NECKLACING s/t (Accidie Records) cassette 6.98
Possibly named for an Incapacitants track from many moons ago, Necklacing is a collaborative project between the LA drone-plus-noise artists Matt Sullivan and William Hutson, the former working under the guise Earn and the latter as Rale. This is much more of a full-on noise project than what we've heard from either of them previously, as they're seeking the harness the power of various 'white noise generators.' It seems to us, that these generators include amplified tape hiss and shortwave radio static all blown out with overdriven gain and well-tempered distortion. No delicate introduction here, just a blast of a white noise that opens both tracks of this tape, and a plateau of noise is sustained throughout streaming into an thick low-end underbelly and topped with a very hectic stream of tactility. In their evenhanded application of the noise, Necklacing offer a perspective of clinical detachment, somewhat like the manifestations of tape noise on the brilliant, if long forgotten Reynols album Blank Tapes. The second side, which begins and ends just as the first, exhibits more from the shortwave, with rapid fire blips from utility signal transmissions bleeding through the agitated surface noise. Necklacing is an entirely different animal from the kaleidoscopic frenzy of Merzbow, the primal energy of Menche, and the psychological pressures of John Duncan. Very well done, and very limited. 100 copies altogether.

NECKS, THE Aether (ReR Megacorp) cd 16.98
We've gone cuckoo for the Australian trio The Necks, and this is the third album we're gonna enthuse over. More brilliance, in other words! Again, the Necks play a hard-to-categorize blend of jazz and rock that's "experimental" yet totally accessible, making use of insanely evocative piano, drums and bass in a hypnotically repetitive, circular, subtly shifting manner. It brings to mind everything from Philip Glass to Stars of the Lid to Miles Davis. That's right.
Aether begins as if it is finishing, with long minor key chords and shimmering cymbals that wait until fading from the audible before the next set s-l-o-w-l-y emerges. As with The Necks' relatively more active Hanging Garden album, they set down that evocative sonic foundation for a full twenty minutes before single piano notes sail out surprisingly, hesitatingly stating a melodic line. It's over an hour long and not for a second does it become boring -- despite its stillness there's a warmth, no chill. The piece's closing section (another healthy 20 minutes) is a muted flourish, with the cymbals unendingly shimmering, the piano notes echoing and repeating like the tide is coming in. This is the perfect and only soundtrack to a Sunrise. Amazing.
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 2"

NECKS, THE Aquatic (Carpet Bomb) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
All right, those of you who have still not taken the plunge into the glorious, jazzy drone-y world of Australia's The Necks, here's yet another chance, and a pretty low priced one at that! We finally managed to get a bunch of copies of Aquatic, a cd that we used to carry years ago and that has only now become available again. The Necks explore expansive soundscapes of almost static rhythms, Terry Riley-esque piano figures and a 'songwriting' style that leans more towards Steve Reich than Ornette Coleman. Shuffling snare and ride cymbal, piano and bass weave lush repetitive figures that mesmerise in their barely perceptible shifts resulting in a gorgeously meditative and almost transcendental sort-of-free-jazz. The core three piece is joined on Aquatic by a hurdy gurdy which adds to the overall droniness. Even the jazz hater at AQ is frequently caught listening to the Necks! What more do you need to know?! C'mon!
MPEG Stream: "Aquatic 1"
MPEG Stream: "Aquatic 2"

NECKS, THE Athenaeum, Homebush, Quay & Raab (Fish Of Milk) 4cd 66.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
BACK IN STOCK. Repressed, at at last. New higher price, alas. Windy's off in Vietnam and unable to contribute to our review of this, but she did leave the following simple and to the point note: "I LOVE this album."
We all do actually. Even jazz-phobic Jim has been caught blissing out to The Necks! And everyone we know seems to have at least one record by Australia's Necks, but why didn't any of them tell me how fricking great this stuff is?!?!? This is a new 4 cd set featuring 4 separate hour-long performances, and once you're familiar with their sound, you'll understand that 4 hours, in hour long chunks, is the perfect way to experience The Necks. It's sort of jazz but not exactly. Sort of 20th century classical, but not exactly. Imagine Charlemagne Palestine or Steve Reich composing for a jazz combo and you might be getting close. Or a more lively Bohren and Der Club of Gore, maybe, at times. Hypnotic shuffling jazz rhythms, skittery high hat and ride cymbals, build a skeletal foundation for throbbing monochromatic bass and chiming, cyclical piano. Repetitive, blissed out and totally hypnotic. Drummer Tony Buck we used to know from Peril and Kletka Red amongst other projects, but now we'll consider The Necks his primary claim to fame. Recommended.
RealAudio clip: "Homebush"

NECKS, THE Chemist (Recommended) cd 16.98
The Necks are one of those rare bands that we could literally listen to forever. Their sound is just so perfectly hypnotic and so well suited to extended listening. If they invented a new format, where a band could release say, a 24 hour long song, the Necks are the first band we would think of. In fact they actually have played a 24 hour show. We keep hoping it will get released, although the epic scope might be lost split up over 24 discs.
This here is the Necks 13th release in about 20 years. And for a band to stay true to their sound for that long, while remaining viable and listenable and exciting is testament to the Necks' unbelievable skill. For those new to the Necks, imagine a three piece jazz ensemble, bass, drums and piano (although, on Chemist, for the first time ever, guitar is introduced, played, oddly enough by drummer Tony Buck), who specialize in extended longform pieces. Ultra minimal, slowly shifting epics, a single riff, a single motif, repeated and looped and subtly colored over the span of ten minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes even 24 hours. Totally mesmerizing and hypnotic.
Chemist is the most rocking Necks record we can remember. At least the opening 20 minute track. The groove is much more upfront, driving, propulsive, like a stripped down jazzed up Can or Faust. Loping, groovy, mesmeric, small flurries of piano drift and flutter over a super solid bass and drums groove. In fact, this almost sounds like a jazzier version of Finnish drone rockers Circle. The same sort of endless riffing and perfectly propulsive rhythm. The second track is much more spare and straight up jazzy, a soft shimmery shuffle, the final track while not quite as aggressive as the opener, does have a similarly relentless rhythm that turns the jazzy drift into something almost 'rocking'. Hard to say if this is our favorite Necks record, as we pretty much love them all, but this is definitely the most aggressive and thus pushes a different set of buttons. Necks fans obviously need this. But some of you Circle / Salvatore fans who are up for something a little more dark and jazzy and moody might just dig this A LOT.
MPEG Stream: "Fatal"
MPEG Stream: "Buoyant"

NECKS, THE Drive By (ReR Megacorp) cd 16.98
Here at Aquarius, you might say that 2003 could have been called The Year Of The Necks. Sure, that sounds a bit funny, but what we mean is that this year is when everybody here either discovered or re-discovered this amazing band. We gave rave reviews to four of their older records, after falling in love with a four-cd live box of theirs back in December of last year. And judging from sales, a lot of you have gotten acquainted with The Necks this year as well, and liked 'em. This Aussie trio of piano (and/or organ), bass, and drums can't be easily catagorized: they're not exactly jazz, not ambient, not rock, not post-rock, not electronica...but they are some of the above, and more. Less too, 'cause what they do is so understated, and so specifically Necks.
So, what better way is there to celebrate The Year Of The Necks 'round these parts than to revel in the release of this brand new Necks opus, Drive By? And it's definitely the equal of any of The Necks' prodigious output, doing all the things we now expect from them...creating a mesmerizing, hypnotic musical trance-state over a lengthy playing time (in this case, one track, 60 minutes and seventeen gorgeous seconds long). Drive By is a pulsating wonder, steadily building over an hour, the drums becoming more active and restless but always "on", underpinning the constant throb of the bass. Drive By is bejewelled with bright tinkling piano, electronic effects, and other sonic elements, including what sound like crickets joining in around the 11 minute mark. 45+ minutes later, The Necks are still in the groove, channelling ancient rhythm into their extremely modern format. I'm beginning to think that the compact disc is too limiting for these guys. They need a DVD-audio release, so we can hear 'em play for seven hours straight!
So, what comparisons can we stretch to make? Some sort of NPR-ized Circle? A prettified Bohren? Steve Reich meets Miles Davis? Ah, hell with that. It's The Year Of The Necks. No comparisons necessary. Just check 'em out.
MPEG Stream: "Drive By (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Drive By (excerpt 2)"

