CONIFER s/t (Not Common / Lax Wax) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Bands have been naming themselves after all manner of objects and creatures since the beginning of rock and roll. Heavy bands tending toward the mighty, the fierce or at least the very large. All manner of monsters and demons, various tigers and lions and even some sea creatures have been represented. But the largest, most imposing objects in nature have been sadly neglected as a source for inspiration and band-naming. TREES. So we have Conifer to right that wrong. And in doing so, judging from this ferocious slab of indie rock / metal sludge hypno-pummel, you'd certainly be forgiven for thinking this particular tree could take on any of the rock demons and metallic beasties that came before.
Conifer sleepily trawl through the dark recesses of post rock, taking the languorous slow burning churn of bands like Slint or Seam Or Bastro, all dark and brooding, simple and insistent, and stretching the riffs and melodies into expansive stretches of moody melancholy, swathed in Pink Floydian swoosh and whirl, before dropping the bomb. Massive downtuned guitars explode, splitting post rock atoms into clumps of corrosive riffage, peppered with raspy howls and screeching banshee melodies, sometimes gaining momentum and becoming unstoppable exercises in epic doomy drone-metal ala Neurosis or Isis, sometimes becoming glacial explorations into slow motion doom a la Khanate, and other times employing distorted ghostly computer vocals and buzzing psychedelia into Butthole Surfers-like sonic freakouts. A lot of this does definitely sound like Isis, Neurosis, Pelican or Buried At Sea, which is obviously a good thing, but more often it sounds like a doom-sludge A Minor Forest or a post rock Boris or a very metal Slint. Which is an even better thing!
MPEG Stream: "Turning Sand Into Glass"
MPEG Stream: "Albuquerque Reprise"

CONIFER / OCEAN split (Important) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It's pretty hard to go wrong with two heavy hitters like Conifer and Ocean, and predictably, this split lp is about as right as it gets. It's been ages since we heard from Conifer, one of our favorites of the new breed of post rock / metal hybrids, due in no small part to the fact that they tend toward the mathy / post rock side of that sound. And if anything, on this latest track (yep, one sidelong epic) they seem to have jettisoned any sort of metal completely. Not to say it's not heavy, it most certainly is, it's just not really sludgy, or that metallic, and it suits them. Right out of the gate, they lock into a super intense, relentless propulsive krautrock groove, hypnotic, mathy, complex, unfurling a super mesmerizing jam. But things shift dramatically when the vocals kick in, the band lurch into serious Harvey Milk territory, which is a very good thing, a strange crooned vocal line over a strange convoluted rhythm. Catchy, melodic, and weirdly poppy.
But the last 10 minutes or so totally seal the deal (if it wasn't already), a super stripped down Southern style (?) kraut jam, looped riff, simple propulsive drumming, and some killer guitar harmonies that go from epic and soaring to weird and warbly, and it's all we can do to not use one of our three wishes to get that last part to go on until the end of time...
The flipside features Maine's Ocean, not to be confused with THE Ocean, these guys aren't so much a part of that post rock metal thing as they are glacial doom merchants, and here they offer up a sidelong slab of multiple o'd dooooom. Things start out as a super pretty slowcore crawl, before a black hole wall of guitars drop and it's still a slowcore crawl, just a massive crushing funeral dirge of a slowcore crawl! Plodding and epic, but still haunting and weirdly lovely, sounding a lot like a metallized Bohren & Der Club Of Gore, depressive and mournful, mysterious and haunting... The vocals are a hellish howl, the guitars grinding and buzzing, a lot of this actually sounds like some unearthed slab of nineties funeral doom, albeit with that Bohren-y prettiness mixed in.
Packaged in super swank Important Records style, this time a black and white printed sleeve inside a grey and orange silk screened vinyl outer jacket, giving it a cool sort of 3-D affect. And as you might have assumed, SUPER LIMITED, only 1000 copies...

CONVIVIAL HERMIT, THE Issue 5 magazine 8.98
We're always on the lookout for new music metal magazines, cuz as much as we love Decibel and Terrorizer, it's the cool DIY mags that really cover the stuff we love, in a way that seems totally genuine, driven purely by a love of the music, whether it's the now defunct Oaken Throne, or Salt (not strictly metal), or Asgard Root, we can't get enough. Which is why we were so thrilled to discover the curiously named Convivial Hermit, while at the same time confused as to how we missed the first 4 issues of this incredible magazine. Based in Warmonster, Pennsylvania (!!!), TCH covers a wide array of dark and heavy underground music, black metal, doom, psychedelic folk, industrial, and pretty much everything in between, as well as artists and filmmakers and whatever the hell else they feel like. This is issue five, and it's a doozy, featuring legendary slowcore doomlords Skepticism, Chinese neo-folk outfit Baishui, USBM horde Nechochwen, Korean metallers Sad Legend, Norwegian metal outfit Wallachia, filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, Orson Welles' film Mr. Arkadin, mysterious Russian black metallers Walknut, black metallers Algaion, symphonic neo-folk group Rome, longtime aQ fave Steven R. Smith, Russian doom metal label Solitude Productions, Lovecraftian metal weirdos Fungoid Stream, funeral doom outfit Helllight, an essay on the dying art of compilations and reviews of some of the editor's faves, French Illustrator Chris Moyen, death metallers Affliction Gate, Spanish black metallers Beelzeb, German black metal horde Drengskapur, Italian black metal unknowns Adversam, an essay on hermits (!), acid folk legends and ALL time aQ faves Comus, Czech black metal weirdos Master's Hammer, French black metallers Aorlhac, legendary dark ambient soundscaper Raison D'Etre, Chinese label Pest Productions (whose releases we have featured on the aQ list recently!), an thoughtful essay on record stores and the future of recorded media (for which this 'zine would get our recommendation alone, read this!), and then of course, TONS of reviews, records, magazines, shows.
The magazine is massive, beautifully laid out, fun to read, packed with old faves and new discoveries, just might be out 'new' favorite metal mag!

CORROSION OF CONFORMITY s/t (Candlelight) cd 15.98
In a way, it'd be way easier to review this if it was the debut album from some new, unknown band. Then we could just talk about how it's a dark, heavy album of often speedy stoner metal with cavernous, killer riffs and a seemingly old school hardcore punk edge to it, that SLAYS. There, we said it, and really, 'nuff said.
But, 'cause it's in fact the new album from the reunited three-piece lineup of seminal '80s punk/metal act Corrosion Of Conformity, the same lineup responsible for the CoC's all time crossover classic Animosity from 1985 (Mike Dean, Woody Weatherman, and Reed Mullin), it comes with a lot of baggage. Some folks, punk rock CoC purists, probably won't even listen to it, having given up on the band years ago after they "went commercial" in the '90s. And even fans of '80s CoC willing to give this a go, won't find an Animosity part II here anyway. Which could understandably have been the expectation, one subject to unavoidable disappointment. Others, into the band's latter day Southern stoner rawk thing, might not understand why they're doing an album without longtime frontman Pepper Keenan (he of Down fame, as well). So yeah, lots of baggage, that really we don't want to delve into much more here, 'cause what we're saying is, give this a chance on its own terms, it's actually damn good. This boldly self-titled album is its own beast, a blend of the old and the new really. And the trio for sure seem energized by this return (somewhat) to their roots. They sound like they MEAN it.
While Animosity it ain't, they did prove on tour not long ago that they still could rip it up on the old Animosity-era material live (causing many 40-year old fans to risk injury in the moshpit, boy that was a bit scary). And for sure some of the tracks here are written that way, like the feedback laden "Leeches" and the speedy chugger "Rat City", both barely over 2 minutes in length. But there's a lot more to this album than putting the punk back into CoC... they also bring the metal. So, it's more like if some of their (better) later stuff was done with Animosity-era attitude, by those same dudes. Certainly CoC's "Southern Sabbath" tendencies are on display on tracks like "The Doom" (natch). We know they were/are fans of Trouble, you can hear that here... Also (though it almost seems weird to say), some Melvins too.
And what about the vocals? At first, we too thought, hmm, if they're gonna have longtime bassist and former frontman Mike Dean sing again, wouldn't the idea be for him to growl and yowl like he did back in the day? Instead, he's much more melodic here than we remember (but still, sounds a heckuva lot more punk than Pepper). Dean snarls and spits, but also SINGS. And sounds pretty cool doing so, we think! Love his slightly gargled, high pitched, fists-clenched croon on the rippin' "Your Tomorrow" for instance. (Reed also takes the mic on a few tracks, too.)
So, for what it's worth to fellow CoC fans/followers, in our opinion this is definitely their best album since Deliverance, at least. And the most metal they've been since Blind. And the most punk since Technocracy.
But, we don't want only those folks who already knew what the initials CoC stand for to buy this! Anyone who hates bourgeois society but likes skateboards and Sabbath ought to check this out. Likewise if you're just into badass metallic doomed out rockin'. Like we said, it slays.
Oh, the Seldon Hunt version of the CoC skull that adorns the cover is pretty cool, by the way!
(We've got the digipack cd edition with 2 bonus tracks while they last, or the import vinyl version w/ bonus 7"...)
MPEG Stream: "River Of Stone"
MPEG Stream: "Leeches"
MPEG Stream: "Your Tomorrow"

CORRUPTED El Mundo Frio (HG Fact) cd 28.00
Boris may be the drone dirge darlings right now, but we've always had a soft spot for their more obscure countrymen Corrupted. Where Boris revel in cartoonish imagery, seventies kitsch, eighties heavy metal, bell bottoms, double neck guitars, and balls out rock and roll, Corrupted lurk in the shadows, sullen and distanced, weary and wary, crusty and curmudgeonly, wrapped in mystery, each record printed in stark black and white, a Japanese band singing exclusively in Spanish strangely enough, who are obliquely political, and much more grim and gloomy than Boris at their droniest. Every record a massive plodding slab of depressive doom, epic and monstrously heavy, but with stretches of delicate beauty. Rumors have been floating around of a triple cd, single three hour song, Corrupted release, but until that truly materializes, El Mundo Frio will probably remain the heaviest, creepiest, most beautiful, epic, expansive slab of slowcore doom drone you will ever hear. Ever. One hour and twelve minutes. A cloud of shimmering drone underpins hazy, haunting piano and warm chordal swells, plucked harps and simple finger picked guitars. For almost ten minutes, Corrupted creep along dreamily, stepping lightly, drifting lazily through a stark ambient soundfield, before the heavens collapse and the sky begins to fall in huge crushing chunks, and massive stabs of super distorted guitars swell and crumble into an abstract pounding rhythm. Completely heavy, but strangely lovely at the same time. A lilting melody is hidden somewhere beneath all that buzz and rumble. Eventually the stabs slowly mutate into a creeping, loping post rock rhythm, with minor key strums, simple shuffling drumming and growled semi-spoken vocals, before the whole thing fades to almost nothingness, revisiting the delicate shimmer of the beginning of the record. The last twenty five minutes are mostly ambient with snatches of that hypnotic post rock, and a brief but furious explosion of soul crushing heaviness with the same vocals delivered now in a glass gargling gurgle, and then the track drifts off into ten plus minutes of barely there dreaminess, mostly single notes on the harp drifting like snow flakes against a black night sky. So lovely. Easily the most fully realized 'doom' or 'dirge' track ever wethinks. So emotionally charged, so effortlessly complex and yet so utterly and beautifully simple. Somehow it's the perfect blend of Boris's Flood (our favorite Boris!), the doleful slowcore of Low, the abstract dirge of Harvey Milk, the epic expansiveness of Godspeed You Black Emperor, the metallic post rock of Pelican, the downtuned ultradoom of Skepticism, and the majestic dreaminess of Growing.
Mighty expensive but well worth it. Comes packaged in an extravagant hardcover book style digipak, with a gorgeous booklet, lots of abstract black and white landscapes, printed on vellum and overlaid other images. So nice!
MPEG Stream: "El Mundo Frio"

