KOWLOON WALLED CITY Gambling On The Richter Scale (The Perpetual Motion Machine) cd 8.98
Now on cd! Packaged in super sweet, hand screened origami style sleeves...
More and more every day we miss that brief period in the nineties when rock music was heavy, and noisy, and LOUD. Not necessarily metal, although to some ears it probably sounded like metal. It was more about BIG riffs, lumbering tempos, huge pounding drums, throat shredding vox. Think: Unsane, Halo Of Flies, Today Is The Day, Tad, Killdozer, Tar, Helmet, Lubricated Goat, Karp, Unwound, we could go on and on, but you understand what we're talking about.
There are very few modern bands who can channel the same sort of sonic energy without being retro, and typically, the heavier they are, the more they get lumped in with some metal subsect. But goddamn if there doesn't seem to be a bit of a modern noise rock scene brewing, bands popping up here and there, pushing all those noise rock buttons, and totally hitting the spot.
Which brings us to local boys Kowloon Walled City, whose recent Turk Street ep knocked us on our asses with it's noise rock / doom sludge hybrid. Weirdly enough, with this here debut full length, Gambling On The Richter Scale, the band somehow sound WAY heavier, but at the same time way less metal. Tapping into the rich noise rock history, and creating a disc that's both intense and punishing, melodic and heavy, and yeah, still a bit metallic here and there..
Opener "Annandale" is a churning hook filled noise rock jam, with big guitars, some killer melodies, harsh vox, wild dense drumming, some awesomely soaring high guitar parts, as well as the occasional burst of super melodic almost indie rock, before lurching back into the chug and crush. The sound definitely veers closer to a band like Torche or Floor than Neurosis or Eyehategod.
The second track though totally reminds us of the Unsane, with its roiling distorted bass, looped churning riffage, and weirdly mathy arrangement, some cool dynamics and some stop / starts that definitely had us in math rock heaven. But even here, the band inject some clean guitars, and some downright pretty melody before getting all aggro again.
It's a pretty relentless record, but thankfully KWC mix it up, changing up tempos, letting the drums breath here and there, giving riffs space to ring out and decay once in a while, stretching out into spaced out slowmo ambient drifts, pulling tracks apart into almost groovy sounding doomy dirges, slipping in plenty of subtle pop, heavy hooks galore. The title track is a monster, beginning with some clean guitar strum, minor key and tense, before lurching into a fierce chugging plod, with some Maideny guitar harmonies, plenty of palm muted guitar throb, an impossibly heavy downtuned chorus, and subtle melody mixed in throughout.
The record finishes off with the 6+ minute "More Like The Shit Factory", a sprawling slowjam, the guitars droning out in long streaks, peppered with bursts of downtuned crunch, the drums never really kicking in, the guitars all intertwined and layered, beating against each other, a cloud of swirling overtones, while the vocals howl, the drums sporadically pound, eventually everything dropping out entirely, leaving just a blown out psychedelic dual guitar drone, which crumbles and gradually fades out over the last minute, although. we'd have been perfectly happy had they let those guitars drone endlessly and fill up the rest of the record. Next time maybe.
So yeah, if you're in the market for some heavy, catchy as fuck, NOISE ROCK, okay, maybe call it metal, then Gambling On The Richter Scale is IT, and by the sounds of this record, they probably destroy live. On that same label that that brought us Catalyst, another bad ass noise rock band well worth checking out.
MPEG Stream: "Annandale"
MPEG Stream: "Diabetic Feet"
MPEG Stream: "More Like The Shit Factory"

KOWLOON WALLED CITY Gambling On The Richter Scale (The Perpetual Motion Machine) lp 10.98
More and more every day we miss that brief period in the nineties when rock music was heavy, and noisy, and LOUD. Not necessarily metal, although to some ears it probably sounded like metal. It was more about BIG riffs, lumbering tempos, huge pounding drums, throat shredding vox. Think: Unsane, Halo Of Flies, Today Is The Day, Tad, Killdozer, Tar, Helmet, Lubricated Goat, Karp, Unwound, we could go on and on, but you understand what we're talking about.
There are very few modern bands who can channel the same sort of sonic energy without being retro, and typically, the heavier they are, the more they get lumped in with some metal subsect. But goddamn if there doesn't seem to be a bit of a modern noise rock scene brewing, bands popping up here and there, pushing all those noise rock buttons, and totally hitting the spot.
Which brings us to local boys Kowloon Walled City, whose recent Turk Street ep knocked us on our asses with it's noise rock / doom sludge hybrid. Weirdly enough, with this here debut full length, Gambling On The Richter Scale, the band somehow sound WAY heavier, but at the same time way less metal. Tapping into the rich noise rock history, and creating a disc that's both intense and punishing, melodic and heavy, and yeah, still a bit metallic here and there..
Opener "Annandale" is a churning hook filled noise rock jam, with big guitars, some killer melodies, harsh vox, wild dense drumming, some awesomely soaring high guitar parts, as well as the occasional burst of super melodic almost indie rock, before lurching back into the chug and crush. The sound definitely veers closer to a band like Torche or Floor than Neurosis or Eyehategod.
The second track though totally reminds us of the Unsane, with its roiling distorted bass, looped churning riffage, and weirdly mathy arrangement, some cool dynamics and some stop / starts that definitely had us in math rock heaven. But even here, the band inject some clean guitars, and some downright pretty melody before getting all aggro again.
It's a pretty relentless record, but thankfully KWC mix it up, changing up tempos, letting the drums breath here and there, giving riffs space to ring out and decay once in a while, stretching out into spaced out slowmo ambient drifts, pulling tracks apart into almost groovy sounding doomy dirges, slipping in plenty of subtle pop, heavy hooks galore. The title track is a monster, beginning with some clean guitar strum, minor key and tense, before lurching into a fierce chugging plod, with some Maideny guitar harmonies, plenty of palm muted guitar throb, an impossibly heavy downtuned chorus, and subtle melody mixed in throughout.
The record finishes off with the 6+ minute "More Like The Shit Factory", a sprawling slowjam, the guitars droning out in long streaks, peppered with bursts of downtuned crunch, the drums never really kicking in, the guitars all intertwined and layered, beating against each other, a cloud of swirling overtones, while the vocals howl, the drums sporadically pound, eventually everything dropping out entirely, leaving just a blown out psychedelic dual guitar drone, which crumbles and gradually fades out over the last minute, although. we'd have been perfectly happy had they let those guitars drone endlessly and fill up the rest of the record. Next time maybe.
So yeah, if you're in the market for some heavy, catchy as fuck, NOISE ROCK, okay, maybe call it metal, then Gambling On The Richter Scale is IT, and by the sounds of this record, they probably destroy live. On that same label that that brought us Catalyst, another bad ass noise rock band well worth checking out.

MPEG Stream: "Annandale"
MPEG Stream: "Diabetic Feet"
MPEG Stream: "More Like The Shit Factory"

KOWLOON WALLED CITY Turk Street (self-released) 10" 11.98
Pretty much every metalhead in SF went to see Carcass at the Grand Ballroom the other night (in fact, we were joking that a well placed incendiary device could have wiped out the entire scene in one fell swoop). And yeah, of course Carcass destroyed, but the very same night, all the way across town, a band called Kowloon Walled City were faced with the daunting task of laying waste to a room not exactly full of the few metalheads who for whatever reason were not at the Carcass show.
And listening to this, the debut release from this SF foursome, we'd be hard pressed to say that the folks at Carcass, ourselves included, didn't miss out on something serious. Thankfully, unlike Carcass, KWC are a going concern, so we'll get another chance, but until then, get a load of this five song ep, of fierce, furious, crushing heaviness. Think Unsane, old Helmet, the Melvins, Buzzov-en, Neurosis of course, this is some seriously heavy shit. The guitars massive and downtuned, a relentless sea of roiling chug and churn, the drums dense and pounding, the vocals a throat shredding howl. The AmRep vibe is all over these songs, the sound incredibly thick and corrosive, the rhythms alternatingly pounding and lurching, most often settling into a lumbering almost-groove, the melodies buried amidst the crunch and rumble, sometimes surfacing as the band slips into something more dynamic, letting the guitars moan and keen, the drums getting all spacious, sheets of Eyehategod style feedback, a weirdly doomy sort of abstract sludge, before slipping back into a furious grinding metallic crush. Pretty fucking excellent, and definitely has us looking forward to finally seeing what we missed that fateful night.
The vinyl is limited to 300 copies, and is pressed on cool swirled red and black vinyl. The cd-r is limited to 100 copies, packaged in super nice, silkscreened cardstock style sleeves with a printed insert, each one hand numbered.
MPEG Stream: "Another Corporate Takeover"
MPEG Stream: "Turk, Taylor, and Jones"

KOWLOON WALLED CITY Turk Street (Howling Mine / Feast Of Tentacles) 10" 11.98
Finally repressed and available again (on black and red swirled vinyl), the crushing debut from these local heavies, here's our review from when we first listed this way back in 2008:
Pretty much every metalhead in SF went to see Carcass at the Grand Ballroom the other night (in fact, we were joking that a well placed incendiary device could have wiped out the entire scene in one fell swoop). And yeah, of course Carcass destroyed, but the very same night, all the way across town, a band called Kowloon Walled City were faced with the daunting task of laying waste to a room not exactly full of the few metalheads who for whatever reason were not at the Carcass show.
And listening to this, the debut release from this SF foursome, we'd be hard pressed to say that the folks at Carcass, ourselves included, didn't miss out on something serious. Thankfully, unlike Carcass, KWC are a going concern, so we'll get another chance, but until then, get a load of this five song ep, of fierce, furious, crushing heaviness. Think Unsane, old Helmet, the Melvins, Buzzov-en, Neurosis of course, this is some seriously heavy shit. The guitars massive and downtuned, a relentless sea of roiling chug and churn, the drums dense and pounding, the vocals a throat shredding howl. The AmRep vibe is all over these songs, the sound incredibly thick and corrosive, the rhythms alternatingly pounding and lurching, most often settling into a lumbering almost-groove, the melodies buried amidst the crunch and rumble, sometimes surfacing as the band slips into something more dynamic, letting the guitars moan and keen, the drums getting all spacious, sheets of Eyehategod style feedback, a weirdly doomy sort of abstract sludge, before slipping back into a furious grinding metallic crush. Pretty fucking excellent, and definitely has us looking forward to finally seeing what we missed that fateful night.
MPEG Stream: "Another Corporate Takeover"
MPEG Stream: "Turk, Taylor, and Jones"

KOWLOON WALLED CITY Turk Street (self-released) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Pretty much every metalhead in SF went to see Carcass at the Grand Ballroom the other night (in fact, we were joking that a well placed incendiary device could have wiped out the entire scene in one fell swoop). And yeah, of course Carcass destroyed, but the very same night, all the way across town, a band called Kowloon Walled City were faced with the daunting task of laying waste to a room not exactly full of the few metalheads who for whatever reason were not at the Carcass show.
And listening to this, the debut release from this SF foursome, we'd be hard pressed to say that the folks at Carcass, ourselves included, didn't miss out on something serious. Thankfully, unlike Carcass, KWC are a going concern, so we'll get another chance, but until then, get a load of this five song ep, of fierce, furious, crushing heaviness. Think Unsane, old Helmet, the Melvins, Buzzov-en, Neurosis of course, this is some seriously heavy shit. The guitars massive and downtuned, a relentless sea of roiling chug and churn, the drums dense and pounding, the vocals a throat shredding howl. The AmRep vibe is all over these songs, the sound incredibly thick and corrosive, the rhythms alternatingly pounding and lurching, most often settling into a lumbering almost-groove, the melodies buried amidst the crunch and rumble, sometimes surfacing as the band slips into something more dynamic, letting the guitars moan and keen, the drums getting all spacious, sheets of Eyehategod style feedback, a weirdly doomy sort of abstract sludge, before slipping back into a furious grinding metallic crush. Pretty fucking excellent, and definitely has us looking forward to finally seeing what we missed that fateful night.
The vinyl is limited to 300 copies, and is pressed on cool swirled red and black vinyl. The cd-r is limited to 100 copies, packaged in super nice, silkscreened cardstock style sleeves with a printed insert, each one hand numbered.
MPEG Stream: "Another Corporate Takeover"
MPEG Stream: "Turk, Taylor, and Jones"