NECKS, THE Hanging Garden (Fish Of Milk) cd 16.98
Toiling in relative obscurity since 1987, The Necks are an Australian trio who play a hard-to-categorize blend of jazz and rock that's "experimental" yet totally accessible. Hanging Garden (from 1999, but new to me!) is more active than their stunning four-disc set, titled Athenaeum, Homebush, Quay & Raab, which we recently reviewed. The Athenaeum portion of that set, in particular, I found to be quite reminiscent of Keith Jarrett's wintry bare compositions. On Hanging Garden, however, while still making use of their customary piano, drums and bass in a hypnotically repetitive, circular, subtly shifting manner, The Necks colors its palette with a heavy dose of Miles Davis circa his electric fusion mid 1970s phase. The electric organ has an undeniable groove to it, backed up by the throbbing bass, and the drums are positively manic -- shimmering, tinkling and adding texture in a marvelously understated manner. They make you wait over 20 minutes for the stately, elegant piano to kick in with its *gorgeous* melodic theme, but until it comes on you didn't even know you were waiting for it because the sonic foundation they laid is already so satisfying. You've *got* to hear this record. It goes on for one hour and, I (Windy) guarantee, you just don't get tired of it. Yep, that's how good this is.
MPEG Stream: "Hanging Garden excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "Hanging Garden excerpt 2"

NECKS, THE Mosquito / See Through (Recommended) 2cd 25.00
Sometimes it's a struggle to figure out what to write about a record, by a band, whose sound remains fundamentally unchanged from album to album. In many instances that would be reason enough to be patently unimpressed. But with a band like the Necks, 'change' is the last thing you want. Instead, you want their songs, and more specifically their sound, to stretch on and on and on into infinity. And we're getting close, with every release made up of one massive hour plus track. Mosquito / See Through is no different. Two discs, two tracks, an hour plus each! Gorgeous and epic, massive slowly shifting ambient jazzscapes. Drums, bass and piano circle each other warily, before finally engaging, slowly weaving and pulsing, swirling and skittering, until unexpectedly all three instruments are locked into an endlessly hypnotic groove, not like a GROOVE, but a dreamy, shuffling, on the verge of drifting into the ether sort of groove. Like Circle if you were able to slowly pull out sonic elements and distribute them spatially, creating some sort of droning ambient kraut-jazz, propulsive, but just barely, throbbing, but subtly so, ambient, but not ethereal. As always, totally brilliant!
MPEG Stream: "Mosquito"

NECKS, THE Photosynthetic (Long Arms) cd 15.98
We've been trying forever to get copies of this Necks record, recorded live in Moscow in 2002, and only now have we managed to get enough to finally list. For those of you unfamiliar with the Necks, imagine a standard jazz trio, piano, drums and double bass, now imagine that group playing a jazz that is anything but standard. Extended pieces, usually cd length, sometimes longer, motifs repeated endlessly, while the instruments circle warily, slowly building, each player adding the tiniest hint of sound, a rumbling shimmering, shuffling jazz drone, that pulses and breathes, stretches and swells, rumbles and shimmers. This is jazz for the avant drone set for sure. Chris Abrahams' piano spits out dense clouds of chords and notes, a swirling melodic sprawl, underpinned by Lloyd Swanton's rumbling droning low end and Tony Buck's ultra restrained drumming, shuffling and skittering, kicking up little percussive squalls that drift lazily into the hypnotic haze of piano chords and double bass thrum. It's like all the parts in every jazz song ever -right before- the band kicks in to the tune, all stitched together into a massive never ending free jazz drone. Feldman plays Monk, or Birchville Cat Motel covering Mingus. Dark and dreamy and totally mesmerizing. Another one of those groups who we can imagine playing a single song FOREVER! And we'd just lay there soaking it in and loving it! Actually there was a rumor of a Necks show recently, where they supposedly performed for 24 hours straight! What we wouldn't do for that to come out as a 24 cd box set!
Packaged in a jewel case with a really nice printed vellum booklet.
MPEG Stream: "Photosynthetic"

NECKS, THE Silverwater (ReR) cd 17.98
Hot damn. A new Necks album. They're one of our favorite bands EVER, and this is (one of the many reasons) why. Silverwater provides 67 minutes of the Necks' unique, hypnotic, keys/bass/drums bliss, all one track of course as is their wont. Over the course of those 67 minutes, though, the music made by this Australian trio varies quite a bit. Their trademark trance-iness is present, always, but at the same time this new album (their first studio record in, like, 3 years) seems more programmatic and propulsive than we're used to from these guys, taking off in directions we haven't necessarily heard from them before, but still sounding more like the Necks than anything else. Yet, parts could be mistaken for an underground ambient psychedelic jam from the likes of Sylvester Anfang, almost. And we'd say this is the Necks record to get Bohren & Der Club Of Gore fans into 'em. Other comparisons we've perhaps made before would be to Circle (in their non-metallic Miljard mode), Supersilent, Alice Coltrane, and AMM... anything that can elicit references to the likes of those is, obviously, amazing.
Eerie wavering drones delicately unfurl near the start, quiet and pretty... that gives way to a section that's almost ceremonial, like some percussive ritual. Sparse and deliberate, drums-only for a stretch, to be joined by deep, plucked bass notes... it could be some kinda krautrock jazz... and it does get "jazzier", sort of, with electric organ coloration, and cyclic piano plinkings, but also electronic-y gritty glitchiness overdubbed... Silverwater's shimmering textures and minimalist pulsations are simply beautiful, enthralling. It's a glorious 67 minutes, all right.
If you know the Necks, you know you need this. If you're new to the Necks, please do yourself a favor and check this out. Next to seeing them live (which some of us have been lucky enough to do, oh my god they were good), this will demonstrate quite effectively why we hold them in such high regard.
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 2"
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 3"

NECKS, THE The Boys (Music For The Feature Film) (ReR) cd 16.98
Could the Necks get any better? I sure hope not because we're running out of superlatives for this eminently dreamy, drone-y, hypno-jazz ensemble. This time around, they've ditched their usual MO of cd-length songs, but fear not, there's a perfectly good reason. This is a soundtrack to an Australian film called The Boys. Don't know much about the film, but judging from this disc it must be one intense, mesmerising melancholic movie. According to the liner notes this is not strictly a soundtrack, instead it incorporates the music used in the film, as well as music composed for, but not actually used. Either way, this is absolutely gorgeous. Repetitive but never boring. Sleepy but always totally engaging. Subtle drumming underscores moody melancholy piano figures, while strange outerspace synths swoop subtly in the hazy distance. And although The Boys is separated into 7 tracks, the whole thing is held together beautifully by the recurring theme "The Boys", featuring an absolutely chilling melody, with quivering theremin filligrees and funereal drumming. So recommended.
MPEG Stream: "The Boys 1"
MPEG Stream: "He Led Them Into The World"

NECKS, THE Townsville (ReR Megacorps) cd 17.98
Finally a new Necks record! And as usual, it's a single epic, slowly shifting jazzscape, shuffling and hypnotic, circular and completely gorgeous. Folks around here have been totally smitten by this Australian minimal jazz trio for years now. Every record another new 'song', most of their releases are one long piece, which makes sense once you understand the Necks.
If Circle are the masters of repetitive, motorik hypnorock, then the Necks are their jazz equivalent, unfurling endlessly looping, slow shifting Steve Reich-ian dark jazz epics, and like Circle, while there is a motorik element to the rhythm and the groove, it's much more fluid, almost like some strange living shape, and it seems like maybe these guys aren't playing it so much as trying to control the sound, pushing and pulling, stretching and shaping. And the songs are only limited by the length of a compact disc, they all sound like they could, nay should, go on forever (there was a rumor of a Necks 24 hour performance!!).
We sometimes joke about Necks records all sounding quite similar, and sure they sort of do, but only on the surface. Each record is a subtle and entirely unique collection of sounds. Much of it has to do with the compositions themselves, but also the fact that many of the recordings are live performances, which capture a piece, but only the way it was performed that one time. Some are more propulsive (Drive By), and some like this one, are more abstract and ambient.
On Townsville, a single 54 minute performance recorded live in Australia on February 15th 2007 (Andee's Birthday btw), the band reel in their rhythmic tendencies, instead opting to float and flutter, to drift and swirl, the drums are barely even present over the first half of the performance, offering up soft sizzles and billowing clouds of metallic shimmer, the bass too is merely support, offering up dark dense tendrils of low end sprawl and blurred low end whir. It's all about Chris Abrahams' piano, gorgeous glimmering flurries of notes, tossed in the air like confetti, or falling from the sky like snowflakes. It almost sounds like Lubomyr Melnyk is sitting in, offering up some of his swirling 'continuous music' piano. The whole track is one long slow build, the bass and the drums lurking in the background, offering a soft warm sonic bed over which the various notes and chords from the piano dance and drift, moody and melodic and so mesmerizing.
Further into the track, the bass and drums become much more animated, subtly sparring with the piano, the whole band engaged in a series of fluttery swells, but still with the piano leading the way.
Easily one of the jazziest of the Necks discs, but without losing its drone-y minimal psychedelic vibe, so much so that certain parts definitely remind us of the more ambient Circle records, like Tower, Empire or Miljard. Imagine Circle featuring Lubomyr Melnyk on the piano, performing a piece co-written by Steve Reich and Terry Riley, and you'll have an idea of what to expect from Townsville. As with all Necks records, totally divine and totally recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Townsville (excerpt)"

NECRO I Need Drugs (Landspeed) cd 15.98
So if Eminem isn't hard enough for you, but you still like your rap white and whiney, Necro is for you. Inane, offensive, sometimes funny. Features the title track spoof of LLCoolJ's 'I Need Love'.