CORRUPTED Garten Der Unbewusstheit (Nostalgia Blackrain) cd 19.98
It's sad but true. After 17 years, the final record from Japanese doom/sludge legends Corrupted. Or at least the last record by the original Corrupted. It seems that this is the very last recording to feature the core Corrupted members: Chew on drums, Hevi on vocals, and Talbot on guitars. Chew will go on with a whole new band, to forge a new chapter in the ongoing sonic saga of Corrupted, but Garten Der Unbewusstheit is a pretty incredible swansong for sure, and a sonically surprising one at that. Recorded back in 2009, the first thing you might notice is the title. One of the strange things about Corrupted on past records, was that all of their lyrics were in Spanish. So of course we were wondering if this time around, they would be in German. But it's hard to tell. The lyrics in the booklet are in Japanese and English, and listening to the record itself is not much help in discerning the language either, not surprisingly.
Released on Chew's newly launched label Nostalgia Blackrain, Garten Der Unbewusstheit is, at least according to the band themselves, is their most melodic, and far removed from their punk/doom/sludge roots, and "totally transcends our usual sense of time. Like feeling a minute & a second like infinity, and feeling 60 minutes & 360 seconds like moment...... this transcending sense can be described as the sense of liberation from material and life through music." Which is interesting, as we thought all Corrupted records transcended time, these sprawling epics that were so easy to get lost in, but this one in particular, is a brooding slow builder, almost more post rock that doom/sludge, the opening track, "Garten" just shy of a half hour long, drifts along spacily for nearly 8 minutes, all spidery melodies, and barely there super spare drumming, the vocals finally come in, a deep growled croon, the drums an occasional pound, but the song itself, still a shimmery drift, and then when the track does finally explode into something more heavy, it's not the lumbering dirge or downtuned doom we're used to, it's way more melodic, soaring and epic and majestic, like a doom Godspeed, the thick metallic riffs underpinned by clean guitar melodies, and slow smoldering leads, the vibe woozy and dreamlike, almost spacey and psychedelic more than dirgey and heavy, although it most definitely is heavy, just a washed out dreamier heaviness than we're used to. The band slip back into that opening chime and shimmer, and while they do offer up another couple stretches of grinding post-doom lumber, they eventually return to that dreamy drift.
The buzz of the opening track spills over into "Against The Darkest Days" before fading out and leaving just acoustic guitar, the piece revealing itself as an interlude of sorts, a lush gorgeous bit of steel string shimmer, haunting and hushed, which leads directly into the 30+ minute final track, "Gekkou No Daichi", a slow smoldering acoustic intro, a continuation of the interlude, unfurls leaving lots of space, the notes drifting in the ether, before being joined by a second more distorted guitar, the guitars tangled into a spidery woozy harmony, and then song blossoms into a massive soaring squall of blissed out heaviness, again the doomy dirge of the past seemingly replaced by something much more melodic, a slow motion creep that seems to hover and drift and soar more than pummel and pound, the track settles into a gorgeously blown out low end dirge, rife with warm melodies, the vocals a demonic bellow over the top, the drums pounding rhythmically one second, offering up abstract percussion the next, as the track progresses and nears its end, the guitars get more frenzied, the sounds more chaotic, a definite sloe build to something spacey and psychedelic and epically heavy, finally finishing off in a dense squall of black noise, but still shot through with the minor key melodies that seem to run through all of Garten Der Unbewusstheit. The noise eventually fades, and the track finishes with a stretch of hushed acoustic guitar, drifting on a sea of cymbal shimmer and fading hum. Wow.
What a way to go. A perfect finish to a nearly perfect run. The prettiest thing we've heard from Corrupted, and a heartbreakingly emotional sonic finale. We're sad to see the end of a group we've been obsessed with for nearly 20 years, but we're excited to hear the new Corrupted, and are most definitely curious about what comes next.
MPEG Stream: "Garten"
MPEG Stream: "Gekkou no Daichi"

CORRUPTED Llenandose de Gusanos (HG Fact) 2cd 26.00
Sadly, the legendary Japanese label HG Fact, longtime home to sludgelords Corrupted, closed up shop recently, rendering loads of amazing records gone for good, but Corrupted managed to acquire a handful of remaining copies of this otherwise out of print doom/sludge classic, and we got as many as we could from them - not many. So this is indeed available again, for what we're guessing will be a very, very limited time...
Here's our review from way back in 2000 when we first listed the all-time classic Llenandose de Gusanos, and in fact made it a Record Of The Week:
Japanese sludge-core doom merchants Corrupted return with this monumental effort. Their previous album consisted of one long, crushing song. Llenandose improves upon that by taking TWO full discs for two tracks. WARNING: if you already intend to purchase this incredible album, read no further. Your enjoyment will be enhanced by not knowing the precise musical details that we are about to reveal...Disc one begins not with the expected wall of brutalizing guitar, but with quiet, hypnotic piano playing. An eerie voice begins to croak softly in Spanish (did we mention that for some reason Corrupted's lyrics are always in that language?) but the music is almost pretty, lulling the listener into a stupor that sets them up for the eventual entry (after 25 minutes or so!) of a slow-moving but awesomely heavy guitar/drums dirge. Eventually the piano re-enters and the disc comes full circle. Beauty and depression co-exist on this disc like none other, it's like George Winston at 16 rpm with Burning Witch playing in the background (and diabolical whispers in your head).. Disc two is the "ambient" disc, and is also really well done, a creepy quiet grey wash of sound, the sound left in the world AFTER its destruction... One of the best releases of 1999. Fans of Esoteric, recent Neurosis, Sleep, Earth, Skullflower, etc. should bow down to Corrupted. Additional information for Japanese-music-o-philes: Corrupted's drummer Chew used to play in Omoide Hatoba.
And here's a 'customer review' (which just happens to back up our claims above), emailed to us by recent purchaser-of-Corrupted and classical music fan John Botz: "The Corrupted album (Llen...Lleandos...uh...something about 'Gusanos,' i.e. 'worms') absolutely kicks ass. It's hard to accurately describe just how far beyond my expectations this album is. I was totally willing to go with Andee's recommendation on this one, but I was half expecting the three main parts of the album to be: banal, new agey, minimalist piano followed by some fairly generic bongtar sludge riffs, followed by fifty minutes of gray-washed amp noise. Not Even, dudes! These guys have obviously had some classical training, and this album is further proof of how much more depth
ANY music acquires when there is some solid classical training behind it. The opening piano section, far from sounding like ambient/new age drivel, sounds like Rachmaninoff on codeine and muscle relaxers. The entry of the 'metal section,' with portentous feedback, makes a real impact, and the choral ambience of the keyboards at the end, added to the piano sound, sinister vocals, and distorted guitar makes for an even more ominous feeling at the apocalyptic conclusion of the first disc. Wow! But maybe disc two was the most pleasant surprise of all! This is genuinely atmospheric (and good) ambient drone, with enough variety and layering of sounds to keep one interested for the full 74 minutes. I kept thinking of the spacey, eth-eerie-al, sections of 2001: A Space Odyssey (one of my two favorite movies, by the way; and my favorite soundtrack: Kubrick's choice of Ligeti's otherworldly choral/orchestral music juxtaposed with the majesty of R. Strauss, the grace of J. Strauss, and the austerity of Khachaturian's adagio was truly an inspired stroke of genius). Perhaps the Corrupted is the REAL 'Soundtrack of the Apocalypse.' Anyway, your description was apt/excellent, and this album become one of my instant favorites, not just a curiosity. And, by the way, whoda thunk that the Spanish vocals would be so effective, adding an esoteric arcaneness to the album?"
MPEG Stream: "excerpt from disco primero"
MPEG Stream: "excerpt from disco segundo"

CORRUPTED Nadie (Throne) 12" 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
One of the very first releases from thee rulers of downtuned heaviness, of doomy sludge, Japan's Corrupted. Most of the folks reading this list are pretty well familiar with Corrupted, whose records rank among all our all time favorites, sludge or otherwise. We recently listed the rerecording of the group's debut album Paso Inferior, now we have a vinyl reissue of one of their very first recordings, the Nadie ep, originally releases way back in 1995! It's been remastered, has all new artwork legendary Japanese photographer Kyotaka Tsurisaki, it comes in a super deluxe gatefold sleeves, and comes with a big poster on nice thick paper, and beyond all that, it is three tracks of the heaviest, most crushingly beautiful music you'll ever hear.
Years before doom and sludge and drone was a viable musical direction, Corrupted were one of the few bands in the underground carving their own doomy slow motion path. Back in the day, they played with and toured with and shared splits with punk and grind bands, as while they may have not shared a sound, they shared an aesthetic and a DIY ethic. And even 12 years ago, Corrupted were already turning pounding drums, massive downtuned riffage and howled vocals (in Spanish of course) into something almost symphonic, majestic, epic, beautiful, while remaining punishing and brutal and heavy.
Nadie is three tracks, 45pm, two shorter tracks that pound and pummel, a third sidelong track that hints at the droniness that would infuse their later recordings, with sheets of Eyehategod-like feedback, long drawn out chords, gorgeous and trancelike, as amazing now as it was more than a decade ago, and this record definitely casts lots of the wannabe doomdronedirge outfits as unworthy to even lug Corrupted's gear around.
This is not just drone and sludge for drone and sludge's sake, these are SONGS, perfectly arranged, parts woven into other parts, melodies, and harmonies, it's incredible complex, which is why the music of Corrupted resonates, and continues to move well beyond the boundaries of the genre they find themselves defining.
The is, needless to say, totally essential. The bad news is that it is LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES! And is already out of print. We got a BUNCH, but judging from how quickly the last limited Corrupted record disappeared, these are bound to be gone in a flash.

CORRUPTED Paso Inferior (Frigidity Discos) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Japanese crust-sludge band, super slow, super heavy. Their new disc. Some facts: 1) they just toured the States. 2) their lyrics are all sung in Spanish. 3) the drummer used to be in Omoide Hatoba, Boredoms guitarist Yamamoto's weird jazz/pop project, but he quit when Omoide signed to a major. 4) this album features only one song, it's 40+ minutes long... Great vegging-out music for fans of Earth, Sleep, Eyehategod, Swans, etc.

CORRUPTED Paso Inferior (Nostalgia Blackrain) cd 14.98
By now, most aQ customers are well aware of Japan's mighty Corrupted. Most we would guess, like us, are HUGE fans. Sure everybody loves Khanate and Moss and Bunkur and all the other monsters of modern slow motion sludge NOW, but Corrupted are the undisputed masters, and have been or more than a decade, THE forefathers, back when other bands were thrashing wildly, Corrupted were trudging along glacially, frantic riffing, nope, Corrupted were spitting out massive sheets of barely moving heaviness, blast beats, hardly, monstrous lumbering caveman pound. Plus they were singing in Spanish!
We've been waiting for ages, but finally, the first Corrupted full length, Paso Inferior, released originally in 1997, coinciding with their last trip to the states, has been reissued. Gussied up a bit, remastered, with some new artwork, a Japanese obi, but inside, it's still a brutally filthy, gloriously crusty, grinding sludgey pummeling ultradoom masterpiece.
One song, about 42 minutes, of massive, epic downtuned heaviness. So slow, and so minimal in places it's almost like a super heavy drone record, everywhere else, it crushes and pounds and puts pretty much every other funereal doom band to shame. It's not just the riffing and the drumming, or the growling hellish vocals, the core component of Corrupted's doom, seems to be forever trapped in a swirling cloud of squealing feedback, of buzzing distortion, of rumble and whir and grinding crunch and keening high end wails, a haunting ever shifting noisescape, that adds some serious subtle psychedelia to Corrupted's tarpit sludge. A veritable symphony of shrieks and skree, these walls of unwavering downtuned buzz are dragged behind this unstoppable metallic behemoth like some filthy black wake. If you suddenly removed the drums and the main riff, you'd almost have some fucked up Wolf Eyes or Prurient record. It's almost like an inadvertent mashup, punishing super heavy glacial doom, and freaked out FX drenched abstract free noise. The record opens and closes with several minutes of blown out soaring guitar drone, buzzing and swirling and all tangled up in smeared squalls of crumbling abstract psychrock, book ending Paso Inferior's expansive sprawling, incredibly intense, yet strangely beautiful doomic dirge, that while utterly grim and brutal, does manage to sound almost symphonic, as if somewhere in this churning black doom, the seeds of what Corrupted were to become, were already beginning to germinate.
So recommended. Absolutely one of the greatest doom/dirge/drone/sludge records EVER!!
MPEG Stream: "Paso Inferior Excerpt I"
MPEG Stream: "Paso Inferior Excerpt II"

