive, doomy black metal bedroom band calledÉ Happy Days. Yep, that's right. Happy Days. Funny because the music is anything but, but also because, for a band this grim, and this miserable, it seems strange to have a name that to some will no doubt evoke the Fonz and Potsie and Richie Cunningham.
But don't let the name throw you off, Happy Days are not a joke band, they are nothing if not serious. Serious about their utter abject musical misery, from the opening few seconds, a lugubrious loop of mournful reverbed piano, set amidst a deep shimmering sea of drones, and an emotional voice, intoning a tale of personal misery. Super dramatic and powerful, and so so so so miserable.
But that track only serves as an intro. "The BeginningÉ" starts with a simple guitar melody, which gives way to a spare melancholy strum, peppered with samples from Fight Club oddly enough, and although Brad Pitt is probably the last person you might expect to hear on a suicidal black metal record, removed from the context of the film, those spoken word passages are indeed bleak and perfectly suit the music. That voice intones: "Our Great Depression is our livesÉ" and then the guitar kicks in, recorded way too hot, the distortion crumbling, a furious fuzz, the drums also distorted, wound into a simple moody crawl, the vocals totally blown out and confusional, going from maniacal shriek, to caustic growl, to strange spoken word, in what seems to be both English and Norwegian, all over a gloriously loping minor key dirge.
The final three tracks, the bulk of the record, are all extended epics, ranging from 10 minutes to nearly 20. And all three offer up more gloriously dismal Burzumic buzz, the drums a doomy plod, the riffs, thick and crunchy, existing more as a nearly static white noise whirled blur, the sound and arrangement and production, woozy and seasick, the vocals over the top, sometimes so loud and hysterical they peg the meters and drown out the rest of the music, even the spoken word parts are super distorted and strangely blown out. The riffs, seems to speed up and slow down as well, almost like the tape speed is being subtly adjusted, which only adds to the haunting otherworldiness.
The sound is ultra raw, and definitely has that bedroom 4-track vibe, giving Happy Days a sound more personal and lo-fi than heavy, but the heaviness is still masterfully conveyed in the sound, the riffing, the super saturated production, the emotion. Miserable abject hateful, but weirdly melancholy and beautiful, a few subtle changes, and this could be a blissed out slow motion sadcore record, but as it is, it's anything but.
The final track is a cover of a song by Czech black metal band Trist, whose sound easily becomes Happy Days', the recording here even more damaged, the guitar so hot and in the red, that it seems to be crumbling to pieces, or the speakers seem to be overloading, making it sound almost electronic, a chopped and clipped distorted chunk of white hot buzz, laid over a framework of equally distorted drums, a lurching slow motion buzz drenched plod, the vocals at their most anguished and miserable. The sound so fractured, that over the course of the song's 10 minutes, it almost stops sounding like black metal, and more like some experimental blackened buzzscape.
Really nice packaging, extra thick cardstock booklet and tray card, spare images, all blacks and greys, it's a real cd too, NOT a cd-r, but still strangely limited to ONLY 300 COPIES!! So odds are once we run out these will be gone for good.
MPEG Stream: "Drowning Razorblades"
MPEG Stream: "The Beginning..."
MPEG Stream: "Neglect..."

HAPPY DAYS / EINDIG The First Step Towards Suicide (Self Mutilation Services / Funeral Industries) cd 9.98
By now, most aQ metalheads know all about our undying love for oddly monickered Happy Days, and most likely feel the same. But for those who might be confused by a metal band called Happy Days, let's examine this, their latest, a split with Dutch outfit Eindig. The record is called The First Step Towards Suicide, there's a photo of an oven on the cover. The Happy Days tracks have names like "Clinging Onto A Chance Of Happiness" and A Bleak Future That Awaits Us" and "Too Sick To Speak", the booklet is full of blurred photos of people hunched over, seemingly in misery, so yeah, the name Happy Days is meant ironically, cuz these sounds are the soundtrack for the unhappiest days you can imagine.
Happy Days offer up a new batch of abject audial depression, beginning with a mournful jangly guitar accompanied by an appropriately dark and hopeless sample, before launching into some buzzing midtempo depressive black metal, melodic and melancholy, after a burst of furious buzz, the record settles into a loping melodic gloom and doom, gorgeously sorrowful guitar melodies draped over pounding drums, raspy vokills and churning riffage. More dark and atmospheric than blasting and buzzing, but there's still plenty of that lurking within these tracks. Some killer riffs, some awesome hooks, buried amidst all the miserable buzz. But every time the second guitar line comes in, with some totally heartbreaking melody, it's then that Happy Days reveals itself as more than just some grim black horde. This is the best sounding Happy Days record yet, the music exuding that same dark pathos, but perfectly suited to the duo's slightly more polished black melancholic buzz.
Dutch depressive metallers Eindig are a subtly different beast, their sound thicker and more full, a bit more poppy too, their opening track, strangely melodic and 'happy' sounding, a sunshiney melody strapped to some pounding beats and some howling vox, balanced we'd imagine by some seriously bleak lyrics (can't tell for sure, as they're not in English), but the song slips from super melodic jangle to more grim minor key miserablism. Which seems to be their M.O., their music a strange mix of melody and aggression, but with a sound that shifts dramatically, from that sunshiney opener, to a more anguished and dejected traditional depressive black metal, to a downright lovely bit of big drum / clean guitar post rocky drift, the vox WAY down in the mix, super spare and skeletal and really quite pretty, to the final 9 minute epic that is similarly melodic, no distorted guitars, just drums and clean jangle, this time though the vocals a ghastly and tortured presence, jarring over the comparatively lovely melodic drift underneath, and some super intense, yet still undistorted crescendos. Incredible stuff from both bands.
MPEG Stream: HAPPY DAYS "Clinging Onto A Chance Of Happiness"
MPEG Stream: HAPPY DAYS "A Bleak Future That Awaits Us"
MPEG Stream: EINDIG "De Nacht"
MPEG Stream: EINDIG "Ter Aarde"

HARASSOR s/t (Universal Consciousness) lp 16.98
Not a new record, but a vinyl reissue of the long out of print cassette demo debut from LA black metal trio Harassor, and actually, the first proper full length we've heard from these guys, having only ever reviewed their split 7" with SF horde Moon Dark. But for those of you who remember Harassor's side of that split, this full length is more of the same, if anything more twisted and fucked up and weirdly raw. Plenty of d-beat style raw black metal pound, the guitars filthy and crusty, the vocals an effects drenched bellow one minute, an alien garble the next, the drums a wild chaotic pummel all but buried in the noise drenched mix, the sound primitive and blown out, lo-fi, but still caustic and noisy and heavy, the songs tending toward the punkish, but slipping easily into furious buzzing blast or lumbering doomic lurch.
Two of the tracks here are modern re-recordings of tracks from the original demo, and thus, sound way more polished, but polish in black metal is really relative, so while the guitars are thicker, the drums more powerful, the vocals are still a demonic croak, and overall, the re-recorded sounds are just as buzzy and frenzied and crusty as the originals.
There's also a new song, "Killed By Inanity", which unfurls thick crumbling superdistorted riffage, pounding midtempo drum pummel, the vocals a caustic glass gargling growl, careening from tangled gnarled blast, punky gallop, to full on blown out almost noise rock, which definitely hints at the groups non-black metal roots, and perhaps points to the band's new material continuing to push the boundaries of the raw, primitive blackness they so clearly are masters of. Definitely recommended for fans of Bone Awl, Maleveillance, Akitsa, Ildjarn, and similarly grim practitioners of the primitive black arts...
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, pressed on 140 gram vinyl, comes with a sticker.
MPEG Stream: "Marching Abomination"
MPEG Stream: "Torch The Village"
MPEG Stream: "She Who Makes Dogs Shiver"

HARVIST He Who Rises (God Is Myth) 3"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.
This is volume two in God Is Myth's 3" cd-r series paying homage to the late great H.P Lovecraft. The first came courtesy of UK experimental black metal outfit Caina, this, the second comes via Appalachian heathen metal horde Harvist. Based, according to the label website, on awakening/conjuring of the "Outer Gods": Yog-Sothoth, Shub-Niggurath and Cthulhu (who is actually one of the Great Old Ones, according to our resident Lovecraft Mythos expert Allan). So what does that sound like? Well for Harvist, that sounds like relentlessly pounding black buzz, thick washes of overblown guitars, chugging downtuned riffs, killer blast beats and some seriously anguished howls. Also plenty of grunts and "uuuh"s. Wrest from Leviathan might call this "goat metal", but it's fast and black and furious, heavy and epic.
The first two tracks a straight ahead grim frosty old skool black metal. Raw and brutal. The third track adds keyboards and tolling bells, and is more melodic and moody, but it's track 4 that pushes this over the edge, an 'actual' Chaos Magic Ritual dedicated to the awakening of the essence of Cthulhu!! Lots of ambient sound, what could be surf (but also sounds like cars driving by), whispering wind, massive rumbling drones and of course, creepy processed vocals, reciting the unholy incantation to summon the mighty Cthulhu! Pretty weird. But the perfect tribute to the genius and legacy of Lovecraft.
Awesome cover painting of Cthulhu, and each disc includes an insert with information on Lovecraft as well as a killer creepy portrait.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. We only got 15 and it's already out of print from the label so once these are gone we will not be able to get more.
MPEG Stream: "He Who Rises From The Deep"
MPEG Stream: "Rites Of The Outer Gods"

HAT The Demise Of Mankind (Antichristian Front / Abyss) cd 14.98
One of the joys of metal records, black metal records in particular, is unravelling the mystery of the logo, because even the most logo savvy among us has stumbled across a label that was just too gnarled to decode. So we were pretty excited by this record, part of the mystery lay in the fact that it was a black logo, on a nearly black background, but the logo itself was also super complex, each letter, a branch spouting hundreds of tiny tendrils, the letterforms mere bulky blurs, only three letters though, so we gave it a try, and seemed to suss it out, but figured it couldn't be right. That's an H, and the next letter looks like an A, and the third and final letter is... a... T? So that spells HAT? This thrashing blackened grim horde spewing this awesome frosty Nordic buzz is called Hat? Then we were imagining a huge corpsepainted creature growling into a microphone "Weeeeeee are calllllled.... HAT". Pretty funny. We're fairly sure Hat must be Norwegian for hate or something similar, and the band probably never thought about the meaning in English, but we can't help but be ticked by a buzzing blast like this being perpetrated by a band called Hat.
Chapeau themed monicker aside, this band is seriously fierce and grim, slipping from total classic old school style Nordic blasting blackness, a la Satyricon, Immortal, Emperor, to more midtempo blackened grooves like Khold. Some of the songs are laced with recordings of clanking chains, trudging footsteps (on the way to the gallows it sounds like), explosions and gunfire, but the music is plenty violent and furious all on its own. The guitar sound is incredible, thick and ultra buzzy, the vocals are sick and harsh and hellish. the drumming simple but powerful, the melodies epic, the song structures not super complex, instead super buzzy and hypnotic. Seriously excellent classic Norwegian blackness, by the grim kvlt horde known simply as... HAT.
MPEG Stream: "Guds Skitne Avkom"
MPEG Stream: "Eternal Damnation Of The Soul"
MPEG Stream: "Schadenfreude"