NECRO I Need Drugs (Landspeed) 2lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
So if Eminem isn't hard enough for you, but you still like your rap white and whiney, Necro is for you. Inane, offensive, sometimes funny. Features the title track spoof of LLCoolJ's 'I Need Love'.

NECRO DEATHMORT This Beat Is Necrotronic (Distraction) cd 11.98
This record seemed like it was custom made for aQ. They're called Necro Deathmort, the record is called This Beat Is Necrotronic, they've been described as SUNNO))) meets Squarepusher, it's heavy, it's skittery, it's dark, it's like a metal dubstep record, or a grim electronic laced doomdrone record, some of the tracks are stuttery and rhythmic, others are grim and ominous and intense, all of them are heavy, the sound veers from spaced out and downtuned, to skeletal and psychedelic, to thick and caustic, to big beated and bassy.
Thanks to aQ customer Mark for introducing us to these guys, we've been listening to it nonstop since we got it in. It's definitely a tough one to pin down, a little all over the map, but no matter what's going on, the various sounds and vibes and moods are definitely connected, joined by a thick grim black thread.
"Spilth (Spill Your Filth)" starts things off with a lumbering electro jam, all squiggles and squelches, glitches and buzzes, but underpinned by some serious speaker destroying bass, fuzzed out and thick and rumbling and very very prickly, like the heaviest dubstep bassline you've ever heard, cranked even higher. "Hurt Me I'm Bored" is where the band get serious, spreading out a serious chunk of smoldering electronic flecked doom, haunting and propulsive, the drums simple and stripped down, the main riff minor key and a little bit woozy, all around the main groove, clouds of static and hiss swirl and spark, the low end again thick as hell, the guitars gradually growing more and more metallic until, the track is full on doooooooom, but still peppered with little squiggles of distorted leads and various shards of electronic detritus.
"I Can See Through Time" is all washed out whir and hushed shimmer, looped and chopped sounds smoothed into a droney almost pop ambience, which quickly gives way to "Return To Planet Atlas", a sort of trip hopped slowcore jam, all big beats, and thick gnarled woofer shredding low-end, surrounded on all sides by streaks of high end, and all manner of swirling effects. The beats are definitely reminiscent of Scorn, even Bomb The Bass (remember them?), but a bit amped up and a lot heavier: "Necro Effigy" is another strange beat driven groove, with strange voices, croaking frogs, fractured glitched out crunch, and stuttery stop start beats, "Broadcast" is a dreamy interlude, sampled voices, looped bass notes and distant drone-y rumbles, dreamy and ethereal, which leads right into "I Fought The Law And The Law Won" which sounds like Portishead, all smoke-y and late night, or maybe a more beaty Bohren, creepy crawly, mysterious and weirdly pretty, "Technicolour Minstrel Show" begins with a SUNNO)))-y wall of crumbling blackened sound, only to give way to a whirring soft focus dreamscape, while "Origami Werewolf" is a dark loping jam, all throbbing beats, sheets of blown out guitar, keening feedback, and some serious industrial riffage, and finally, the record closes with the nearly 13 minute "Ultimate Testament", a gorgeous super minimal slowcore crawl, the beats skeletal and spaced out, the guitar raw and distorted, thick and noxious, but the melodies epic and majestic, it sounds like it might build to classic post rock crescendo, but instead, everything drops out except for the drums, and the last few minutes are a strange minimal beatscape, booming, pounding, crashing, but with tons of space, the beats echoing into the blackness before winking out, only to be replaced by another beat, until there's nothing left.
This shit is amazing, so dark and heavy and unlikely. Gorgeously packaged too, in a super swank fold out six panel sleeve, adorned with some garish woodcut style illustrations, and be sure and check out their Myspace page as well, tons of other music that didn't make it onto the cd, including a killer reinterpretation of an old Nirvana song, that gets all Necro'd. So Rad. And just for the record, January is in no way too soon to start picking records for your best of 2010 list... just so you know...
MPEG Stream: "Hurt Me I'm Bored"
MPEG Stream: "Spilth (Spill Your Filth)"
MPEG Stream: "I Fought The Law And The Law Won"
MPEG Stream: "Technicolour Minstrel Show"
MPEG Stream: "Origami Werewolf"

NECRO SCHIZMA Erupted Evil (From Beyond Productions) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Does the name Hellhammer mean anything to you? The raw, Venom-worshipping, Melvins-inspiring cult metal band that later morphed into Celtic Frost? Well it meant A LOT to the guys in Necro Schizma, a Dutch doom band whose 1989 demo tape has just now been rescued from obscurity and released on cd. Vocalist Cronald, guitarists Bert and Pulle, and drummer Barney recorded their "Erupted Evil" demo for $100 in three hours, but the results are, for true doomheads, utterly priceless and timeless. Slow, simple, crawling, distorted guitar and agonized vocal retching -- stuff that's all the better for being played as primitively, and recorded in as lo-fi a fashion as this was. Necro Schizma almost make their heroes Hellhammer sound pro and polished. Wow. If you're into current practicioners of slow, scary heaviness like Corrupted and Khanate, you should check this out.
In addition to the six tracks from Necro Schizma's demo tape that appear here, there's another seven tracks recorded at a live gig in 1990. They do a cover version of Hellhammer's classic "Triumph of Death" both live and on the demo, and it easily could be one of their tunes (except maybe it's a little *faster* than their own stuff!).
Aside from Hellhammer, they also list as inspirations Venom, Bathory, Celtic Frost, Manowar, Angel Witch, Messiah, Judas Priest, and Slaughter (we're pretty sure that'd be the Canadian thrash act, not the the American hair metallers). They don't mention Saint Vitus, but boy does the guitar sound like vintage Dave Chandler!
Doom. Pure doom. Made by fans back in the day, luckily unearthed for fans today. We only have a few copies, and may or may not be able to get more, so if you think you want one, be quick. Thanks to Greg Anderson (Southern Lord/Goatsnake/SUNNO)))) for turning us on to this!
RealAudio clip: " Bestial Lust"

NECROFROST Blackeon Lightharvest (Total Holocaust) cd 12.98
It's been 8 long years, but German black metal weirdos Necrofrost have resurfaced with a brand new record. Their 2000 / 2001 one two punch: In A Misty Soar And On Its Swampy Floor and Bloodstorms Voktes Over Hytrungas' Dunkle Necrotoner, pretty much set the bar around here for fucked up freaked out supremely damaged and fractured outsider black metal. There's probably not an aQ favorite black metal record that didn't get compared to Necrofrost. And until very recently we just assumed that Necrofrost were indeed dead and gone, laying forever dormant beneath that swampy floor where dead things go to rot and fade away.
But Blackeon Lightharvest proves otherwise, finding the dreadful duo of Seirim and Fimbulraven offering up another glorious collection of sick, murky black filth. Not too much has changed soundwise since the last bit of necro frost, the songs are still woozy and midtempo, stumbling and buzzy, the vocals harsh and hellish, the songs simple and stripped down, locked into long stretched of furious blurred blackness, with the occasional chunk of more lurching doominess.
If anything, the band sound better. More polished, but not obviously so, unless you're super familiar with the other two records. Where those records sounded fucked up, and almost retarded at times (a compliment btw), here the weirdness seems more an organic part of the whole. The songs are simple, but dense and textured and layered, the recording is still bizarre, some songs super in-the-red, others muddy and muted sounding, and all kinds of tape drop outs and blasts of too-much-distortion that cause the levels to fluctuate, but much like Faxed Head, those bits of fucked up production only add to the mood and vibe, making a weird record sound even more weird.
Some might be disappointed by the inclusion of a band photo, showing Fumbulraven as a normal looking sideburned guy wearing a knit cap and Seirim as a pretty average looking metal dude, but the band photo is labeled "The Checkered Forest Sofa", um, okay, and the guys are credited with "space signals and vector echoes" as well as guitars and drums, and there are still awesome song titles like "Your Flesh Is My Convenience", "Steel Forests Of My Deserted Dreams", and in a bid to describe their sound, "Ugly Misanthropic Metal". Plus Sin Nanna of Striborg contributed to the record's intro somehow, supposedly. Needless to say, this all adds up to some good old Necrofrostian weirdness, and thankfully, the record lives up to all that, a seriously skewed chunk of surprisingly melodic, but WAY damaged black buzz.
First there's the intro, which does indeed remind us of Striborg, trash can drumming, over blurred sheets of mournful minor key guitars, and a super harsh rasped vocal, but that quickly gives way to a dirgey, almost punky bit of raw midtempo old school black metal. Definitely melodic, and sort of loping and lumbering tempo wise, but with some fractured more frenetic breaks, and some wild squiggly guitar bits, all very cyclical and hypnotic, and the sound very muddy and lo-fi, which leaves you pretty unprepared for "Steel Forests" which just might be our favorite track on the disc, a furious blast of super charged buzz drenched guitars, a wild insectoid main riff, wild blasting drums all but buried in the mix, the vocals also pretty buried, all wound into a tight, seriously blistering black metal frenzy, and hooks galore, too, that main riff will stick in your had like mad, and then when the track shifts gears, and gets all dynamic, that's when the levels go haywire, the sound shifting from overblown saturated tape blur, to muted underwater thrum, with some awesome off kilter edits and breaks, might just be BM jam of the year.
And of course the next track switched gears again, with a cool almost post rock crunch chug, with little flurries of harmonics, before lurching into and almost D-beat pound, which makes the long piano part in the middle all the more unexpected, a pretty, moody, minor key vamp, replete with shimmering dramatic strings. Huh? Well, it is Necrofrost after all.
The title track offers up so more weirdness, beginning with backwards processed guitars before launching into a plodding groove, the buzz and pound laced with tangled almost NWOBHM guitar harmonies, and then comes "Ugly Misanthropic Metal" which is indeed all those things, a raw, almost doomy blackened dirge, the vocals extra harsh, the guitars super tense and dramatic, which is followed by a weirdly keyboard heavy jam, which sounds like a Black Sabbath outtake slowed waaaaay down and smeared in black filth, before exploding into a super intense blast, complete with more of those guitar harmonies, before finishing off with a track of haunting creeped out ambience, all chittering insects, whirring New Age synths, deep ominous rumbles and soaring guitar leads.
The first few times we listened to Blackeon Lightharvest, we were convinced it was not nearly as weird as the other two records, but now we're not so sure, like we mentioned above, the weirdness seems to be just less obvious, instead, it lurks inside every note and riff and melody, so even when on the surface, it seems just like classic blasting black metal, it's really not. At all.
No surprise really, considering that Necrofrost is definitely in our black metal pantheon, but this is quickly becoming one of our new favorite BM records.
MPEG Stream: "Your Flesh Is My Convenience"
MPEG Stream: "Sacral Arrival Of Elitist Light"
MPEG Stream: "Steel Forests Of My Deserted Dreams"