CORRUPTED Paso Inferior (Frigidity Discos) lp 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
BACK IN STOCK ONCE AGAIN!!! LAST EVER COPIES DIRECT FROM THE LABEL!!!
A lot has changed since we first listed Paso Inferior nearly a decade ago. First, here's our very short review from way back then:
"Japanese crust-sludge band, super slow, super heavy. Their new disc. Some facts: 1) they just toured the States. 2) their lyrics are all sung in Spanish. 3) the drummer used to be in Omoide Hatoba, Boredoms guitarist Yamamoto's weird jazz/pop project, but he quit when Omoide signed to a major. 4) this album features only one song, it's 40+ minutes long... Great vegging-out music for fans of Earth, Sleep, Eyehategod, Swans, etc."
Well, all of that stuff still applies for sure, but this is not, as we initially thought, a vinyl reissue of the original cd. Instead this is a RE-recorded version of Paso Inferior, recorded in 2002, utilizing the same themes and melodies, but a whole new song, the A side sonically similar to the original, the B side, a droney blissed out drift, which is in fact an 'ambient version' of the original Paso Inferior!!
Since the original release, the group has released several more records, each slower and more epic than the last, even incorporating piano and acoustic guitar. And you can hear that in the reimagined Paso. Their appeal spread way beyond the punk rockers and hardcore kids who held them so beloved. Metalheads are Corrupted obsessed nowadays, as are the new breed of dronedirgedoom fanatics. But back in the Paso Inferior days, they were the underground kings of sludge, sharing splits with pretty much every power violence band that was up for it. A band that was spoken of in hushed reverent tones, but whose actual recorded output, included only a single full length, Paso Inferior.ĘThe spirit and power of the original are definitely present, but the sound is better, heavier, and weirdly pretty in that way only Corrupted seem to be able to pull off.
One sidelong doomsludge crawl, the guitars black and viscous, the track laced with squealing washed out feedback, the vocals a growled gurgle, the drums a loping lumbering pound, recent talk of a single 3 hour song don't seem at all far fetched when listening to the re-imagined Paso Inferior, there's something magical and mysterious about the music of Corrupted, no matter how slow or sludgey or stripped down, it never gets boring, it sucks you in and soothes your spirit, while it crashes and pummels, mesmerizing, hypnotic, so heavy, but weirdly transcendental.
The other half of the re-imagined Paso Inferior is another sidelong epic, this one dark and ambient, all shimmery drones, haunting melodies, mysterious voices, a dreamy drift rife with long tones, layered chords, but all muted and blurred and stretched into something more dark and lovely than grim and ominous, perfectly balancing the sludgey sprawl on the flipside.
All new artwork to go with the music, black on black, shiny on matte, the band logo and flames or drips or streaks of some kind, inside a printed insert, pressed on nice thick vinyl, and of course CRAZY limited. In fact this IS out of print now and we are very likely one of the only places with copies. Except maybe eBay. Which means, as always, these will go FAST. And once these LAST copies are gone, that's it.
MPEG Stream: "Paso Inferior Excerpt I"
MPEG Stream: "Paso Inferior Excerpt II"

CORRUPTED s/t (Third Culture) cdep 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
3 songs in 20 minutes of festering brutal heavy sludgecore 'sung' in Spanish by this band from Osaka. Features Chew, ex-Omoide Hatoba on tambor/drums.

CORRUPTED Se Hace Por Los Suenos Asesinos (HG Fact) cd 21.00
Sadly, the legendary Japanese label HG Fact, longtime home to sludgelords Corrupted, closed up shop recently, rendering loads of amazing records gone for good, but Corrupted managed to acquire a handful of remaining copies of this otherwise out of print doom/sludge classic, and we got as many as we could from them - not many. So this is indeed available again, for what we're guessing will be a very, very limited time...
Here's our review from way back in 2004 when we first listed Se Hace Por Los Suenos Asesinos (and back when Boris were still a doom/sludge band as well):
It's time.
Be afraid.
Very afraid.
Or if you're a typical AQ customer and love your rock music glacier slow, tarpit thick and skull crushingly heavy, well then, in that case there's nothing to be afraid of!
Everyone may quake and tremble when the mighty Boris unleash a new slab of black hole mega dense heaviosity. And rightfully so. Few can keep up when it comes to slow motion riffage, tectonic pummel and massive planet destroying rock. But there is another....one who came before....one who resurfaces occasionally....to remind the world that this sleeping behemoth can rise at anytime and raze all that dare proclaim themselves HEAVY. That beast...is known as... the Corrupted. One of the few bands in Japan, nay the WORLD, that can go toe to toe with Boris and hope to survive, perhaps even triumph. Some of you may remember Corrupted's massive two disc set Llenandose de Gusanos, from 3 or 4 years back, one disc of minimal drones, one disc of crushing sonic sludge (and piano). Maybe the finest document of death/doom/drone/sludge ever recorded - except perhaps for the rumoured-to-exist triple disc (!) SINGLE SONG (!!) Corrupted epic that has yet to surface. But for now, we'll have to be happy with this new 35 minute monster. The disc opens with a 17 minute ambient folk dirge, just acoustic guitar and harshly whispered/grunted vocals. In Spanish (as always) and rumblingly hypnotic. Like a ultra grim, creepily acoustic Neurosis, all stripped down and stretched out. Never imagined just a voice and an acoustic guitar could be so fucking scary, but for almost twenty minutes, the low end folk sludge stretches on seemingly forever, narcoticizing and mesmerizing, before the second track drops like a ton of lead Marshall stacks. Massively loud and perplexingly heavy, HUGE slabs of downtuned guitars pour molten riffs down your willing throat, filling you with black tar melodies, jagged limb smashing drumming, and bass so low it seems to loosen the earth's crust around you. The final track picks up the pace, to barely midtempo, but certainly a breakneck speed for a lumbering behemoth like the Corrupted. Drummer Chew (formerly of Omoide Hatoba) gets to go all Animal on this track, smashing everything within reach, the only thing keeping him behind the kit is the impenetratable wall of mile-thick ocean-deep sonic sludge, like pouring a bucket of hot molasses on a porcupine. Or dropping a sea anenome in a vat of hot glue, or like listening to Black Sabbath with your ears full of mud. Where Boris is channelling all sort of seventies rock, and stoner riffage, albeit through their own slow motion filter, Corrupted are just really fucking scary. A huge uncontainable, slithering, squirming, unstoppable, slow-motion, crusty metallic black hole.
MPEG Stream: "Track One (Se Hace...)"
MPEG Stream: "Rato Triste"

CORRUPTED / DISCORDANCE AXIS / 324 split (HG Fact) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Three-way split cd featuring a new seventeen minute long song from Japan's Spanish-speaking kings of doom, Corrupted! But that's not all. American "grindcore ninja commando team" Discordance Axis, who also rate highly in the international metalcore aristocracy, open things up with some of their drumgod Dave Witte fueled blasting, before (surprisingly) drifting into an almost-silent ambient piece! That sets things up nicely for the massive entry of Corrupted's track "Bloodscape", some HEAVY sludge as expected, but one with some also surprising "post-rock" style twists we won't reveal... A tough act to follow, but less-well-known Japanese quartet 324 acquits themselves well with three noisy, thrashy, pummelling songs, including a Crumbsuckers cover! (Hail to the old school!) Happily, we were able to get a bunch of this hard-to-find Japanese import, but judging by the way Corrupted fans are (in a word: rabid), we don't think these will last long...
RealAudio clip: CORRUPTED "Bloodscape"
RealAudio clip: 324 "Terminal Chamber"

CORRUPTED / NOOTHGRUSH (Reservoir) split cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
2 songs by Japan's kings of sludgemetal Corrupted, and 3 songs by Bay Area power violence doomsters Noothgrush. Like a chainsaw trapped in molasses or something...

COUGH Ritual Abuse (Relapse) cd 15.98
Record number two from these Virginia doomlords, a crushing collection of druggy, dirgey ultradoom, a lumbering sludge juggernaut, filthy distorted guitars, crushing drum pound, hellish shrieks, but something's changed this time around, cuz in addition to those harsh vokills, there's some serious vocalizing going on, that manages to nudge Cough's sound a little bit away from filthy crusty doomsludge toward something more classically doom, we're feeling a little Electric Wizard perhaps? The band dabbled a bit on their last record, but here those vocals are way up in the mix, still wreathed in reverb and delay, but the subtle groove of Cough's stonery sludge becomes much more pronounced with those vocals, which is not a bad thing at all, the band stumbling from pure grim downtuned plodding filth to swinging Sabbathy groove, even adding some surprisingly melodic guitar leads and lush swirls of spaced out effects which produces a sort of weirdly melodic sludgey space rock, which RULES.
But fear not, the band inevitably slip back into something sludgier, but not TOO sludgey, as those clean vocals seem to outnumber the harsh vocals pretty significantly. So if you're in the market for some total Eyehategod worship, you might be better served with the first Cough record, but if you're up for some slightly more melodic heaviness, this record should definitely do the trick.
Especially if you stick around for "Crooked Spine", which is ridiculously poppy, sounding a bit like a stoner sludge version of a Codeine track, a sort of druggier, sludgier slowcore, the vocals super poppy, maybe hinting at a more melodic Cough to come.
But again, all you have to do is hold on for a few more minutes, and the title track swoops in, and flattens you with its sheer malevolent crush, a lurching lumbering sludge EPIC, complete with a killer spaced out effects laden doomdirgedrone breakdown, and a final burst of skull crushing riffage.
MPEG Stream: "Mind Collapse"
MPEG Stream: "Ritual Abuse"

COUGH Ritual Abuse (Relapse) 2lp 27.00
NOW HERE AS A DOUBLE, COLORED VINYL LP!
Record number two from these Virginia doomlords, a crushing collection of druggy, dirgey ultradoom, a lumbering sludge juggernaut, filthy distorted guitars, crushing drum pound, hellish shrieks, but something's changed this time around, cuz in addition to those harsh vokills, there's some serious vocalizing going on, that manages to nudge Cough's sound a little bit away from filthy crusty doomsludge toward something more classically doom, we're feeling a little Electric Wizard perhaps? The band dabbled a bit on their last record, but here those vocals are way up in the mix, still wreathed in reverb and delay, but the subtle groove of Cough's stonery sludge becomes much more pronounced with those vocals, which is not a bad thing at all, the band stumbling from pure grim downtuned plodding filth to swinging Sabbathy groove, even adding some surprisingly melodic guitar leads and lush swirls of spaced out effects which produces a sort of weirdly melodic sludgey space rock, which RULES.
But fear not, the band inevitably slip back into something sludgier, but not TOO sludgey, as those clean vocals seem to outnumber the harsh vocals pretty significantly. So if you're in the market for some total Eyehategod worship, you might be better served with the first Cough record, but if you're up for some slightly more melodic heaviness, this record should definitely do the trick.
Especially if you stick around for "Crooked Spine", which is ridiculously poppy, sounding a bit like a stoner sludge version of a Codeine track, a sort of druggier, sludgier slowcore, the vocals super poppy, maybe hinting at a more melodic Cough to come.
But again, all you have to do is hold on for a few more minutes, and the title track swoops in, and flattens you with its sheer malevolent crush, a lurching lumbering sludge EPIC, complete with a killer spaced out effects laden doomdirgedrone breakdown, and a final burst of skull crushing riffage.
MPEG Stream: "Mind Collapse"
MPEG Stream: "Ritual Abuse"