HATE FOREST Battlefields (Supernal Music) cd 15.98

MPEG Stream: "With Fire And Iron"
MPEG Stream: "Our Fading Horizons"

HATE FOREST Nietzscheism (Supernal Music) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Not sure how it happened, but somehow we've never reviewed any Hate Forest records. Which is surprising since all of the AQ metalheads LOVE Hate Forest. How could we not? They hail from a pretty amazing Ukrainian metal scene, and feature members from a bunch of other bands we dig: Drudkh, Dark Ages, Astrofaes, Nokturnal Mortum. Got your attention now do we?! The sad thing is as of recently Hate Forest have decided to call it a day. Some of the HF folks have a new band called Blood Of Kingu which we'll of course track down as soon as it's out, but just because the band is gone, are any of their records any less amazing.
We'll try to list all of them eventually, but we'll start with Nietzscheism, which is kind of a greatest hits, a collection of 7"s, compiling material from Resistance (2004), Darkness (2000), Blood And Fire (2001) and Ritual (2001).
The disc starts off unexpectedly with a Carl Orff piece that had Kerry feeling like she just had her heart torn out in some Indiana Jones movie, which we imagine was probably the intended effect. An epic, majestic, super dramatic intro to a song cycle that is all of those things, albeit much much blacker!
Fans of Drudkh and Nokturnal Mortum will have some idea of what to expect from these Ukrainian black metal warriors, a relentless and furious blackened attack, a buzzing blackness rife with incredible riffs, simple blasting beats, deep growled demonic vocals, a weird blend of black shriek and death gurgle, all violently tangled up into a pummeling, crushing black metal majesty. There are brief stretches of midtempo Burzumic buzz, loping sea sick rhythms and mournful melodies, amidst the grim black brutality, and there's even a track that hints at the weirdness Nokturnal Mortum would later turn into entire records, simple martial percussion, sounds of the forest, crickets, owls, crackling fire, whispering wind, creepy affected spoken vocals, but those moments are merely brief respites, glimmers of false hope, single rays of light amidst a sky of roiling stormclouds, fleeting glimpses of dronelike buzz between huge swaths of hateful Satanic black brutality. So fucking awesome!!!
MPEG Stream: "Annihilation"
MPEG Stream: "The Wood Brothers"

HATE FOREST Purity (Supernal Music) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We realized a list or two back, that we had somehow managed to make it to list 200-and-something without ever listing any records by Ukrainian black metal horde Hate Forest. Which obviously needed to be rectified since pretty much all the metal inclined folks we know LOVE Hate Forest. So we listed Nietzscheism, a sort of greatest hits, with the intention of digging in to their catalog, and giving all the AQ list metalheads a chance to pick up some of these amazing discs.
So here we have Purity, recorded back in 2002, another perfectly frosty, relentlessly buzzing slab of intense and furious black metal. Just like all of their other records, the sound of Hate Forest here is not fancy or fucked or convoluted or complex, just simple, ultra aggressive, ultra fast, grim and chilly, the perfect sonic representation of the snow cloaked Ukrainian forest. A blast of blurry black metal that over the course of the album spreads out into a thick black drone, a bleak mesmerizing whir, thick with buried melodies and growled demonic howls. A thick squirming blackness that swallows you whole and leaves you shivering and alone, praying for death, as the oppressive black hole heaviness crushes you into the frozen ground.
MPEG Stream: "Domination"
MPEG Stream: "Elder Race"

HATE FOREST Scythia (Supernal Music) cd 15.98

MPEG Stream: "Scythia"
MPEG Stream: "Shining Abyss"

HATE FOREST Sorrow (Supernal Music) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We realized a list or two back, that we had somehow managed to make it to list 200-and-something without ever listing any records by Ukrainian black metal horde Hate Forest. Which obviously needed to be rectified since pretty much all the metal inclined folks we know LOVE Hate Forest. So we listed Nietzscheism, a sort of greatest hits, with the intention of digging in to their catalog, and giving all the AQ list metalheads a chance to pick up some of these amazing discs.
So here we have Sorrow, Hate Forest's most recent and final full length, and besides being a seriously dense and buzz drenched slab of blackness, it has one of the most amazing covers ever, a barren mountainside covered in leafless dead trees, the sort of photo you can stare at and get lost in, which is exactly the sort of black web these guys weave.
Sharing members with Drudkh, Dark Ages, Astrofaes, Nokturnal Mortum and probably every black metal band in the Ukraine, the now defunct Hate Forest offered up a relentless buzzsaw blast of white hot lightning fast black metal, blast beats all over the place, a near static wall of fuzz, riffs so serpentine and furiously fast, they almost become a solid black buzz. Melodies surface here and there but only briefly, quickly swallowed up by the churning downtuned whirl of whirring furious brutality.
Nothing subtle, or even that weird, no intricate tempos or convoluted song structures, this is pure cult grim blackness, a million miles an hour, a buzzing black bullet aimed straight for the depths of hell. So fast and relentless, that it becomes so hypnotic and dronelike that you almost can't help but drift into a glorious black dreamstate. Awesome.
Includes a big booklet with more breathtaking photos of snow covered mountains, rushing rivers, forests and fjords.
MPEG Stream: "Cold Of The Grave"
MPEG Stream: "Fullmoon"

HATE FOREST The Most Ancient Ones (Supernal Music) cd 15.98

MPEG Stream: "To The Thickets And Swamps"
MPEG Stream: "The Most Ancient Ones"

HATEFUL ABANDON Famine (Or Into The Bellies Of Worms) (Todestrieb) cd 14.98
What a difference a name makes, oh ok, and an extra member. The UK's Abandon, formerly a tortured suicidal black metal one man outfit, has changed their name to Hateful Abandon, added a fella called Swine to the lineup, and the result is really strange and unexpected.
Abandon, before the name change, trafficked in a super harsh and hateful black metal along the lines of Xasthur or Leviathan, buzzing riffs, deep depressive blackness, laced with hysterical shrieking vocals. But on Famine, gone is ALL of the buzz, and much of the vocal hysteria, in its place, something equally depressive, but sonically completely removed from the black metal of its former incarnation. The sound here is all clean guitars and simple loping drums, deep moody basslines, more gloom and goth than blast and buzz. Joy Division is the obvious reference. The occasional blackened shriek being the only reminder that this band was once grim and harsh. But hell, c'mon, the sound doesn't need to be grim and harsh for the vibe to be. and the vibe here is definitely grim and bleak, and sorrowful and depressive. Much like the recently reviewed Frail cassette, that matched up black metal vox with Cure-ish eighties new wave, Hateful Abandon subtly infuse a bit of blackness into what would otherwise be just a slab of gloomy miserablist gothic slowcore. Which would be fine with us of course, but the mix is pretty bizarre, and the result is pretty excellent. Guitars chime and ring out, melodies unfurl lugubriously, the bass is serpentine and soporific, the drums more keeping time than driving the songs, the vocals, lazily drawled, from soft sad boy croon, to deep gothy bellow, to demonic shriek, often in the same song, but the shrieking is in fact kept to a minimum, relying much more on the gloomier less harsh vocals, which definitely makes this something dark and brooding and moody and melancholic, not even remotely heavy, which means this is only for truly adventurous and open minded metalheads, or for the rest of you, who like it dark and creepy and haunting and hypnotic, and might not mind the occasional hellish howl with your doomy dreary dirges...
MPEG Stream: "Rats Whisper Murder"
MPEG Stream: "Diamond Spine"

HATEWAVE s/t (tUMULt) cd 11.98
The latest in killing technology from our very own Andee's tUMULt label! This is the first (and last) release from Chicago's metal mercenaries Hatewave. Completely crushing math/speed/avant/noise/metal/grind.
Hatewave's musical bloodbath is equal parts death metal, free jazz, grindcore, no-wave and pure noise. Furiously brutal, two guitar and drums (no bass!) attack, whirling riffs, bursts of white noise, calculus-style time changes, frantic blast beats, and a barely-under-the-surface free-jazz obsession all coalesce into some of the most insane, lightning speed, technical black metal/grind bombast ever. Featuring ex-Chicago / current SF scene fixture and metal/jazz obsessive, drummer Weasel Walter (Flying Luttenbachers, Lake of Dracula, To Live and Shave in L.A.). Originally this was a limited LP-only release -- this cd version adds 3 bonus tracks from their 1997 demo! The LP (and at the time, soon to be released cd) was banned by some squeamish distributors for its somewhat gory cover art and controversial lyrics, all of which are still present in their throat hacked, head smashed, blood soaked glory!
MPEG Stream: "Desire To Kill"
MPEG Stream: "Slit the Catholic Throat"
MPEG Stream: "Bleed for Me"

HATEWAVE Sexual Healing 2 (Apop) cd 12.98
Before Hatewave became a grinding mathy metal juggernaut (with a killer record on tUMULt), they were, well, THIS. Something much more fucked up and damaged. Retarded and demented. Still sort of metal, but way more lo-fi and noisy, splattery confusional and bizarre.
Before Weasel Walter was in the band, they were fronted by the mysterious and brilliantly demented Nondor Nevai. As the liner notes to this archival release so eloquently state: "Fuck metal." And indeed, most metalheads, even ones who dug the twisted blackmathgrind of the tUMULt recording, will find this stuff too tweaked and twisted.
The guitars are muddy smears, not so much riffing as spewing gouts of buzz and fuzz, gnarled melodies and sheets of lo-fi crumbling distortion, the drums, if they are real drums, are an avalanche of thuds, of splattery skittery chaos, the vocals howled and moaned and shrieked, this is some seriously fucked up stuff.
Probably the closest comparison would be Faxed Head. In fact, twice when we were listening to this, people came up and asked us if it was Faxed Head. But even compared to Faxed Head this stuff is grimier, more mental, a sick onslaught of furious relentless pound and grind and grunt and stumble and what-the-fuck.
Definitely might be too much for all but the strangest and most adventurous metalheads, but noiseniks and grind freaks and anyone into utter aural insanity should just go ahead and dig in.
Also be warned: super gnarly, somewhat problematic cover art, inside and out, nudity, blood, violation, and some awesomely shitty layout!
Recommended, but only for the sick, chosen few.
MPEG Stream: "Hate Your Guts"
MPEG Stream: "I Need You (My Vodun Goat)"
MPEG Stream: "Shitlist"