NECROFROST Bloodstorms Voktes Over Hytrunghas Dunkle Necrotroner (Total Holocaust) cd 14.98
Oh, how we have been waiting for this! Finally, after years of being unavailable, both records by the mighty Necrofrost are available again. If you've been paying attention to the AQ list, you will probably recognize the name Necrofrost from citations in various reviews of damaged, demented, freaked out fucked up black metal. Striborg, Dead Reptile Shrine, Detsorgsekalf, Hidden, The One. It's pretty much impossible to talk about bizarre black metal without mentioning Necrofrost. And here's why:
Okay, we know that black metal is a serious and GRIM business. There is no place for humor or frivolity. No smiling or laughing and definitely no smirking. Just bitter bleak misanthropy. Suicidal despondency. Utter frosty misery. But absurdity is a whole 'nother story. We've championed some truly absurd/damaged/demented metal in the past, Benighted Leams, Abruptum, Vondur, and of course last week's record of the week Meads Of Asphodel. But I think Necrofrost just might take the cake. This is one of the most fucked black metal records we have ever heard. Start with the titles. The record is called Bloodstorms Voktes Over Hytrunghas Dunkle Necrotroner! Some of the song titles: "Carcass Carried By The Crawls Of Titanbats", "Me The Tundra", "Slaughtered In A Misanthropic Intent", "Nostalgia Freeze The Norse Reaper", and on and on and on. The record starts off with grunting and growling and mewling, like a legion of just birthed demons, struggling to awaken and crawling up through the murk and the mire, inexplicably accompanied by some jaunty renaissance faire minstrels! Weird. The band then launches into some buzzing stumbling, chaotic, ultra grim lo-fi black metal. Struggling blastbeats, caterwauling guitars, midtempo dirges and some truly necro grunts. But suddenly the song breaks into a bizarre acoustic/country tinged breakdown, complete with warbly wicked witch vocals shrieking and squealing above the din and later, creepy keyboards evoke some long lost Z grade horror movie, while out of tune guitars emulate some sort of scary circus music. Weird! While the core of Necrofrost's sound is definitely ultra frosty, uber grim, lo-fi black Black BLACK metal, even their metal is damaged and demented. Super spastic drumming, retarded guitar, ridiculous mixing, tape drop outs (a la Faxed Head?), vocals that threaten to overwhelm the mix and occasionally do, becoming a Merzbowian blur at full shriek, baritone chants weaving in and out of ear shredding high end blur, muffled blast beats underpin, pretty arpeggiated guitar melodies while the vocalist speak/sings a litany of evil, in his best grumpy grandma moan. There's just too much weirdness to really do this record justice in a review. You just gotta hear it. A frosty, hellish mud covered, grim chunk of brilliantly skewed outsider avant black metal!
MPEG Stream: "Carcass Carried By The Crawls Of Titan Bats"
MPEG Stream: "Me The Tundra"
MPEG Stream: "Slaughtered In A Misanthropic Intent"

NECROFROST Bloodstorms Voktes Over Hytrunghas Dunkle Necrotroner (Aphelion) lp 15.98
Okay metal vinyl fanatics! Here's your one chance to own this killer slabe of freaked out, ultra damaged black metal brilliance on lp! But these are super limited, only 500 copies, each one hand numbered, not sure if we'll be able to get more when we run out so best act fast...
If you've been paying attention to the AQ list, you will probably recognize the name Necrofrost from citations in various reviews of damaged, demented, freaked out fucked up black metal. Striborg, Dead Reptile Shrine, Detsorgsekalf, Hidden, The One. It's pretty much impossible to talk about bizarre black metal without mentioning Necrofrost. And here's why:
Okay, we know that black metal is a serious and GRIM business. There is no place for humor or frivolity. No smiling or laughing and definitely no smirking. Just bitter bleak misanthropy. Suicidal despondency. Utter frosty misery. But absurdity is a whole 'nother story. We've championed some truly absurd/damaged/demented metal in the past, Benighted Leams, Abruptum, Vondur, and of course last week's record of the week Meads Of Asphodel. But I think Necrofrost just might take the cake. This is one of the most fucked black metal records we have ever heard. Start with the titles. The record is called Bloodstorms Voktes Over Hytrunghas Dunkle Necrotroner! Some of the song titles: "Carcass Carried By The Crawls Of Titanbats", "Me The Tundra", "Slaughtered In A Misanthropic Intent", "Nostalgia Freeze The Norse Reaper", and on and on and on. The record starts off with grunting and growling and mewling, like a legion of just birthed demons, struggling to awaken and crawling up through the murk and the mire, inexplicably accompanied by some jaunty renaissance faire minstrels! Weird. The band then launches into some buzzing stumbling, chaotic, ultra grim lo-fi black metal. Struggling blastbeats, caterwauling guitars, midtempo dirges and some truly necro grunts. But suddenly the song breaks into a bizarre acoustic/country tinged breakdown, complete with warbly wicked witch vocals shrieking and squealing above the din and later, creepy keyboards evoke some long lost Z grade horror movie, while out of tune guitars emulate some sort of scary circus music. Weird! While the core of Necrofrost's sound is definitely ultra frosty, uber grim, lo-fi black Black BLACK metal, even their metal is damaged and demented. Super spastic drumming, retarded guitar, ridiculous mixing, tape drop outs (a la Faxed Head?), vocals that threaten to overwhelm the mix and occasionally do, becoming a Merzbowian blur at full shriek, baritone chants weaving in and out of ear shredding high end blur, muffled blast beats underpin, pretty arpeggiated guitar melodies while the vocalist speak/sings a litany of evil, in his best grumpy grandma moan. There's just too much weirdness to really do this record justice in a review. You just gotta hear it. A frosty, hellish mud covered, grim chunk of brilliantly skewed outsider avant black metal!
MPEG Stream: "Carcass Carried By The Crawls Of Titan Bats"
MPEG Stream: "Me The Tundra"
MPEG Stream: "Slaughtered In A Misanthropic Intent"

NECROFROST Dark Fog Hovers Near The Wooden Caves of Uldrakhilan Bloodforests (Aphelion) 10" 21.00
With a title like Dark Fog Hovers Near The Wooden Caves Of Aldrakkiian Bloodforest, it's gotta be Necrofrost, easily one of our favorite fucked up outsider black metal hordes. Quite possibly THE favorite. They might just be one of the most referenced bands on the aQ site, since whenever we need to describe a band that is warped and confusional and baffling and freaky and fucked up and damaged and retarded, well, Necrofrost is pretty much the gold standard.
Dark Fog Hovens Near The Wooden Caves Of Aldrakkiian Bloodforest is Necrofrost's legendary 1998 demo, so limited we had never even heard of it until we heard about this reissue, available on vinyl for the first time ever, and of course crazy limited. And while most of the songs here were re-recorded later for the albums proper, here, they are, and we never thought it could be possible, EVEN MORE fucked up and amazing.
Beginning with some strange synth and strings and tympanis sort of classical intro, the band launch into some of the sickest, most frenzied and furious black buzz EVER. Super blown out and in the red, the guitars so distorted they threaten to crumble into pieces, the drums a relentless pound, and the vocals, you thought they were sick before, here they're super high in the mix, LOUD, and inhuman, and super effected, the howls and screams nearly swallowing up the rest of the music. And that music, weirdly melodic, but plenty buzzy and black, with woozy super alien sounding tinny leads all over the place, the overall sound so distorted and weirdly recorded that it almost sounds avant, especially when the guitars and vocals lock into weirdly convoluted lurching bursts of fragmented buzz. So goddamn good. Anyone who owns the other Necrofrost records NEEDS this, and if you've never heard these guys before, then this will either blow your mind completely, or send you running off in terror. Either way, this fucking RULES.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each one hand numbered.

