TRIPS FESTIVAL: THE MOVIE (self-released) dvd 25.00
Woodstock, Altamont and the Summer of Love's Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park seem to get all the sixties hippie group-festival nostalgia attention, but before all that, there was the Trips Festival in 1966. Over three days in January at The Longshoreman's Hall in the Fisherman's Wharf area of San Francisco (why this isn't still an active venue here is a mystery to us as this place is still there and looks totally rad!), 10,000 people converged for this multimedia event of bands (Grateful Dead and Big Brother and The Holding Company), lightshows, and group theater. Organized by Ken Kesey, Stewart Brand (Founder of the Whole Earth Catalog) and Bill Graham (in his very first festival organizing role!) with support from The San Francisco Tape Music Center associated people providing the lightshows, film projections and electronic tape music (they even used an original Buchla Box!), and The Open Theater and The Merry Pranksters offering absurdist LSD-induced performance interludes, this event provided the blueprint for all drug-centric group celebrations to come from raves to Burning Man. This documentary contains interviews with everyone involved and tangentially segues into the multiple factors of how hippie culture evolved in San Francisco in the early sixties, as well as what the organizers ended up doing afterwards. What truly makes this essential, however, is one of the bonus features, a vintage nine minute film by Ben Van Meter, one of the original lightshow creators. With lots of layered lights and imagery from the event and a cool electronic music score, this is by far the trippiest bit, and truly feels like what it must of been like to be there in person. We wished it lasted for hours!

TRIPTYKON Eparistera Daimones (Prowling Death / Century Media) cd 13.98
Celtic Frost is dead, long live Triptykon! Yes, this is the debut disc from the new project of Celtic Frost and Hellhammer mainman Tom G. Warrior (aka Thomas Gabriel Fischer), a band he formed after the recent implosion of Celtic Frost. It's billed as an "official" continuation of the CF legacy by other means, and it's even got an H.R. Giger cover painting to prove it. Well, that's not all that proves it, just listen! This album contains several songs originally written for CF's aborted followup to their 2006 highly-regarded comeback album Monotheist, and is much in the tradition of that excellent album: an oppressively heavy juggernaut of black/doom metal mastery with avantgarde elements. Parts are speedier than Monotheist, though others trudge with riffage on the slower side... While a long way from the raw primitive dirge of Hellhammer so many years ago (the subject of a lavish new book by Tom G., also reviewed this list), Triptykon IS plenty dirgey, just not so "garagey", with high tech production. And all Celtic Frost and Hellhammer fans will be relieved to know that Tom's trademark death grunts made the transition to Triptykon intact, along with his more gothic and guttural, spoken/sung/chanted vocal style. Furthermore, just like when we saw him on Frost's final US tour, he's still wearing that knit hat pulled down to just over his raccoon-painted eyes...
The nine, mostly long songs on Eparistera Diamones (which means, uh, what's it mean?) are proof that even 28 years after Hellhammer's formation, and 26 after Celtic Frost's, Tom G. is still relevant to today's "extreme metal" scene, matching anyone out there for relentless density, negative expressivity, anti-religious artistry, and sheer heaviness. If we have to cite his previous band(s) as a reference point, that's no surprise. If CF didn't exist, or all we had ever heard was Triptykon, maybe we'd be comparing 'em to Neurosis or something. Heck, the female vox and classical grand piano that appear on track 7 "Myopic Empire", and the similarly moody experimentation that continues onto the entirely un-heavy, atmospheric track 8 "My Pain", is not only worthy of latter-day, trip-hopped Ulver, but in its Teutonic seriousness could be Tarwater or something, yet is followed by the pounding "You shall perish I shall live" metallic affirmation of "The Prolonging" (which also lives up to its title by being almost 20 minutes long!), ending the album leaving nobody wondering about Triptykon's place in the hierarchy of hell.