COUGH Sigillum Luciferi (Forcefield Records) cd 10.98
On first glance, you might assume this was a black metal record. The cover is all black, with intricate metallic silver inked designs, a strange pentagram like shape in the center, pentagrams on all four corners, there's even an upside down cross in the band logo. But then you realize the band is in fact called Cough. And that all around that strange pentagram like sigil in the center are the distinct shape of pot leaves.
Then the music starts with a solid 15 seconds of high end solid state feedback, before the band kicks in, and we are suddenly in druggy slow motion ultra stoner doom country, and we like it. In fact it's almost three minutes of nearly continuous Eyehategod style feedback, separated by the occasional crash of the band, before the song really kicks in, and then the band lock into a lurching druggy stoner groove, more Electric Wizard than Eyehategod, but still plenty of both. Clean vocals carry the melody, but harsh blackened shrieks pepper the landscape, the riffs huge churning downtuned black swells, about as slow as a band can get while remaining even slightly 'groovy'. And don't worry, throughout, the band pause now and again to unleash lightning bolts of high end feedback, before lurching back into action.
And so it goes. Six long songs, each blessed with a handful of kick ass riffery, oozing hate and distortion and filth and crust, the rhythms staggering from doomic plod, to druggy slither, to an almost rocking pound, the riffs slipping into Sabbath territory, but usually straying much further south. The band dabble here and there in tripped out space rock, getting a little psychedelic, the vocals wreathed in effects, the melodies crazy catchy, but no matter what, they thankfully never wander too far from their gloriously filthy fucked up drug drenched doom-ed sludge.
MPEG Stream: "Killing Fields"
MPEG Stream: "Lyssavirus"

COUGH Sigillum Luciferi (Forcefield / Electric Earth / Feast Of Tentacles) 2lp 30.00
Now At Last On Vinyl!!!
On first glance, you might assume this was a black metal record. The cover is all black, with intricate metallic silver inked designs, a strange pentagram like shape in the center, pentagrams on all four corners, there's even an upside down cross in the band logo. But then you realize the band is in fact called Cough. And that all around that strange pentagram like sigil in the center are the distinct shape of pot leaves.
Then the music starts with a solid 15 seconds of high end solid state feedback, before the band kicks in, and we are suddenly in druggy slow motion ultra stoner doom country, and we like it. In fact it's almost three minutes of nearly continuous Eyehategod style feedback, separated by the occasional crash of the band, before the song really kicks in, and then the band lock into a lurching druggy stoner groove, more Electric Wizard than Eyehategod, but still plenty of both. Clean vocals carry the melody, but harsh blackened shrieks pepper the landscape, the riffs huge churning downtuned black swells, about as slow as a band can get while remaining even slightly 'groovy'. And don't worry, throughout, the band pause now and again to unleash lightning bolts of high end feedback, before lurching back into action.
And so it goes. Six long songs, each blessed with a handful of kick ass riffery, oozing hate and distortion and filth and crust, the rhythms staggering from doomic plod, to druggy slither, to an almost rocking pound, the riffs slipping into Sabbath territory, but usually straying much further south. The band dabble here and there in tripped out space rock, getting a little psychedelic, the vocals wreathed in effects, the melodies crazy catchy, but no matter what, they thankfully never wander too far from their gloriously filthy fucked up drug drenched doom-ed sludge.
MPEG Stream: "Killing Fields"
MPEG Stream: "Lyssavirus"

COUGH / WOUNDED KINGS An Introduction To The Black Arts (Forcefield) 12" 12.98
At first this heavy duty doom matchup seems like maybe it wouldn't work, sure both bands are technically doom, but both seem to exist on different ends of the doom-ic spectrum, with Cough spitting out a sludgier, more raw and crusty sort of Eyehategod meets Electric Wizard feedback drenched slow-mo crush, while The Wounded Kings traffic in something closer to true doom, more melodic, less sludgey, but surprisingly enough it works, both bands offering up some of their best material, a side long epic from each, Cough infusing some serious melody and some of that classic Sabbath sound into their lurching and lumbering pummel, while the Wounded Kings get a little bit sludgey themselves.
Hot on the heels of their amazing Ritual Abuse full length, reviewed here recently, Cough come up with a nearly 20 minute dirge that almost sounds like it could have been recorded during the same sessions (and maybe was?). Beginning with a slow spaced out bit of funereal doom, lots of space, even a tolling bell, the band soon launch into some caustic filthy blacksludge brutality, downtuned and malevolent, with some seriously sick vokills, all wrapped around a killer, main chugging riff, it's not until nearly half way through that the band decide to get all melodic, with some effects drenched vox, WAY up in the mix, all spacey and trippy, laced over that main riff, that seems to start swinging just a bit more, then there's some awesome psychedelic wah wah guitar leads, and we're in seriously classic true doom territory for sure, before eventually slipping back into the lugubrious sludge of the song's first half, and then finally an awesome layered feedback outro.
The Wounded Kings counter with a smoldering slow building intro, all whirring organs, downtuned chordal crush, eventually launching into a keyboard laced melodic lumber, a sound that could go either way, into shrieking blackness, or soaring epicness, some tangled swaths of wah wah guitar give us our first clue, before slipping right back into some more downtuned chug, but then finally, the vocals swoop in, and the sound is transformed into some epic Sabbathy true doom, the vocals growing more and more melodic as the track progresses, the guitars too, but before the song can explode, the track slips into a super minimal organ driven bit of psych prog, which rules, but only lasts for a minute or two before the song proper bursts back into action a fusion of the downtuned doom and that psychedelic prog, finishing off with an epic and dramatic climax before fading out, leaving a shadowy bit of tinkling piano.
MPEG Stream: COUGH "The Gates Of Madness"
MPEG Stream: THE WOUNDED KINGS "Curse Of Chains"

CREVICES BELOW, THE Below The Crevices (Nordvis) cd 13.98
How could we resist a band called The Crevices Below, whose album is titled Below The Crevices? Hell, just check out album opener "Below The Crevices" (yes!!!), a creeping atmospheric synth heavy subterranean exploration, that does sound precisely like a field recording of what lurks just below the crevices, all blackened swirls, strange machine like rhythms, ominous melodies, anguished wails off in the distance, eventually spidery doomy guitars drift into the picture, and then suddenly, the song explodes in a frenzy of furious synth soaked black blasting, everything cavernous and echoey, the vocals a rasped bellow, the drums pounding, the guitars buzzing, but those thick droning synths transforming the sound into something weirdly alien and majestic. And then out of nowhere, in comes an impossibly melodic clean guitar part, again transforming the sound into something almost poppy, the sound slipping back and forth between that grim synthy buzz, and that soaring melodic poppiness, dense and heavy and droney and totally epic.
Not really sure how we discovered this Australian one man band, pretty sure it was based entirely on the band name, but our obsession spread, first Andee, then Allan, then fellow black metal weirdo Botanist, then aQ pal Monte. Soon after Andee played it on his radio show, and everyone wanted to know what the heck it was. And where they could get it.
So yeah, The Crevices Below, who besides being masters of synth heavy black metal majesty, also create a dark gloomy downer pop the likes of which we haven't heard since the amazing debut from Nuit Noire offshoot Soror Dolorosa, which is how most of Below The Crevices plays out: gothy, gloomy, Joy Divisiony dirges, long expanses of melancholic synthswirl doom pop, washed out and dreamily woozy,Ęover which a deep ominous croon, that sits right on the verge of hysteria,Ęwails and howls, occasionally blossoming into something much more black and buzzy, in fact most of the tracks here are a perfectly twisted fusion of goth pop and black buzz, heavy and darkly psychedelic, the synths really the driving force, swooping in to transform what ever buzzing blackness or dour broodery is taking place and turning it into something heavy and epic and mighty, and mighty twisted.
When you break it down, very little of Below The Crevices is truly black metal, several of the tracks strip away the buzz completely, leaving instead a sort of creeping poppy gloom, or some sort of softly hazy, almost shoegazey ambience. "Whispers Of Sorrow" is all spidery guitar melodies wreathed in thick swaths of synthdrone, all underpinned by skeletal drum skitter, while "Trapped In Suicidal Depths" is all gloomy and gothy, heavily effected downtuned guitars, low slung bass, croaked sinister vox, more Christian Death or Specimen than black metal, super spare, the guitars less buzzy and more warm and twangy, the vocals growing more and more anguished, and while there's a brief bit of buzzing guitars and pounding drums midway through, those quickly fade, leaving the rest of the track to unfold like some smeared eyeliner, gothic cabaret.
But bookending this goth-gloom two-fer, is one one side, "A Grand Cavernous Awakening", which might be the most black metal of the bunch, at least initially, the synths adding plenty of pomp to on otherwise grim sprawl of black buzz, while the second half of the song, slips back into moody melodic gothic doom pop, and on the other side, the record closer, the nearly eleven minute "Carrying The Cries Of The Lost", which starts off all hushed and folky, deep vox over acoustic guitar, and simple spare drumming, but then this track too explodes into some soaring buzzing blackness, those synths epic and triumphant, peeling away at one point, offering up the record's grimmest moments, pure metallic crush, only to then shift gears again, and slip into a more melodic half tempo groove, seconds later launching back into a blasting gallop, but instead of grim buzz, super dramatic crooned vox once again transform the sound into something much more gloomy and poppy, before a twisted squall of an ending, flitting from mathy angular crunch, to distorted buzz / synth swirl psychedelia.
So incredible, incredibly weird, and utterly recommended. Another black metal record of the year contender and it's only January (and yeah, we know this came out last year, but it only made it on the aQ list in 2012...)!!
MPEG Stream: "Below The Crevices"
MPEG Stream: "The Tombs Of Subterranea"
MPEG Stream: "Trapped In Suicidal Depths"

CROWBAR Equilibrium (Spitfire) cd 16.98
The latest release from this band of heavy New Orleans doom peddlers. Formerly monolithic, monotonous sludge metal not really on par with the similar likes of EYEHATEGOD, Crowbar have now become a much more mulit-dimensioned band and are well-worth checking out. Fans of the late great Acid Bath should be aware that former AB guitarist Sammy Duet (also now of Goatwhore) has added some of the melody and imagination of Acid Bath to Crowbar's sound. One example: the beautiful piano dirge "To Touch The Hand of God". Also, there's a pretty great cover version of "Dream Weaver" to close out the album!

CROWNED IN EARTH Visions Of The Haunted (Shadow Kingdom) cd 14.98
Doomhounds, arise from ye slumbers! The Shadow Kingdom label knows what you want, and have dug up yet another dismal dirge-like debut for your delight. Right on the spine it proudly says "English Doom" and indeed Crowned In Earth hail from that green and pleasant land, home of course to thee originators of doom metal, Black Sabbath. And so naturally Crowned In Earth echo Sabbath in spots, that's no surprise, most practitioners of the form do to some degree, from wherever they may come. But apart from Sabbath, the English Doom band this act most resembles is (early) Cathedral, especially on the disc's longest (by a smidge) track, "Miles I Walk", which clocks in at 8:59. Songs need to be that long when played with such solemn majesty (and at such molasses-like speeds). Crowned In Earth keep to a slow and plodding pace, mostly, though upon occasion they break, if not into a NWOBHM-ish gallop, at least into a spirited trot. Their sludgy but swinging riffs are adorned with singsongy vocal chant, delivered cleanly and nigh melodically, in a deep and phlegmy voice, which is one reason in particular for the Cathedral comparison. Again, we'll specify early Cathedral, circa the Soul Sacrifice ep, to get really precise. Along with the doleful guitars, the occasional touch of organ adds an extra measure of sombre regality, and brings up comparisons also to another English ensemble of doom, The Wounded Kings. While this breaks no new ground, the earth they're crowned in being far from freshly dug, this should appeal to fans of trad doom, especially Cathedral, and Reverend Bizarre, who we didn't mention already but are definitely hearing here.
By the way, it turns out that CoE are almost entirely a one-man band (but not the sort that, you know, performs that way, busking on subway platforms or whatever). Englishman Kevin Lawry, whom you'll see wandering in front of a castle with his girlfriend (?) in the cd photos, wrote all the music and lyrics, and performs the vocal, guitar, bass, and organ parts. He did however recruit a Yank to play the drums (well, both Black Sabbath and Cathedral did that too): Darin McCloskey, from Pale Divine, Falcon, and Sinister Realm. But otherwise it's all Lawry's show, and while maybe we think he could have used some help with the graphic design, he should be commended for being sooooo dooooomy all by himself. Hmm, heck, maybe that helps!
MPEG Stream: "Downward Spiral"
MPEG Stream: "Miles I Walk"

CRUEVO / BRAINOIL split (Unknown Controller / Shifty / Boredom Noise / Berserker) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Two local (Oakland) metal bands duke it out on this split disc, one so heavy that it took four labels to put it out. Cruevo say they play "crusty sledgehammer stoner doom" while Brainoil opt to describe themselves as a "crusty wizard sludge metal" band. Well, whatever they want to call it, both bands churn out some mighty heavy, ugly punk/metal, doubtless inspired by such bands as Buzzoven, Eyehategod, Neurosis, and High On Fire. Yet more nightmare Sabbath spawn unleashed upon the world... In case it helps in your purchasing decision, here's what t-shirts the various band members are seen wearing in the booklet photos: Assuck, Spirit Caravan, Destruction, Oakland Raiders, Weedeater (we think) and Sunn.
Extra points go to Cruevo for the Shut Up Little Man! sample introducing their half of the disc.