HAUD MUNDUS / WORMLUST Oblivio Appositus (Total Holocaust) cd 13.98
Another killer release from Total Holocaust, this one from two bands we'd never heard of before, Haud Mundus from Ireland, and Wormlust from Iceland, both bands, sharing members, so while the bands definitely sound different, there's some sonic overlap for sure. Two loooong songs from each, up first is Haud Mundus, who begin with a haunting cinematic doomic plod, all choral voices, soaring synths, strange mutterings, tangled guitars, before exploding into some serious woozy, depressive mid tempo raw blackness, ultra distorted, weirdly melodic, tangled and mathy arrangements, plenty of stops and starts, hushed ambient stretches, but when the band are rocking, it's some serious tripped out gnarled post black metal radness, the drums way blown out, the vocals buried in the mix, the guitars super epic and emotional, lurching and sea sick, almost like some noise rock / black metal hybrid, dizzyingly flitting from full on black blast to lurching downtuned lumber to weird shimmery drift. The second HM track is just as cool, beginning with a sort of Viking vibe, still weirdly distorted and in the red, eventually lurching into a more traditional sounding black metal blast, but even then, the riffs are twisted and angular, keyboards soaring here and there, a strange industrial breakdown, before finishing off with some killer abstract doomgaze pound. Seriously awesome. Only recording by these guys, and we're already dying for more!
Wormlust finds the vocalist of Haud Mundus teaming up with an Icelandic partner for some more twisted blackness, similarly blown out and off kilter, but the sound of Wormlust is more machinelike, bordering on industrial, downtuned and chuggy, with bellowed vokills, and loud drums, mostly midtempo, but with some awesomely tripped out psychedelic interludes, at times sounding a bit like a slower, more freaky, more raw Marduk, the first track finishing off with a swirling chaotic spaced out coda that just rules.
The second track is tripped out black psych workout, plenty of clean guitar, woozy riffage, echo drenched howls, lurching midtempo rhythms, soaring synths, droned out buzz, some super fuzz bass chug breakdowns, some glistening clean guitar drift, and a final 30 second blowout of pounding black crush. Oblivio Appositus is also Wormlust's only proper release, just two songs, but like with Haud Mundus, we're ready from these guys as well.
Packaged in a cool 6 panel embossed digipak.
MPEG Stream: HAUD MUNDUS "Veins Of Stone"
MPEG Stream: WORMLUST "Surge - About The Death Of A God"

HEARTLESS Suicidal Engagement (Pest Productions) cd 14.98
We recently discovered Pest Productions, a record label in China specializing in mysterious outsider black metal of all stripes, from black depressive black buzz, to blown out shimmery shoegaze black metal drift. Heartless are also from China, and whip up some seriously gorgeous and utterly despondent blackness, just check out the opening track here, after some minimal skeletal clean guitar strum, the song explodes in a thick washed out buzz drenched blur of mournful doom drenched black buzz trudgery, the melodies sad and bittersweet, the drums mechanical and spare, the vibe haunting and grim, dreamy and depressive, hypnotic and hellishly dreamy, the sort of sound we could listen to forever, a little bit Lifelover, with simple soaring melodies over the top, deliriously dreary. But that's just the opener.
The second track explodes in a frenzy of blast beats and insectoid buzzing, the drums buried in the mix, minus one REALLY LOUD cymbal, and that's just the first clue, that stuff is about to get really WEIRD. The second clue? The insanely hysterical falseto shrieked vocals, that are WAY up in the mix, reminding us right off the bat of the Judson Fountain radio plays, and his crazy old woman voice. It's that twisted and over the top. So much so, that we think all but the most obsessive weirdo black metallers will most likely be quite put off, cuz it is totally ridiculous, we have to admit, the first time we heard it, we were totally thrown for a loop, we definitely cracked up. But then something happened, and the more we listened to it, the more we dug it, and the more its sheer craziness made some sort of WTF sense.
The record sprawls in all sorts of different sonic directions, from churning midtempo buzz drenched chug to reverby doom pop, to warped trudging blackened slowcore, to skeletal black folk drift, to full on furious black buzz, the production changing just as much as the sound, the kick drums sometimes lost in the murk, other times a thick throbbing pulse, the guitars muted and murky one minute, sharp and jagged the next, but all that sound is just a backdrop for the insane maniacal vocals, equal parts Mr. Doctor from Devil Doll, the inhuman black shrieks of Silencer, and of course the aforementioned Judson Fountain old woman voice, it's pretty demented, totally fucking wacked, but so unique, and so weirdly intense, and the music is so dark and heavy and melodic, it all melds into something totally twisted, and for those with a taste for the TRULY bizarre, something absolutely essential.
MPEG Stream: "Epicedium"
MPEG Stream: "As The Plague Came"
MPEG Stream: "Journey To Eternal"

HEAVEN SHALL BURN Whatever It May Take (Lifeforce) cd 13.98
The Last Heaven Shall Burn record was one of my favorites of last year. A metalcore band that wasn't just a bunch of punk kids trying to play metal, they kicked out the metal jams better than most 'actual' metal bands. And we wouldn't have known about them if it wasn't for a chance discovery in Japan of all places. My appreciation (borderline awe) of this insane German powerhouse continues unabated. And this new record somehow manages to be even better than the last one. Starting off with some seriously intense soundtrack/mood music, it soon explodes into downtuned fury, absolutely insane double kick drumming, Emperor melodies over Slayer riffs, shrieked vocals, unorthodox time signatures and weirdly fucked arrangements. Hard to explain just why this is so much better than most of the other metalcore around these days. I think it's the grace and effortlessness they seem to exude as they're playing stuff most bands would stumble through if they could even pull it off at all.
Totally essential.
RealAudio clip: "Behind A Wall Of Silence"
RealAudio clip: "The Worlds in Me"
RealAudio clip: "The Martyrs Blood"

HECATE ENTHRONED The Slaughter Of Innocence, A Requiem For The Mighty (Blackened) cd 17.98
British black metal, excellent if unoriginal: they sound almost exactly like the mighty Cradle of Filth! Fans of the Filthies and their brand of gothic, epic, fast, screeching black metal will feel right at home.

HEIMS Worship Or Die (Moribund Cult) cd 15.98

HEKEL De Dodenvaart (Total Holocaust) cd 14.98
Another mysterious black metal horde, this time from the Netherlands, brought to our attention by the seemingly infallible Total Holocaust, who in the past have brought us discs by Heresi, Sortsind, Malcuidant, Hell Militia, Make A Change... Kill Yourself, Blodulv, The One and of course Nortt and Xasthur. That is one seriously brilliant black elite for sure. Hekel have no problem measuring up though. They too traffic in that Burzumic buzz punctuated by EXTREMELY tortured vocals, a la Weakling, Sortsind, Bethlehem, Silencer and the like. And like those bands, we're talking -seriously- tortured. Total Holocaust's website describes the singing here as "painfully performed vocals" and that pretty much nails it. Utterly anguished, damned and tormented, howling demonic screeches, like the sound of flesh being flayed, or of being burned alive. That tortured. All sprawled bruised and bloodied over a haunting sound world of minor key buzz. Mostly midtempo, everything wreathed in suffocating doom, lots of that mournful arpeggiated guitar, huge layers of fuzz and buzz, a loping, lurching depressive blackness. And those vocals. So intense and emotional. If there was some sort of designation for 'emo' black metal, this might qualify. You hear old stories about Rites of Spring rocking out, and getting so into it, that the band members actually broke down and cried. You can almost imagine Hekel doing the same. Blasting and buzzing in utter darkness, tears streaming down their faces, corpsepaint smeared into streaks of black and grey, guitars and drums drenched in blood.
The disc starts off strangely, with simple martial drumming, haunting forest sounds, wolves, owls, wind, while a raspy voiced demonic invocation is spewed out over the top. From then on, it's a super expansive seasick swirl swinging from buzzing blasts of black blur to plodding mournful doom drenched buzz.
A harsh and harrowing, super emotional, ultra depressive exploration of a truly tortured black metal soul.
MPEG Stream: "Ik Irilaz..."
MPEG Stream: "Bloed En Eer"
MPEG Stream: "Waar De Wind Fluistert In De Nacht Luister Ik"

HELL I (Pesanta Urfolk) lp 24.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Originally released on kvlt Northwestern black/metal/doom/drone label Woodsmoke as a super limited (100 copies) cassette, this is the first release from Hell, a one man black drone sludge outfit from Salem, Oregon, now remastered, and reissued as an ultra deluxe lp by Pesanta Urfolk, and (un)holy shit, is this a monster! Massive, crushing, crumbling heaviness, heaving low end miserablism, plodding death march pound that gives way to blown out in-the-red blackened guitardrone buzz, and thence to stonery sludge groove. Hell slips from doomic and lumbering, to super intense and mesmerizing, to groovy and rocking, all in the same song. Think Khanate, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Corrupted, Moss, Bunkur, but also Eyehategod, and the legion of EHG worshipping groovesludge merchants.
Just take album opener "Brutus", which begins as a hateful sonic trudge, the drums a caveman slo-mo pound, the vocals inhuman and alien, the guitars thick and tarpit black, the sound stumbling and hellish, only to have the vocals and drums drop out leaving a dense blast of buzzing, layered guitars, a weird black harmony of heaviness, droned out and mesmerizing, like a SUNNO))) record spinning at 78rpm, wreathed in siren like feedback, and all manner of echo, until the guitars coalese into a proper groove, Sabbathy almost, and then the song explodes into some serious stoner sludge crush, the main riff MASSIVE, with a cool ascending lick at the end that seems almost at odds with Hell's extreme grimnity, the vocals heavily effected and all twisted up, eventually slipping right back into the plod and lumber of the track's opener, until it grinds to a halt, in a weird cloud of ambient room noise, cartoon music, and glitched out channel surfing. Fucking bizarre and AWESOME.
"Infernus" is much more minimal, a barely propulsive beast, the guitars stretched out into thick streaks of black blur and keening high end skree, the vocals a distant anguished wail, the riffs gnarled and atonal, seeming to come apart before your ears, when the band to lock in, it's an impossibly slow sludge, the sound thick, the chugging weirdly percussive, as if the bass was tuned so low the strings were slapping loose against the bass. "Tyranno" is similarly sludgey, but way more noisy and murky, a blurred swirl of black filth, and spaced out glacial riffage, with some cool lurching stop start dynamics, and another near groove, that dissipates before it really gets rolling.
"Deflagatio" ups the tempo a bit, but just a bit, somewhere between abject crawl, and slo-mo groove, the guitars tuned so low, the vocals a demonic glass gargling shriek, but some surprising melody tucked amidst all the buzz and crumble. "Lethe" begins with a cloud of strangled guitar buzz, which gives way to a heaving bit of monstrous plod, the vocals way up in the mix and heavily echoed, giving them a weird dubbed out feel, the sound gradually shifting from lumber to lope to full on blown out drift, hovering in a field of black psych noise, before slipping right back into it, only to almost immediately be sucked into a cloud of swirling effects, while the guitars continue to buzz and drone.
Finally, the record finishes off with the 15+ minute "Maeror", a gorgeous mostly ambient sprawl, a symphony of whirling minor key shimmer, and strange clouds of tape hiss, the notes drawn way out, haunting and ominous, the speed warbling and constantly shifting, giving the whole thing a warped warbly vibe, breifly, some guitars explode from out of the murk, unleashing gouts of super distorted buzz, and shards of jagged feedback wreathed crunch, not to mention strange keening melancholy melodies, and some tripped out FX, before drifting off, and leaving a long warped expanse of minimal creeping haze to finally lay the record to rest. So killer, and obviously essential for fans of all things slow and low, black and buzzy, glacial and grim.
LIMITED TO 322 COPIES. Each one hand numbered. Pressed on nice thick black/blood red vinyl, and housed in heavy, super striking blood red/black woodcut sleeves, includes a massive poster (and we mean HUGE) of the woodcut cover art, and a printed cardstock insert. Also includes a download coupon.
MPEG Stream: "Brutus"
MPEG Stream: "Infernus"
MPEG Stream: "Tyranno"