KOWLOON WALLED CITY / THOU July (Hell Comes Home) 7" 9.98
What more do you need to know, than this is two of our favorite heavy bands, doing killer (and WAY unlikely) covers, on by Low, and one by Soundgarden? OK, how about the fact that this was a super limited installment of a subscription only series, really the only way to get your hands on one of these was to subscribe, unless, the guys in KWC offered us a little handful of their copies, the LAST copies in fact, so you should know what that means by now, grab one before they disappear.
KWC tackles Low's "July", and besides cranking up the guitars, and adding some downtuned crunch, stay pretty true to the original, and wisely got a guest vocalist, Lisa Papineau, who we had never heard of before, but who has sung for Air, M83, Farflung and others, but who is the perfect fit, here vocals emotional and powerful, darkly tinged, one of those rare, practically perfect covers, where the cover manages to be as good as the original, different enough to be interesting, but faithful enough to make not singing along impossible.
Thou take on Soundgarden's "4th Of July", and like KWC, stay sort of faithful to the original, and like with the KWC track, via the vocals. In place of Thou's usual throat shredding shrieks, the band unveil some seriously powerful crooning, a kick ass voice that definitely has us wondering what these guys would be capable of if they chose to go in that direction. But fear not, not only is the main riff an oozing, downtuned creep, but after that first verse, the more recognizable Thou vocals come in, but instead of replacing the clean vox, they team up, for a really bizarre duet, and some twisted not-quite harmonies, the song itself, unfurling as a lumbering, surprisingly still super melodic, dirge doom monster.
Rare that we dig both sides of a split this much, but both these tracks totally KILL. And again, super limited, we have about 15 copies, these are the last ones we'll be able to get. Not sure you can even still sign up for the subscription series, so probably better to get one now, before you're kicking yourself later. Insanely gorgeous cover art / design as well!
MPEG Stream: KOWLOON WALLED CITY "July"
MPEG Stream: THOU "4th Of July"

KTL 2 (Editions Mego) cd 16.98
The return of KTL! Maybe our favorite of the many satellites circling the SUNNO))). One half of that dynamic doomdrone duo, Stephen O'Malley, hooked up with Austrian noisemaker Peter Rehberg (aka Pita) a year or two back, and the result was the godlike s/t debut, the soundtrack to a performance art piece (of which this also contains elements), which we can only assume was dark and creepy, considering the music on that disc was a black hole slab of expansive subterranean drones and damaged digital buzz. KTL managed to create an intense chunk of dark art, in the midst of a million bedroom drones, so while we played that disc to death, we secretly hoped it wouldn't be the last we'd hear from these two.Ê
Not a year later, and KTL are back, with another sprawling journey, trawling through the bottomless depths of some hellish underworld and drifting weightless through a starless black sky. A bleak, but occasionally jarring landscape of sonic mystery rife with plenty of drone and buzz.Ê
The opener is a bleak expanse of claustrophobic sound, the sound of waking up in pitch blackness, wet, cold and alone, wandering blindly, feeling your way, hands rubbed raw from sliding along rough stone, the tiniest sounds magnified into some lurking beast ready to pounce, gusts of warm wind rush past, as do strange slithery shapes underfoot, you can hear the wide open space towering overhead, but you can feel the walls closing in, suffocating. Gorgeously dark and bleak, ominous and so creepy. The perfect music for being buried alive, miles below the surface of the Earth. As the first track dissipates, a strange percussive thump gradually surfaces, a heartbeat maybe... a dense layered backdrop of shimmering low end and muted pulses undulates beneath the murky throb, very slowly building in intensity, as streaks of high end grit and buzzing glitch, and strange high pitched melodic fragments begin to materialize all around, like suddenly finding yourself inside a lightning storm, it's almost pretty, but still sharp and jagged. As the upper register peals intensify, they suddenly coalesce into some sort of deafening angelic chorus, a gorgeous layered textural wall of dreamlike skree, some demonic string section, surprisingly melodic beneath all the sonic barbs and white hot buzz. Hard to describe other than to say it's a bit like Nadja or Jesu, run through a bank of alien FX pedals and broadcast through a million tweeters. So intense and gloriously blown out.Ê
The next step in the journey involves visiting the "Abattoir" (much of this disc was in fact recorded in an actual French abattoir) , and it sounds just like you'd imagine. A bit like O'Malley's SUNNO))), with layer upon layer of constantly shifting coruscating guitars, a drone metal Niblock maybe, stretched out and hypnotic, the texture of the guitar constantly ever changing, going from smooth and washed out to rough and sharp, a bit like Spacemen 3 or Loop at it's most propulsive, a sort of churning distorted chordal whir, and a lot like SUNNO))) at its most static. But all throughout, the rough raw shimmer is disrupted by all manner of textural disturbances, bits of grit and muted glitch and subtle shards of fragmented melody.Ê
Finally, the record winds down with an extended coda, thick shards of glistening guitar suspended in gauzy clouds of electronic flutter and swirls of soft sonic snow. Eventually the sharp edges are worn away leaving a strangely haunting slightly degraded Basinski-esque drift that is smoothed even further out, into shimmery spacey synths and sweet chordal swells that drift away leaving nothing but static.
MPEG Stream: "Game"
MPEG Stream: "Theme"

KTL 2 (Thrill Jockey) 2lp 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now available on vinyl!! Super limited, ultra deluxe double lp, gatefold sleeve, 180 gram wax...
The return of KTL! Maybe our favorite of the many satellites circling the SUNNO))). One half of that dynamic doomdrone duo, Stephen O'Malley, hooked up with Austrian noisemaker Peter Rehberg (aka Pita) a year or two back, and the result was the godlike s/t debut, the soundtrack to a performance art piece (of which this also contains elements), which we can only assume was dark and creepy, considering the music on that disc was a black hole slab of expansive subterranean drones and damaged digital buzz. KTL managed to create an intense chunk of dark art, in the midst of a million bedroom drones, so while we played that disc to death, we secretly hoped it wouldn't be the last we'd hear from these two.Ê
Not a year later, and KTL are back, with another sprawling journey, trawling through the bottomless depths of some hellish underworld and drifting weightless through a starless black sky. A bleak, but occasionally jarring landscape of sonic mystery rife with plenty of drone and buzz.Ê
The opener is a bleak expanse of claustrophobic sound, the sound of waking up in pitch blackness, wet, cold and alone, wandering blindly, feeling your way, hands rubbed raw from sliding along rough stone, the tiniest sounds magnified into some lurking beast ready to pounce, gusts of warm wind rush past, as do strange slithery shapes underfoot, you can hear the wide open space towering overhead, but you can feel the walls closing in, suffocating. Gorgeously dark and bleak, ominous and so creepy. The perfect music for being buried alive, miles below the surface of the Earth. As the first track dissipates, a strange percussive thump gradually surfaces, a heartbeat maybe... a dense layered backdrop of shimmering low end and muted pulses undulates beneath the murky throb, very slowly building in intensity, as streaks of high end grit and buzzing glitch, and strange high pitched melodic fragments begin to materialize all around, like suddenly finding yourself inside a lightning storm, it's almost pretty, but still sharp and jagged. As the upper register peals intensify, they suddenly coalesce into some sort of deafening angelic chorus, a gorgeous layered textural wall of dreamlike skree, some demonic string section, surprisingly melodic beneath all the sonic barbs and white hot buzz. Hard to describe other than to say it's a bit like Nadja or Jesu, run through a bank of alien FX pedals and broadcast through a million tweeters. So intense and gloriously blown out.Ê
The next step in the journey involves visiting the "Abattoir" (much of this disc was in fact recorded in an actual French abattoir) , and it sounds just like you'd imagine. A bit like O'Malley's SUNNO))), with layer upon layer of constantly shifting coruscating guitars, a drone metal Niblock maybe, stretched out and hypnotic, the texture of the guitar constantly ever changing, going from smooth and washed out to rough and sharp, a bit like Spacemen 3 or Loop at it's most propulsive, a sort of churning distorted chordal whir, and a lot like SUNNO))) at its most static. But all throughout, the rough raw shimmer is disrupted by all manner of textural disturbances, bits of grit and muted glitch and subtle shards of fragmented melody.Ê
Finally, the record winds down with an extended coda, thick shards of glistening guitar suspended in gauzy clouds of electronic flutter and swirls of soft sonic snow. Eventually the sharp edges are worn away leaving a strangely haunting slightly degraded Basinski-esque drift that is smoothed even further out, into shimmery spacey synths and sweet chordal swells that drift away leaving nothing but static.
MPEG Stream: "Game"
MPEG Stream: "Theme"

KTL 3 (OR) lp 27.00
Hot on the heels of KTL number two, comes, you guessed it, number three, this one however is a brief two tracks, carved into a gorgeous one sided lp, with the other side featuring a super striking etching than none other than Savage Pencil.Ê
Like 2, 3 also features music the duo of Stephen O'Malley (SUNNO))), Khanate, etc.) and Peter Rehberg (Pita) composed and recorded forÊthe theatre piece Kindertotenlieder by Gisele Vienne and Dennis Cooper, which goes a long way to explaining why, 3, even more than 2 maybe, sounds so dramatic and even cinematic at moments.Ê
The first of the two tracks here is quite brief, an introduction almost, effects and glitched electronics swirl over a deep black whorl of muted guitar buzz and warm organ whir, a pulsing, vibrating, shimmering backdrop that hovers and flutters beneath streaks of electronics and smeared feedback, and groaning industrial creaks and grinds.Ê
The second track is the main attraction here, and takes up most of the side, based around an incredibly intense super low speaker rattling rumble, a sort of blurred and abstract low rider bass, almost more felt than heard, that throbs and sets bones rattling in your skin, a bottomless black morass, a sonic tar pit which all manner of strange and subtle sounds seem to be struggling against, desperately trying to keep from being sucked under. Scrabbling, atonal Derek Bailey like guitar scratch and scrape, haunting plink plonk melodies, tiny high end trills, sparkling slivers of feedback, subtle electronic shadings, all drifting on that ominous and constantly shifting extreme low end black sonic sea. A truly haunting, gorgeous chunk of deep deep deep black ambience...
Packaged in ultra thick jackets, the vinyl housed in a black printed inner sleeve, sealed with a sticker.Ê

KTL IV (Editions Mego) cd 17.98
Perfect for the dead of winter, it's another quietly creepy, digital dronedoom opus from this two-man stupor group, featuring Stephen O'Malley (SUNNO))), Khanate, etc.) and Peter Rehberg (Pita), this time with production assistance from Jim O'Rourke. If you've heard KTL's I, II, or III (which was vinyl-only) you have an idea of what to expect - and are probably already plotting to purchase this. This is their first studio album constructed entirely for their own dark purposes, as opposed to having been commissioned as a soundtrack for live theatrical performance or film, though it certainly still has mysterious, soundtrack-y qualities. The sort that usually causes us, in reviews of KTL (and other dronesters too) to paint word-pictures of what the music evokes in our mind's eye. Subterranean caverns, bottomless pits, fallen angelic choirs, airplanes buzzing over dark forests... but we won't bother this time, you should just listen to this and your own imagination should have no difficulty providing all sorts of esoteric imagery. It may be soothing, it may be scary. Probably scary, it's up to you though. We find a lot of this to be as sinister and grim as Dick Cheney was in his Dr. Strangelove wheelchair at Obama's inauguration!
These six tracks are full of seismic rumble, high end hiss, eerie abstract glitch, sweeping drones, ringing electronics... some more epic and/or active than others. Distorted industrial rhythms shudder through several cuts, notably the disc's longest piece, the 21+ minute "Paratrooper", which features doomic beats by the drummer from Japan's Boris (who also brings his gong for an appearance on the disc's final track). While that's KTL IV at its heaviest, most of this is more like the sound of SUNNO))) sighing and whispering... or, conversely, Pita busting out a guitar to play along to a half-melted Swans record he found in the ashes of a burned-down church.
MPEG Stream: "Paratrooper"
MPEG Stream: "Wicked Way"

KTL Live In Krems (Mego) lp 27.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ahhhh, the black ambient onslaught continues. A vinyl based campaign to rain corrosive black drones on an adoring audience moves forward unabated, and we're right there in the front, face raised to the sky, letting the buzz and whir and rumble and roar rain down on us...
KTL is the duo of Stephen O'Malley, one half of the not-so dynamic duo SUNNO))), and Peter Rehberg, aka Pita. Their sound is a bit SUNNO))) like, with O'Malley unfurling sheets of abstract riffage, and Rehberg contributing various blasts of processed sounds and power electronics, the result is in fact quite beautiful, the three full lengths have helped solidify KTL as one of our favorite SUNN side projects, taking the churning brutality of that group, and stretching it out into something more abstract and expansive, still a dark sonic trawl, but the guitar is less downtuned and sludgy and more glimmering and effulgent, not to say it's not still doomy and dark, just more colored and less BLACK. And of course, there's so much more texture, with Rehberg delivering intense subsonics, smeared buzz, and all manner of blurred wonder, it's a pretty stellar combination.
So here we have a live recording of the duo, performing a few KTL classics, and one brand new track. Which is interesting as we just assumed that KTL was improvised, and while maybe there is an element of that in their music, you can definitely here bits and pieces that you'll recognize from the other recordings, and probably the more eagle eared among you will be able to pick out whole songs.
The first side opens up with a doomy swirl of washed out guitar, corrosive and keening, the riffs unfolding and overlapping. We don't really hear Rehberg until a few minutes in, when he offers up a thick, crumbling, superdistorted low end throb, that grinds ominously just below the sprawling guitarnoise, surfacing every once in a while to nearly blow your speakers. The sound builds to a glorious crescendo, sounding a bit like Sunroof! Or GHQ or one of those sort of ur-psych combos, but with a subtly abrasive digital component, that gives the sound a bit of an alien feel, the sound constantly thickening, with Rehberg's electronic machinations gradually overtaking the moaning guitars.
The flipside is even more blown out and psychedelic, O'Malley's guitars soaring ever skyward, roaring and keening, Rehberg wrapping those guitars in billowing sheets of grumbling digital glitter, smearing the churning riffage into haunting, nearly orchestral swells. So good.
Gorgeously packaged, deluxe gatefold, striking live images from the performance, also includes a massive poster of the show. Vinyl only for now. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES! Each one numbered. Not sure if there is a cd planned or not, still no cd of KTL 3, so you might want to grab one before they're gone.