Reverently packaged with a thick cd booklet that includes not only more sexy/scifi perverted alien H.R. Giger art, but also portraits of each band member by another equally disturbed artist, as well as lyrics to each song AND personal liner notes from Tom G. about each track too. While in these the sometimes self-important, self-absorbed nature of the whole Celtic Frost thing is evident, so is Tom's artistic torment and sincerity (if you're read his autobiography, Are You Morbid?, which we recommend, you know what we mean). Hail!
MPEG Stream: "Goetia"
MPEG Stream: "Abyss Within My Soul"
MPEG Stream: "Myopic Empire"

TRIPTYKON Eparistera Daimones (Prowling Death / Century Media) 2lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Celtic Frost is dead, long live Triptykon! Yes, this is the debut disc from the new project of Celtic Frost and Hellhammer mainman Tom G. Warrior (aka Thomas Gabriel Fischer), a band he formed after the recent implosion of Celtic Frost. It's billed as an "official" continuation of the CF legacy by other means, and it's even got an H.R. Giger cover painting to prove it. Well, that's not all that proves it, just listen! This album contains several songs originally written for CF's aborted followup to their 2006 highly-regarded comeback album Monotheist, and is much in the tradition of that excellent album: an oppressively heavy juggernaut of black/doom metal mastery with avantgarde elements. Parts are speedier than Monotheist, though others trudge with riffage on the slower side... While a long way from the raw primitive dirge of Hellhammer so many years ago (the subject of a lavish new book by Tom G., also reviewed this list), Triptykon IS plenty dirgey, just not so "garagey", with high tech production. And all Celtic Frost and Hellhammer fans will be relieved to know that Tom's trademark death grunts made the transition to Triptykon intact, along with his more gothic and guttural, spoken/sung/chanted vocal style. Furthermore, just like when we saw him on Frost's final US tour, he's still wearing that knit hat pulled down to just over his raccoon-painted eyes...
The nine, mostly long songs on Eparistera Diamones (which means, uh, what's it mean?) are proof that even 28 years after Hellhammer's formation, and 26 after Celtic Frost's, Tom G. is still relevant to today's "extreme metal" scene, matching anyone out there for relentless density, negative expressivity, anti-religious artistry, and sheer heaviness. If we have to cite his previous band(s) as a reference point, that's no surprise. If CF didn't exist, or all we had ever heard was Triptykon, maybe we'd be comparing 'em to Neurosis or something. Heck, the female vox and classical grand piano that appear on track 7 "Myopic Empire", and the similarly moody experimentation that continues onto the entirely un-heavy, atmospheric track 8 "My Pain", is not only worthy of latter-day, trip-hopped Ulver, but in its Teutonic seriousness could be Tarwater or something, yet is followed by the pounding "You shall perish I shall live" metallic affirmation of "The Prolonging" (which also lives up to its title by being almost 20 minutes long!), ending the album leaving nobody wondering about Triptykon's place in the hierarchy of hell.
Reverently packaged with a thick cd booklet that includes not only more sexy/scifi perverted alien H.R. Giger art, but also portraits of each band member by another equally disturbed artist, as well as lyrics to each song AND personal liner notes from Tom G. about each track too. While in these the sometimes self-important, self-absorbed nature of the whole Celtic Frost thing is evident, so is Tom's artistic torment and sincerity (if you're read his autobiography, Are You Morbid?, which we recommend, you know what we mean). Hail!