HELL II (Pesanta Urfolk) 2lp 28.00
Record number two from this black/doom/sludge outfit from Salem, Oregon, the second in a proposed trilogy, this one taking the already grim and abject sound of the first installment even further, dragging them even deeper into the infernal pits, the sound hellish and hateful and harrowing, the opening track beginning life as a bleak slab of churning slow motion dirgery, a filthy, crusty tarpit creep, the sound raw and blown out, the guitars tuned WAY down, the vocals a demonic hellish croak, the crushing black doom eventually swallowed up by a cloud of psychedelic guitar swirl, a sort of black metal buzz, but blurred into stasis, before the whole thing collapses into a black hole of crumbling low end and Merzbowic black noise, before briefly returning to the initial doomic plod, before spacing out completely into a hazy stretch of almost Earth like twang, although here it's wreathed in heaving black clouds of buzz, the sound constantly shifting over the course of the rest of the song, from shimmery drift, to wild tangled guitar freakout, to stumbling churn, to blurred drone. And that's just the first track. Although it does lay the groundwork for the rest of the record, the guitars seeming to grow even more blown out, the vocals more and more anguished, the downtuned riffs, even more downtuned, as if the whole thing was melting right there on your turntable. "Metnal" mixes in some actual black metal blasts, as well as some swirling ethereal ambience, "Trucid" too, unfurls some black buzz, strangely twisted and tangled, and in-the-red, so it almost sounds like the tape is malfunctioning, all woozy and warped, before slipping into the prettiest stretch on the album, a lilting clean guitar drift, that leads directly into "Umbilicus", which at nearly 8 minutes is the shortest of the bunch, but which also manages to be the heaviest, the sound so dense and blown out, it pushes the black buzz into the realms of Tim Hecker, the crumbling buzz becoming a wall of roiling texture, the track lurching into a weird convoluted noise rock groove, stonery and sludgey, eventually shedding the sludge, leaving just some muted drumming, and a brittle layer of guitar buzz, that drifts into the weirdly melodic doom-sludge coda. Epic and crushing, brutal and beautiful, we can hardly wait for part three...
LIMITED TO 646 COPIES, pressed on black/oxblood vinyl (hold it up to the light, so cool!), three sided, the fourth featuring a super detailed etching, housed in a thick black and red jacket adorned with super striking woodcuts, inside a 12" x 24" woodcut poster/insert, as well as a digital download coupon.
MPEG Stream: "Gog "
MPEG Stream: "Metnal"

HELL MILITIA Canonisation Of The Foul Spirit (Total Holocaust) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Holy shit. Or maybe we should say, Unholy shit! This record scare us to death. Not just sonically, but visually as well. Hell Militia is some sort of black metal super group, can't remember the constituent parts, but the sum of those parts has somehow conjured up the fabulously foul Canonisation Of The Foul Spirit, a sick, hateful, evil and abominable blackened alchemy, equal parts grim buzz, convulsive thrash, furious blast and some of the sickest, brimstone gargling, angel crushing, fire breathing vocals EVER. A relentless musical pummeling, like laying in a shallow pool of black pitch atop a rocky crag in the middle of an endless expanse of dark water, cowering and shivering and praying for death as fallen angels beat you to within an inch of your life with spiked clubs, the whole while horned heads held aloft, burnt wings hanging useless behind them, wailing and squealing like some demonic choir, as all around you squalls of buzzing guitars and fuzzed out bass and shards of blasting beats rain down, burning jagged chunks of flesh searing black metal. So amazing and frighteningly furiously heavy, and then those inhuman vocals just push it totally and completely into the nightmarish black. The artwork is stunningly creepy as well, perfectly capturing the hateful, Christ crushing fury within, gorgeous black and white photos of clergymen, nuns, bishops, all blended with skulls, and corpses, wolves and goats, and all manner of unidentifiable beats and creatures. Like an even more damaged Joel Peter Witkin. So totally freaky but quite striking and creepily alluring at the same time. All printed on gorgeous thick paper stock, the whole thing housed in a similarly garish and striking slipcover.
MPEG Stream: "Psalm I - Burning Human Pigs"
MPEG Stream: "Psalm II - Torture Of The Saints"
MPEG Stream: "Psalm III - Black Arts Of Crime"

HELL MILITIA Canonisation Of The Foul Spirit (Debemur Morti) lp 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The cd may be out of print, but for a limited time we have the super deluxe vinyl version of the foul and grim black metal brilliance that is Hell Militia's Canonisation Of The Foul Spirit. Slightly altered artwork, but still gloriously garish, thick vinyl, thick sleeve, and a gorgeous oversized booklet inside.
Holy shit. Or maybe we should say, Unholy shit! This record scare us to death. Not just sonically, but visually as well. Hell Militia is some sort of black metal super group, can't remember the constituent parts, but the sum of those parts has somehow conjured up the fabulously foul Canonisation Of The Foul Spirit, a sick, hateful, evil and abominable blackened alchemy, equal parts grim buzz, convulsive thrash, furious blast and some of the sickest, brimstone gargling, angel crushing, fire breathing vocals EVER. A relentless musical pummeling, like laying in a shallow pool of black pitch atop a rocky crag in the middle of an endless expanse of dark water, cowering and shivering and praying for death as fallen angels beat you to within an inch of your life with spiked clubs, the whole while horned heads held aloft, burnt wings hanging useless behind them, wailing and squealing like some demonic choir, as all around you squalls of buzzing guitars and fuzzed out bass and shards of blasting beats rain down, burning jagged chunks of flesh searing black metal. So amazing and frighteningly furiously heavy, and then those inhuman vocals just push it totally and completely into the nightmarish black. The artwork is stunningly creepy as well, perfectly capturing the hateful, Christ crushing fury within, gorgeous black and white photos of clergymen, nuns, bishops, all blended with skulls, and corpses, wolves and goats, and all manner of unidentifiable beats and creatures. Like an even more damaged Joel Peter Witkin. So totally freaky but quite striking and creepily alluring at the same time.
MPEG Stream: "Psalm I - Burning Human Pigs"
MPEG Stream: "Psalm II - Torture Of The Saints"
MPEG Stream: "Psalm III - Black Arts Of Crime"

HELL MILITIA Last Station On The Road To Death (Debemur Morti) cd 15.98
The long awaited second album (it's been FIVE years since their debut) from this French black metal super group, featuring members of Mutiilation, Vorkreist, Antaeus, Merrimack, Malicious Secrets, Vagezaryavtre Secrets Of The Moon, we could go on, but odds are most metalheads were already dying for this, and if not, just that list of bands should have most folks reaching for the buy button. Much like the first record, Last Station On The Road To Death, is dark and grimy, grim and filthy, harrowing and heavy, a seriously scary collection of hellish black art, beginning with a short stretch of swirling black ambience, accompanied by a sample about drug addiction and the fate of addicts (which is most likely a not so subtle fuck you to the Black Legions, since Hell Militia mainman Meyhnach was purportedly kicked out for becoming a drug addict), the record lumbers into a stumbling bit of doomy filth, before exploding into frenzied blasting blackness, and over the next 45 minutes HM's sound delves into all sorts of varied directions, many of them not all the black metal, which is what makes this record so cool and weird. It spends most of its time trudging along gloomily, dark and depressive, the melodies minor key and dismal, the mood abject and melancholy, more often a sort of plodding doom than black metal, but loads of sonic surprises lurk all over the place, plenty of which will no doubt not please the true grim hordes, the strange stuttering glitched out guitars on "Unshakable Faith", the slow motion Deathspell-isms of "The Ultimate Deception", the almost industrial lumber of "Fili Diaboli", the weirdly poppy sing along punk rock feel of "Shoot Knife Strangle Beat & Crucify", the mathy, stop start riffage of "The Pig That Became A God", and the bizarre barroom cabaret of the title track, the gruff vocals delivered more like Nick Cave or the Young Gods or even the Pogues, laced over long droned out chords, but peppered with cool jagged gnarled mathy blackness, it's definitely a super weird record, but it all works, and the weird bits are definitely balanced by a true grim blackness that seems to infuse everything here. The various elements woven into a blood soaked black stained sonic tapestry, filthy and crusty, heavy and twisted, grim and black.
Comes in a cool hardcover book like digipack, and like the first record, gorgeously laid out with tons of super creepy imagery.
MPEG Stream: "Born Without Light"
MPEG Stream: "Unshakable Faith"
MPEG Stream: "Last Station On The Road To Death"