CULT OF LUNA s/t (Rage Of Achilles) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT.... BUT IT HAS NOW BEEN REISSUED ON EARACHE!! SEE LISTING ELSEWHERE ON OUR SITE
As if that great new Isis record weren't enough, we've also finally managed to procure a few copies of this, the hard-to-find 2001 debut album by Swedish metalcore outfit Cult Of Luna, a band definitely in the heavier-than-thou, art-metal mode of fellow tortured souls Isis and mentors Neurosis (circa "Enemy Of The Sun"). Unrelenting waves of mid-to-slow-paced guitar/bass/drum punishment provide the backdrop to the vocalist's throaty screams of pain. Even with the piano and cello that decorate portions of this album, and the occasional quiet interludes offering false respite from their sheer HEAVINESS, it's pretty much a doomy trip of massive, suicidally depressing proportions, with cold, sad melodies making them not unlike a metalcore version of fellow morose countrymen Katatonia. Yeah, Katatonia + Neurosis, that about sums 'em up!
RealAudio clip: "The Revelation Embodied"
RealAudio clip: "Hollow"
RealAudio clip: "Dark Side Of The Sun"

CULTED Bellow The Thunders Of The Upper Deep (Relapse) cd 14.98
Epic blackened doom metal from this intercontinental combo, three members in Canada, one in Sweden. The four have never been in a studio together, and one of the guys has never even met the other three, but that hasn't kept them from crafting some seriously epic, dismal doooooom. Sludge-y, crusty, grim and blackened, the guitars are huge slabs of frosty crunch, the drums pound and pound, the vocals a raspy wintery howl, the tracks lengthy and mantra-like, some weird blend of Khanate's ultra funeral crawl, the post Sabbath sludge of Electric Wizard, the epic slow builds of Neurosis, old school death doom like Winter, all wound into something much more modern sounding. The vocals especially, not really black shrieks or doomy growls, instead they're some sort of super distorted harsh hellish howl, almost industrial sounding, but it suits the music, which slips from almost post rock drift, to seriously dense downtuned crush, to spaced out almost psychedelia, to churning, grinding sludge, often exploding into epic, majestic doom psych blowouts, or locking into seemingly endless chugscapes, oozing with black atmosphere, and always seemingly on the edge of total collapse, a plodding metallic deathmarch that resolves in a cloud of glitched out low end buzz. Cool. And killer diecut digipackaging to boot...
MPEG Stream: "Tyrant Cold"
MPEG Stream: "Social Control"
MPEG Stream: "Place Of Skulls"

CULTED Of Death & Ritual (Relapse) cd 11.98
We recently reviewed the debut full length from this mysterious intercontinental doom combo, whose members are spread across Canada and Sweden, and who have never met in person, and thus obviously never been in the same room together, which made that record, and this new one, all the more impressive.
But perhaps proximity isn't critical to tapping into whatever sinister spirit inspires the sort of filthy doomic crust these guys conjure up. And the sound here is plenty filthy, crusty, AND doomy, and like the first record, a little industrial. Their sound borrows a little from the likely suspects, Winter, Khanate, Electric Wizard, Neurosis and the like, but Culted take those influences and filter them through some seriously blackened sludge, some avant post rock, some industrial crunch, and twists them all up into something gnarled and psychedelic and heavy as fuck.
The two minute opener, is a lumbering chugscape, that sounds like the slower bits from say Spektr or Blut Aus Nord, stop / start churning riffage, over swirls of filthy ambience, a machine like groove, super distorted vox, a black industrial juggernaut, over way too soon, which leads into the 10 plus minute, awesomely titled "Black Cough, Black Coffin", a slow smoldering creep, droned out downtuned guitars, glacial riffage, more hellish vokills, eventually building to a lumbering blackened plod, again, the rhythm almost industrial, the guitars distorted and crushing, the track allowed a brief bit of shimmery drone, before returning to the grim grinding sonic churn, the vocals growing more and more distorted, almost Ministry style, a pounding black doom dirge juggernaut. "Dissent" is a bit more poppy, but that's really relative, a little Jesu / Nadja infused into Culted's grim black crush, with some spaced out clean guitar, billowy clouds of washed out chordal blur, the vocals buried WAY down in the mix, a strange headtripping ambient doom drift, that lurches back into caveman plod, before finishing up all post rocky, with spare percussion, hushed ambience, spidery minor key guitars, a surprisingly lovely outro.
The record finishes with the sub 5 minute "Whore", a Swans cover, which in the hands of Culted becomes a seriously twisted black doom crawl, with a woozy slippery ascending main riff, some more seriously fucked up and harrowing vokills, the sound eventually shifting to something more traditionally doomy, but still infused with Culted's sick twisted take on Swans abject clang and crunch.
MPEG Stream: "Black Cough, Black Coffin"
MPEG Stream: "Dissent"

CYNIC Traced In Air (Season Of Mist) cd 14.98

DAD THEY BROKE ME ROT (We Empty Rooms) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
How can a country with a population as small as Australia produce so much heaviness?? Grey Daturas, Whitehorse, Fire Witch and now Dad They Broke Me, who just might be the heaviest of the bunch. Seriously blown out, black-hole-heavy doom dirge sludge, lurching, lumbering, pummeling, pounding, guitars thick and corrosive and black as pitch, tuned WAY down, the drums a crashing, rib cage rattling battery, the vocals, bile spewing demonic shrieks and guttural monstrous bellows, the songs dense and intricate, mathy and metal, proggy and convoluted, lots of stuttery start stop, bursts of feedback, churning chugging riffage, long stretches of rumbling buzz, think Eyehategod, Unsane, Khanate, Corrupted, Zeni Geva and the like, a glorious AmRep style noise rock / extreme doom / Southern sludge hybrid, but way more filthy and crusty and droned out and hypnotically brutal and bleak, with occasional bursts of murky muddy grind, and total tranced out downtuned dirgery, easily one of the meanest, heaviest discs in recent memory, and most definitely a new favorite amongst the aQ heavies.
LIMITED TO 150 COPIES, housed in a folded cardstock sleeve, with a sticker cover front and back, a printed insert, each one hand numbered.
MPEG Stream: "Sutured"
MPEG Stream: "Swine Filth Hate God"
MPEG Stream: "Gutted Slowly"

DANAVA Hemisphere Of Shadows (Kemado) cd 10.98
It's not really all that much fun writing a review of this new Danava album. What's fun is listening to it, turned up loud... and maybe getting buzzed on a substance of choice whilst doing so. Whoo-hoo! Granted, that's the case with lots of albums, classics like say Deep Purple In Rock or Alice Cooper's Love It To Death. The kind that require, nay inspire, such behavior. Those, though, weren't just released, but this was, so all the more an occasion for drunken loud listening. They don't make 'em like this all that often anymore, so kudos to Kemado for bringing us the real deal (ironic, isn't it). Though its exactly what we've come to expect from Portland psych-prog-stoner rockers Danava, and are happy to hear once again.
Since the time we checked in with these boys, they've undergone some lineup changes. They now rock to the beat of a different drummer, for one thing. And the guy who only played synths is gone now... but in his stead, way better yet, they've added a 2nd guitarist for extra twin axe attackin', so that's a win. The bassist and the singin' lead guitarist are the same, and that's what really matters in this band, those dudes. They slay.
Needless (at this point) to say, this new album is a killer, replete from the very get-go with rollicking, riff-rockin' badassery. These new Danava jams are seriously being kicked, way out. And they're, y'know, real songs too, with real vocals and everythin', like it's back in 1973 or so and they've got something to prove, those twin guitars givin' with the glorious harmonies (think Thin Lizzy, on the song "I Am The Skull" here especially). They sound like old time Pentagram too, but galloping like they wuz in the Preakness. The Preakness of freakness. Danava are doin' it, here. They're gonna out rock, out prog, out psych, out retro-proto-metal all comers. Speedy and sinuous, no doubt a bit of stress on all the wrists and necks involved in the making of this music. And there's still the usual embellishments of spacey synthy FX sprinkled about, even with that one guy gone. It's all almost a bit overwhelming, which is why it's nice that the very last track, the instrumental "Dying Into The Light" winds things up on a calming, eerily pretty note. Whew...
And, it should be noted that they further pay tribute to their '70s forebears by covering a song, "The Last Goodbye", by obscure UK blooze bashers Slowbone, not that you'd think it wasn't one of their own.
So, yep, getting ripped and listening to these guys rip (rollercoaster style, like they do) is of course way better than writing or reading this review. The response should be obvious. We, or well at least one of us anyway, is gonna kick back and crank this right now. You, should buy a copy and do the same as soon as you can.
By the way, all that drink/drug stuff is meant metaphorically, for all we know the guys in Danava, and their intended listening audience, are super straight edge, not stoners, let alone beer drinkers and hell raisers - though we doubt it.
MPEG Stream: "Shoot Straight With A Crooked Gun"
MPEG Stream: "The Last Goodbye"
MPEG Stream: "I Am The Skull"

DANAVA Hemisphere Of Shadows (Kemado) lp 17.98
It's not really all that much fun writing a review of this new Danava album. What's fun is listening to it, turned up loud... and maybe getting buzzed on a substance of choice whilst doing so. Whoo-hoo! Granted, that's the case with lots of albums, classics like say Deep Purple In Rock or Alice Cooper's Love It To Death. The kind that require, nay inspire, such behavior. Those, though, weren't just released, but this was, so all the more an occasion for drunken loud listening. They don't make 'em like this all that often anymore, so kudos to Kemado for bringing us the real deal (ironic, isn't it). Though its exactly what we've come to expect from Portland psych-prog-stoner rockers Danava, and are happy to hear once again.
Since the time we checked in with these boys, they've undergone some lineup changes. They now rock to the beat of a different drummer, for one thing. And the guy who only played synths is gone now... but in his stead, way better yet, they've added a 2nd guitarist for extra twin axe attackin', so that's a win. The bassist and the singin' lead guitarist are the same, and that's what really matters in this band, those dudes. They slay.
Needless (at this point) to say, this new album is a killer, replete from the very get-go with rollicking, riff-rockin' badassery. These new Danava jams are seriously being kicked, way out. And they're, y'know, real songs too, with real vocals and everythin', like it's back in 1973 or so and they've got something to prove, those twin guitars givin' with the glorious harmonies (think Thin Lizzy, on the song "I Am The Skull" here especially). They sound like old time Pentagram too, but galloping like they wuz in the Preakness. The Preakness of freakness. Danava are doin' it, here. They're gonna out rock, out prog, out psych, out retro-proto-metal all comers. Speedy and sinuous, no doubt a bit of stress on all the wrists and necks involved in the making of this music. And there's still the usual embellishments of spacey synthy FX sprinkled about, even with that one guy gone. It's all almost a bit overwhelming, which is why it's nice that the very last track, the instrumental "Dying Into The Light" winds things up on a calming, eerily pretty note. Whew...
And, it should be noted that they further pay tribute to their '70s forebears by covering a song, "The Last Goodbye", by obscure UK blooze bashers Slowbone, not that you'd think it wasn't one of their own.
So, yep, getting ripped and listening to these guys rip (rollercoaster style, like they do) is of course way better than writing or reading this review. The response should be obvious. We, or well at least one of us anyway, is gonna kick back and crank this right now. You, should buy a copy and do the same as soon as you can.
By the way, all that drink/drug stuff is meant metaphorically, for all we know the guys in Danava, and their intended listening audience, are super straight edge, not stoners, let alone beer drinkers and hell raisers - though we doubt it.
MPEG Stream: "Shoot Straight With A Crooked Gun"
MPEG Stream: "The Last Goodbye"
MPEG Stream: "I Am The Skull"