KTL s/t (Editions Mego) cd 16.98
SUNNO)))-worshippers alert! 1/2 of that drone metal behemoth, our pal Stephen O'Malley (who has also piloted or participated in such units as Khanate, Burning Witch, Ginnungagap, Teeth Of The Lions Rule The Divine, Thorr's Hammer, Fungal Hex, Lotus Eaters, etc.) has travelled to Europe to collaborate with Austrian experimental digital noise artist Peter "Pita" Rehberg! They're calling themselves KTL because the music they made is to be the soundtrack to some sort of stage piece called Kindertotenlieder by performance artist Gisele Vienne and novelist Dennis Cooper ("Closer") due to debut at a festival in France next year. Judging from the music, not to mention the people involved, we imagine it's gonna be beautiful, but also somehow disturbing and dark... This cd certainly is.
It starts off with the 24 minute drone "Estranged", blissful and spooky piece that builds towards its end to noisier heights, threatening the storms to come on this album. And yes, the four parts of "Forest Floor" that take up the main, middle part of the disc are a harrowing journey indeed, into a buzzing, claustrophobic realm of dangerous digital sonics and heavy drone, like SUNNO)))'s lugubrious riffage mixed with the glitchy crunch of Pita -- which is what it is, of course! Not for the faint of heart. Part four, in particular, sounds like a doomed prop engine airplane rumbling over a dark forest landscape from some black metal album cover, at night...
Finally O'Malley and Rehberg wind things up with the quieter (but still creepy) 13 minutes of "Snow", a softly pulsing, detailed improv exploration of lowercase sounds... Very nice!
Let's hope KTL isn't just a one-off collaboration, we'd like to hear more from these two! Their mastery of minimalist ambient music, electronic glitchology and Earthy guitar sludge make a fine sipping brew.
A note for all you object fetishizing consumerist completist types, be forewarned that there will eventually also be a vinyl version of this on the Aurora Borealis label, a double LP limited to 500 copies... we can take preorders now...
MPEG Stream: "Estranged"
MPEG Stream: "Forest Floor 4"

KTL s/t (Aurora Borealis) 2lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now available on vinyl for a super limited time. Gorgeously elaborate packaging, deluxe gatefold sleeve, thick vinyl, includes a poster as well. Looks as amazing as it sounds. And it sounds like this:
SUNNO)))-worshippers alert! 1/2 of that drone metal behemoth, our pal Stephen O'Malley (who has also piloted or participated in such units as Khanate, Burning Witch, Ginnungagap, Teeth Of The Lions Rule The Divine, Thorr's Hammer, Fungal Hex, Lotus Eaters, etc.) has travelled to Europe to collaborate with Austrian experimental digital noise artist Peter "Pita" Rehberg! They're calling themselves KTL because the music they made is to be the soundtrack to some sort of stage piece called Kindertotenlieder by performance artist Gisele Vienne and novelist Dennis Cooper ("Closer") due to debut at a festival in France next year. Judging from the music, not to mention the people involved, we imagine it's gonna be beautiful, but also somehow disturbing and dark... This cd certainly is.
It starts off with the 24 minute drone "Estranged", blissful and spooky piece that builds towards its end to noisier heights, threatening the storms to come on this album. And yes, the four parts of "Forest Floor" that take up the main, middle part of the disc are a harrowing journey indeed, into a buzzing, claustrophobic realm of dangerous digital sonics and heavy drone, like SUNNO)))'s lugubrious riffage mixed with the glitchy crunch of Pita -- which is what it is, of course! Not for the faint of heart. Part four, in particular, sounds like a doomed prop engine airplane rumbling over a dark forest landscape from some black metal album cover, at night...
Finally O'Malley and Rehberg wind things up with the quieter (but still creepy) 13 minutes of "Snow", a softly pulsing, detailed improv exploration of lowercase sounds... Very nice!
Let's hope KTL isn't just a one-off collaboration, we'd like to hear more from these two! Their mastery of minimalist ambient music, electronic glitchology and Earthy guitar sludge make a fine sipping brew.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES. ON BLACK VINYL!!!
There was a version on white vinyl, but those were direct mailorder only from the label and are completely gone. And with these too, there's a good chance when they are gone they will be gone forever....
MPEG Stream: "Estranged"
MPEG Stream: "Forest Floor 4"

KYUSS Queens Of The Stone Age (Man's Ruin) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Includes the songs from their Man's Ruin 10" (that featured a cover of Sabbath's "Into The Void"), as well as recordings by guitarist John Homme's post-Kyuss outfit Gamma Ray (now called Queens Of The Stone Age because of the other Gamma Ray that all you Helloween fans are of course familiar with).

LA IRA DE DIOS Apus Revolution Rock (World In Sound) cd 23.00
All right, this is a relief. Reviewing a freakin' kick ass real ROCK N' ROLL record. Nice to know they still can make 'em. Not that we didn't expect a healthy helping of rockin' from Lima's La Ira De Dios, whose previous album more than lived up to its title, Cosmos Kaos Destruccion (no translation needed, right?). We compared 'em to stonery stuff like Monster Magnet and Hawkwind last time 'round, but on Apus Revolution Rock they've gone even more raw and retro, punking it up '60s garage fuzzmonster style, with nods to surf music and other retro sounds, to the extent of including screaming girls (La Ira De Dios mania!?) in the mix on the blown out opening cut "Revolucion", which has a '50s meets the Stooges vibe that sounds a lot like '70s Japanese jams-kicker-outers Gedo. Good grief! What's not to like about that? And if you like to rock that is. THEY sure do, second track "No Hay Control" not letting up, in fact, cranking it up, it and ALL the dozen tracks on this album delivering nothin' but 110 percent high energy distortodelic rock action.
Need we say more? 'Cause La Ira De Dios really say it all with the slogan on the cd booklet: "Peru Psicodelia Punk". Another one they're fond of: "MAXIMUMVOLUMEROCKANDROLL!!!" If you're looking for catchy amped up anarchistic rawk with tons o' frantic fuzz, and cowbell too, for fans of The Heads, The Hives, Crushed Butler, Mudhoney, Larry Wallis era Pink Fairies, Motorhead, Boris circa Pink, fellow Peruvians / labelmates El Cuy, and other rad rockin' coolness of that ilk then La Ira De Dios have a rekkid for you!! Or if you can, imagine Los Natas on a search and destroy mission to do a Louie Louie and you're close to what La Ira De Dios is dishing out here.
So yeah, reviewing this was a blast, just turned it up and let the rock dictate these words... now the problem is turning it off and trying to put on something else we gotta review, which almost by definition will be less rockin' and thus less worthwhile. Plus somehow, in the process of reviewing this, we had a couple beers...maybe we'll just play this record one more time.
By the way, the vinyl version of this comes with a bonus 7", featuring of all things, a cover of "Shadowplay" by Joy Division (!), whereas the compact disc includes an exclusive bonus video for the track "5000 Anos".
MPEG Stream: "Todo Arde En Llamas"
MPEG Stream: "5000 Anos"
MPEG Stream: "Atravezare"

LA IRA DE DIOS Apus Revolution Rock (World In Sound) lp + 7" 30.00
All right, this is a relief. Reviewing a freakin' kick ass real ROCK N' ROLL record. Nice to know they still can make 'em. Not that we didn't expect a healthy helping of rockin' from Lima's La Ira De Dios, whose previous album more than lived up to its title, Cosmos Kaos Destruccion (no translation needed, right?). We compared 'em to stonery stuff like Monster Magnet and Hawkwind last time 'round, but on Apus Revolution Rock they've gone even more raw and retro, punking it up '60s garage fuzzmonster style, with nods to surf music and other retro sounds, to the extent of including screaming girls (La Ira De Dios mania!?) in the mix on the blown out opening cut "Revolucion", which has a '50s meets the Stooges vibe that sounds a lot like '70s Japanese jams-kicker-outers Gedo. Good grief! What's not to like about that? And if you like to rock that is. THEY sure do, second track "No Hay Control" not letting up, in fact, cranking it up, it and ALL the dozen tracks on this album delivering nothin' but 110 percent high energy distortodelic rock action.
Need we say more? 'Cause La Ira De Dios really say it all with the slogan on the cd booklet: "Peru Psicodelia Punk". Another one they're fond of: "MAXIMUMVOLUMEROCKANDROLL!!!" If you're looking for catchy amped up anarchistic rawk with tons o' frantic fuzz, and cowbell too, for fans of The Heads, The Hives, Crushed Butler, Mudhoney, Larry Wallis era Pink Fairies, Motorhead, Boris circa Pink, fellow Peruvians / labelmates El Cuy, and other rad rockin' coolness of that ilk then La Ira De Dios have a rekkid for you!! Or if you can, imagine Los Natas on a search and destroy mission to do a Louie Louie and you're close to what La Ira De Dios is dishing out here.
So yeah, reviewing this was a blast, just turned it up and let the rock dictate these words... now the problem is turning it off and trying to put on something else we gotta review, which almost by definition will be less rockin' and thus less worthwhile. Plus somehow, in the process of reviewing this, we had a couple beers...maybe we'll just play this record one more time.
By the way, the vinyl version of this comes with a bonus 7", featuring of all things, a cover of "Shadowplay" by Joy Division (!), whereas the compact disc includes an exclusive bonus video for the track "5000 Anos".
MPEG Stream: "Our Cold War"
MPEG Stream: "Chemical Restraint"
MPEG Stream: "Halo Becomes A Noose"

LAUDANUM Coronation (20 Buck Spin) cd 10.98
All you really need to know about these Oakland sludge/doom merchants is what is being played, and what bands the various members hail from. So, howabout Graves At Sea, Brainoil and Pig Heart Transplant for a heavy low ended pedigree? And what exactly is employed to create this gloriously grim racket? "Overdriven string corrosion, ambient texture and documentation", "battering ram and subsonic transmissions", "low end frequency discharge, vocal disruption and auditory experimentation" and of course "battery acid, bellows and blasphemy". So yeah, you know where these crushers are coming from. Crushing, punishing doom infused sludge, laced with thick black drones and buzzing abject industrial ambience, all blurred into a massive heaving blackened brutal sonic beast.
Beginning with some sort of alien soundscape, until huge sheets of white noise take over, you're not sure if you hear the sounds of a guitar or maybe just overwhelming electronic wind-like sounds, all strange and buzzing and creepy.
Finally, weird little bits of abstract keyboard buzz and drift before the band kicks in. And WHAM, super heavy and sludgey, like black tar heroin, but also Eyehategod groovy; Khanate vokills that almost exude a black metal vibe. Lots of negative space to make things tense and uncomfortable. A second singer bellows in his best Neurosis voice, the perfect foil for the other more high pitched yowl, all tangled up with a cool, but weirdly sour guitar lick, giving the track a much more twisted vibe.
The record slips from crushing doom, to dense blackened rumble and back again, inserting angelic choral vocals, strange blurred electronics, super intense subsonic feedback, the bass thick and gritty and dirty, the sound here, when the band is rocking, is not at all that far removed from Burning Witch or Zoroaster, but the band pepper their sludgy crush with gorgeous black drone interludes, which makes this more of an EP, only one of epic doom-ic proportions, which renders it an EP that just so happens to stretch out to 50 minutes. Bad ass.
MPEG Stream: "Invoke"
MPEG Stream: "Wooden Horse"
MPEG Stream: "Apotheosis"