HELLHAMMER ONLY DEATH IS REAL (Sanctuary) cd 12.98

HERESI Psalm II - Infusco Ignis (Total Holocaust) cd 14.98
The first thing you'll notice about the newest from Swedish black metallers Heresi is the amazing artwork, a dark shadowy tangle of demon parts, gnashing teeth, sharp claws, desiccated flesh, all with that awesome oil on canvas texture from the original painting. Flip it over and feast your eyes on a baby head in the grips of a taloned claw, its blood emptying into a blood filled dish held by the very same demon, his teeth flashing in the corner. Ugh. Why does the art look so familiar? It just so happens to be from a painting by Wrest from Leviathan and is totally striking and super creepy. Perfect for this newest release from Skamfer, and his one man black horde Heresi. This is the sequel to last years Psalm I and is even heavier, faster, more grim and more darkly depressive. Skamfer is an ex member of the mighty Ondskopt and it sounds like it. Furious blazing black metal fuzz, a thick wash of mosquito buzz riffage, pounding blast beats, howled guttural vocals, but like with Ondskapt, a surprisingly melodic flair. A soaring mournful majesty buried beneath the swirling wall of blackness. Think Deathspell Omega, Onskapt obviously, Ofermod, Funeral Mist, and you'll get an idea of where Heresi fall. Very Swedish sounding, with lots of death metal elements, but also plenty of weird psychedelic guitar leads, creepy harmonies and dense tangled arrangements, all doused in black blood and wrapped in spiked fury. Heavy and hypnotic and so fucking great.
MPEG Stream: "Liothe"
MPEG Stream: "Bevingad Och Forledd Med Horn"

HERESI Psalm II - Infusco Ignis (Hydra Head) cd 14.98
This killer slab of furious black grimness, formerly an import on Total Holocaust, now reissued domestically by the getting-blacker-and-grimmer-everyday heathens at Hydra Head!
The first thing you'll notice about the newest from Swedish black metallers Heresi is the amazing artwork, a dark shadowy tangle of demon parts, gnashing teeth, sharp claws, desiccated flesh, all with that awesome oil on canvas texture from the original painting. Flip it over and feast your eyes on a baby head in the grips of a taloned claw, its blood emptying into a blood filled dish held by the very same demon, his teeth flashing in the corner. Ugh. Why does the art look so familiar? It just so happens to be from a painting by Wrest from Leviathan and is totally striking and super creepy. Perfect for this newest release from Skamfer, and his one man black horde Heresi. This is the sequel to last years Psalm I and is even heavier, faster, more grim and more darkly depressive. Skamfer is an ex member of the mighty Ondskapt and it sounds like it. Furious blazing black metal fuzz, a thick wash of mosquito buzz riffage, pounding blast beats, howled guttural vocals, but like with Ondskapt, a surprisingly melodic flair. A soaring mournful majesty buried beneath the swirling wall of blackness. Think Deathspell Omega, Onskapt obviously, Ofermod, Funeral Mist, and you'll get an idea of where Heresi fall. Very Swedish sounding, with lots of death metal elements, but also plenty of weird psychedelic guitar leads, creepy harmonies and dense tangled arrangements, all doused in black blood and wrapped in spiked fury. Heavy and hypnotic and so fucking great.
MPEG Stream: "Liothe"
MPEG Stream: "Bevingad Och Forledd Med Horn"

HIDDEN Alexisstar Morphalite (Baphomet) cd 11.98
We love our metal here at aQ. A LOT. But there a two distinct strains that tend to drive us wild. There is of course the ultra precise, super heavy, complex and punishing perfectly crafted metal. Be it black, or thrash, stoner or doom. But then there's its bastard offspring, its deformed sibling, the one kept locked in the cellar, the damaged, demented, completely bizarre, totally unhinged and utterly and beautifully impossibly fucked metal. Total outsider metal. It may be doom or sludge or black metal, but composed and played and recorded with total disregard for anything but the personal vison, no matter how skewed or off kilter. In the past we have worshipped before the likes of Benighted Leams, Urfaust, Striborg, Wold, Rehtaf Ruo, Spektr, Necrofrost, Furze and all of a similarly demented nature. And now we have Hidden. A sort of doom / thrash hybrid, pre-occupied with some impossibly ridiculous science (fiction), the record is called Aleisstar Morphalite, some of the song titles: "Hydrodynamic Physics", "Interplanetary Space Physics And Climatology", "Planets Of Metal", "The Search For Where Life May Have Existed", you get the drift. And their sound is equally as scientifically and musically obtuse. Buzzing downtuned thrash metal, lighting fast riffs buried WAY down in the mix, the gutteral inhuman vocals way UP in the mix, spitting out impossibly complicated lyrics, you can catch a word here and there, 'radiation' gets mentioned a lot, as does the 'universe', 'carbon dioxide' does too, each line containing just a few too many words to fit in the designated space, so it comes out all gargled and jumbled together, a bit like old Slayer actually at least in terms of cadence, the sound though is like nothing you've ever heard, a sort of deathmetalized alien shriek. Then there's the songs, the riffs and the song structures are super convoluted, lots of stops and starts, pauses where there will be no sound but a weird wheezing synthesizer, or some random droning rumble, creepy synths and almost Cradle Of Filth keyboards surface all over the record, sometimes in a thick sheet draped over everything, there are some weird trashcan sounding electronic cymbals that hover in weird spaces when the music sort of hiccups and skips a beat, sometimes just a haunting background, occasionally a black thrash attack will slowly peter out and turn into a strangley gorgeous melancholic doom dirge, but still peppered with haunting piano and all sorts of random sound effects and sonic weirdness, and of course the vocals slithering and shrieking out some strange alien scientific propaganda over the top. But weird and bizzare and damaged and demented are not enough (well, almost), there has to be songs, you know actually songs, riffs and hooks and parts that stick in your head. And well, as impossible as it may seem, this record is full of 'em. Completely and impossibly catchy parts. The first song in fact, "Interferometer", has to be the catchiest damaged-alien-doom-black-thrash-sci-fi song EVER! Even the weird double kick / warbly space synth battle part way through gets stuck in our heads. Holy crap! This record is so completely nuts, but so completely heavy and kick ass. These guys should totally have a crazy metal science show on PBS, where kids learn about gravity and time travel and wormholes, but each lecture is delivered as a sludgy buzzing convoluted blast of demented space metal! In our dreams!
MPEG Stream: "Interferometer"
MPEG Stream: "Hydrodynamic Physics"

HIDEOUS GNOSIS: BLACK METAL THEORY SYMPOSIUM 1 book 20.00
This one almost doesn't require a review, pretty much every truely obsessive black metal fan is gonna want this, whether they actually read it or not. And having only dabbled, it's hard to say how many folks, metalheads in particular, are actually gonna want to delve into this, a collection (often in expanded and revised form) of essays and documents that were presented late last year at "Hideous Gnosis", a symposium on black metal theory (yes, a symposium on black metal theory), which took place in Brooklyn in December of 2009. That said, we also can't imagine a metalhead who wouldn't feel like they had to have copy of this on their bookshelf, if they have any intellectual pretensions whatsoever (which this sure does), or sense of humor (which perhaps this does as well).
The real question regarding Hideous Gnosis is whether black metal does indeed have some sort of lofty academic underpinnings, or is this academic study of the genre simply another example of hipsters trying to legitimize something that appears to be, at its core, raw and underground and visceral and personal and pretty much diametrically opposed to any idea of scholarly study or academic examination? Which thankfully is discussed quite a bit in this book, in the form of several essays, but via the inclusion of comments from the symposium's website, both positive and negative, plenty of them mean, some of them funny, and a few measured and thought out. But it's good to know that the very fact that there exists an academic black metal symposium is in itself worthy of debate, keeps Hideous Gnosis somewhat grounded.
There are definitely some interesting essays here, one in particular that focuses on black metal's reliance on climate, as in grim and frosty and cold, etc. The most interesting to us, are also the ones that are easiest to read, the ones NOT mired down in academic grad school doublespeak, there are plenty of examples of essays that seem interesting, but require digging though a malfunctioning thesaurus to get to the root of what's really being said. There is an excerpt of Brandon Stosuy's in progress oral history of American black metal (featuring our very own Andee) which was also printed in a different form in a past issue of The Believer, which is definitely cool, there's Hunter Hunt Hendrix of Liturgy's confusional analysis and dissection of "Transcendental Black Metal", and so it goes, the collection slipping back and forth, striking a pretty good balance, between people who love black metal who just want to dig deeper, and explore a music they love and discuss it with other like minded metalheads, and the flipside, dry, academic treatises on various elements and aspects of black metal, a bit too removed from the actual sound, and the fucked up ferocious intensity that is what makes the music truly appealing for us. But again, that doesn't mean those pieces aren't a blast to read, some might win you over, others actually do offer up some keen insights, and some seem to exist simply as fodder for merciless mockery. But really, in some weird way that does essentially reflect the genre as a whole, there are dabblers, there are folks who take it WAY too seriously, people who love it and live it, others who are merely fascinated or curious or even repulsed. It ultimately doesn't matter, like the spate of recent black metal docs, online blogs, if you're into black metal, for whatever reason, you're probably gonna want to read this, even if it pisses you off. ESPECIALLY if it pisses you off. An essential, and maybe controversial to your metal music library.
Here's a list of the included essays, which should be enough to pique your curiosity, and to convince you (if you weren't already convinced), that there's much to discuss, debate and argue about here:
Steven Shakespeare, "The Light that Illuminates Itself, the Dark that Soils Itself: Blackened Notes from Schelling's Underground."
Erik Butler, "The Counter-Reformation in Stone and Metal: Spiritual Substances."
Scott Wilson, "BAsileus philosoPHOrum METaloricum."
Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, "Transcendental Black Metal."
Nicola Masciandaro, "Anti-Cosmosis: Black Mahapralaya."
Joseph Russo, "Perpetue Putesco Ð Perpetually I Putrefy."
Benjamin Noys, "'Remain True to the Earth!': Remarks on the Politics of Black Metal."
Evan Calder Williams, "The Headless Horsemen of the Apocalypse."
Brandon Stosuy, "Meaningful Leaning Mess."
Aspasia Stephanou, "Playing Wolves and Red Riding Hoods in Black Metal."
Anthony Sciscione, "'Goatsteps Behind My Steps . . .': Black Metal and Ritual Renewal."
Eugene Thacker, "Three Questions on Demonology."
Niall Scott, "Black Confessions and Absu-lution."