NECROFROST In A Misty Soar And On Its Swampy Floor (Total Holocaust) cd 14.98
We love Necrofrost. The ultimate in damaged weirdo outsider black metal. Managing to be completely bafflingly bizarre but still grim and cult and black and heavy as fuck. This is one of two long overdue reissues, this one from 1999, and still sounding as amazing and as fucked as ever. It's called In A Misty Soar And On Its Swampy Floor after all, and features some of the best black metal song titles EVER: "Slaughtered With Misanthropic Intent", "Rapacious Forests In Ultimate Sleep", "The Return Of Animalian Bloodlust", "Bloodthrones And Legionwoods"...
And while the sound is appropriately black and buzzy, it's ultimately filtered through Necrofrost's cracked and distorted metal sensibility and ends up being some of the coolest weirdest black metal you will ever hear. At its core, this is a loping midtempo, slightly doomy, buzz drenched black metal. But Necrofrost take that sound and drag it kicking and screaming, bloody and battered through some haunted forest, into a cave and down into the pits of hell. While not as completely wacked as their other record Bloodstorms Voktes Over Hytrunghas Dunkle Necrotroner, In A Misty Soar And On Its Swampy Floor is more subtly fucked, its dementedness demonstrated less by bursts of renaissance faire folly or country banjos and more by some inherent, intangible what the fuck vibe that seems ooze from every recorded second.
After a weird, horror movie piano intro, with minor key strings, sounding like some Morricone spy thriller, the band lurch into black action. Sheets of blasting buzz, howled demonic shrieks, over a stumbling chaotic blast beat, the tempos ever shifting, bizarre atonal Greg Ginn guitars playing tangled angular leads, strange doom breakdowns, almost jaunty polka style rhythms, twisted and tweaked circusy guitar melodies, albeit all doused in grim blackness, thick washes of medieval keyboards, haunting minor key arpeggiated guitars, these are all part of Necrofrost's sinister sonic world, but ultimately, their grim black blasts are fucked enough, the perfect black metal gateway, luring you with blast and buzz, grimly sucking you into their strange sonic underworld, and maybe once you have successfully traversed Necrofrost's Misty Soar and Swampy Floor, you'll be ready to brave their Bloodstorms...
Essential for all fans of Striborg, Dead Reptile Shrine, Detsorgsekalf, Hidden, Benighted Leams, Furze, Urfaust, The One and other practitioners of the dark and damaged black arts...
MPEG Stream: "Slaughtered In A Misanthropic Intent"
MPEG Stream: "Grimm Of Decembers Mailune"
MPEG Stream: "Wonders That On My Rotten Cabin Pounders"

NECROFROST In A Misty Soar And On Its Swampy Floor (Northern Silence) lp 14.98
Now available on ultra necro and frosty vinyl!! Limited to 500 copies, each one hand numbered, and with slightly different artwork. Got a handful and will most likely not be able to get more (unfortunately, due to the ongoing lps vs the postal service battle, the covers are all slightly less than perfect, with most having some sort of slight imperfection or slightly bent corners). Here's what we had to say about In A Misty Soar And On Its Swampy Floor, one of our favorite weirdo black metal records ever, back when we reviewed the cd:
We love Necrofrost. The ultimate in damaged weirdo outsider black metal. Managing to be completely bafflingly bizarre but still grim and cult and black and heavy as fuck. This is one of two long overdue reissues, this one from 1999, and still sounding as amazing and as fucked as ever. It's called In A Misty Soar And On Its Swampy Floor after all, and features some of the best black metal song titles EVER: "Slaughtered With Misanthropic Intent", "Rapacious Forests In Ultimate Sleep", "The Return Of Animalian Bloodlust", "Bloodthrones And Legionwoods"...
And while the sound is appropriately black and buzzy, it's ultimately filtered through Necrofrost's cracked and distorted metal sensibility and ends up being some of the coolest weirdest black metal you will ever hear. At its core, this is a loping midtempo, slightly doomy, buzz drenched black metal. But Necrofrost take that sound and drag it kicking and screaming, bloody and battered through some haunted forest, into a cave and down into the pits of hell. While not as completely wacked as their other record Bloodstorms Voktes Over Hytrunghas Dunkle Necrotroner, In A Misty Soar And On Its Swampy Floor is more subtly fucked, its dementedness demonstrated less by bursts of renaissance faire folly or country banjos and more by some inherent, intangible what the fuck vibe that seems ooze from every recorded second.
After a weird, horror movie piano intro, with minor key strings, sounding like some Morricone spy thriller, the band lurch into black action. Sheets of blasting buzz, howled demonic shrieks, over a stumbling chaotic blast beat, the tempos ever shifting, bizarre atonal Greg Ginn guitars playing tangled angular leads, strange doom breakdowns, almost jaunty polka style rhythms, twisted and tweaked circusy guitar melodies, albeit all doused in grim blackness, thick washes of medieval keyboards, haunting minor key arpeggiated guitars, these are all part of Necrofrost's sinister sonic world, but ultimately, their grim black blasts are fucked enough, the perfect black metal gateway, luring you with blast and buzz, grimly sucking you into their strange sonic underworld, and maybe once you have successfully traversed Necrofrost's Misty Soar and Swampy Floor, you'll be ready to brave their Bloodstorms...
Essential for all fans of Striborg, Dead Reptile Shrine, Detsorgsekalf, Hidden, Benighted Leams, Furze, Urfaust, The One and other practitioners of the dark and damaged black arts...
MPEG Stream: "Slaughtered In A Misanthropic Intent"
MPEG Stream: "Grimm Of Decembers Mailune"
MPEG Stream: "Wonders That On My Rotten Cabin Pounders"

NECROMANTIA Crossing The Fiery Path (Black Lotus) cd 15.98
Greek black metal classic reissued w/ bonus track.

NECROMANTIA IV: Malice (Black Lotus) cd 14.98
Allan's favorite Greek black metal band.

NECRONOMICON Tips Zum AutomatesSelbstmord (Amber Soundroom) lp 36.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
While we wait for the cd to be restocked (hopefully, soon, maybe today!), we just got a few copies of a new VINYL reissue of this krautrock classic. It's an import, expensive and limited of course, but you're probably never ever gonna find an original LP at any price...not sure if it has the bonus tracks that the cd had, but it does have the liner notes. And more importantly, it's in packaging that folds out into a giant cross, just like the original LP sleeve apparently did!! Wow. Here's a portion of our review of this album from when we listed the Garden Of Delights cd version:
A masterpiece of suicidal, political Krautrock heaviosity from 1972. NECRONOMICON. Freaky then, freaky now. Psychedelic hard rock that was about as 'extreme' as it got at the time...definitely if Terrorizer magazine had existed back then, these Germans would have made the cover. Not that this extreme by today's blackened metal standards, as there's enough pretty and melodic elements included amongst the fuzz riffage to satisfy the mellower hippie types in the Necronomicon freak-scene. And, they're no Black Sabbath. Still, pretty far gone for '72. The title: How To Kill Yourself. Now that's a bad trip. The very first track, the seven-minute "Prolog", almost makes the remainder of this album superflous, as it's a full, epic encapsulation Necronomicon's heavy prog excess. Theirs is an album replete with stinging acid guitar, heady Hammond organ, and monkish chanting. Ecclisastical choirs wail over trudging, yearning guitar and organ -- shades of Magma and J.A. Caesar. It's like Amon Duul II murdering Pink Floyd and riding their animated corpses all the way to hell. Again, not in any way metal, but what you might call Wagnerian garage-psych... Definitely an obscure but A-list kraut/psych album for those with occult tastes...
MPEG Stream: "Prolog"
MPEG Stream: "Requiem der Natur"