DANAVA Unonou (Kemado) cd 14.98
A rockin' return (of course!) from Portland's finest, the mighty Danava. Retro stoner rock melodic metallic garage prog psych heaviness. Whew that's a mouthful. What did we say about 'em when reviewing their recent 7"? "A band whose ripping '70s style metallic power trio action is augmented by a dusting of trippy space rock synthesizer soundz from fourth member Rockwell."
The deal with Danava is that, bottom line, they rip. Metal or indie or retro or hipster or whatever, we don't really care, we just know that they obviously love the same sort of '70s prog excess we dig (a la Sabbath's Sabotage), with flamboyant keyboard flourishes (check out the last minute of "Where Beauty And Terror Dance" ferinstance), write actual songs, sing 'em too, and totally kick ass live. Maybe that's not much to ask from a band, but these days, such real deal rock n' roll acts are few and far between. Likewise with kick ass albums like this one. Who else might we cite? Birds Of Avalon are one of 'em. Also recent Danava tour mates Witchcraft. And Oakland's Drunk Horse (imagine them in cahoots with SF's Crime In Choir perhaps, to approach the boogie prog shred you get with Danava).
Unonou brings fans another seven songs sprung from the bulging collective Danava forehead, in the manner to which we have become accustomed. Which means, they feature virtuosic guitar (and bass) solo action, frenzied drumming, Ozzish vocals (very much so, up to and including some snippets of the lyrics), and the aforementioned eccentric electronic embellishments. Plus, this time 'round, there's a frickin' horn section throwing down in several songs! The album ends with the 13+ minute "Mind Gone Separate Ways", wherein the band manage to kick out the jams whilst making melodic space rock fusion, wow. Yep Unonou has got its share of sinister moodiness and spaceouts but consists mostly of REALLY energetic rollercoaster, uh, rippage (to use that term once more). Danava's '70s era references/influences would seem to include proggy Black Sabbath, early Blue Oyster Cult, lashings of Gobin (like the disco-ish groove that starts off "The Emerald Snow Of Sleep"), very early Alice Cooper, maybe even Jobraith... If that sounds good to you, get this, and definitely don't miss 'em live whenever that chance presents itself.
MPEG Stream: "Where Beauty And Terror Dance"
MPEG Stream: "Spinning Temple Shifting"

DANAVA Unonou (Kemado) 2lp 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NOW ON VINYL TOO!
A rockin' return (of course!) from Portland's finest, the mighty Danava. Retro stoner rock melodic metallic garage prog psych heaviness. Whew that's a mouthful. What did we say about 'em when reviewing their recent 7"? "A band whose ripping '70s style metallic power trio action is augmented by a dusting of trippy space rock synthesizer soundz from fourth member Rockwell."
The deal with Danava is that, bottom line, they rip. Metal or indie or retro or hipster or whatever, we don't really care, we just know that they obviously love the same sort of '70s prog excess we dig (a la Sabbath's Sabotage), with flamboyant keyboard flourishes (check out the last minute of "Where Beauty And Terror Dance" ferinstance), write actual songs, sing 'em too, and totally kick ass live. Maybe that's not much to ask from a band, but these days, such real deal rock n' roll acts are few and far between. Likewise with kick ass albums like this one. Who else might we cite? Birds Of Avalon are one of 'em. Also recent Danava tour mates Witchcraft. And Oakland's Drunk Horse (imagine them in cahoots with SF's Crime In Choir perhaps, to approach the boogie prog shred you get with Danava).
Unonou brings fans another seven songs sprung from the bulging collective Danava forehead, in the manner to which we have become accustomed. Which means, they feature virtuosic guitar (and bass) solo action, frenzied drumming, Ozzish vocals (very much so, up to and including some snippets of the lyrics), and the aforementioned eccentric electronic embellishments. Plus, this time 'round, there's a frickin' horn section throwing down in several songs! The album ends with the 13+ minute "Mind Gone Separate Ways", wherein the band manage to kick out the jams whilst making melodic space rock fusion, wow. Yep Unonou has got its share of sinister moodiness and spaceouts but consists mostly of REALLY energetic rollercoaster, uh, rippage (to use that term once more). Danava's '70s era references/influences would seem to include proggy Black Sabbath, early Blue Oyster Cult, lashings of Gobin (like the disco-ish groove that starts off "The Emerald Snow Of Sleep"), very early Alice Cooper, maybe even Jobraith... If that sounds good to you, get this, and definitely don't miss 'em live whenever that chance presents itself.
MPEG Stream: "Where Beauty And Terror Dance"
MPEG Stream: "Spinning Temple Shifting"

DANAVA Where Beauty & Terror Dance (Kemado) 7" 3.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yay, two new songs from Portland's finest melodic heavy psych rockers Danava, a band whose ripping '70s style metallic power trio action is augmented by a dusting of trippy space rock synthesizer soundz from fourth member Rockwell... Just saw 'em recently opening for Witchcraft, one of the only bands around that's capable of giving us as much of a rock n' roll thrill as these guys.
On this seven inch (which includes a coupon enabling a free download of mp3 versions of these tracks) you get the title cut "Where Beauty & Terror Dance", and on the flip, their cover of "Jericho" by fuzzblasted English psychedelic proto-metallers Stray, originally from that band's 1971 album Suicide. All right!

DANTESCO s/t (Stormspell) cd 11.98
Recently we highlighted the new album from Puerto Rico's most epic doomy operatic metal band, Dantesco, Seven Years Of Battle. Simultaneously released with that, Stormspell has also brought out this raging disc of demos from their very first year of battle, back in 2004. They were as over the top and impressive then as they are now. Plus bonus tracks, including two more covers rather revealing of their obscure epic influences: "Queen In Black" originally by Swedish cult Sorcerer (whose album has recently been reissued, and we'll probably be listing soon!) and "Deliver Us From Evil" by the legendary Warlord, which by itself would be enough to get the true metal heads here at AQ to buy this, though we'd be buying it anyway since we're Dantesco fans already! For those, like us, who can't get enough of the EPIC! (Or the unintentional visual hilarity of this otherwise quite serious -sounding- band's band photos...)
As with other Stormspell releases, this is a limited, numbered edition...
MPEG Stream: "Cronicas De La Muerte Negra"
MPEG Stream: "Dantesco"
MPEG Stream: "Deliver Us From Evil"

DANTESCO Seven Years Of Battle (Stormspell) cd 11.98
THEE most epic, grandiose, operatic, regal, majestic, bombastic, portentous power / doom metal this side of Sweden's mighty Candlemass, quite possibly comes from the island of Puerto Rico, in the form of this band, called Dantesco. We haven't listed anything by them before, but we've actually been fans of 'em for a while (well, Allan and Andee anyway, as this particular style of metal isn't admittedly to everyone's taste). So we were excited to get this new disc, their third proper album, not surprisingly released seven years after the band's inception, which comes to us via the excellent Stormspell label, who specialize in anything obscure and '80s (or that sounds that way) in the metal realm. See also Immaculate, reviewed this list, and also recent releases by Noctum and DarkBlack.
The big deal with Dantesco is pretty much their singer, Erico La Bestia, who possesses a powerful and versatile voice, capable of deep somber recitations, as well as fists-clenched screaming in his upper range (which is up there!). We'd guess he's a tenor, not quite sure, but he sure sounds operatic, and regardless of whether he's singing in English or Spanish (on this album, 2 of the 8 tracks are in Spanish) we find both his voice and vocal stylings quite compelling. The man was clearly BORN to sing in a band like this, lucky for the other dudes in Dantesco. If such a thing as epic doom metal didn't exist, they'd have had to invent it for him.
Not that the rest of the band are chopped liver. The crunching, lead weight riffage provides a solid base for La Bestia's histrionics, and certainly the spiraling, intricate soloing of the guitarists also grabs our attention. It's all part of the vast and elaborate architecture, the castle walls and cathedral spires, conjured by Dantesco's music, which ultimately conveys much emotion and a great deal of gravitas. And is of course very very metal. To underscore that point, the disc ends with a slaying Savatage cover, "The Dungeons Are Calling", and it's evident that Erico relishes doing that sudden "aaaaah!!" thing that was Savatage singer Jon Oliva's trademark. Also of course this is for fans of the aforementioned Candlemass, as well as the likes of Solitude Aeternus, Doomsword, Mercyful Fate, Powers Court, Warlord, Cirith Ungol, etc.
As with other Stormspell releases, this is a limited, numbered edition. FYI they've also just put out a self-titled Dantesco disc, consisting of the band's demos from seven years ago.
MPEG Stream: "Rasputin"
MPEG Stream: "Purinos Polemos (Viriathus)"
MPEG Stream: "El Baile De Las Brujas"

DARK CASTLE Surrender To All Life Beyond Form (Profound Lore) cd 13.98
Latest blast of psychedelic avant doom from this Floridian boy/girl duo, apparently often referred to as the doom metal White Stripes, based we assume entirely on the boy guitarist / girl drummer lineup, cuz sonically this is miles away from the Stripes' bluesy stomp. Instead, these two whip up a swirling, noisy, progged out, psychedelic sort of doom, which really is only classified as doom, because of the downtuned chugging, and slow-ish tempos. But the songs here are not slo-mo sludgefests, or funereal drags, these songs are furious tangles of wild guitar freakouts, of twisted effects drenched melody, of howled vitriolic vokills, of crashing chaotic drummage, and yeah, there are certainly stretches of plodding doomic crush, but even there things are not strictly doomy, the guitars sound warped and woozy, effects everywhere, the ambience seeming to melt in some sort of lysergic haze, the duo transformed into a lurching, lumbering doom-ed deity, sonically smiting all who stand in their way.
The guitars constantly flit from crunchy distorted metallic buzz, to effects drenched warble, to slippery spidery squiggle, the drums following suit, the arrangements and structures seeming to continuously mutate, flecked in various places with chanted chorale like vocals, pulsing new wave synths, thick low end rumbles, even programmed drums, "To Hide Is To Die" sounds almost like a metal version of the current John Carpenter / Goblin worship, and has us sort of hankering for a whole record of metalwave retro-giallo-doom. But the next track slips right back into the duo's gnarled prog-psych-doom, before finally finishing things off with a super strange chunk of piano driven ultra distorted dirge, haunting, and cinematic, everything blown out and warped, harsh vox draped over the top, a pounding, minor key miserablist abstract doom lament, the perfect finish to a fucking killer record, that's fast becoming one of our new faves...
Features guest spots by all sorts of underground metal luminaries including Mike Scheidt from YOB, Blake Judd from Nachtmystium, Nate Hall from U.S. Christmas, and Parker Sanford from Minsk, who also recorded the record.
MPEG Stream: "Surrender To All Life Beyond Form"
MPEG Stream: "Stare Into Absence"
MPEG Stream: "Create An Impulse"

DARNIELLE, JOHN 33 1/3 Series: Master Of Reality (Continuum) book 10.98
Y'know this series of books, right? The 33 1/3 series, each one devoted to someone's (lots of people's) favorite album ever? We have a few in stock, and have listed a bunch in the past, from OK Computer to Meat Is Murder, most recently one about Slayer's Reign In Blood. All of 'em are pretty cool, if you're into the album in question, and sometimes even if you're not ('cause you then will be).
This one in particular has a lot going for it. Not only is it about one of the best albums by one of the best bands ever (sez Allan, excitedly jumping up and down), Black Sabbath's Master Of Reality. But it's written by our pal John Darnielle of Mountain Goats fame. He's an awesome writer. And, if you didn't know, a serious metalhead. He does a witty column, South Pole Dispatch, in the back of metal magazine Decibel each month, as a matter of fact.
In addition, John doesn't simply write a nonfiction, journalistic overview of the "behind the music" story of the making of this classic album. No, he takes this opportunity to do something a lot cooler and more creative - the book is actually a novel, written from the perspective of a teenage burnout in 1985. He's committed to a psychiatric facility, and writing in his journal all about his obsession with Master Of Reality, among other things. And it works as both a novel, and as rock crit too. This definitely illustrates an extra dimension to what we mean when we say Sabbath is "heavy."