HJARNIDAUDI Psykostarevoid (MusicFearSatan) cd 16.98
We first discovered Hjarnidaudi via the always amazing Paradigms label, but at the time we were even more excited by the fact that the man behind Hjarnidaudi was one Hlidolf, who was responsible for one of our all time favorite (and sadly now out of print) doomdronedirge records, a massive slab of slow motion spaced out sludge that was the perfect combination of SUNNO))) slow motion sludge and blissed out psychedelic space drift a la Klaus Schulze. So we were surprised to learn Hjarnidaudi was a full on band, still heavy and doomy and slow, but a band, who didn't traffic exclusively in slow motion sludge, but created glimmering shimmering doomscapes, that took the slow and low and wreathed it in fuzz and warmth and shimmer, on Paradigms' Pain:Noise:March.
And now it's 3+ years later, and we discover there's a NEW Hjarnidaudi, so we order a bunch cuz we loved the last one (made it a Record Of The Week!), and whattayaknow, we're surprised once again. The band is barely even doomy anymore it seems, instead offering up some looped, hypnotic heaviness, the guitars dense and heavy, the drums big and booming, the sound a sort of epic post metal mathiness, guitars moaning and keening, while another offers up weird high end tangles, super propulsive, downright rocking and a little proggy.
But hold off, that's only the first song, the other three tracks are definitely a lot doomier and darker, pounding and plodding, with guitars ringing out, chiming and shimmering, wreathed in crumbling distortion, woozy and washed out, but definitely dark and depressive and dreamily doomy, however, also strangely clean, the guitars more loud and effected than downtuned and distorted, some moments this actually sounds like a more blissed out less gloom pop Katatonia... and by track three the distortion becomes totally blown out and the band slips into full on metallic Jesu / Nadja territory offering up a deafening blown out coda.
MPEG Stream: "Part I"
MPEG Stream: "Part II"

HOLLENTHON Domus Mundi (Napalm) cd 14.98
This disc (Hollenthon's debut) actually came out last year, but we thought we ought to list it since it was an unfairly overlooked "sleeper" deserving of your attention, and also now we're excited by the prospect of an upcoming second Hollenthon album and should list this one first. Anyway, the deal here is that Hollenthon is the new epic black metal project of Austrian multi-instrumental metaller Martin Schirenc (who plays guitars bass and keyboards, and shares vocal duties with his wife Elena). With the addition of a drummer, that's Hollenthon. It's VERY different from Martin's previous band, the infamous grind outfit Pungent Stench! Imagine (if you will) galloping heavy metal, with folk-based melodies, black metal vocal retchings, and lots of ancient and non-western vocal and instrumental samples/influences. For instance, at points it sounds like they're got Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, a bagpiper, and the Rammstein rhythm section all together in the studio with them! Unique and weird, to say the least. We'd say they have something to offer to fans of everything from In Extremo to Thin Lizzy, from Vagtazo Halottkemek to Abigor, from Mithotyn to Carnival In Coal. Quite brilliant!
RealAudio clip: "Homage - Magni Nominis Umbra"
RealAudio clip: "Lure - Pallida Mors"

HOLLENTHON Opus Magnum (Napalm Records) cd 15.98

HOLLENTHON Tyrants & Wraiths (Napalm) cd 12.98

HOLMGANG Gengangerens Kvad (Total Holocaust ) cd 14.98
Latest disc of brutal black buzz from Danish black metal horde Holmgang, who might be most notable to AQ customers due to the fact that their drummer is none other than Ynleborgaz, the man responsible for the suicidal black buzz doom of Make A ChangeÉ Kill Yourself, as well as the old school black buzz of Angantyr.
This is record number two from these guys, the first since 2003 (the old one is out of print sorry to say, so don't ask) and begins strangely enough with moody, smoky piano, distant synthy swirls, the piano becoming more and more intense and tangled, an intense, almost classical sounding intro, that eventually gives way to a flurry of chaotic drumming, and some seriously harsh distorted riffing, this is not typical straight ahead buzzing black metal, the drums are super loud, and end up being as much a focal point as the riffing, the sound is super distorted and crunchy, and there are some really strange moments, where the vocalist slips into a Killdozer like croon, singing along to some swoonsome strings, before the band launches back into its furious assault.
The core of Holmgang's sound is definitely old school black metal. Plenty of buzz and lots of blast beats, the vocals appropriately strangled and demonic, but the sound is twisted, and the arrangements are quite strange, the drums are amazing, loud and furious, complex and chaotic, exploding into dense tribal workouts or some simple midtempo pound, as often as they are blasting, the guitars buzz, but they also, grind and howl, the riffs splintering into arpeggiated melodies, or exploding into chaotic near noise, some tracks dip into doom, or epic melancholia, always returning to a Burzumic dirge or a blown out blasting buzz, haunting melodies lurking within the sonic maelstrom, and hooks that other bands would kill, or even die, for. But that hover far enough beneath the surface that it might require some close listening, and probably some headphones to pick up on. But after a few listens, this disc transforms from just another chunk of black black metal, into a gorgeously punishing collection of chaotic buzz and divine droning blackness.
MPEG Stream: "Himmelhvaelvets Bane"
MPEG Stream: "Skaebnesvig"

HOLMGANG Runens Advarsel (Total Holocaust Records) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another slab of Danish (!) black metal from the Total Holocaust label (see Angantyr elsewhere on this list!), who in the past have brought us loads of essential black metal from Xasthur, Blodulv, Nortt and more. This is yet another Total Holocaust disc we've been meaning to get around to reviewing, but due to THR's insanely relentless release schedule and our always increasing backlog of reviews to be written, we're only now getting around to it. Which is unfortunate because A. it's pretty fucking great, and B. like many way-too-limited black metal releases, the Holmgang is already out of print. But we still wanted to give some of our virtual customers a crack at picking one of these up and maybe remind some of you locals that this spike-y blackened slab of brutality was here for the grabbing! But not for long! Holmgang are modern masters of grim thrashing buzzing black metal, channelling the sound of Darkthrone, Bathory and early Immortal into a sick stew of galloping thrashing old school black metal. Lots of buzzing mosquito melodies, lightning speed riffing, wildly galloping drumming, runes, moonlit ravens, head banging, windmilling hair, chain mail and spiked armbands!
MPEG Stream: "I Vinterens Favn"
MPEG Stream: "Blot"

HORDE OF HEL Blodskam (Moribund) cd 15.98
Just when we thought an album couldn't quite scare the shit out of us like Funeral Mist's Maranatha, along comes Horde Of Hel with their debut Blodskam. And while this Swedish group may not be *quite* as terrifying as Funeral Mist, they're not far behind, which is pretty much our highest seal of approval. If anything, the over the top pornographic imagery littering the liner notes is definitely on par with the ultrablasphemous art that is inseparable to Funeral Mist, and sonically there are some similarities as well. Horde Of Hel is pretty strange at times, with totally bizarre song structures and some awesome, unique riffs. There seems to be a pretty heavy industrial influence on display, with crazy electronics going all over the place, as well as some moments of experimental ambience, but they never get too weird or arty for their own good, and no one will mistake this for anything but the most vile, hate filled, and blasphemous black metal. Plus, you know you can't go wrong with a band whose MySpace page lists their members as "KILLERS, ANTI SOCIAL BEINGS, PREDATORS, DICTATORS, PSYCHO, MANIACS, ULTRA RADICAL TERRORISTS, SADISTIC ANTI HUMANS, PEOPLE OF SURT, PEOPLE OF THE BLOOD!!!!!!!!!" Yes, please!
The band perfectly understands their craft while avoiding the cliches that many black metal bands stumble on. Perhaps most significantly, instead of focusing on speed, they choose skull-crushing heaviness. The pounding drums keep things moving at a slow dirgey pace, combined with super thick, evil sounding riffs and heavily distorted vocals that alternate between guttural croaks and demonic shrieks. At times, some of the riffs recall the heavy as fuck atonality of My War era Black Flag, which is always a good thing, and which should give you an indication of the band's nihilistic m.o. There's something about black metal groups who understand the importance of lumbering, doomed out atmospheres that just can't be beaten. Each drum hit is like being hit with a sledgehammer while the rest of the band stands over your broken body, mocking you with their Satanic riffs and crazed vocals.
These guys seemed to appear from out of nowhere, which makes Blodskam even more of a welcome surprise. We're certainly looking forward to whatever this band may unleash upon the unsuspecting world next, because when you produce something this evil, there's really only one place you can go afterwards: straight to hell.
MPEG Stream: "Leave Life Behind"
MPEG Stream: "Born Again Into Submission"
MPEG Stream: "Hail To Chaos"

HORDE OF HEL Blodskam II (Moribund Cult) cd 15.98
When we reviewed Blodskam part 1, the debut from this Swedish black metal horde, we sort of couldn't believe how horrifying and harrowing these guys sounded, like Funeral Mist or Deathspell Omega. Horde Of Hell were terrifying, their sound a dense gnarled tangle of black fury, complex and convoluted, a distinctly industrial vibe, but most importantly, crushingly heavy, not that brittle buzz that most BM trafficks in, this shit was pummeling, brutal, black hole heavy.
So we definitely had high hopes for part two, and right out of the gate, things are definitely primed for more terror, with an extended sprawl of creeping black ambient, muted industrial percussion, fucked up samples, monk like chanting, all wreathed in a gauzy washed out blackness, a ritualistic intro that must be setting us up for something sonically serious. And when the riffs kick in, it is pretty fierce, a chugging churning, but with a weirdly classic metal vibe, definitely more melodic than we remember, and then the vocals come in and WOAH, it's like a totally different band, not in a bad way, just in a weird what-the-fuck way, with soaring almost operatic vocals, reminding us a bit of Borknagar maybe? But wrapped around noodly lead guitars, almost power metal arrangements, cheesy synths, drum machines, and some, well, some GROOVE, which is again surprising, and to avoid being bummed out that this isn't scarier than Blodskam I, all we can do is treat this like some wholly other band, and in that case, we're sort of smitten by how fucking ridiculous and weird this is, the next track shifts gears completely, the sound quality shifts too, and the band are suddenly churning out some sort of hypno rock heaviness, with cool garbled vocals, swirling synths, all blurred into a heaving blown out churn, not all that black metal, but definitely heavy and FUCKED UP.
And so it goes, really, every once in a while we're convinced that maybe the wrong music got pressed on to the wrong disc, but in spite of ourselves we're digging it, from woozy buzzy midtempo dirgery, to absolutely bizarre new age electronic ambience, complete with super soulful lead guitars, and hazy atmospheric synths, and finally another weird sort of new age blackened atmospheric chug and flutter fest, that has us scratching out heads, and thinking this almost touches on Xynfonica / Shevalreq territory, which is high praise indeed, although perhaps not the sort of praise we expected to be heaping on Horde Of Hel.
The record finishes off with a handful of demo tracks, and those are indeed more like the HoH of old, grim and grinding furious black filth, blasting, thrashing, industrial tinged heaviness, gargles sick alien vox, dense gnarled guitars, the perfect balance for the off kilter weirdness of the first half.
Not sure what the story is, maybe part II was remix, or just the band trying something weird, all we know is that the first half pushes all our fucked up freaky black metal buttons BIG TIME, and the second half offers up more of what we loved about Blodskam part I, which makes this pretty much win win....
MPEG Stream: "Army Of Wolves"
MPEG Stream: "Blood Of My Father"
MPEG Stream: "Hordepower"