NECRONOMICON Tips Zum Selbstmord (Garden Of Delights) cd 21.00
At last, again, reissued: a masterpiece of suicidal, political Krautrock heaviosity from 1972. NECRONOMICON. Freaky then, freaky now. Psychedelic hard rock that was about as 'extreme' as it got at the time...definitely if Terrorizer magazine had existed back then, these Germans would have made the cover. Not that this extreme by today's blackened metal standards, as there's enough pretty and melodic elements included amongst the fuzz riffage to satisfy the mellower hippie types in the Necronomicon freak-scene. And, they're no Black Sabbath. Still, pretty far gone for '72. The title: How To Kill Yourself. Now that's a bad trip. The very first track, the seven-minute "Prolog", almost makes the remainder of this album superflous, as it's a full, epic encapsulation Necronomicon's heavy prog excess. Theirs is an album replete with stinging acid guitar, heady Hammond organ, and monkish chanting. Ecclisastical choirs wail over trudging, yearning guitar and organ -- shades of Magma and J.A. Caesar. It's like Amon Duul II murdering Pink Floyd and riding their animated corpses all the way to hell. Again, not in any way metal, but what you might call Wagnerian garage-psych. This was first reissued on cd some years ago by Little Wing of Refugees (with a different, generic cover). When we first got it in at Aquarius then, we were all ready to be disappointed 'cause what band ever lives up to an H.P. Lovecraft inspired name like Necronomicon? Well, Shub Niggurath did, and so do these guys. I've had a copy lurking in my cd collection for years now, and now am happy to replace it with this new edition, complete with four bonus tracks and the usual, deluxe Garden Of Delights packaging (a cd booklet thick enough to barely fit in the jewel case, full of text and full color graphics). Actually, come to think of it, who knows? With a '70s era psych import LP like this, we might have once stocked it REALLY long ago, way back in Aquarius' storied past, when it first came out on vinyl...well no, not this, the private press original was/is waaaay to rare. And too weird. Definitely an obscure but A-list kraut/psych album for those with occult tastes...
MPEG Stream: "Prolog"
MPEG Stream: "Requiem der Natur"

NECRONOMITRON s/t (Load) cd 14.98
Load strikes again! Amidst all the skronky arty punk costume rock bands indigenious to Rhode Island, Necronomitron rises above to play some actual honest-to-god METAL, and Providence's Load label was up to the task of bringing it to the indie-masses via this cd. Metal? Well, yeah, nasty, speedy, convoluted heaviness indeed. Besides their cool name, Necronomitron's got wretched chipmunk vocals, wheedily-wheedily guitar solos, frantic riff-mongering, and drumming that sounds like a panicked giant centipede barrelling down a particularily steep staircase. And lots of "parts". It's a bit like old Nuclear Assault or Voivod, with the treble cranked to eleven. Or imagine a Crom-Tech record that was truly heavy. Insane, punk, metal. The hectic tech-metal madness of songs like "Unscheduled Sunrise", "Incephalopod" and "Invading Assassin Is Dead" will dizzy and stupify you. After that excellent Usaisamonster record, another Load winner. Yay!
MPEG Stream: "Unscheduled Sunrise"
MPEG Stream: "Large Field Of Death"

NECROPHAGIST Epitaph (Relapse) cd 14.98
We've been waiting for this for a long time. The return of the one and only Necrophagist. Yes you've already guessed from the name that they're a death metal band. But not just any death metal band. No sir. These are the guys -- or more properly, guy, as until recently Necrophagist was a one-man outfit -- who brought us the incredible Onset Of Putrefaction album back in 2000. A disc that we considered to be THE ULTIMATE technical death metal lead guitar album EVER. Seriously, we were bowing down and worshipping from the moment we first heard it. Necrophagist made some of the most over-the-top, complex, fast and brutal metal music we'd ever heard, especially in the guitar department. The kind of stuff that we at AQ know even our non-metal customers need to hear, and couldn't help but be impressed and entertained by. So insane, so ridiculous. So, does Epitaph top Onset? Well now guitarist/mastermind Mohammed Suicmez is joined by a full band, all just as superhuman musically as he is. That's not a drum machine anymore! Somebody's actually playing that on a real drum kit. And dude's guitar playing, if anything, has gotten even more incredibly, jawdroppingly Yngwie-ized. Squiggly soloing and harmonies and arpeggios and sweep picking and all that. Plus stop on a dime performances/songwriting (songwriting that's catchier than the first album too). And did we mention the insane drumming? There's also some tasty bass playing for the prog/fusion four-string fans among you. Plus Mohammed's requisite cookie-monster vocals have an irresistable chocolate/peanut butter effect when combined with his deft, delicious, delicate guitar filagree.
A friend of ours shot a (hilarious) home video of '80s guitar shred master Michael Angelo (of Nitro fame) teaching a guitar clinic at a music store in suburban Maryland last year...among the highlights were Mr. Angelo playing his trademark double necked axe, and also getting into a heated argument with a 12 year old boy ("You're a cocky little guy", "What are you doing that's so awesome right now?!"). At one point in the video, Michael Angelo says something about how if Mozart, at age 5, could come in the store right then and sit down at one of the keyboards and play, he'd "rip your face off". This album somehow reminds me of both Michael Angelo and that statement. The whole record is like one big quasi-classical techie metal orgasm. C'mon, we KNOW you love this stuff. How can you not? Enjoy it ironically or not, we don't care (it's your secret). Yep, so even if you don't have cds by the likes of Morbid Angel, Krisiun, Cryptopsy, Meshuggah or Windham Hell in your collection, we figure that we've done well enough selling albums by bands like The Fucking Champs and Earl Shilton to a wide spectrum of AQ customers that a lot of you would want this and if this didn't deserve to be Record Of The Week this time around, then honestly nothing did. Now we await Willowtip's rumored upcoming release of the first album, re-recorded with the full band lineup! Available on cd or limited edition 180 gram vinyl.
MPEG Stream: "Diminished to b"
MPEG Stream: "Only Ash Remains"

NECROPHAGIST Epitaph (Relapse) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We've been waiting for this for a long time. The return of the one and only Necrophagist. Yes you've already guessed from the name that they're a death metal band. But not just any death metal band. No sir. These are the guys -- or more properly, guy, as until recently Necrophagist was a one-man outfit -- who brought us the incredible Onset Of Putrefaction album back in 2000. A disc that we considered to be THE ULTIMATE technical death metal lead guitar album EVER. Seriously, we were bowing down and worshipping from the moment we first heard it. Necrophagist made some of the most over-the-top, complex, fast and brutal metal music we'd ever heard, especially in the guitar department. The kind of stuff that we at AQ know even our non-metal customers need to hear, and couldn't help but be impressed and entertained by. So insane, so ridiculous. So, does Epitaph top Onset? Well now guitarist/mastermind Mohammed Suicmez is joined by a full band, all just as superhuman musically as he is. That's not a drum machine anymore! Somebody's actually playing that on a real drum kit. And dude's guitar playing, if anything, has gotten even more incredibly, jawdroppingly Yngwie-ized. Squiggly soloing and harmonies and arpeggios and sweep picking and all that. Plus stop on a dime performances/songwriting (songwriting that's catchier than the first album too). And did we mention the insane drumming? There's also some tasty bass playing for the prog/fusion four-string fans among you. Plus Mohammed's requisite cookie-monster vocals have an irresistable chocolate/peanut butter effect when combined with his deft, delicious, delicate guitar filagree.
A friend of ours shot a (hilarious) home video of '80s guitar shred master Michael Angelo (of Nitro fame) teaching a guitar clinic at a music store in suburban Maryland last year...among the highlights were Mr. Angelo playing his trademark double necked axe, and also getting into a heated argument with a 12 year old boy ("You're a cocky little guy", "What are you doing that's so awesome right now?!"). At one point in the video, Michael Angelo says something about how if Mozart, at age 5, could come in the store right then and sit down at one of the keyboards and play, he'd "rip your face off". This album somehow reminds me of both Michael Angelo and that statement. The whole record is like one big quasi-classical techie metal orgasm. C'mon, we KNOW you love this stuff. How can you not? Enjoy it ironically or not, we don't care (it's your secret). Yep, so even if you don't have cds by the likes of Morbid Angel, Krisiun, Cryptopsy, Meshuggah or Windham Hell in your collection, we figure that we've done well enough selling albums by bands like The Fucking Champs and Earl Shilton to a wide spectrum of AQ customers that a lot of you would want this and if this didn't deserve to be Record Of The Week this time around, then honestly nothing did. Now we await Willowtip's rumored upcoming release of the first album, re-recorded with the full band lineup! Available on cd or limited edition 180 gram vinyl.
MPEG Stream: "Diminished to b"
MPEG Stream: "Only Ash Remains"