LAUDANUM Coronation (Life Is Abuse) lp 19.98
Now on Vinyl!
All you really need to know about these Oakland sludge/doom merchants is what is being played, and what bands the various members hail from. So, how about Graves At Sea, Brainoil and Pig Heart Transplant for a heavy low ended pedigree? And what exactly is employed to create this gloriously grim racket? "Overdriven string corrosion, ambient texture and documentation", "battering ram and subsonic transmissions", "low end frequency discharge, vocal disruption and auditory experimentation" and of course "battery acid, bellows and blasphemy". So yeah, you know where these crushers are coming from. Crushing, punishing doom infused sludge, laced with thick black drones and buzzing abject industrial ambience, all blurred into a massive heaving blackened brutal sonic beast.
Beginning with some sort of alien soundscape, until huge sheets of white noise take over, you're not sure if you hear the sounds of a guitar or maybe just overwhelming electronic wind-like sounds, all strange and buzzing and creepy.
Finally, weird little bits of abstract keyboard buzz and drift before the band kicks in. And WHAM, super heavy and sludgey, like black tar heroin, but also Eyehategod groovy; Khanate vokills that almost exude a black metal vibe. Lots of negative space to make things tense and uncomfortable. A second singer bellows in his best Neurosis voice, the perfect foil for the other more high pitched yowl, all tangled up with a cool, but weirdly sour guitar lick, giving the track a much more twisted vibe.
The record slips from crushing doom, to dense blackened rumble and back again, inserting angelic choral vocals, strange blurred electronics, super intense subsonic feedback, the bass thick and gritty and dirty, the sound here, when the band is rocking, is not at all that far removed from Burning Witch or Zoroaster, but the band pepper their sludgy crush with gorgeous black drone interludes, which makes this more of an EP, only one of epic doom-ic proportions, which renders it an EP that just so happens to stretch out to 50 minutes. Bad ass.
MPEG Stream: "Invoke"
MPEG Stream: "Wooden Horse"
MPEG Stream: "Apotheosis"

LAZARUS BLACKSTAR Tomb Of Internal Winter (Future Noise) cd 9.00
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
With a name like Lazarus Blackstar, we were sort of expecting something a bit more polished, it definitely has a nu-metal or modern rock ring to it, but holy shit, nothing could be further from the truth. LB are purveyors of some of the crustiest, filthiest, heaviest sludge doom we've heard in ages. Featuring a who's who of British sludge / punk / crust / metal royalty (including at least one member of the legendary Sore Throat) these guys are broooootal. Massive, thick downtuned chug, crushing drum pound, a vocalist who sounds like he's spitting out vital organs with every anguished guttural roar, definitely hearing some Eyehategod, Grief, Bongzilla and that sort of thing, but the band bring some weirdness, like in the opening track, when after trudging through some seriously glacial black tar buzz, a guitar line soars from beneath the murk, tracing out a weirdly warm and buzzy and almost major key melody over the lurching lumber below. "Son Of Sorrow" slows it down even more, veering into some serious Bunkur / Moss / Monarch territory, before launching into an Electric Wizardly, almost stonery groove. The closer "Victim Of The Clergy", superimposes some demonic growling over a haunting hymn, the hammer falls and the song erupts in a slow negative trudge, the vocals this time punkish and yelped. There are some fucked up samples, some weird ambient percussion, like the sound of water dripping, or echoey footsteps, but the riff and the drums pound away, relentlessly, as various voices hover over the top, finally dropping out and finishing with a priest offering absolution. Heavy as fuck. Definitely need to track down the full lengths....
MPEG Stream: "Tomb Of Internal Winter"
MPEG Stream: "Son Of Sorrow"

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

LEAF HOUND Freelance Fiend (Rise Above) 7" 9.98
Last year we listed the cd reissue of an album called Growers Of Mushroom by England's Leaf Hound. Their Zeppish moves and overt druggy allusions have made that sole record of theirs from 1971 a sought-after classic for those into the stonery proto-metal of the era. The album's big hit (among connoisseurs of '70s heavy rock, if not in the singles charts of the day) was a hard-riffing song called "Freelance Fiend". So, here it is on vinyl, as re-recorded live in 2005 by the band's new lineup! That's right, and if you saw our review of that Growers Of Mushroom reissue, you'll remember that it included a brand new bonus track, meaning they were back in business. Original Leaf Hound vocalist Pete French, still in possession of wailin' pipes, hooked up with some youngsters to continue Leaf Hound's legacy in the present day. And as wary as we are of "reunions" (can you even call this that?), there's really no reason why Pete and the 'new' Leaf Hound shouldn't make music again, particularily with current '70s-sounding bands like Witchcraft to encourage them.
"Freelance Fiend" remains a killer track, and on the flip there's that new song from the cd reish, "Too Many Rock 'n Roll Times", also recorded live and now pressed to wax. And it's a pretty decent addition to the Leaf Hound songbook, we have to say... now we're wondering if there's more to come? Maybe even a -second- Leaf Hound album? Apparently so. We can only imagine how excited Rise Above would be to get to release that, as doing this 7" was probably already a big thrill for them. Limited to 500 copies.

LEAF HOUND Growers Of Mushroom (Repertoire) cd 19.98
Along with the likes of Captain Beyond, Bang, Dust, and Sir Lord Baltimore, the UK's Leaf Hound are one of the obscure '70s proto-metal acts often cited in the annals of stoner rock history. Heck they're called Leaf Hound and their (only) album is titled Growers Of Mushroom! Can't get much more stoner rock than that. Originally released in (you guessed it) 1971, Leaf Hound's album was a showcase for the powerful pipes of vocalist Pete French (who later spent stints at the mic for both Atomic Rooster and Cactus) and the heavy-duty hard rock riffage of guitarist Mick Halls (who, along with French, previously was a member of the Brunning Sunflower Blues Band and Black Cat Bones). And really Growers Of Mushroom is worth it to all '70s metal fans for the fierce "Freelance Fiend" that leads off the album. That track's a screamin' classic. If the whole album rocked as hard it'd be hard to beat as the heaviest thing from '71. But, while some other cuts on here approach a "Freelance Fiend" level of metal mania, such as "Stagnant Pool" (which sounds like anything but), there's some mellower material to be found as well, wherein French shows off his soulful side. But Led Zeppelin fans won't mind such bluesy workouts as "Drowned My Life In Fear", either. And Zep fans were probably just who Leaf Hound were hoping to hook when they recorded this record way back when. Too bad this was pretty much it for Leaf Hound (more on that in a sec), but their legacy lives on. A lot of AQ customers probably know that there's even a doom/stoner rock label in Japan named after this band! So, we're happy to have this swank 2005 Repertoire cd reish, remastered and complete with lyrics and liner notes in a nice digipack. And it's got three bonus tracks. Two non-album cuts (one wimpy, one pretty good) from back in the day, and a brand NEW track as well. Yep, that's right. Pete French has hooked up with some young 'uns to form a new, revitalized Leaf Hound, who've been gigging anew -- they even played a show with spiritual descendents Witchcraft! Normally we'd cringe at the thought of sullying the reissue of a cult album from 30+ years ago with a "bonus" track recorded recently, but the new Leaf Hound's "Too Many Rock 'n Roll Times" ain't that bad. The guy can still sing and it sounds like Leaf Hound, so why not?
MPEG Stream: "Freelance Fiend"
MPEG Stream: "Drowned My Life In Fear"

LENINGRAD BLUES MACHINE s/t (Nux Organization) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
All right folks (specifically, psych lovers and/or Japanophiles)... here's a literal "warehouse find", copies of a long out of print cd that we ourselves discovered during a visit to one of our suppliers, recently! It was worth all the dust-induced sneezing to find, too. Fans of Japanese uber heavies Zeni Geva might know the name, as Leningrad Blues Machine was the heavy, shambolic psych outfit led by KK Null's guitar partner in ZG, Tabata Mitsuru (who was also an early member of the Boredoms as well). Bass player Hayashi Naoto also was in UFO or Die, FYI. This blown-out blues explosion of a debut was originally released via Null's Nux Org label in 1993, but the songs on this disc were actually recorded much earlier, as it consists of material from two shows at Egg Plant, Osaka in November of 1987 and February of '88, plus a couple tracks recorded to 8-track in Kyoto's Queer studio, 1987. There's nine tracks total, although the song "Russian Asshole" appears THREE TIMES in different renditions. That's brilliant, we think. Evidently it can be considered the Leningrad Blues Machine's "theme song". And it's a good 'un, a great example of the distortodelic, fuzz and feedback filled garage stomp at which they slay, in the tradition of near contemporaries The Heads, fellow countrymen High Rise, or spiritual forefathers Blue Cheer, whose classic cover of "Summertime Blues" is in fact sampled and looped as the intro to LBM's own "Bad Blossom" here! Speaking of ye olde influences, "Woodstock Monster" definitely channels some Stooges and MC5. But in 1988, stuff like that wasn't exactly off-handedly "retro" the same way we'd think about it today - it was just weird! LBM are also way more chaotic and noisy than a really retro band woulda been back then. You can also hear that they were on the same path as certain Seattle bands around the same time, or a few years later... this is Japanese proto-grunge, from a year or so before Mudhoney's earliest singles hit the racks. In LBM's case, it's grunge with grim grandeur, when you hear the melancholic majesty of tracks like "Roman Castevet" and other lugubrious epics here, which also bring to mind the more recent generation of downer "Tokyo Flashback" acts like Up-Tight, Miminokoto, and LSD-march.
Recommended to fans of The Heads, Mudhoney, Zeni Geva, people who think some Russians are assholes, etc. Grab it quick, we really only found a few, and then that's it, they're gone... though we do think that LGM themselves are possibly still active, sometimes, even now. And probably playing some of the same songs. For sure, "Russian Asshole"!
MPEG Stream: "Russian Asshole"
MPEG Stream: "Woodstock Monster"
MPEG Stream: "Bad Blossom"

LENO s/t (BMG Spain) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
From the album cover -- an oddly staged photo featuring four long haired dudes with peculiar, only-in the-seventies fashion sense (high top Converse sneakers or bare feet, tube socks, floral print shirt and white vest and pants, bathrobe, shorts, little red hat...) relaxing at a cafe table -- you wouldn't necessarily guess that this is as heavy as it is. But it is. Though this first (and best) album by Spanish hard rockers Leno dates from 1979, it definitely sounds a few years older than that. Total early '70s heavy proto-metal in sound (which means that if you come into the store looking for it, you'll find it in our new "heavy '70s proto metal" section that lives in our "vintage psych rock" rack) for fans of all that stuff like Dust, Toad, Bang, Buffalo, Budgie, Blues Creation, Socrates Drank The Conium, etc. Wild, riffy rock with tough, rough wailing (Spanish-language) vocals and lots and lots of *killer* guitar that gets almost Sabbathy in spots. Man, we love finding obscure stuff like this that sounds so classic the second you put it on. Pretty darn kick ass.
MPEG Stream: "El Oportunista"
MPEG Stream: "Este Madrid"

LENO s/t (Vinilisssimo) lp 27.00
Vinyl reissue of this sorta Sabbathy '70s stormer from Spain. We're stoked, 'cause we stocked a cd reissue some years back, that's now out of print. This is how we praised it then:
You wouldn't necessarily guess from the album cover - an oddly staged photo featuring four long haired dudes with peculiar, only-in the-seventies fashion sense (high top Converse sneakers or bare feet, tube socks, floral print shirt and white vest and pants, bathrobe, shorts, little red hat...) relaxing at a cafe table - that this is as heavy as it is. But it is. Though this first (and best) album by Spanish hard rockers Leno dates from 1979, it definitely sounds a few years older than that. Total early '70s heavy proto-metal in sound for fans of all that stuff like Dust, Toad, Bang, Buffalo, Budgie, Blues Creation, Socrates Drank The Conium, etc. Wild, riffy rock with tough, rough wailing (Spanish-language) vocals and lots and lots of *killer* guitar that gets almost Sabbathy in spots. Man, we love finding obscure stuff like this that sounds so classic the second you put it on. Pretty darn kick ass.
Limited edition, 180 gram vinyl.
MPEG Stream: "El Oportunista"
MPEG Stream: "Este Madrid"