MPEG Stream: "Goetia"
MPEG Stream: "Abyss Within My Soul"
MPEG Stream: "Myopic Empire"

TRIPTYKON Shatter (Century Media) cd ep 11.98
Tom G. Warrior is definitely BACK. First there was the successful (until they broke up, again) Celtic Frost reunion. And then, the debut from his new act, Triptykon, also almost universally praised by metal critics and CF fans alike. Now, not so long after that full-length, Tom & Co. bring us a new ep, Shatter, featuring 3 new songs plus two bonus live recordings, running close to about a half an hour total time. The new songs are in the vein of Eparistera Daimones: dark, doomy, disturbed, with a slight gothic/industrial vibe. The first two are both chunky, sluggish to mid-tempo offerings of Teutonic heaviosity, with the opening, title track offering up a tad more melody, while the lengthier "I Am The Twilight" is an epic, heads down grind, that kinda bridges the likes of Isis with black metal. Tom's vocals switch between angrily gargled vokills and a Type-O Negative croak, accompanied on "Shatter" by female vox as well, in a sort of Hammers Of Misfortune mode. Those two are followed by the other new song, "Crucifixus", a quietly haunting, ambient metal (mostly-) instrumental. Eerie and engaging enough, that if Triptykon were to do an entire extended album of just that sort of thing, we'd surely sell a bunch, it could maybe be released on Miasmah or Editions Mego!
Then there's the live tracks. Not just any live tracks, but Triptykon versions of two old Celtic Frost classics, "Circle Of The Tyrants" and "Dethroned Emperor", recorded at Holland's Roadburn festival earlier this year. Death grunt in full effect. And, there's a special guest Nocturno Culto of Darkthrone singing on one of 'em! Hey wait a sec - Allan was at Roadburn, caught part of Triptykon's set, but doesn't remember seeing that. Must have gone off to see another band on another stage. (Kicking self....)
MPEG Stream: "I Am The Twilight"
MPEG Stream: "Crucifixus"

TRISKELE ...Les Murmures De La Foret... (Abhore) cd 16.98
Another mysterious black metal horde from the great white North, hailing from Quebec, Canada, Triskele, like many of their French Canadian black metal countrymen, have much in common with their actually French brethren, owing much to the Black Legions and the various groups and scenes that brief movement inspired.
Les Murmures is not new, it was actually released way back in 2003, and there are two more recent records, but as those two were SUPER limited and both seem to be out of print now, we figured that probably some of you, like us, managed to miss out on this, which is a shame, as this is some seriously blown out, buzz drenched, miserablist black metal.
Supposedly Les Murmures was recorded in a forest (Like Ulver's epochal Nattens Madrigal) and it definitely sounds like it could have been, after a brief ambient keyboard / chanted intro, the band spews forth a churning torrent of crumbling black distortion and blasting drums, almost totally obscured by the sheet of hiss and buzz that envelops the proceedings. Almost more than a forest, this sounds like it was recorded in a cave, or at the bottom of a well, or in some massive concrete bunker. The vocals are a harsh glass gargling howl, inexorably tangled up with the buzzing reverb drenched guitars, and those drums that sound more like a wall of cymbal sizzle punctuated by barely audible rhythmic pulses, but don't get us wrong, it sounds AMAZING, super lo-fi and totally raw, slipping from chaotic stumbling blast, to lurching doomic creep and back again. Some tracks are explosions of furious white noise buzz and relentless drum splatter, but when the band locks into a groove, and slows it down a bit, the depressive genius shines through, the vocals transforming into an hysterical shriek, all manner of melancholy and mournful melodies rising to the surface, before being obliterated by another frosty white blast of black fury.
Then there's the title track, a nearly 12 minute stretch of buzz and drum ambience, the drums pounding out some tribal rhythm, while all around it streaks of whir and buzz swirl and swoop, the drummer also managing to incorporate some unlikely percussion, there's even some primal wailing at one point, it's actually nearly impossible to imagine this track NOT being performed in the forest, lit by firelight, the mysterious haunting sounds holding the woods' wild beasts at bay.
WAY recommended. Essential for fans of outsider depressive blackness and grim blown out black forest buzz.
MPEG Stream: "Reverence"
MPEG Stream: "Tenebre"
MPEG Stream: "La Foret Noire"

TRIST Initiation (Kunsthall) cd 10.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Not to be confused with the much more prolific Czech depressive doom-ed black metal Trist, German one man band Trist is the ambient drone side project of Benjamin Konig, who is also the frontman for Lunar Aurora, an amazing black metal band we love, but have yet to list here (which will be remedied as soon as possible, we promise).