DARSOMBRA Eternal Jewel (Public Guilt) cd 8.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Break out the headphones, relax the body, and close the eyes, it's another one from the devastatingly droney and dark Darsombra, whose debut Ecdysis disc we really liked a couple years back. We like this just as much, maybe more. There's a great deal of melancholic, mesmeric beauty in Darsombra's isolationist grinding and evil ambient shimmer. We can imagine Darsombra's human operator, Brian Daniloski from the Maryland metalcore band Meatjack, up late at night alone in his home studio, lights dim, wreathed in smoke, hunched over his guitar and synth and effects and whatever else he uses to conjure this music, willing himself off into another place, out into the void of space, riding the dense waves of his own creation, returning only at dawn with another track for this album finished.
Let's discuss these tracks, but not in order... The echoey minimalism of "Drops Of Sorrow" is simply glorious, it's Riley or Reich from a psychdronedoom perspective. Or perhaps krautrock's Achim Reichel & The Machines playing Black Boned Angel!? Elsewhere, there's more gloom and glory, from the hushed sinister soundtrack melodies of opener "Auguries" to the haunting, spacey drone-whispers of "Night's Black Agents" - this disc's longest track at 17:34, reminding us of the 'Vox Insecta' work of old AQ fave Q.R. Ghazala. Then, with an intro of ommming voices (or synth) there's "Lamentings / Auguries", featuring sparse melodic guitar weepery buried beneath fuzzed out layers of deep, electronic drone and distortion. Again, this definitely sounds like it would make good soundtrack material for some eerie, arty Italian horror flick. And further cementing our love affair with the abstract attractions of Eternal Jewel, the calmly vibrating "Incarnadine" brings some rays of light to this disc at its very end, with its peacefully repetitive clusters of gentle chimings over a quiet drone.
Packaged by Public Guilt in a nice black, gothically graceful gatefold sleeve, this is definitely recommended. Imagine Expo '70 cloaked in black, performing a seance with Tony Conrad and Lustmord, and you'll have an idea of how much we must like this!
MPEG Stream: "Night's Black Agents"
MPEG Stream: "Drops Of Sorrow"
MPEG Stream: "Lamentings / Auguries"

DARSOMBRA + VARIOUS ARTISTS Nymphaea (Public Guilt) cd-r 9.98
Hopefully you already know Darsombra, seeing as we made their last Public Guilt release, Eternal Jewel, a Record Of The Week not too many moons ago. Atmospheric dark doom-drone experimentation not unlike a more sinister Expo '70 or a proggier Nadja. If you don't know 'em, get this and you'll get to know at least one of their songs really really well, in a way.
Track one here, "Nymphaea", is a head-nodding exercise in bass heavy, slow-building psychedelic instrumental throb. It starts out with plenty of distortion, and only gets heavier and more blown-out as it plods forth, adding a snakily melodic guitar line to further entrance the listener. It originally appeared as Darsombra's contribution to the "untitled" 3cd comp PG help put out last year, and now it has spawned this collection of remixes, a dozen of them, tracks 2-13!
It's pretty fascinating to hear this single song morph from track to track, 'cause they're all very different, the each remixer definitely making it their own, from blissed out vocal pop (Max Bondi & Bleeding Heart Narrative's "Hyena Amp mix") to big-beat crash-boom electro (Pulsoc's "True Love Never Dies remix") to creepy drone-noise ambience (Guilty Connector's "Dotonburi Neonnights") and that's just the first three mixes on here! Elsewhere, Ala Muerte adds eerie female voice doing Latin chant, Destructo Swarmbots strip the track down to a minimal low-end hum, The Heirs Of Rockefeller crank up the fuzz, focussing on the song's incessant hypnotic plod... all these and the rest of the remixers generally fucking with this track in many compelling and often unexpected ways. Darsombra have every reason to proudly approve what's been done with, or done to, their "Nymphaea" here. Remixers not already mentioned above also include Perfekt Teeth, Magicicada, Strotter Inst., Decimation Blvd. & Darla Hood, Blood Fountains, and le knell.
LIMITED EDITION! 250 COPIES ONLY! We only got 20! On a black cd-r in a slim, screen printed sleeve with vellum obi.
MPEG Stream: DARSOMBRA "Nymphaea"
MPEG Stream: BLOOD FOUNTAINS "Nymphaea Seance remix"
MPEG Stream: PULSOC "Nymphaea True Love Never Dies remix"
MPEG Stream: THE HEIRS OF ROCKEFELLER "Nymphaea The Drugs Won The Drug War Mix"

DAWN OF WINTER The Peaceful Dead (Massacre / Shadow Kingdom) cd 15.98
The truly "true" amongst you, metal-wise, should already be familiar with the German hellions known as Sacred Steel. We've given horns-up reviews to several of their more-metal-than-thou albums in the past. Dawn Of Winter is Sacred Steel's doom metal side project, featuring two members of that band, guitarist Jorg Knittel and, crucially to our enjoyment of it, vocalist Gerrit Mutz, whose unusual wavering wail, as we've said before, comes off like a cross between Scott Reagers (Saint Vitus) and Jello Biafra!
Dawn Of Winter have been around for years and years (since 1990) but haven't made that many records, possibly 'cause sloth is their modus operandi, playing as they do the lethargic, lumbering strains of traditional doom metal. This is only their 2nd full-length. You could say we were slow too, in reviewing this, as The Peaceful Dead came out last year ('twas in heavy rotation in Allan's iPod around Christmas time). Perfect for the bleak winter months of course, but now it's gotten better US distribution and we've managed to get a few for the store.
Whilst Sacred Steel are almost always speedy, with the occasional doomy detour, in this band Knittel and Mutz fully indulge their love of all things slow and low. Indeed, opening track "The Music Of Despair" is a doom/cult metal shoutout of sorts, the lyrics making references both subtle and overt to a bunch of DoW's favorite bands, including Penance, Manilla Road, Witchfinder General, Mercyful Fate, Angel Witch, Cirith Ungol, Pentagram, Saint Vitus, Pagan Altar, Reverend Bizarre, Candlemass, and of course Black Sabbath.
The other nine tracks here pretty much do their utmost to live up to all that, with plodding tempi, gothic imagery, loud-soft dynamics, and dramatic crescendos. Soooo dramatic! Mutz's hammy (but sincere) thespian delivery is perfectly suited to the melancholic majesty of this music, songs that are seemingly weighted down by the crushing distortodoomidelic guitar accompaniment, o'er which Mutz' emotive vocals are declaimed.
So, if the epic doom metal of the Heaven & Hell and Candlemass albums reviewed here recently has whet your appetite for even more in the way of hoary, Sabbathy riffs and wizened wizard vocals, and you're down for something a little more underground as well, then Dawn Of Winter might be just the ticket.
We'd have highlighted this, too, but are aware that DoW are only for the "true"!
MPEG Stream: "The Music Of Despair"
MPEG Stream: "Throne Of Isolation"

DEAD BEGINNERS Sinners' Rebellion (Spikefarm) cd 14.98
Been trying to list this for a while but we were never able to get enough. This is easily one of my favorite metal records of the past couple of years. Sort of doom metal, sort of black metal, but completely epic and gorgeous and totally captivating. Not to mention heavy as fuck. Lots of keyboards under thick guitars playing huge minor key riffs while sorrowful melodies weave in and out. Mostly midtempo, but with the occasional burst of lightning speed, Finland's Dead Beginners craft timeless metal epics (with a definite medieval vibe), melancholy and sorrowful, dark and doomy. The sound reminds me of some strange mix of old Paradise Lost, Old Cathedral, Skepticism, Cradle Of Filth, Candlemass, and Burzum. Or something like that. Some of the best dark depressing doom / black-bleak metal. SO recommended.
RealAudio clip: "Calling Ruby"
RealAudio clip: "Treason Via Magdelene"
RealAudio clip: "The Wounderable One"

DEAD ELEPHANT Thanatology (Riot Season) cd 16.98
Record number three from this Italian noise rock / stoner doom power trio, and weirdly enough the first one of their records to get reviewed on the aQ list. Weird because these guys are amazing and are right up our (and presumably your) alley, a killer twisted hybrid of classic Sabbathy metal and more modern noise rock, downtuned Neurosis-y sludge and spaced out psychedelic dronemetal, a la countrymen Ufomammut. Opener "Bardo Thodol" starts out with a riff that's a dead ringer for Sleep, of course these guys add some chanted monk-like vocals, the vibe droned out and psychedelic, and when the rest of the band finally kick in, the sound is EPIC, massive, and heavy as fuck, a crushing mathy doom sludge dirge, the vocals alternating between a monstrous bellow and a wild feral shriek, the churning riffage and damaged drum pound laced with a surprising amount of melody, and all sorts of strange sounds in the background, that sound like bells and singing and other mysterious field recordings, which are apparently actual recordings of Italian funeral marches, super dramatic, especially when the band cuts out completely, leaving just the mournful wail of distant horns, draped over a strange hushed soundscape of backwards drones and muted muddied effects, the band slowly building back up again, and launching anew into another onslaught of pound and pummel, of soaring metallic heaviness.
The rest of the record unwinds in a similar fashion, the lumbering doomic heaviness tempered with long stretches of vocal drones, of spidery psychedelia, bursts of spazzed out math metal, of grinding noise rock frenzies, finishing off with the epic 16 minute two part closer, the first part of which is a gorgeous stretch of ambient minimalism, all tinkling melodies, barely there rhythms, distant swells, soft squalls of psychedelic guitar, swirling drones, and a deep rumbling buzz, that slowly builds into the second part, a feedback drenched, stop start noise rock blow out, soaring synths over crushing crashing chords, delirious drum pound and wild howled vox, a weirdly tripped out abstract psychedelic finale.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "On The Stem"
MPEG Stream: "A Teardop On Your Grave / Downfall Of Xibalba"

DEAD MAN Euphoria (Crusher) cd 21.00
We kinda think that when we're reviewing a band's eagerly awaited new album, for instance their follow up to a debut we really liked, that it's not entirely unreasonable for us just to say, hey, please go read our review of that first record (or provide a brief summary, like in this case: awesome Swedish time trippin', '70s sounding stoner psych prog a la Dungen, Elope, Witchcraft) and then for us to go on to say, this one is ALSO awesome, so if you liked that one get this, and if you haven't heard either, get both! If you like this retro-'70s sort of thing, that is. Reasonable, right?
Dead Man's Euphoria is maybe a bit mellower than their self-titled debut, certainly much closer to the sun-dappled poppiness of Elope than to the Sabbathy proto-metal heaviness of Witchcraft. But it could definitely appeal to those into the moody folkiness -and- progginess of the latter.
They're still big time '70s throwbacks, they look and sound like bunch of long haired ol' hippies. Back to the land types, doing their thing out on some farm / commune someplace. Definitely a lazy, hazy, rustic vibe here, quite a bit Grateful Dead-y in point of fact. Some tracks are long (8, 9 proggy minutes for "The Wheel" and "Rest In Piece") while others breeze by in under two or three minutes. There's acoustic guitars and backporch bluesy bits (the singer asking someone for some lemon-squeezin' in "A Pinch Of Salt" ferinstance), and an overall placid, summery feel. Real pleasant, but ofttimes melancholic too. The vocals, particularly when handled by the guy with the wavery, breathy, close-to-tears voice, are quite emotive. (Those could be tears of joy though, the album's called Euphoria after all.)
And that's not to say that Dead Man don't heavy it up with the guitars now and then, they do, some swinging hard rock riffage certainly is heard, but this is mostly much lighter and gentler than you might be used to from the more doomy likes of Witchcraft, Burning Saviours, Graveyard... out of that Swedish '70s lovin' scene, Dead Man do the least to live up to the more evil implications of their name! But for melodiousness and progginess and flutey folkiness they're holding their own. We like!!
FYI, this will supposedly be getting a domestic cd release in June, we've just learned. Also they should be coming over to the US for a tour this fall, cool!
MPEG Stream: "Today"
MPEG Stream: "The Wheel"
MPEG Stream: "Light Vast Corridors"