LENTO Earthen (Supernatural Cat) cd 21.00
When we got the Supernaturals Vol.1 cd that teamed up Italy's UFOmammut and Lento (or Lent0?) we knew who UFOmammut were. The snailkings of psychedelic heavy sludge stoner metal awesomeness, a perfect hybrid of Electric Wizard's drugged-out doom and Hawkwind's even spacier, uh, spaciness. Big fans of UFOmammut we already were. But who were this Lento?? Now we have that band's out-on-their-own debut, and now we know. Lento are Italy's all-instrumental answer to Isis. They're Italy's masters of sinister, atmospheric, super-heavy post rock chugga chugga. The seven tracks of Earthen are divided between full-on, blown-out, heavy-riffing clobber and more restrained, near-ambient dronology, usually dynamically within the same song, though there's several tracks given over entirely to the latter, as on "Emersion Of The Islands" a drone-piece with crackling sferic-like sounds... It's a majestic, metallic post-rock soundtrack to a trudging trip across the cratered surface of some airless planetoid, an epic slog under unknown stars, bathed in space radiation, amidst the ruined remains of ancient alien technology... Or at least that's what we're getting from all their drone and grit and feedback, crashing cymbals, and monolithic riffage. Though Earthen's theme, as expressed in the song titles and artwork, appears actually to be more "Subterrestrial" than extra-terrestrial.
First off & obviously we'd recommend this to fans of their pals UFOmammut... the rigid, mechanical Godflesh-like elements that we've detected in UFOmammut's music are more prominent here, with some isolationist Lustmord ambience thrown in as well. Certainly check out Lento if you're into Godflesh (and Justin Broadrick's Jesu too), Isis, Nadja, Dumb & The Ugly, Hyatari... and of course if you liked that Supernaturals Vol.1 disc. This, and UFOmammut's new one Idolum also reviewed this list, are both fine follow-ups to that.
Similar to that new UFOmammut, this "regular" edition of Earthen is packaged in one of those newfangled rounded-corner jewel cases. There is (or was) a special limited edition of Earthen, too, with arty inserts and all, but we got precisely one of those 'cause they cost so damn much. If you're interested, ask, we might still have it... $49! Otherwise, this $21.00 edition is recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Need"
MPEG Stream: "Subterrestrial"
MPEG Stream: "Earth"

LESBIAN Power Hor (Holy Mountain) cd 13.98
Black Metal. No, wait. Sludge-doom. Wait, no, it's post-rock. Huh? Seattle's Lesbian (who do themselves no favors with their dumb name, although they used to be called Lesbian Witch, not sure if that's better or worse) are, to us, pleasingly confusional and compelling when given a listen, their extended, epic songs -- 4 tracks in 1 hour here, folks -- veering from sheer metallic violence to moody melody to shoegazing stoner space-outs... it's like Wolves In The Throne Room one moment, Pelican or Isis the next. And it's great. Definitely another "heavy" winner from the eccentric Holy Mountain label, fresh from their successes with the likes of Om and Mammatus, two other question-mark-metal bands with heady, hypnotic abilities.
Their throat-torn vocals and the weighty riffage argue for Lesbian's status as metallers, while the many passages of quiet blissfulness reveal a surprisingly sensitive side, just as emotionally effective, each opposed aspect of their music enhancing the power and beauty of the other via Lesbian's devastating dynamics and psychedelic synergy. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Black Forest Hamm"
MPEG Stream: "Powerwhorses"

LESBIAN Stratospheria Cubensis (Important) cd 14.98
Er, we've never been sure that Lesbian was such a good name for this all-dude band from up north Seattle way. Unfortunately not an easily Googleable choice either, if you're just trying to find the band. But in its seeming inappropriateness, it does at least represent the "not quite what you expected" nature of their sound. And we HAVE always liked 'em; their debut for Holy Mountain, Power Hor, was a bit of a heavy fave here when it came out in 2007, we compared it to both Pelican and Wolves In The Throne Room! Now moved over to the Important imprint (they have good taste in labels, and vice versa), Lesbian present a solid follow-up in the form of Stratospheria Cubensis. Giving off a serious, melancholic vibe, this new opus, resplendent in Seldon Hunt artwork, should meet all your epic prog-doom-stoner-psych-metal needs quite handily.
The disc starts off with a great song, with a great title: "Poisonous Witchball", full of proggy angular riffs, and very metal ones too. It's the shortest song on the album, but still manages to fit in a great number of shifts and surprises, foreshadowing what's in store on the rest of the disc, which consists of looooong songs, five of 'em, that shortest one a relatively brief 8'28", the others in the double digits, up to 22'31", which gives them plenty of space to stretch out and psychedelicize... rather than go track by track, let's just say you get a smorgasbord of avant-metal mayhem and majesty, with repetitive sludge-bludgeon, speedy attacks, postrock soft-loud dynamics, sharp shredding guitar shards of quirky math metal, mammoth doom riffage, shoegazing melodic pretty parts, and more. It flows, though, how it flows. From ripping it up like Darkthrone one minute to crushing like Conifer or Samothrace another, there's no false steps, and no boring (but many beautiful) moments. We note that the "Lesbros" thanks list does not omit drugs, and likewise *your* thanks list should not omit Lesbian!
MPEG Stream: "Poisonous Witchball"
MPEG Stream: "Poverty And War Forever"
MPEG Stream: "Raging Arcania"

LIBIDO SPACE DIMENSION s/t (Gyokumon) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Most of you have yet to hear the mighty Solar Anus, Japan's masters of stumbling psychedelic doom (although thanks to tUMULt's forthcoming double cd collection of the first three SA albums, you soon will -- beware!), but in the mean time, Solar Anus mainman Tenkotu Kawaho and his label Gyokumon (a word which loosely translates as asshole, in keeping with the anal theme) give us the lysergic, fuzzed out stoner psych-rock of another great Japanese band, Libido Space Dimension (a name we'll forgive 'cause they're Japanese, and so good). LSD channel the spirit of Hendrix through the overdrive dimension inhabited by Japanese noise-psych-rock monsters like Mainliner and High Rise, and mix in some modern stoner metal stylings a la Monster Magnet (in fact they even cover 'Long Hair', from MM's "25...tab" ep). LSD certainly put their Orange amps to the test with their ultra-fuzzed out guitar explosions/explorations... Factoring in their hyper-distorted, buried in the mix vocals and frenetic, spastic Mitch Mitchell-style drumming, they go to the top of the heap of '70s worshipping stoner rock bands. Plus, being from Japan, they have that unpredictable X-factor most US bands lack, allowing them to do things like segue into the freaky trance/techno electronica that ends the album!
RealAudio clip: "Long Hair"
RealAudio clip: "Gokumonki"
RealAudio clip: "Tatooed Dancer"
RealAudio clip: "Nehang"

LIFE BEYOND Thousand Vision Mist (Sweden Rock Records) cd 17.98
Despite being on a label called "Sweden Rock Records" these guys aren't Swedish. They're Americans, from the doom capital of the world, Maryland. (You didn't know Maryland was the doom capital of the world? well now you do!) And they're veterans of several of Maryland's legion of doom acts, including former Hellhound label act The Wretched. Obvious influences, as illustrated by their t-shirt choices, include MD doom/stoner legends The Obsessed and Spirit Caravan (along with, it goes without saying, the usual Sabbath/'70s spectrum of heaviness). Heavy and very groovy with smooth rawk vocals that might conjure bad grunge flashbacks for some of you. Wino-worship with hints of The Cult? Actually they worship someone else too -- like Place of Skulls, they happen to be Christians, but we know that's not necessarily a strike against doom-oriented bands. And they do rock like pros, so stoner/doom fanatics in the mood for some Maryland doom groove, waiting on the new Wino (his new band Hidden Hand is coming out on Meteor City this summer) should check 'em out.
MPEG Stream: "Inside The Voice Of Truth"

LIGHT s/t (Crucial Blaze) 3xcd-r 17.98
Three out of print cd-r's from this outsider blackened doom duo, A Million Dead Beneath The Ice, Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever and Worse Than Anyone Would Have Expected, all available again, now repackaged and offered together as a single triple cd-r boxset, with all new art, additional inserts, and two buttons, released on Crucial Blast sublabel Crucial Blaze. Here's what we had to say about each of the records when we first reviewed them individually:
A Million Dead Beneath The Ice:
From its humble beginnings as a genre, black metal has changed dramatically, transformed into something style and sound based rather than belief based. And where black metal was once strictly the province of the grim and kvlt, and yes, the actual metalheads, it'sÊnow gained a certain cache, a definite hip factor, where any band, metal or not, is likely to feature one member with his or her own solo black metal project. We're not complaining, not in the least, it's these fresh injections into black metal's sonic gene pool thatÊkeep it interesting, that produce more and more strange and wonderful variations, a great many perpetrated by folks new to metal completely, who were lured to the darkside by black metal specifically, its mystery and unique sound, the sonic possibilities offered byÊits murky symphony of buzz and blast, rumble and shriek, sounds easily twisted into all manner of shapes.Ê
We got this particular cd-r in the mail a few weeks ago, and as we've mentioned before we do get quite a few. Our first impression was that it would most likely be some sort of minimal drone record, very stark white packaging, hand made, the band is called Light,Êwith song titles like "When The Green Midwestern Sky Comes Crashing Down", and "When The Flood Waters Come Rushing In", the packaging unfolds to reveal nothing but the song titles, rendered in a flowery script, but on the disc, there was what appears to be aÊsmear of actual blood (which we later discovered was in fact menstrual blood!). The first clue as to what sort of mysterious darkness lurked inside...Ê
Once we threw it on, we knew this was something else entirely, there is plenty of drone indeed, but the drone is only one element of Light's mysterious lugubrious buzz drenched blackened crawl. Almost like a more lo-fi Skepticism, Light trudge along at tarpitÊtempos, the guitars not so much riffing as unfurling thick swirls of soft fuzz, the vocals howled and wailed, but way off in the distance, the drums strangely un-drumlike, more like pots and pans, a clattery, skeletal percussion, the whole thing held together by theÊwarm dramatic keyboards, that sound like the Haunted Mansion soundtrack played at 16rpm, all smeared and blurred together into something only barely black metal, only barely doom, a thick lurching slow motion black doomdrone, evocative and cinematic, at onceÊepic and sprawling, lo-fi and ultra personal. Creepy and haunting, but strangely melodic and beautiful. Think Trollmann, Abruptum, Celestiial, Catacombs, Monument of Urns and again Skepticism, but filtered through the cracked lo-fi filter of underground cd-rÊdronemusic. If one was unfamiliar with black metal, one might be reminded of Lustmord, or some other sort of deathambient, but with the confusional addition of actual riffs, and those hellish vox, and the strange primitive percussion, the end result a sort ofÊmetallicized slowcore, or a washed out ultradoom, or a blurred bleary black metal, however you describe it, Light have crafted some truly original, gorgeously bleak, warm and almost dreamy, slow motion buzzing black beauty.
Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever:
Earlier this year, we reviewed a super limited avant outsider blackened doom record called A Million Dead Beneath The Ice, by a duo called Light. Which was anything but light, in fact, it was one of the darkest and most harrowing discs we'd heard in a long time, aÊslow motion drone drenched funereal crawl, with a lush almost orchestrated feel that definitely reminded us of Skepticism. And if anything, record number two, the awesomely titled Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever is even more! More black, more doomy, moreÊdroney, more beautiful, more harsh and more bizarre.Ê
One hour long track, which begins with a slowly cycling piano figure, draped over a wash of reverbed tones, distant rumbles, the sound gorgeous, slightly atonal, ominous and sinister, and then there are the vocals, a nearly impossible to describe high pitchedÊshriek, that almost sounds like someone screaming as they breathe in, a twisted strangled howl, totally at odds with the music underneath, reminding us a bit of Tomb Of..., who also paired up piano and black metal vokills, but Light seems borne more of a free noiseÊaesthetic. Minus the vocals, the sound on Life Is Meaningless, is a sort of abstract slowcore crawl, a little post rocky, a little doomy, a bit of black ambient drift, but the vocals are just SOOOO creepy, it definitely pushes it into a whole other realm. And suddenly whatÊcould have been something darkly pretty, becomes something fucked up and grimly gorgeous.Ê
Worse Than Anyone Would Have Expected:
Third and final release from this depressive black doom duo, and it's a fitting epitaph to a short but brilliant streak. Three super limited cd-r's, less than 200 all told, each one overflowing with blackened misery and gorgeous harrowing sonic blackness, the first, titledÊA Million Dead Beneath The Ice, gave way to the second, titled Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever, which brings us to Worse Than Anyone Would Have Expected, which should give you a decent impression of the overall vibe and tone of Light's distinctly UN-lightÊsound.Ê
Three looooooong tracks, thick caustic layers of buzzing low end drone, sparsely strummed acoustic guitar, shrieked vocals way down in the mix, funereal, glacial, miserable, not even plodding as there seems to be no drums, or if they are there, they're practicallyÊinaudible. The melodies are lilting and melancholic, there's some piano, the rumbling buzzing backdrop seems to coalesce into some sort of melody, the whole thing lurching in slow motion, grim, and dense, and miserably and mournfully lovely. Totally hypnotic .
The second track offers up more of the same, another lovely black expanse of pointillist piano, harrowing screams, and slow swells of black buzz, before finally segueing into the epic closing track, a formula similar to the first two, but somehow even slower, moreÊabject, more ambient, so slow and spaced out and minimal, that it nearly ceases being metal or doom and is transformed into some sort of black ambient slowcore, a haunting doomic creep, that to these ears is as pretty as it is grim and harsh.Ê
This reissue is also limited, only 200 copies, each one hand numbered!
MPEG Stream: "When The Green Midwestern Sky Comes Crashing Down"
MPEG Stream: "When The Flood Waters Come Rushing In"
MPEG Stream: "Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever (excerpt 2)"
MPEG Stream: "The City"
MPEG Stream: "Again"