HORN OF DAGOTH Rehearsal Demo II 2007 (self-released) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yay, managed to get a few more of these... here's our review from when we first listed it a few months ago: Another pestilential black cloud of ultra raw, primitive thrash and buzz from Horn Of Dagoth. It's been 2 years since the last rehearsal disc, and while the sound is similar, the songs have gotten even better, more complex, more dense, their buzzing old school black metal sprawling and expanding to incorporate long swaths of trudging doom, blown out blasts of furious black drone, stacatto bursts of machine gun like rhythm, dizzying insectoid riffing, loping midtempo lurch... Not to say that HoD aren't still ultra raw, ultra grim, and ultra KVLT black black metal, cuz they are, and their black flame still obviously burns for bands like Mutiilation, Darkthrone, Vlad Tepes, Beherit and other practitioners of the raw black arts. But like any band worth their salt, as time goes on, the more interesting their music becomes, and even with a core sound of black buzz and chaotic thrash sure to please the die hards, and a production (it is a rehearsal after all) that renders every thing in blown out smears and blurs - a swirl of cymbals sizzling atop a roiling murky black abyss, the songs and sound are interesting enough to keep weirdo black metallers equally entranced, at least when they're in need of a good old fashioned black thrashing.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!!! Each disc numbered in the band's blood, and each booklet also numbered, as well as decorated with an upside down cross and the triple sixes, ALL IN HUMAN BLOOD!
MPEG Stream: "Impotent God Of Jealousy"
MPEG Stream: "Festooned With Snakes & Bereavement"
MPEG Stream: "Thunder Of Hoof & Steel"

HORN OF DAGOTH Rehearsals 2005 (self-released) 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've heard from SF black metal horde Crebain. And of course by horde we mean one guy, Ancalagon The Black. The super limited Night Of The Stormcrow demo was gone in a flash (though the brand new SUPER LIMITED picture disc version is reviewed elsewhere this list) as was the Leviathan / Crebain split on Andee's tUMULt label. But Crebain hasn't just been laying about, lurking in caves and forests, haunting chapels and burning churches, nosiree, while he's been working on the next Crebain full length, he's also been recording with a few likeminded black hearted folks as Horn Of Dagoth. An ultra primitive, super raw blast of old school black black black metal. Murky and muddy, ultra lo-fi rehearsal recordings that sound just as good as some of the amazing 'rare' classic black metal records we've carried. And even though the lo-fi recording is not an intentional part of HoD's sound, more a result of recording limitations (it is a rehearsal after all) it ends up giving the sound a hellish subterranean sheen, and makes it sound like it actually IS some lost black thrash classic. The drums are raw and blown out and buried miles down in the mix, as are the vocals, throat shredding shrieks struggling to be heard through the thick sludgy wall of buzzing riffs and rumbling bassdrone. But that's what makes this sound so good. Heavy and fuzzy and droning and blasting and black as fuck. Essential for the black legions that bow down before Darkthrone, Mutiilation, Belketre, Vlad Tepes, old Mayhem, old Gorgoroth, old Carpathian Forest, Beherit and all things raw and black!
SUPER LIMITED CD-R. WE GOT 30 COPIES. ONCE THESE ARE GONE, NOT SURE WE CAN GET MORE!
MPEG Stream: "Impotent God Of Jealousy"
MPEG Stream: "Sign Of The Mark"

HORNA Musta Kaipuu (Moribund) cd 14.98
Not technically a new release, but the first time on cd for some grim black rituals captured way back in 2004 by one of our favorite Finnish black metal hordes, Horna. And right out of the gate, it's everything we love about Horna, raw and grim and black, filthy and primitive, but also weirdly melodic and catchy, the opener "Piina" initially sounds like classic old school BM, but then Horna inject a woozy melancholy melody, which changes the tenor of the song big time, as it swings back and forth from pounding black filth, to moody lumbering depressive blackness, at some points it almost sounds like a muted muddied lo-fi Iron Maiden, which in the context of Horna's blackened sound is pretty excellent. And that song pretty much sets the template for the rest of the record, a blackened concoction equal parts grim black blast, and strange loping melodicism, the band never blast, but do get to some fairly punkish tempos, but also slip into weird waltzes and stumbling doomic pounds, the lilting melody of "Unohdetut Kasvot, Unohdettu Aani" is deftly wrapped around some furious black buzz, the result is dangerously lovely, and then there's "Oi Kallis Kotimaa", that's almost a sea shanty, with its jaunty tempo, epic soaring melodies and weird grunted sing songy vox, but the band quickly shift back into something much less melodic and way more grim in the form of the churning blackness of "Pohjanportti".
The final three tracks offer up more of that strange blend of buzz and howl, and moody melodic drift, dipping into Katatonia or Lifelover territory here and there, which is well balanced by bursts of serious blackness and gnarled UNmelodic riffs, like the one that bookends the impossibly lovely main melody of album closer "Menneiden Kaiku". Awesome.
MPEG Stream: "Piina"
MPEG Stream: "Haudanvarjo"
MPEG Stream: "Aldebaranin"

HORNA Sanojesi Aarelle (Moribund) 2cd 17.98
It's hard to say exactly why, but Horna might just be our favorite black metal band EVER. No matter what we're listening to, no matter how heavy or dark or grim or fucked up or mind blowing that whatever is, the minute we throw some Horna on it's like all that listening never happened. We're suddenly in thrall to Horna's timeless black buzz. Ensorcelled, enraptured, smitten even. Horna are heavier than anything else, buzzier and more black. There's just something magical and mysterious about Horna, they're Finnish, that could be part of it. But their sound is totally unique, even though that sound is assembled from all the bits that make up all black metal. It's a sound simultaneously frenzied and furious and heavy as fuck, but also simple and punky, even a little groovy here and there, the songs swing wildly from impossibly blazing black blasts to lurching chug and back again. The guitars are massive and thick, and while Shatraug's vocals were always amazing, there's now a new second vocalist Corvus, the two mix it up big time, hellish shrieks, punk rock barks, death metal growls, all adding a weirdly emotional element to their grim blackness. And like most of our favorite bands, there's a definite pop element buried beneath, hooks all tangled up with the lurching, thrashing, head banging buzz, drifting just below the surface, making these songs not only brutal and black, but crazy fucking catchy as well. It's almost as if someone took Iron Maiden, dragged them into the forest, where they were forced fight and then mate with Darkthrone, then the offspring were fed human flesh and blast beats, slathered in corpsepaint and doused in black buzz, until they emerged feral and fucked up, demented and delirious, but ghostlike vestiges of their more traditional lineage continue to linger on. Fuck it. We could make up cool little stories and spend the next several paragraphs exhausting our black metal thesaurus, but basically, none of that really matters. This review could have been two words long. HORNA RULE. If you're into black metal, and you don't love Horna, then you're not. Not really. And if you're new to the genre and want to hear traditional black metal done about as well as humanly, or inhumanly possible, then Horna is the band to start with, and this double disc is as good a place as any to dive in...
MPEG Stream: "Muinaisten Alttarilta"
MPEG Stream: "Verilehto"
MPEG Stream: "Mustan Kirkkauden Sarastus"

HORNA / PESTE NOIRE split (Debemur Morti) 7" 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
What more do you need to know? Finland's Horna. France's Peste Noire. Hard to imagine a more kick ass black metal match up. And sonically, a surprisingly suitable one.
The Horna track is epic and majestic, beginning with a cool backwards buzz guitar part, that segues into furious blackened riffing and a surprising amount of melody, sounding at moments like old At The Gates only blacker. The songs is laced with weird melancholy pounding, and haunting arpeggiated melodies, but all tangled up within dense blasts of hyper speed grimnity.
The Peste Noire track, some folks might already have, as it was a bonus track on the recent Peste Noire record Folkfuck Folie. Tangled and convoluted, the song structure constantly shifting, the guitars fuzzed out and insectoid, the vocals howling, it's definitely buzzing black metal, but in the hands of Peste Noire it becomes something else entirely, infusing the sound with bits of pop, melody, angular weirdness, turning it into an impossible catchy slab of black weirdness.
Obviously essential. And probably equally obvious is the fact that this is seriously limited, we got a bunch, but imagine they will be gone in no time. And yeah, they're a bit pricey, but you can blame the currently very sad US dollarÉ
Super thick vinyl, thick cardstock inner sleeves, and a super striking woodcut style outer jacket.

HORSEBACK / LOCRIAN split (Turgid Animal) 7" 10.98
A few lists back we reviewed a 12" collaboration between blackened metallic dronelord Horseback, and blackdoomdrone duo (and sometimes trio) Locrian, which was a gorgeous slab of black drone heaviness, fusing the power of both groups. Here, in a sort of sonic coda, each group goes it alone.
Horseback unfurl a hazy droned out raga, the track centered around a glorious high end drone, all shimmer and reverberation, the sound sun dappled and gloriously effulgent, very much like Sunroof!, mesmerizing and dreamlike, to which HB adds, some twisted gnarled vocals, all hissy and demonic, wreathing the whole thing in little melodic tendrils, the sound blissed out and gauzy, the blackness seemingly held at bay by this shining sonic light, the sort of track that is WAY too short on a 7", we could listen to stuff like this forEVER.
Locrian counter with something much more dark and grim, a churning bit of blurred tarpit riffage, a dirgey bit of SUNNO))) like thrum, but that low end creep is soon swaddled in delicate crystalline melodies, and thick hazy streaks of high end shimmer, that weird doomy dirge immediately transformed into something more dreamlike and ethereal. Vocals drift in, deep liturgical chanting, draped over the dirgey riffage and swaddled in the chiming melodies, the sound seeming to grow ever hazier and more ephemeral before fading out completely.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!!
MPEG Stream: HORSEBACK "Oblivion Eaters"
MPEG Stream: LOCRIAN "In The Absence Of Light"

HOWLING WIND, THE Into The Cryosphere (Profound Lore) cd 13.98
Before even hearing a note, we were sold. You really can't argue with an album called Into The Cryosphere, not to mention the fact that this bears the stamp of the always amazing Profound Lore label, AND this duo features Ryan Lipinsky of doom lords Unearthly Trance and punkers Villains. The Howling Wind definitely writhe in some of the same blackened sludge as UT, but with an approach that is heavily indebted to the hateful black metal we can never get enough of, with a thrashiness that is hypnotic, relentless, and pretty much the kind of thing your mother wouldn't ever want you listening to. Their punked out approach snakes around the Cryosphere through all sorts of passages, taking you along for a super negative death trip reminiscent of Deathspell's more thugged out excursions on Kenose. The riffs are thick and burly, the drums heavy as fuck, and you will marvel over how appropriate a name like The Howling Wind is, as the whole album seems shrouded in an uncontrollable, icy wind. Not surprising then that the band would cook up song titles like "Teeth Of Frost", "Ice Cracking In The Abyss", and "A Dead Galaxy Mirrored In An Icy Mirage". Lipinsky certainly sounds like a man of conviction here, with his super tough, throatshredding vocals telling you how it's gonna be. Totally nihilistic and hateful with a sense of fuck all despair, it's also surprisingly catchy with riffs that just won't let up, which will surely keep this one blasting out of our speakers for quite some time.
MPEG Stream: "The Seething Wrath Of A Frigid Soul"
MPEG Stream: "Teeth Of Frost"