DEAD MAN Euphoria (Crusher) lp 22.00
We kinda think that when we're reviewing a band's eagerly awaited new album, for instance their follow up to a debut we really liked, that it's not entirely unreasonable for us just to say, hey, please go read our review of that first record (or provide a brief summary, like in this case: awesome Swedish time trippin', '70s sounding stoner psych prog a la Dungen, Elope, Witchcraft) and then for us to go on to say, this one is ALSO awesome, so if you liked that one get this, and if you haven't heard either, get both! If you like this retro-'70s sort of thing, that is. Reasonable, right?
Dead Man's Euphoria is maybe a bit mellower than their self-titled debut, certainly much closer to the sun-dappled poppiness of Elope than to the Sabbathy proto-metal heaviness of Witchcraft. But it could definitely appeal to those into the moody folkiness -and- progginess of the latter.
They're still big time '70s throwbacks, they look and sound like bunch of long haired ol' hippies. Back to the land types, doing their thing out on some farm / commune someplace. Definitely a lazy, hazy, rustic vibe here, quite a bit Grateful Dead-y in point of fact. Some tracks are long (8, 9 proggy minutes for "The Wheel" and "Rest In Piece") while others breeze by in under two or three minutes. There's acoustic guitars and backporch bluesy bits (the singer asking someone for some lemon-squeezin' in "A Pinch Of Salt" ferinstance), and an overall placid, summery feel. Real pleasant, but ofttimes melancholic too. The vocals, particularly when handled by the guy with the wavery, breathy, close-to-tears voice, are quite emotive. (Those could be tears of joy though, the album's called Euphoria after all.)
And that's not to say that Dead Man don't heavy it up with the guitars now and then, they do, some swinging hard rock riffage certainly is heard, but this is mostly much lighter and gentler than you might be used to from the more doomy likes of Witchcraft, Burning Saviours, Graveyard... out of that Swedish '70s lovin' scene, Dead Man do the least to live up to the more evil implications of their name! But for melodiousness and progginess and flutey folkiness they're holding their own. We like!!
FYI, this will supposedly be getting a domestic cd release in June, we've just learned. Also they should be coming over to the US for a tour this fall, cool!
MPEG Stream: "Today"
MPEG Stream: "The Wheel"
MPEG Stream: "Light Vast Corridors"

DEAD MAN s/t (Crusher Records) cd 21.00
Ok, we don't know what sort of time warp technology they've developed over there in Sweden, but it does the job. I mean, if the US Navy ever wants to find out just what happened with that aircraft carrier or whatever from the 1940s (y'know, they made a movie about it, The Final Countdown or The Philadelphia Experiment wasn't it?), we'd say don't bother asking Michael J. Fox, get somebody over in Sweden to explain. They obviously have the time travel thing figured out. And best of all, they use it to make more rock and roll bands like in the good ol' days of acid rock and psychedelia!! Bands like Witchcraft and Elope and Dungen, who sound more 1970 than 2006. We've mentioned them all before, and if you know 'em and love 'em, well here's *another* group of Swedes that we think fans of those bands should check out. Dead Man! Long hair, bright harmonies, folky melodies, acoustic strum, heavy riffs, trippy vibes... even a 14-minute long experimental prog finale. Yep, definite time warp. Like Witchcraft and those others, they never betray their modernity. No anachronistic hints of '90s stoner rock or alternative rock or metal or anything. Really, though it -says- this debut full-length was recorded in 2005, it's like no rock music past, say, 1974 seems to have ever entered their ears.
Despite being called Dead Man this isn't particularly a dark album... just heavy psych in the old style. Some tracks are hard rockers, others spaced out and Floydian, even a little bit on the rustic Grateful Dead side of things... A couple of the guys in the band sing (in English), one of 'em with a wavering trill in his voice that reminds us a bit of Roger Chapman from Family, whereas the other singer has a stronger Swedish accent giving more of that Dungen flavor. The Norwegian '70s heavy psych act November could be one definite influence on these guys.
Again, although we do suspect the use of time-travel technology, we're also aware that Dead Man's guitarist used to play drums in Norrsken, Magnus Pellander's band before he formed Witchcraft. I guess he stole a page from Magnus' spellbook, temporal magic chapter. Meanwhile, two of the other members were in Swedish bands called The Strollers and The Roadrunners -- never heard them but boy those names are EXACTLY what the sort of '60s garage/beat bands that would have evolved into a band like Dead Man would have been called -- had this all really transpired 35 years ago like it sounds. Sure, not a lot of points for originality, but plenty for verisimilitude. We say, right on, Dead Man!
MPEG Stream: "Goin' Over The Hill"
MPEG Stream: "Haunted Man"

DEAD MAN s/t (Crusher) lp 21.00
Hey, now on vinyl, Dead Man's first record, to go along with their new album (see nearby)... What we said about the cd version:
Ok, we don't know what sort of time warp technology they've developed over there in Sweden, but it does the job. I mean, if the US Navy ever wants to find out just what happened with that aircraft carrier or whatever from the 1940s (y'know, they made a movie about it, The Final Countdown or The Philadelphia Experiment wasn't it?), we'd say don't bother asking Michael J. Fox, get somebody over in Sweden to explain. They obviously have the time travel thing figured out. And best of all, they use it to make more rock and roll bands like in the good ol' days of acid rock and psychedelia!! Bands like Witchcraft and Elope and Dungen, who sound more 1970 than 2006. We've mentioned them all before, and if you know 'em and love 'em, well here's *another* group of Swedes that we think fans of those bands should check out. Dead Man! Long hair, bright harmonies, folky melodies, acoustic strum, heavy riffs, trippy vibes... even a 14-minute long experimental prog finale. Yep, definite time warp. Like Witchcraft and those others, they never betray their modernity. No anachronistic hints of '90s stoner rock or alternative rock or metal or anything. Really, though it -says- this debut full-length was recorded in 2005, it's like no rock music past, say, 1974 seems to have ever entered their ears.
Despite being called Dead Man this isn't particularly a dark album... just heavy psych in the old style. Some tracks are hard rockers, others spaced out and Floydian, even a little bit on the rustic Grateful Dead side of things... A couple of the guys in the band sing (in English), one of 'em with a wavering trill in his voice that reminds us a bit of Roger Chapman from Family, whereas the other singer has a stronger Swedish accent giving more of that Dungen flavor. The Norwegian '70s heavy psych act November could be one definite influence on these guys.
Again, although we do suspect the use of time-travel technology, we're also aware that Dead Man's guitarist used to play drums in Norrsken, Magnus Pellander's band before he formed Witchcraft. I guess he stole a page from Magnus' spellbook, temporal magic chapter. Meanwhile, two of the other members were in Swedish bands called The Strollers and The Roadrunners -- never heard them but boy those names are EXACTLY what the sort of '60s garage/beat bands that would have evolved into a band like Dead Man would have been called -- had this all really transpired 35 years ago like it sounds. Sure, not a lot of points for originality, but plenty for verisimilitude. We say, right on, Dead Man!
MPEG Stream: "Goin' Over The Hill"
MPEG Stream: "Haunted Man"

DEAD MEADOW Got Live If You Want It (The Commitee To Keep Music Evil / Bomp) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Got Live If You Want It" (or maybe "If Yo Want It", which appears on the spine) is a surprise live release from a band with only two studio albums to their credit. Now, in the past we've given good reviews to Dead Meadow, really liking their retro stoner rock sound, heavy psychedelia derived from Blue Cheer and other past masters, along with tinges of their modern-day indie rock lineage. But we've always made one caveat: the singer's whiny voice simply sucks. One would hope that live, his nasal drone would be helpfully drowned out by the band's massive amp-abuse. But, on this recording at least, such is not the case. However, like their studio albums, much of this is instrumental anyway, and if you're already a fan, you can deal with this -- you either actually like the vocals (good god!) or have learned to tune 'em out (as I did) and will certainly enjoy wallowing in the spacey, jammed-out, lopingly heavy live Dead Meadow live experience as presented here: over 45 minutes (eight tracks total) of well-recorded versions songs from both of Dead Meadow's LPs, plus two we don't recognize (new tunes perhaps), all as performed live in Hoboken in the winter of 2002. Not much more needs to be said. Those new to the band would be better advised to start with either of their two albums on Tolotta: "Dead Meadow" and/or "Howls From The Hills" -- see elsewhere on our website for reviews. Or, wait 'til next year when they're scheduled to release a new album on Matador! (Where they'll fit in well with the likes of Bardo Pond).
RealAudio clip: "Rocky Mountain High"
RealAudio clip: "Lady"

DEAD MEADOW Got Live If You Want It (The Commitee To Keep Music Evil / Bomp) lp 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Fitting for a band that harks back to the days when vinyl was king, here's the LP version of "Got Live If You Want It" (or maybe "If Yo Want It", which appears on the spine), a surprise live release from a band with only two studio albums to their credit. Now, in the past we've given good reviews to Dead Meadow, really liking their retro stoner rock sound, heavy psychedelia derived from Blue Cheer and other past masters, along with tinges of their modern-day indie rock lineage. But we've always made one caveat: the singer's whiny voice simply sucks. One would hope that live, his nasal drone would be helpfully drowned out by the band's massive amp-abuse. But, on this recording at least, such is not the case. However, like their studio albums, much of this is instrumental anyway, and if you're already a fan, you can deal with this -- you either actually like the vocals (good god!) or have learned to tune 'em out (as I did) and will certainly enjoy wallowing in the spacey, jammed-out, lopingly heavy live Dead Meadow live experience as presented here: over 45 minutes (eight tracks total) of well-recorded versions songs from both of Dead Meadow's LPs, plus two we don't recognize (new tunes perhaps), all as performed live in Hoboken in the winter of 2002. Not much more needs to be said. Those new to the band would be better advised to start with either of their two albums on Tolotta: "Dead Meadow" and/or "Howls From The Hills" -- see elsewhere on our website for reviews. Or, wait 'til next year when they're scheduled to release a new album on Matador! (Where they'll fit in well with the likes of Bardo Pond).

DEAD MEADOW Howls From The Hills (Tolotta) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Anything recorded at a "mobile mystic gnome studio" has got to be good, right? Well, at least if you're in the mood from some suitably stoned, retro-rocking, Blue Cheer worship from this very heavy and psychedelic Virginia-based band. "Howls From The Hills" is Dead Meadow's second album for Joe Lally of Fugazi's stoner-positive Tolotta label (Spirit Caravan is one of their labelmates) and it picks right up where the first one left off, with weighty grooves, mellow jams, Sleep-worthy guitars, hippie imagery... Unfortunately guitarist Jason Simon's somewhat whiny (thankfully not ever-present) vocals are still a taste we have yet to acquire, but that's not enough to sink this heavy, hairy beast. The wah, the fuzz, the drone, the riff...it's power trio spacerock mayhem galore, spiced with sitar and cello. In the current stoner rock scene, these guys seem just so much more authentic than most. And is that not a great album cover, or what?