LIGHT OF SHIPWRECK In The Empty Wreckage Of A Dream (Gears Of Sand) cd-r 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Light Of Shipwreck, while a long time favorite around here, has always been a tough outfit to describe. In the past we've compared the sound of LoS to Wolf Eyes, This Heat and the Necks, but that only scratches the surface. There was all sorts of blurred digital shimmer, dubby beats, lurching almost metallic heaviness, it really was a wild assemblage of sounds, but they were somehow woven into something listenable, heck, more than listenable, something pretty fucked up and far out.
So finally, another full length, and as we might have expected, while some of those references still apply, In The Empty Wreckage Of A Dream is a whole 'nother beast.
Two loooong songs, the first clocking in at nearly half an hour, and beginning with a strange cacophony of industrial clatter, warm low end pulsations, a sort of muted noisescape, that manages to be heavy, but strangely soothing, until the drums come in, and then it's just chaos, programmed beats careen all over the place, skittering and pulsing beneath a suddenly active swirling squall of moaning feedback, of grinding metallic crunch, a dark billowing cloud shot through with bits of melody, chunks of throbbing bass, but for the most part the sounds is an ever shifting cloud of hiss and buzz and blur surrounding a looped skeletal beat. Eventually all of the skitter and pound, the skree and crunch slough off, leaving a gorgeous heaving river of low end drones and layered buzz, thick and dense and blackened, slowly drifting like some sonic black tar, until the sound again shifts, more of the low end falling away, leaving a gleaming and glistening shimmer, all soft edged high end that is swallowed up by the darkness almost as quickly as it emerged. The track buzzes and crawls, a moaning drone behemoth, before it finally dissipates leaving nothing but a spectral whisper.
The second track, slightly shorter at 21 minutes, is another multi part epic. This one a gloomy gothic sprawl, again, a sky full of dark clouds, wrapped around more off kilter programmed skitter. The tones thick and heavy, moaning and groaning, like the sound of hellish beasts letting out their final wails of anguish, or some blackened city crumbling to dust, with nothing but the drums to play it out. Weirdly tribal and raw, it could almost be some super obscure eighties goth rock combo, jamming out, drugged out of their gourds, unfurling some impossibly otherworldly murk jam, but it too gives way to something more ethereal and ephemeral, the drums still present, more as echoes, eventually dropping out completely, leaving nothing but shadowy tones to drift weightless in a sky full of FX. Weird as hell, even for a band who already traffic in the weird, but if you're into droney heavy fucked up ambient drum heavy noise drenched weirdness, then In The Empty Wreckage Of A Dream should definitely hit the spot.
MPEG Stream: "In The Empty Wreckage Of A Dream I"
MPEG Stream: "In The Empty Wreckage Of A Dream II"

LIKE A KIND OF MATADOR Halfway To Dangerous (tUMULt) cd 11.98
First and final release from this now defunct UK trio who meld crushing slow motion doomdronesludge with haunting prog and drifting abstract ambience.
A swirling, slow moving prog-doom juggernaut. Massive downtuned riffage churns around fluttery flutes, while wheezing accordions whirl beneath angelic female vox and warm whirring organs, all wound into subtly complex expanses of slow motion heaviness and epic cinematic dronemetal...almost like a magnificent, hypothetical Boris/Bardo Pond collaboration.
Three looooooong songs, the shortest just shy of ten minutes, the longest clocking in at twenty, each a slow burning slow build, layers of drones and hushed shimmer, often taking upwards of half the song before the various elements coalesce into actual riffs, the drums kicking in and the band lurching into a massive ultradoom start / stop groove, explosions of blown out buzz giving way to long stretches of hushed whisper, only to be swallowed up again by another roiling onslaught, a heaving wall of downtuned guitars, a pounding barrage of thunderous percussion.
All the while, a simple, repeating motif, hovers above, or lurks just below the caustic grinding heaviness, floating like some sonic specter, the vocals dreamy and drifty, a subtle seventies pagan folk vibe infusing the otherwise crushing doom. The flute unfurling dreamy melancholic melodies over vast expanses of crumbling distortion, laced with glistening harmonics, and warm blurred soft focus shimmer. The drums slipping from abstract minimal crush to monstrous lumbering groove. Hypnotic, repetitive, mesmerizing, trancelike.
At once familiar, and essential listening for fans of SUNNO))), Harvey Milk, Earth, Monarch and all thing slow, low and heavy. But at the same time, strangely alien, with a subtle muted beauty lurking at the heart of LAKOM's gloriously epic crumbling black mass of sound, within each song a breathless subtlety, a deep haunting otherworldliness, transforming dense low end explorations into something much more expansive and divine. Even at its very heaviest, it still manages to sound woozy and dreamlike, haunting and pretty, and utterly breathtaking.
MPEG Stream: "Sweet Mother Of Pearl (Women Are My World)"
MPEG Stream: "Mambo Jambo"

LITMUS Aurora (Metal Blade / Rise Above) cd 14.98
This week's AQ-list has got the goods for Hawkwind fans all right - not only do we have that Harvestman / Minsk / U.S. Christmas disc of Hawkwind covers, but we're also highlighting the latest from Litmus, the Head Heritage and Rise Above approved British band who are basically a more-metallic Hawkwind for the current millennium. We doubt they'd deny it. Taking off (in rocket ships, of course) from where their countrymen left off (not that Hawkwind ever actually did leave off, we're pretty sure that venerable institution is still at it in some incarnation or other, but you know what we mean), Litmus do the space rock thing with an abundance of youthful energy and verve, rocking hard and spacing out in the best spirit of vintage '70s Hawkwind, to the over-the-top utmost really. Not only are the riffs big and heavy, not only are the rhythms propulsive and ecstatic, not only is everything infused with all the electronic sci-fi whooshings, bloops and blips, zips and zaps, etc. that you'd expect, but most crucially they also possess the POP element that Hawkwind also had, something that often gets overlooked by a lot of the other current bands who cite Hawkwind as an influence. These songs are damn hooky and melodic, destined to lodge in your skull, and not just due to the use of mantra-like repetition, which of course is also a Hawkwind derived feature too. Bands like White Hills and Cave share some of these tendencies, but none are more Hawkwindlike than Litmus!
We loved their 2007 Rise Above debut Planetfall, and this follow-up pushes all the same buttons, providing another excellent, epic hour of heavy duty space-prog bliss, complete with soaring vocal uplift, loads of searing synth, and ripping guitar leads. These lads are so pro, and aglow.
Needless to say, for fans of Hawkwind. Also other old, bold, cosmic prog. And more modern stoner(henge) metal. Thus for fans of labelmates Astra, too. Man, we'd love to see 'em live...
MPEG Stream: "Beyond The Sun"
MPEG Stream: "In The Burning Light"
MPEG Stream: "Stars"

LITMUS Planetfall (Rise Above / Candlelight) cd 13.98
We're pretty sure that the guys in England's Litmus, a new space rock / stoner metal outfit on Lee Dorrian of Cathedral's Rise Above records (home to Electric Wizard and Witchcraft among others), won't mind us -- and everybody else who reviews this -- saying that, basically, Litmus is a more modern, much more metal, version of Hawkwind. If you're at all familiar with the peculiar genius of that British prog/psych institution, particularly their early '70s classics like Hall Of The Mountain Grill and Space Ritual, you'll hear the Hawkwind just as soon as you start spinning Litmus' debut album Planetfall. And that's no bad thing. In fact, we're all for it. This is awesome!
Litmus kick out an absurd, energetic overload of outer space anthems, mixing headbanging riffage that Lemmy would love with a mad scientist's laboratory's worth of sci-fi bleeps and swooshes, on songs with titles like "Destroy The Mothership" and "Expanding Universe (Twinstar Pt.2)". The album's centerpiece is the 15 minute fourth track, "Under The Sign", a triumphant and impetuous epic full of heavy heads-down chuggery and soaring refrains. Among the five psychic space warriors in the band, there's one guy credited with playing these three things: "Mellotron, synthesizers, and gong". So prog! As are the contents of the cd booklet: pages of lyrics (we assume) inscribed in some sort of alien glyphs or ancient runes or something. We also appreciate that the "space noises" with which this disc is abundantly and enthusiastically littered are mixed pretty much higher than just about anything else. It really makes it sound like Litmus are rocking out from within some sort of cosmic storm of chaotic radiation. Where else are you gonna hear the howling Hawkwind blowing with such gusto? We doubt that the actual Hawkwind, in whatever incarnation they currently exist, could match this. Only maybe Acid Mothers Temple comes close, but they aren't metallized OR poppy enough to be exact competition for what Litmus is doing here. Voivod circa "Outer Limits" and old Pink Floyd are also orbiting in proximity to Litmus, with the likes of Tarantula Hawk and Morkobot somewhere in nearby space.
All 72 minutes of Planetfall are utterly black-hole dense with bombastic, hooky, Hawkwindy space metal gloriousness. Even if you haven't ever heard Hawkwind, this is recommended (but of course then you should check 'em out too)!
MPEG Stream: "Under The Sign"
MPEG Stream: "Tempest"

LITURGY Renihilation (20 Buck Spin) cd 10.98
These guys sent us an lp a long while back, and somehow we totally slept on it. Not sure why, a 12" x 12" image of a cloudy sky, the sun glinting in the background, and the words "PURE TRANSCENDENTAL BLACK METAL" writ large in big black records across the front, and inside, just what the cover promised some seriously buzzing blazing blackness. It's not surprising these guys found there way to 20 Buck Spin, a pretty good fit for sure for this NY horde.
Unlike the blissed out blackened ethereal transcendentalism of the lp, back when Liturgy was a one man bedroom black metal band, Renihilation finds Liturgy expanded to a 4 piece, and the sound is much more raw and organic, still blown out and pretty blissy, goddamn soaring and epic in fact, but it sounds more like a proper rock band, although the drumming is still inhumanly fast, and the band lock into these cool, weird, and very un-black metal sounding high end trills, that only make the sound that much more mysterious and mystical. The band claim some unlikely non-metal influences, but as you get into Renihilation, it's easy to hear that there's way more going on here than Ulver or Darkthrone worship, the band slipping into lurching, almost mathy breakdowns, incredible dynamics, that almost sounds like Harvey Milk at 78rpm, the sort of stop start, sway and lumber, that only works if the band is tight as fuck.
These songs are not super long either, but they feel majestic, and sprawling, and never ending, in a good way, the guitars are frantic, the drumming relentless, the guitars seem to exist only in the upper registers, like wild psychedelic leads transformed into some sort of blackened tremolo picking, so instead of black metal, these jams almost sound like modern classical compositions, like Arvo Part composing for black metal band, when a song ends, you feel exhausted, and drained, like at the end of a long journey, but before you can even catch your breath, the band explode into action once again. And before you know it, they're locked into another high end blast of extreme tension, no let up, no slipping into acoustic interludes, it's almost like the musical version holding your breath, soaring as high and for as long as (in)humanly possible, so when the band does pause briefly, it knocks you on your ass, of when they switch gears and get all spacious and dynamic, it nearly blows your mind.
When we first got this, we only listened to it a couple times, and thought it was pretty cool, but on repeated listens it is proving itself to be truly transcendental, and unlike almost all of the other black metal out there, and is quickly becoming a contender for black metal record of the year.
MPEG Stream: "Pagan Dawn"
MPEG Stream: "Mysterium"
MPEG Stream: "Ecstatic Rite"

LOINEN s/t (Blind Date / Streaks) lp 17.98
It makes sense and everything... Finland is dark and cold, with a winter that is bleak and inhospitable, forests, and huge expanses of frosty tundra, but it still seems impossible, or at least extremely unlikely, that there can be a seemingly neverending stream of gloriously depraved doom that continues to emanate from our favorite far away land. But who's complaining? Not us that's for sure. We can't get enough frozen Finnish weirdness, especially when it's of the doomy and sludgelike variety. And Loinen is most certainly both sludgelike and extremely doomy. But that's not nearly all.
Loinen (parasite in Finnish) traffic in "nihilist sludge core" and while that may be true, they do manage to add some interesting little sonic twists to what could be just another tarpit trudge through a downtuned wasteland. Which is not a bad thing, not at all, we could happily spend the rest of our days wrapped in a pair of headphones, crawling through a sonic wasteland as black as pitch, but when a band can create a bleak landscape that manages to transcend the typical, we're all the more thrilled.
The core sound is of course familiar, crumbling downtuned and ultra distorted guitars, churning riffs, pounding drums, and the glacial groove of dual bass crunch and drum pound makes up the framework of this whole disc, but Loinen, take a few liberties. One is a strange flair for the dynamic, no static slow motion riff trudgery, instead, the guitars, crunch and grind, stop and start, allowing lots of space to seep in, and building strange rhythms out of the doom. Very reminiscent of Dutch hypno-rockers Gore at times, with the churning looped vibe and the hypnotic repetitive arrangements. But the weirdest part of Loinen's doom-iverse is the vocals, a haunting croon, like some impossible mix of Scott Walker and Urfaust, sure there are howled demonic shrieks, but they spend most of the time buried way down in the mix, coming to the surface here and there, but it's those creepy soulful vocals that add an unexpected dimension to Loinen's doomy dirges. Turning some tracks into expansive epics that almost sound like some sort of doom metal Swans. Plus they even cover obscure Finnish punk legends Terveet Kadet! Awesome!
Packaged in an eye popping gatefold, all scrawled black and white madman illustrations, the sort of art you'd expect to see on the wall of a cell at an insane asylum, a tattooed figure, a toothy grimace, all sorts of crosses and clouds, little beasts and lots and lots of text. Cool.
LIMITED TO 524 COPIES!!!