HOWLING WIND, THE Pestilence & Peril (Profound Love) cd 14.98
Not to be confused with Howlin' Magic, Howlin' Rain or Howling Hex! This Howling, the Wind one, is appropriately enough a black metal band. Of the more primitive, thrashing variety... screaming morbid cacophony, with deathgrunts and raw pounding riffs raging amidst a murky metallic miasma.
This duo is spearheaded by Brooklyn's Ryan "Killusion" Lipynsky, a musically misanthropic gentleman whom you may know from such fine bands as Unearthly Trance, Villains, and the (un)godly Thralldom, to which this project is perhaps the sequel. Here he (and Portland, Oregon based drummer Parasitus Rex) bring the noise old school black metal style. They definitely owe allegiance to the likes of Darkthrone and Hellhammer. There's some doomic dirge on here too, and 'ambient' bits as well.
And yep, The Howling Wind ain't a bad name at all for this - a lot of this really does sound like it's been recorded in a howling wind. That's more than the case on the final track, "The Inevitable Conclusion", which sounds like a howling wind itself, being rather more of a creepily abstract, droning, power electronics track than anything "metal".
MPEG Stream: "Sin Continuum"
MPEG Stream: "Deadlands"

HYATARI They Will Surface (Caustic Eye) cd 15.98
It's been four years since we first encountered this drone-doom-doom-drone band from West Virginia's debut album The Light Carriers. And its heavy vibrations made such an impression on us, we'd been wondering when we'd heard from them again... of course, for these guys, whose music is sooooo sloooow and seemingly transmitted from the deeps of space, four years probably isn't a long time, not on the grand galactic scale. So we waited, and we're glad they've now at last resurfaced, with, uh, They Will Surface. Considering all the droney, dooooooomy music we sell, having more Hyatari here at AQ is a good thing. Really, it seems these guys should be just as popular as bands like Ufomammut, Atavist, Nadja... certainly if you like the likes of those, you should check out Hyatari!
This new disc picks up where the last one left off, pretty much. A musical 2001: The Space Odyssey monolith of epic, moody, synth sludge DIRGE, built from slabs of Earth/SUNNO)))/Skullflower style distortion and lumbering, crushingly heavy riffs, which seem to explode out of the near-stillness of their more ambient, drifty, spaced-out passages. And it's (mostly? all?) instrumental, so nothing so insignificant and small as a pesky human voice enters into the majestic, black-void-encompassing soundfield. But instead of the Godflesh-y programmed drum beats of the debut, this time around it sounds more like there's a physical being behind the drumkit, pounding away with the pulse of the cosmos. Although, no drummer is credited, so it's probably a machine. Heck, all of Hyatari might just be a machine. We imagine the depressed robot from Hitchhiker's Guide, but serious and scary and for some reason intent on playing ultra-heavy post rockish drone-doom!
MPEG Stream: "Mountain Lit With Fire"
MPEG Stream: "They Will Surface"

HYPOMANIE A City In Mono (Sun & Moon / Valse Sinistre) cd 13.98
Here's another band for all those folks freaking over the blissed out post black metal jangle pop of groups like Alcest, Amesoeurs, Les Discrets, Sleeping Peonies and all the rest. This Dutch one man band began life as something much more black and grim, but gradually shed all of that as the sound drifted toward something way more shoegazey and poppy.
And that's essentially what this is, a shoegaze record, a fuzzed out dream pop record, albeit one with buzzing brittle guitars, occasional squalls of frenzied fast picking, and once-in-a-while blast beats, and any of the elements that would normally go toward creating a grim black buzz, are transformed into a prismatic psychedelic shimmer, a fuzzy, a blissed out shoegaze buzz equal parts super sunny jangle pop and slow building instrumental crystalline post rock, soaring and epic and emotional, oozing with glistening melodic shimmer, wreathed in warm sonic swirls. If we had to pick one band to compare Hypomanie to, it would probably be Slowdive, a sort of blackened post rock Slowdive, but that same sort of wistful melancholia, and epic shoegazey swells, not to mention the occasional sweeping string like synths. There's also a huge Jesu vibe in the guitar tone and the epic crescendos (which also remind us of M83), and there's a strange looped vibe to many of the tracks, as if the songs were constructed and assembled, which gives the whole thing a dizzying, alien feel, which certainly suits the strange dreamlike sounds. And throughout the record, there are definitely some subtle hints of Hypomanie's black metal roots, in the buzzing guitars, the tremelo picking, the strange production, and here and there, the sound does actually explode into some serious black metal, like the closing bit of the opening track, which bursts into some furious soaring frenzied buzzing, anchored to some double kick driven blast beats, but even then it's all kaleidoscopic and dreamy, the blasting drums buried in the lush sonic swirl, a sound so epic and cinematic and fantastically grandiose. Gorgeous stuff for sure, and ANYone into the post black metal jangle pop usual suspects (mentioned above), will definitely dig this big time.
MPEG Stream: "You Never Gazed At The Clouds"
MPEG Stream: "She Couldn't Find A Flower, But There Was Snow"

HYPOTHERMIA Gratoner (Turannum) lp 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A brand new three song 12" 50 minute ep from Swedish Black metal outfit Hypothermia, whose black metal, is both strangely not metal, and surprisingly not all that black. Much like German 'wooden metal' horde Varghkogargasmal, Hypothermia spend much of their time playing clean jangly guitar, or offering up meandering post rock jams, minor key guitar strum and simple propulsive drumming, sure there are howled vocals and thick swaths of buzzing blackened riffs now and again, but what is so intriguing about Hypothermia is that they manage to evoke the same sort of suicidal emotions and grim atmosphere, without resorting to typical black metal tropes.
Gratoner is three parts of the same song, side A has parts one and two, while side B has the "Repression" version. Truth be told, all three are quite similar, which in fact plays to Hypothermia's benefit, in that Gratoner plays like one long song, repetitive and cyclical, hypnotic and repetitive, which once drawn in, keeps the listener absolutely ensorcelled.
The core of the track is a loping clean guitar groove, a sort of post rock minor key figure, repeated over and over, alternating between fingerpicked and strummed, the drums too, a simple propulsive midtempo rhythm, all minor key and slightly melancholy, a few minutes into part one, an inhuman shriek surface, and soon after the song switches gears, the same loping jam now overlaid with fuzzy washed out distorted riffage, and the track slips back and forth, clean, distorted, clean, distorted, until part two, where the drums and guitar bliss out, weaving a minimal jangle scape, over which anguished vocals moan and wail, it's a strange combination, but quite compelling, the vocals drop out soon after, and almost the whole second half of the record is just that mesmerizing guitar and drums jam, all jangle and lope, sort of drifty and dreamy and moody, very subtly intense and hypnotic.
The flipside is quite similar, but much more time is spent in black buzz mode, the guitars a thick layer of prickly buzz, over that main riff the anchors all three versions, the track again slipping seamlessly from Burzumy midtempo buzz, to post rock bordering on krautrock groove, the vocals more prevalent, but still that main looping cyclical riff and rhythm keeps us totally enthralled, and could go on forever and ever and we'd keep listening. We're told that these songs may be reworked and added to for a later release, but we actually like them quite a bit how they are, minimal and stripped down, and totally and endlessly mesmerizing.
Pressed on 180 gram vinyl, in an incredibly thick full color gatefold sleeve. The cover and gatefold adorned with gorgeous images of caves and forests, trees, and leaves and lakes, the lp is housed in a printed 12" style inner sleeve (with a hole in the middle), and also contains a small poster of the cover.

HYPOTHERMIA Kaffe & Blod (Turannum) lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Kim Carlsson seems to getting soft on us, or at least more melodic. Gone, it seems, are the days of ultra grim buzzing abject suicidal blackness, the sort of sonic filth he spewed in the early days of his group Hypothermia. But we're not complaining, not at all. In fact, even though we've witnessed the sort of consternation this shift has caused in some of our troo black customers, the rest of us are really digging Carlsson's somewhat surprising new trajectory. Most notably in his group Lifelover, who have basically transformed their black metal into a haunting epic doom pop, albeit one rife with demented weirdness (see the review of the new Lifelover elsewhere on this list), but lately more and more in his group Hypothermia, who were never the heaviest band to begin with, but they did buzz and howl with the Burzumic best of them, but record after record, the sound of Hypothermia has grown more and more skeletal, more jangly even, resulting in a shift almost completely away from black metal, and ending up as a sort of lo fi dark jangle post rock, just guitars and drums, the recording very 4track sounding, the guitars mostly clean, very little distortion, the arrangements spare and sprawling, bordering on Krautrock at times.
Carlsson's latest two track chunk of Hypothermic post post black metal comes in the form of Kaffe & Blod (translated to: you guessed it, Coffee And Blood). The title track, takes up a whole side, and for the first half is a loping meandering lazy lope, the guitars spidery and brittle, the drums simple and stripped down, plenty of jangle, the two instruments in a woozy dance, looped into a mesmerizing mantra like progression, that while shifting subtly, manages to entrance in its gorgeous and seemingly unending repetition. The second half does actually offer up some distorted guitar, and just in contrast to the opener it does sound like black metal, but once the track settles in, the sound reveals itself once again to be more of a jangly blackened indie pop, which should definitely hit the spot for folks into Alcest and Amesoeurs and the like. Epic and softly buzz, a little mathy, dark and emotional, but like the first track, no vocals, and a definite hypnotic looped element, ending with a reverby slowcore outro that wouldn't sound out of place on one of our favorite nineties Touch And Go records (Seam anyone?). Really strangely gorgeous.
The flipside, "Dagg" is a 14 minute improvised track, a bit darker, slower, a bit dirgier, the same stripped down lo-fi sound quality, the drums way up in the mix, the guitars clean, but unfurling dark minor key chords, and minimal moody jangle, and even more than the A side, "Dagg" sounds straight out of some nineties mope rock classic. Moody and mournful and meandering, skeletal but still haunting and catchy and mysteriously lovely.
The true black metal hordes might was well give up it seems. As there doesn't seem to be much hope for a return to utter grimness, but in it's own way the music of Hypothermia is still grim and depressive and dark and a bit black, just cloaked in lope and jangle instead of buzz and blast, which suits us just fine.
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