NECROPHAGIST Onset of Putrefaction (Noise Solution) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Who would have thought that this little cd, an insane one-man Carcass/Morbid Angel hybrid, released on a tiny European label, would cause such a stir here at Aqaurius even among non-metalheads? And after running out of the 5 or 6 copies we were able to get, who would have realised that it would take Andee months and months of emailing -the- Necrophagist dude himself, as well as a small French distributor, to track down more copies of this little gem? But it all paid off, so those of you who missed out last time, don't blow it again. Here's what we wrote about it the only time it was listed (in Andee and Allan's top records of 2000 list!):
Putrefaction. I love that word, especially how it's spelled. Anyway, despite the generic death metal band name, album title, and lyrical content, Necrophagist is by no means your run of the mill generic death metal band!! No sir. First off, it's one guy (German, I think) playing the guitar, grunting the vocals, and programming the drums. Bedroom home studio metal. The main thing, tho: playing the guitar. This might be the ultimate crazy squiggly guitar lead album ever, outdoing even Morbid Angel and Krisiun in the extreme guitar soloing sweepstakes. It's insane, really. As brutal as the music gets, there's guitar shredding wedged into every available moment of music. As mentioned, this is one guy, probably recording at home. Well, I don't know about that for sure, but there must have been a long ProTools session involved in this!! 'Cause there's no way anybody could do this live. So, as a death metal record, pretty great indeed. Ignore the death metal aspect (if only the dude who did this would have!) and you've got an avant-garde guitar shred fest for John Zorn fans. It would make Buckethead weep. And supposedly there IS a new record on the way, this time a FULL band, that's fully capable of pulling this stuff off live. Just hope they manage to make it over here. In the meantime, just sit back and enjoy the onset of putrefaction.
RealAudio clip: "Foul Body Autopsy"
RealAudio clip: "Mutilate The Stillborn"
RealAudio clip: "To Breathe In A Casket"

NECROPHAGIST Onset Of Putrefaction (Willowtip) cd 14.98
We made a huge deal out of the most recent Necrophagist, and rightly so, quite possibly the most insane ridiculous and of course great death metal record ever. But before that, came THIS. Onset Of Putrefaction, the entire thing recorded by the then one man band Muhammed Suicmez, playing all the instruments and programming the drum machine allowing for the ridiculously impossible, inhumanly fast and absurdly convoluted song structures. So finally Onset gets the reissue treatment. New artwork, remastered, two bonus tracks from the demo, but most importantly, NEW DRUM TRACKS, supposedly performed by a live drummer! Seems impossible, and many around here think it so, but who cares. This is absolutely one of the most dizzingly intense records ever. Here's what we had to say the first time around when it was a much harder record to track down. (Kudos to Willowtip for seeing exactly what we saw, twisted fucking genius!):
Putrefaction. I love that word, especially how it's spelled. Anyway, despite the generic death metal band name, album title, and lyrical content, Necrophagist is by no means your run of the mill generic death metal band!! No sir. First off, it's one guy playing the guitar, grunting the vocals, and programming the drums. Bedroom home studio metal. The main thing, tho: playing the guitar. This might be the ultimate crazy squiggly guitar lead album ever, outdoing even Morbid Angel and Krisiun in the extreme guitar soloing sweepstakes. It's insane, really. As brutal as the music gets, there's guitar shredding wedged into every available moment of music. As mentioned, this is one guy, probably recording at home. Well, I don't know about that for sure, but there must have been a long ProTools session involved in this!! 'Cause there's no way anybody could do this live. So, as a death metal record, pretty great indeed. Ignore the death metal aspect, and you've got an avant-garde guitar shred fest for John Zorn fans. It would make Buckethead weep. So just sit back and enjoy the onset of putrefaction.
MPEG Stream: "Foul Body Autopsy"
MPEG Stream: "To Breathe In A Casket"
MPEG Stream: "Mutilate The Stillborn"

NECROPLASMA My Hearse, My Redemption (Satanic Propaganda) cd 13.98
This is not a new record, but we have been dying to review something, ANYTHING, by these terrifying Swedes, and this is as good a place to start as any, their debut full length from 2002. Folks familiar with Swedish black metal will probably at least have a rough idea of what they're getting into, Watain, Marduk, Kill (in fact Kill and Necroplasma share a member or two), you know, fast and furious and frenzied and fucked up, but you'll doubtfully be prepared for just how intense and heavy and utterly soul crushing Necroplasma really are.
Beginning with a weird fuzzy Brainbombs-ish bassline, the band almost immediately launch into an impossibly blasting onslaught, lightning fast blastbeat, super blown out distorted bass (which is probably what makes this sound so fucking heavy, most black metal records have ZERO bass), wild insectoid guitar buzz, inhuman throat shredding demon vokills, only the occasional breakdown, where just the main riff is unfurled only to be obliterated seconds later by the band lurching into yet another frenzied attack.
Within all this blasting and buzzing, there is some seriously twisted shit going on too, within the title track there are some strange stretches of muddy muted tribal weirdness happening, "Heavens Above" is a fucked up lurching dirge that sounds almost like an entirely different band, until the sound suddenly launches into a hyperspeed blast, the opening riff for "Blessed By Him" is a dead ringer for Bastro's "Shoot Me A Deer", the same sort of muted damaged chug, but none of that stuff is what Necroplasma are all about, those are merely drops of black blood in NP's sonic cauldron of crusty filth and sick buzz, a fantastically fucked up and utterly relentless black metal assault that makes the music of most of their compatriots sound downright tame in comparison.
MPEG Stream: "Abyssic Infernum"
MPEG Stream: "Shallow Voices"
MPEG Stream: "My Hearse, My Redemption"

NECROPOLIS Necrosphere (Cold Spring) cd 15.98

NECROS, THE Tangled Up / Live Or Else (Restless) cd 14.98

MPEG Stream: "Gun"
MPEG Stream: "Blizzard Of Glass"
MPEG Stream: "Big Chief"

NEDELLE From The Lion's Mouth (Kill Rock Stars) cd 14.98
As was promised late last year when she and Thom (Moore of the Moore Brothers) released their Summerland album on Kill Rock Stars, here is her second solo album. Your initial impression might be that Nedelle's intimate, mostly acoustic songs are totally off the cuff -- a few barely reach the two minute mark -- but listen further and you'll discover that they're quite deceptively so. She's cozied them up with lush strings, a little whistlin' (on the sixth song "Our Little Selves") and sweet-sweet vocal harmonies. The highlight is perhaps the most fully developed tune of her repertoire, and it surfaces mid-album. The very lush Rufus Wainwright-esque "Oh No!" is a totally rollicking number, but surprisingly it not at all jarring amid the dreamy slower songs. A definite charmer!
MPEG Stream: "Tell Me A Story"
MPEG Stream: "Oh No!"

NEDELLE AND THOM Summerland (Kill Rock Stars) cd 14.98
Miss Nedelle Torrisi has one of those sweetheart voices that rings with such an air of youth and innocence. Super pretty and soulful, and sorta like Tracy Thorn's pre-Everything But The Girl band, the breezy Marine Girls. She and bandmate/honey Thom Moore's debut album Summerland definitely harkens back a few decades. The album title's more than appropriate 'cause whenever their poppy tunes are playing it seems like it's that time of year -- all warm and bright, filled with good stuff like a pretty gingham sundress, an old wooden rowboat or a tall glass of bracing lemonade. If you dig this, you should also check out Nedelle's solo releases (she has another one due out next year) and Thom's recordings with his brother Greg as yes, the Moore Brothers!
MPEG Stream: "Sun In My Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "Lullaby"

NEED MORE SOURCES Shed (Moteer) cd 15.98

NEED NEW BODY Need New Body (File 13) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Rising from the ashes of Philadelphia art-psych-rock combo Bent Leg Fatima comes this eccentric quintet who play a jumble of experimentations in free jazz and art rock. Sax, organ, drums and other random percussive instruments are tossed into the mix with no guitars in sight. Out of churning rhythmic jams and ramshackle, hoarse vocal songs sprout odd moments of minimal spoken word and tumbling, spartan percussion. Brought to mind elements of Captain Beefheart, Sun Ra, and Sun City Girls.
RealAudio clip: "Track 2"
RealAudio clip: "Track 6"