LONGING FOR DAWN One Lonely Path (Cyclic Law) cd 15.98
Atmospheric doom from Canada.
MPEG Stream: "Access To Deliverance"
MPEG Stream: "Lethal"

LOON s/t (Beta-Lactam Ring) cd 16.98
Originally available as a super limited, self released lp (which we sold a ton of, and there are a few copies remaining), this killer slab of witchy psychedelic doom is now available on cd, thanks to the fine folks at Beta-Lactam Ring, who aren't typically known for releasing much in the way of metal, but in some weird way Loon manages to sound right at home on BLT. Here's our original review from when we first listed the lp way back in the beginning of this year (2011):
Witchy doomy heaviness from Rhode Island, home of ultra avant doom heavies The Body, electro rockers Six Finger Satellite, spastic hyper noiserock duo Lightning Bolt, and hardcore legends Dropdead, among others, but female fronted doom rockers Loon have way more in common with the current crop of heavies like Jex Thoth, The Devil's Blood, Sub Rosa, Blood Ceremony, Cauchemar, Christian Mistress and Purple Rhinestone Eagle, and fans of any of those bands will definitely dig Loon's stonery psychedelic grooves, and pop flecked Sabbathy doominess, but Loon definitely have their own take on that sounds, beyond the doom aspect, which is really pretty minimal, sure it IS doomy, but it's way more groovy, there's also a serious slowcore vibe going on, a downer pop woven into the group's more metallic heaviness, which ends up reminding us of a way heavier more traditionally metal True Widow, which is totally NOT a bad thing. And then there's the vocals, which are amazing, slipping from demonic screech, to sweet melodious croon, powerful and intense, and often reminding us of country chanteuse Neko Case surprisingly enough. So if you can imagine Neko Case singing for a Sabbathy doomy downer pop stoner metal combo, well then, you might have an idea of what Loon has going on. And while the vocals might be the best we of the bunch, in terms of actually singing, the songs are pretty fantastic too, spacey and psychedelic, groovy and heavy, a little bit proggy, super hooky, with just enough pop, the guitar sound buzzy and crunchy, the drums powerful, the whole sound hooky and heavy, doomy and sort of dreamy at the same time.
After a gorgeous hazy bit of psychedelic acoustic guitar, the record finishes with the nearly 10 minute "Grackel" which is the perfect Loon track, mixing all the various elements, the Neko Case like vocals (sounding surprisingly twangy here!), the shrieked demonic howls, the groovy Sabbathy riffage, the super melodic poppiness, the dirgey slowcore, all culminating in a woozy washed out feedback drenched spacey psychedelic outro, that could have (and probably SHOULD have) gone on for ANOTHER 10 minutes. Definitely a new favorite. Anyone into ANY of the above mentioned bands should for sure check this out.
MPEG Stream: "Osprey"
MPEG Stream: "Grackle"
MPEG Stream: "Breathing Fire"

LOON s/t (self-released) lp 17.98
Witchy doomy heaviness from Rhode Island, home of ultra avant doom heavies The Body, electro rockers Six Finger Satellite, spastic hyper noiserock duo Lightning Bolt, and hardcore legends Dropdead, among others, but female fronted doom rockers Loon have way more in common with the current crop of heavies like Jex Thoth, The Devil's Blood, Sub Rosa, Blood Ceremony, Cauchemar, Christian Mistress and Purple Rhinestone Eagle, and fans of any of those bands will definitely dig Loon's stonery psychedelic grooves, and pop flecked Sabbathy doominess, but Loon definitely have their own take on that sounds, beyond the doom aspect, which is really pretty minimal, sure it IS doomy, but it's way more groovy, there's also a serious slowcore vibe going on, a downer pop woven into the group's more metallic heaviness, which ends up reminding us of a way heavier more traditionally metal True Widow, which is totally NOT a bad thing. And then there's the vocals, which are amazing, slipping from demonic screech, to sweet melodious croon, powerful and intense, and often reminding us of country chanteuse Neko Case surprisingly enough. So if you can imagine Neko Case singing for a Sabbathy doomy downer pop stoner metal combo, well then, you might have an idea of what Loon has going on. And while the vocals might be the best we of the bunch, in terms of actually singing, the songs are pretty fantastic too, spacey and psychedelic, groovy and heavy, a little bit proggy, super hooky, with just enough pop, the guitar sound buzzy and crunchy, the drums powerful, the whole sound hooky and heavy, doomy and sort of dreamy at the same time.
After a gorgeous hazy bit of psychedelic acoustic guitar, the record finishes with the nearly 10 minute "Grackel" which is the perfect Loon track, mixing all the various elements, the Neko Case like vocals (sounding surprisingly twangy here!), the shrieked demonic howls, the groovy Sabbathy riffage, the super melodic poppiness, the dirgey slowcore, all culminating in a woozy washed out feedback drenched spacey psychedelic outro, that could have (and probably SHOULD have) gone on for ANOTHER 10 minutes. Definitely a new favorite. Anyone into ANY of the above mentioned bands should for sure check this out.
The packaging is incredible too. The vinyl is black and green swirled, and is housed in an elaborate silkscreened fold out cover, green and metallic gold, a skeletal soldier wreathed in flowers, beneath the groups's tendril-y root-like logo, includes several inserts and a download code!
MPEG Stream: "Breathing Fire"
MPEG Stream: "Osprey"

LOOSIN 'O' FREQUENCIES Regeneration (Beard of Stars) cd 14.98
Slow, massive, majestic Italian stoner rock, from the label that brought us Pawnshop. Heavy, with unusually gravelly/goth-y vocals for the genre.

LORD OF DOUBTS s/t (Sekt Ov Gnozis) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
If not utterly impossible, it would certainly still be silly to write a review of this debut by Russian dope n' doom trio Lord Of Doubts without mentioning that they sound a heck of a lot like UK stoner doom titans Electric Wizard. In fact, those two words would easily do for a brief review of this: ELECTRIC WIZARD! You could almost leave it at that, really. Citing a few of their song titles would work well too: "Temple Of The Riff", "Satan's Magic Smoke", "Heavier Than Universe". You get the idea, eh?
Of course, this list, we're highlighting the domestic release of EW's latest slab of psychedelic sonic Satanism, Black Masses. But if you're still jonesin' for more of an Electric Wizard fix, here you go. Lord Of Doobies, whoops, we mean Lord Of Doubts, deliver the same brand of bong-smoke-shrouded, slow n' low riffage that Electric Wizard fans are hooked upon. Drugula obviously put the bite on these Russians too. Their riffs are as massive and mesmeric. The rhythm section likewise a pounding, lurching throb. And, clinching it, the vocals are similarly a ragged, wretched, wasted drawl. It's total EW worship, no doubt about it. We can't imagine they'd deny the Electric Wizard influence, but original or not (and EW themselves of course owe something to predecessors Black Sabbath), Lord Of Doubts do what they do quite well. It's not just the *sound* that they emulate, but they also prove themselves capable of writing worthy riffs, so rather than a rip-offs, we regard them as talented acolytes, and possible heirs to the Dopethrone when and if EW ever pack it in. Seriously, we were a bit skeptical about this before we first put it on, but soon found ourselves utterly hypnotized by the heaviness, and how can you argue with that?
MPEG Stream: "Temple Of The Riff"
MPEG Stream: "Endless Slumber"

LORD OF THE GRAVE Raunacht (The Church Within Records) cd 15.98
Lordy. From the same label that brought us Lord Vicar, comes another doom metal act with Lord in the name, Lord Of The Grave! They like their Lords over there at The Church Within.
So yeah, of course this is some doomy stuff. This Swiss power trio plays raw doom metal along the lines of Sleep, Electric Wizard, and Eyehategod. Slow and low, but not quite glacially ultradoomic, though definitely on the sludgy side of Sabbath, with swinging, swaying, repetitive riffs pounding themselves pleasantly into your (possibly) stoned skull. Simple but effective! The relentless blown-out riffage sometimes segues into spacey, nod-scene atmospherics (where they really begin to sound like Om, approaching that style of psychedelic metal minimalism).
There's five tracks here, none of 'em short, most around 7-10 minutes long and the final number clocking in at 17:33 (a track long enough, and with enough tripped out guitar soloing, to draw comparisons to Earthless). Any one of 'em though seems like they could (or should, or maybe even do) go on forever, lumbering along heavily and hypnotically. Adding to the mesmeric vibe are the rhyming incantations of the singer, his voice a hoarse holler, or sometimes a spoken-sung stoned mumble, buried in the mix. Again, we're reminded of Sleep/Om.
Not much else to say, you either like this sort of stuff or you don't. And if you do, we probably don't even need to mention that the first track is entitled "Holy Vitus", do we?
MPEG Stream: "Holy Vitus"
MPEG Stream: "Lord Of The Grave"
MPEG Stream: "Bardo"

LORD TIME Forgotten Future (Universal Consciousness) cassette 8.98
A brief blast of grim nekro blackness from this offshoot of LA's black metal mavens Harassor, Lord Time offers up 4 tracks of punked out, super raw heaviness, with a sound that alternates between weirdly melodic bursts of frenzied black blast and churning murky d-beat crush, the vocals a bizarre alien croak, the drums buried in the mix, but the guitars, gloriously blown out and buzz drenched, managing to sound thick and heavy even with some seriously lo-fi production, the songs twisted and tangled into convoluted arrangements, lurching from frantic demonic fury to pulverizing punkish pound and back again, often fading out into tripped out psychedelic ambience or blackly droned out drift before lurching right back into it again. And while it may be on the short side, the whole program repeats on the flipside, but with significantly different mixes and arrangements, the B side sounding distinctly more distorted and lo-fi, but at the same time laced with seemingly more stretches of psychedelic black ambienceÉ
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each tape smeared with actual blood, and housed in gorgeous letterpressed #'d J-cards (also smeared with blood!), printed on sparkly reflective gold paper.

LORD VICAR Fear No Pain (The Church Within Records) cd 15.98
Supergroup - or as Julian Cope would put it, stuporgroup - doom action here folks! Even before we heard it, we were chuffed about Lord Vicar's debut full length. We'd already had a taste of the Vicar via their 7" last year on I Hate Records, and so as soon as we heard there was an album out we HAD to have it... we made contact with the label in Germany directly, and now some weeks later here they are. Even if we hadn't heard that 7", this is a no-brainer for anyone (like us) into traditional doom metal, just based on the heavyweight pedigree of the band's members. From Sweden, singer Christian Lindersson aka Lord Chritus, former frontman for Count Raven, Terra Firma, and (on the album after Wino left the band) the legendary Saint Vitus! From Finland, guitarist Peter Inverted formerly Peter Vicar, of Reverend Bizarre (R.I.P.) as well as VDGGish progsters Orne. From England, drummer Gareth Milsted of Centurion's Ghost. Also from Finland, there's bassist Jussi "Iron Hammer" Myllykoski who is not from any band we know of, but makes up for it by having a cool nickname. And then, giving this even more cult cred, there's a guest guitar solo on one song by Don Angelo Tringali of Slough Feg and Cold Mourning from the USA.
If any of these names mean anything to you, you know you're gonna be well and truly doomed when you put this on. There's slo-mo, mouldering witchburning riffs played on loud, fuzzed out axes, hand in cloven hoof with the weepy, whiney, sometimes effected and always affecting vox of Lord Chritus, extremely Ozzy-esque yet utterly distinctive. Anything with these guys is gonna be steeped in Sabbath-iness. And as Peter Inverted's post-Reverend Bizarre project, this basically sounds a lot like his old band (and thus also like Sabbath, and Sleep, and Cathedral...) but with a few new wrinkles. The songs on Fear No Pain range from the super sludgy to a plodding swing to even more uptempo ("The Last Of The Templars" is in the rockin' mode of "Cromwell" by RB for sure). In addition there's some morosely folky parts that also remind us of Witchcraft, Lord Vicar certainly having supped from the same '70s folk-prog nectar-filled chalice as those Swedish retro doom sensations. Especially on this album's last track, the truly epic 14 and a half minute "The Funeral Pyre" which begins all acoustic-guitary before eventually unleashing monumental riffage (echoing Sabbath's "Lord Of This World" perhaps), all of which is graced by Chritus's most raw and lachrymose performance, almost a la Paternoster, ending this album with a heavy '70s prog vibe indeed...
For fans of all the bands abovementioned, no doubt, also the likes of Witchfinder General, Electric Wizard, Solstice... heck you get the idea. Highly recommended to all doomhounds.
MPEG Stream: "Pillars Under Water"
MPEG Stream: "Born Of A Jackal"
MPEG Stream: "The Funeral Pyre"

LORD VICAR Fear No Pain (The Church Within Records) 2lp 39.00
DISCOUNTED PRICE (was $48), 'cause the copies we have (last ever) all arrived a bit bent on the corners...
NOW ON VINYL! IN SUPER DELUXE, SUPER LIMITED EDITION PACKAGING!! It's a oversized hardback book-jacket style double LP gatefold thing with a folio of 12"x12" photographs bound into it, 24 pages of color and b&w pictures of this cult band dooming it up live, in all their hairy glory, amidst smoke and fog... Needless to say we only got a very small handful and when they're gone they're gone. Here's our review of it from when we highlighted the cd version a few months back:
Supergroup - or as Julian Cope would put it, stuporgroup - doom action here folks! Even before we heard it, we were chuffed about Lord Vicar's debut full length. We'd already had a taste of the Vicar via their 7" last year on I Hate Records, and so as soon as we heard there was an album out we HAD to have it... we made contact with the label in Germany directly, and now some weeks later here they are. Even if we hadn't heard that 7", this is a no-brainer for anyone (like us) into traditional doom metal, just based on the heavyweight pedigree of the band's members. From Sweden, singer Christian Lindersson aka Lord Chritus, former frontman for Count Raven, Terra Firma, and (on the album after Wino left the band) the legendary Saint Vitus! From Finland, guitarist Peter Inverted formerly Peter Vicar, of Reverend Bizarre (R.I.P.) as well as VDGGish progsters Orne. From England, drummer Gareth Milsted of Centurion's Ghost. Also from Finland, there's bassist Jussi "Iron Hammer" Myllykoski who is not from any band we know of, but makes up for it by having a cool nickname. And then, giving this even more cult cred, there's a guest guitar solo on one song by Don Angelo Tringali of Slough Feg and Cold Mourning from the USA.
If any of these names mean anything to you, you know you're gonna be well and truly doomed when you put this on. There's slo-mo, mouldering witchburning riffs played on loud, fuzzed out axes, hand in cloven hoof with the weepy, whiney, sometimes effected and always affecting vox of Lord Chritus, extremely Ozzy-esque yet utterly distinctive. Anything with these guys is gonna be steeped in Sabbath-iness. And as Peter Inverted's post-Reverend Bizarre project, this basically sounds a lot like his old band (and thus also like Sabbath, and Sleep, and Cathedral...) but with a few new wrinkles. The songs on Fear No Pain range from the super sludgy to a plodding swing to even more uptempo ("The Last Of The Templars" is in the rockin' mode of "Cromwell" by RB for sure). In addition there's some morosely folky parts that also remind us of Witchcraft, Lord Vicar certainly having supped from the same '70s folk-prog nectar-filled chalice as those Swedish retro doom sensations. Especially on this album's last track, the truly epic 14 and a half minute "The Funeral Pyre" which begins all acoustic-guitary before eventually unleashing monumental riffage (echoing Sabbath's "Lord Of This World" perhaps), all of which is graced by Chritus's most raw and lachrymose performance, almost a la Paternoster, ending this album with a heavy '70s prog vibe indeed...
For fans of all the bands abovementioned, no doubt, also the likes of Witchfinder General, Electric Wizard, Solstice... heck you get the idea. Highly recommended to all doomhounds.
MPEG Stream: "Pillars Under Water"
MPEG Stream: "Born Of A Jackal"
MPEG Stream: "The Funeral Pyre"

LORD VICAR The Demon Of Freedom (I Hate Records) 7" 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
BACK IN STOCK!!!
Another chunk of classic old school style doom from Sweden's I Hate Records. This time from a band called Lord Vicar, whose name should give you a clue as to what they're all about. From Reverend to Vicar? That's right, Reverend Bizarre's axeman Peter Vicar has joined up with vocalist Christian Lindersson of Count Raven, Terra Firma and St. Vitus to craft some total Sabbath worshipping heavy doom. And it is pretty excellent. Killer loping tempo, druggy doomy guitar, wailed almost Ozzy-ish vocals, think Pentagram, Pagan Altar and the likeÉ fans of that sort of classic doom will dig this big time. There is some surprising folkiness to be found here and there, but it never takes long for the band to lurch back into full on doom groove destruction. Lord Vicar also include in their ranks members of Centurions Ghost, While Heaven Wept and Revelation for extra doom cred, if any more were needed!
LIMITED TO 700 COPIES! Packaged in a thick matte sleeve, pressed on heavy vinyl, with a color insert with lyrics and liner notes.

LORDS OF BUKKAKE Desorden Y Rencor (Total Rust) cd 13.98
Not to be confused with the Master Musicians, these LORDS Of Bukkake are Spanish, and specialize in a particularly twisted, sick, sludgey, electronic flecked ultradoom. The label describes their sound as Iron Monkey meets the Swans meets Godflesh meets Esoteric meets Eyehategod, and while something like that may be too good to actually exist, this definitely comes close. The first few minutes set the stage with a squall of wild glitched out electronics, swirling squiggles of damaged effects, mewled maniacal vox, before quickly slipping into a low slung almost twangy groove,a ll super busy drumming, and spidery reverbed guitars, not to mention more swirls of weird effects, dubby reverb and whatnot, and the drums are so bizarre super chaotic and all over the place, soon some chiming guitars come in, but it still sounds more tripped out and abstract and psychedelic than specifically doomy. It's not until about 4 minutes in, when out come the big guns, and by big guns we of course mean, crushing downtuned, super distorted riffage, and then the vocals, holy shit. Like Burning Witch but even MORE fucked up and freaked out, raspy and alien and sick, like some cartoon supervillain, perfectly matched to the sort of twisted psych doom these guys lay down.
The second track is another sprawl of slo-mo doom trudgery, all downtuned glacial guitaring and octopoidal caveman drumming, this time peppered with stretches of droned out layered high end, but again, it's those vocals, seriously freaky and haunting and EVIL.
The last two tracks continue on in much the same way, lacing the sick black doom with squalls of effects, of warped wah wah drenched psych guitars, swirling spaced out atmospheres, the final track especially, starts out all total hazy psych rock before the guitars drop out completely, leaving just the drums and some insect like buzzing electronics, suddenly sounding like Geronimo or Bastard Noise, before finally launching back into some doom, this time though, the tempo is cranked up and it's almost groovy, a little stonery, a LOT Sabbathy, but corrupted by those awesomely damaged vokills, and then finally the song collapses into yet another sun baked stretch of shredding washed out psychedelia, the only thing keeping it from total druggy psych rock bliss out, those vox, turning it instead into something wholly other.
Twisted, sick, heavy, slow and low, psychedelic and totally gloriously fucked. It's almost like someone whipped this up just for the aQ weirdos out there, a seriously WAY recommended batch of what-the-fuck avant psychedelic outsider doom sludge radness!
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!
MPEG Stream: "Llagas"
MPEG Stream: "Alucarda"

LORDS OF FALCONRY s/t (Holy Mountain) cd 13.98
This has a lot going for it. First off, they're called Lords Of Falconry, which is kinda cool. Lordly, even. And this, their debut full-length, comes to us via the also quite lordly Holy Mountain label, who have a pretty stellar track record as far as we're concerned. In fact, Holy Mountain probably has had a higher number of AQ Records Of The Week per capita than almost any other label. Furthermore, our discerning pal JW who runs Holy Mountain tells us that THIS is precisely the sort of thing he's always wanted to release on his label. So far, so good. Our appetites are whetted. And then, there's the music. ULTRA fuzzed, freaked out, high energy, heavy psychedelic guitar jams, to put it plainly. Can't complain about that, no siree. But (you knew there had to be a but), we do have one minor caveat for you potential emptors... it concerns the vocals. If this was all-instrumental, there'd be no hemming and hawing. But, some of the vocal stylings struck some of us as, well, a little bit goofy. Self-consciously "rawk" or something. You may not mind a bit, and we actually don't much either.
Anyway, it's hard to be picky about the vocals when Lords Of Falconry's guitars are blasting jet-engine like, turning the air into cottage cheese they way they used to do back in Blue Cheer's daze, the wild FX and throbbing distortion turning yr head inside out so your brain is being caressed and cudgeled by these riffs and rhythms without any help from your ears.
Recommended to folks who get off on bands like Julian Cope's Braindonor, DMBQ, Midnite Snake, The Heads, Hawkwind, High Rise, and other fuzz-laden, pedal-stomping, heavy-duty psychedelic throwbacks. And by the way, though Holy Mountain didn't tell us this, we're pretty sure that one of these Lords Of Falconry is in fact none other than guitarist Steven Wray Lobdell of Davis Redford Triad, Sufi Mind Game, and Faust fame! If true (it is), that explains a lot about this. The other dude in the band we believe to be one Sammy Adams, formerly the drummer for Fireballs Of Freedom. Talk about a power duo. So, despite a slight case of what we might call the Scissorfight syndrome, this gets a solid recommendation from us!
MPEG Stream: "Doomsday Legislation"
MPEG Stream: "Osirion"
MPEG Stream: "Scottish Chords"

LORDS OF FALCONRY s/t (Holy Mountain) lp 14.98
This has a lot going for it. First off, they're called Lords Of Falconry, which is kinda cool. Lordly, even. And this, their debut full-length, comes to us via the also quite lordly Holy Mountain label, who have a pretty stellar track record as far as we're concerned. In fact, Holy Mountain probably has had a higher number of AQ Records Of The Week per capita than almost any other label. Furthermore, our discerning pal JW who runs Holy Mountain tells us that THIS is precisely the sort of thing he's always wanted to release on his label. So far, so good. Our appetites are whetted. And then, there's the music. ULTRA fuzzed, freaked out, high energy, heavy psychedelic guitar jams, to put it plainly. Can't complain about that, no siree. But (you knew there had to be a but), we do have one minor caveat for you potential emptors... it concerns the vocals. If this was all-instrumental, there'd be no hemming and hawing. But, some of the vocal stylings struck some of us as, well, a little bit goofy. Self-consciously "rawk" or something. You may not mind a bit, and we actually don't much either.
Anyway, it's hard to be picky about the vocals when Lords Of Falconry's guitars are blasting jet-engine like, turning the air into cottage cheese they way they used to do back in Blue Cheer's daze, the wild FX and throbbing distortion turning yr head inside out so your brain is being caressed and cudgeled by these riffs and rhythms without any help from your ears.
Recommended to folks who get off on bands like Julian Cope's Braindonor, DMBQ, Midnite Snake, The Heads, Hawkwind, High Rise, and other fuzz-laden, pedal-stomping, heavy-duty psychedelic throwbacks. And by the way, though Holy Mountain didn't tell us this, we're pretty sure that one of these Lords Of Falconry is in fact none other than guitarist Steven Wray Lobdell of Davis Redford Triad, Sufi Mind Game, and Faust fame! If true (it is), that explains a lot about this. The other dude in the band we believe to be one Sammy Adams, formerly the drummer for Fireballs Of Freedom. Talk about a power duo. So, despite a slight case of what we might call the Scissorfight syndrome, this gets a solid recommendation from us!
MPEG Stream: "Doomsday Legislation"
MPEG Stream: "Osirion"
MPEG Stream: "Scottish Chords"