NEED NEW BODY UFO (File 13) cd 14.98

NEED NEW BODY Where's Black Ben? (5RC) cd 14.98
Are you tired of mundane, regurgitated, redundant music that seems to be the only thing available these days? Well, Need New Body is the radioactive answer to your woes of uninspirational musical blahdom.
They combine frenetic percussion using drums, handclapping and any type of instrument they can make or find with organ, keyboards, bass, banjo, sax and retarded lyricism that fluctuates from power-alto to a crunchy Carol Channing to off-key group harmonizing all throughout oft-changing time signatures. Ugh. I know it sounds like it wouldn't be good. BUT IT IS. This band is not like any other, and you gotta love them for it. The only other ensemble I could link them to would be Sun Ra's Arkestra, with whom they've played with recently. Their sound is a broken free-jazz that comes together to form different ideas here and there (i.e. the electronic-arcade house-party energy of "Who's This Dude? / Tet No Eyes / Do You Want To Party With Me / Medley", or the arty noisy kraut jam of "Badoosh + Seagull War = Die", or the Dead Milkman sillyness of "SO ST RX") Yes, this record is all over the place but in an engaging way, even if it makes you feel a little embarrassed at tiny moments. An album from NNB couldn't be anything else. These guys rule a strange and infinite gap between Styx, funk, free-jazz, Nintendo 64 music and psychotic banjo art-rock.
Where's Black Ben is the first new record from this band of Philadelphian phreaks in two years! And well, if you've seen this album in the store, you'll notice that the artwork is, um... not all that enticing garish and dayglo, but it sure catches the eye! Problematic artwork aside, these guys totally rule. For fans of Sun Ra & His Arkestra, Hella, Deerhoof and Dada-ism.
MPEG Stream: "Peruvidia"
MPEG Stream: "Abstract Dancers: Pearl Crusher / Medley"
MPEG Stream: "Eskimo"

NEED, THE Hi-Fi (Up) 10" 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Olympia's The Need is someone named "Radio" and Rachel from Kicking Giant, this time with the addition of a DJ Zena who supplies scratching, plus Joe Preston (Melvins, Thrones, Earth) on bass and synths. Vinyl only. This is the follow-up release to their debut on Donna Dresch's Chainsaw Records.

NEED, THE s/t (Chainsaw) cd 13.98
Yes, we've got it! And you need it too. This is Radio and Rachel's first full length from '97. And yes, it kicks just as much ass as their second album "The Need Is Dead". With songs like "Pony 4 Honey" and "Rim Me Isabella", these two women mean business... and get down to it.

NEED, THE The Need Is Dead (Chainsaw) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Portland's The Need is not dead, this is their new album.
With previous collaborator Joe Preston (Thrones) adding bass and "squiggle pen" on a couple of tracks.

NEEDLE Trnmssn (Beta Bodega) cd 14.98
Beta Bodega's Needle is actually a collective of like-minded experimental electronical artists who are working under the fictional guise of being involved in the intrigue of international espionage. While a few of the pieces on this album have an interesting brooding quality to their digital clickery and post-Warp electronica, the majority of this record sounds like a less-than-successul sound design assignment made by posturing art school students who mumble about being the next Julian Schnabel between cigarette drags, while not have an ounce of creative ability in their body to actualize such bold claims. Those responsible for these bad parts (and possibly for the good) are Frank Metzger (formally of Oval), Patcha Kutek, V8, Kim Cascone, Phonem, Full Swing, Sony Mao, Andreas Berthling, Oevind Idsoe, and Random Industries.

NEEDLE THRASHERS Vol 4 (Dirt Style) lp 11.98
The fourth volume released by the Skratch Piklz, more beats and breaks for scratching.

NEELY, TOM Your Disease Spread Quick (Robotic Boot) comic book 6.00
For those of you who missed out on the ultra limited Melvins A Senile Animal box set (which is probably most everybody), we managed to get a handful of these super limited comics, by aQ customer Tom Neely, which came in the box along with a belt buckle and a bunch of other stuff. The comic is amazing, inspired by the album, which means it's bizarre and twisted and fucked up and garish and beautiful. For those of you who have yet to see Neely's art (you very well might have and just not known it as he does a lot of commercial stuff too), you're in for a treat, classic and old fashioned, but just a bit tweaked and damaged.
This Melvins comic is the tale of a horse, who loses his head, some sort of spectre, plenty of gore and blood and vomiting, a bandaged worm man with a very powerful tongue, being chased by little legged dots, a bar full of vampires and historical figures, a wolf in grandma's clothing, a long journey across a black sea in a rickety rowboat, a strange mountaintop female cyborg, a giant eagle, a city wrapped in living tendrils, more removable heads and a horde of horses. Sure it sounds insane, it's a comic based on a Melvins record!!! The back cover has a funny Melvins parody ad, and the inside back cover has bios of both Neely and the Melvins.
If you love the Melvins, you'll probably want one of these, and odds are we won't be able to get more once we sell out.

NEETZACH True Servants Of Satan (Sublife Productions) cd 15.98
Straight up, Satan lovin' black metal here from previously obscure necro Norwegians Neetzach, who piqued our interest 'cause they've got drummer Dirge Rep in the band, he who previously pounded the skins for AQ fave Viking-prog kings Enslaved (and some other bands too, like Gehenna and Gorgoroth). That's a fair assurance of quality, and these True Servants Of Satan don't disappoint, if it's a grim and violent, raw thrashing black metal buzz (and buzzing) you're after. Blurring blasts and noxious rasps emanate from this disc like fumes from a toxic tomb, the old-school atmosphere enhanced by some slower, sea-sick riffage and the way Dirge's drums beat on your skull. Good Satanic stuff for fans of Gorgoroth, Mayhem, Darkthrone and the like.
MPEG Stream: "The Glorious Days Are Over"
MPEG Stream: "Quill Of Cain"

NEFANDUS The Nightwinds Carried Our Names/Behold the Hordes (Total Holocaust Records) cd 14.98

NEGATIVA s/t (Prodisk) cd 11.98
No band will ever match the insane no-wave freaked out death metal what-the-fuck of Gorguts' Obscura album. An impossibly chaotic blast of tangled guitar lines, obtuse drumming, bizarre songwriting, atonal melodies, fractured rhythms, all whipped into quite possibly, one of the greatest, weirdest death metal records ever as far as we're concerned. But if any band was to come close, it sure as heck would be Negativa, for the obvious reason that it's the work of Gorguts mastermind Steeve Hurdle, along with some of his likeminded pals from other techmetal combos like Ion Dissonance and Augury. The opening track blows out of the gate a perfect post-Obscura grinding chugging masterpiece. Not quite as dense and freaked out as anything on Obscura, a little more linear, but all the stuff we love is there. The guitars are baffling, not just riffs and licks, they scrape and grind and keen and shriek and rrooooar, pick slides everywhere, the drums a chaotic blur beneath, it's absolutely dizzying. This is the stuff that makes us fall in love with death metal all over again. But it's the second track that really blows our minds. Imagine Obscura era Gorguts playing downtuned doom metal, a weird death sludge, guitars so slow, they slither and crumble, over the top, other guitars clang and wail, mournful melodies drift by, bits of percussive crunch, the drums stumble and plod, it's like some fucked up version of diSEMBOWELMENT. The band does kick it up a notch and blows into some midtempo death metal before splintering into a near ambient stretch of Tool-like bass, scraping steel strings, huge plodding doomdrums and lots and lots of space. Super abstract and doomy, before building into a loping atonal minor key groove. Hard to explain other than to say it's fucking AWESOME! The third and final track is more of what we go in track one, another brain melting burst of avant death metal, guitars and drums and bass so convoluted and fucked up, we can barely manage to headbang. But goddamn if we're not loving it.
Short stuff, three songs in twenty minutes, but as with Gorguts, there are more notes and parts than most bands can jam into a whole 60 minute full length. We're already dying to hear more, especially off that fucked up damaged death doom. Bring it on!
MPEG Stream: "Chaos In Motion"
MPEG Stream: "Rebellion"

NEGATIVE PLANE Et In Saecula Saeculorum (The AJNA Offensive) cd 16.98
A couple people asked us/told us about this before we got it... apparently word-of-mouth among cult black metal mavens was strong early on! And all their hushed queries and whispered expressions of awed enthusiasm are well deserved, we discovered, once we heard it ourselves. This is definitely NOT just another run of the mill black metal album. Negative Plane somehow have captured something more ancient and strange than usual in their music. They have a real "old school" mystique about them, that Venom / Celtic Frost / Bathory feel, yet at the same time this is infused and infested further with an especially alien weirdness, a bit of the same vibe as Nordic avant-gardists Ved Buens Ende. The album is drenched in effects, rendering the rasping vocals into an internal, infernal dialogue with themselves due to the amount of reverb, echoing in collusion with the music to make extra-effective what's otherwise indecipherable.
And though so seemingly raw and olden, there's a lot more "going on" here than with some of the dronier black metal efforts we've heard -- these tracks are full of complex runs, twisting turns, sudden changes. And sheer atmosphere is not neglected. Neg Plane's doomy vibe, their church organ tones and eerie melodies, are one important aspect of this record -- lashed with tons of FX to their other aspect, raging riffage, you've got an underground cult already established, the duo of Nameless Void (guitar/vocals) and Bestial Devotion (drums) requiring servitors rather than mere fans. Very special.
MPEG Stream: "Staring Into The Abyss"
MPEG Stream: "A Church In Ruin"