Initiation comes via the same label that has been gradually re-releasing all the Paysage D'Hiver demos over the last couple years, and is a collection of various long out of print and even at the time barely available demos, recorded between 2000-2003. Nothing black metal here, but plenty blackness nonetheless, Trist explores slow, hazy, otherworldly ambience, black drones and delicate Lustmordian soundscapery, a sound that falls somewhere between the gauzy digitized smear of folks like Tim Hecker and Aidan Baker, and the abject electronics and post apocalyptic sonic sprawl of groups like Wolf Eyes and Emeralds, infusing it with that distinctive 'black metal intro' vibe. Not obviously synthy, and definitely not overly guitar based, the sound on Initiation is blurred and washed out, melodies exist but are only glimpsed fleetingly, the longform drones and extended drifts are heavily textured with, warm whooshing whir, distorted crumble, ethereal fields of hiss and click and pop and rough sandpaper like buzz, definitely very dreamy and moonlit, but also ominous and grim, very cinematic, evoking some alien wasteland, burnt and ruined beneath a smoke filled sky, something lurking in the shadows, the ground littered with death and destruction.
Folks who loved that Cities Last Broadcast from last list, will definitely dig this too, as it mines the same sort of wasted unpopulated barren planet vibe, and take the more abstract dronescaping of folks like Machinefabriek and Jasper TX and Xela and Aun and Svarte Greiner somewhere much more cinematic. Bits of new age seep in here and there, chunks of slow motion doomdrone now and again, mysterious loops and bits of glitch surface throughout, giving many of the tracks an avant turntablist vibe, like Strotter Inst or Jeck, this is certainly not what you might expect from a grim black metaller, instead Initiation plays out more as a dense and varied and layered work of tense instrumental minimalism, of gorgeous and harrowing experimental dronemusic, and of course bleak black ambience, maybe too abstract for metalheads, but folks into drone and doom and drift and all that cd-r floorcore rumble and shimmer would do well to grab one of these right quick.
MPEG Stream: "In Die Schwarze Nacht"
MPEG Stream: "Toter Raum"
MPEG Stream: "Kalt"

TRIST Stiny (Ars Magna Recordings) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Some of you folks who took advantage of the black metal cassette grab bag might have been lucky enough to nab Stiny, the 2006 full length from Czech blackdoomlords Trist, a gorgeously bleak slab of plodding doomy blackness. Falling somewhere between Burzum, Nortt, Make A Change... Kill Yourself and Hypothermia.
Thankfully, Ars Magna, the label responsible for the mind blowing black miserablism of Animus' Poems For The Aching, Swords For The Infuriated and the clinical black blast of Black Hole Generator, has swooped in to re-release that tape on compact disc, so now all you black hearted frozen souled metalheads who ditched the walkman years back, can still dig into this intense collection of bleak black misery.
Four ultra long songs, the first clocking in at 16 minutes, the last at 11, Trist traffic in ultra repetitive, hypnotic looped riffage wreathed in frosty ambience, the sound is all guitar, the bass barely noticeable (if there is any bass at all), just grim sheets of keening riffs, sometimes soaring and epic, other times tangled and furious, dripping with reverb and not all that distorted, a sort of dirty clean sound, perfectly complimenting the buried vocals, an abstract screech that ends up sounding like another layer of buzzing sound, which serves in some ways to make the drums a focal point, surprisingly busy, going from simple plod to intense squalls of almost mathy drumming, bursts of double kick, some wild fills, but it all fits really well, the songs often veering from doomic trudge to almost groovy midtempo, and once in a while almost full on blastbeats.
And while the sound is plenty hateful and miserable and depressive, it still manages to be pretty at times, with little melodic bits that wouldn't be that out of place on an Alcest or Amesoeurs record... Way recommended. Fans of any of the above mentioned bands will find Stiny to be an essential addition to their library of sonic sorrow and musical melancholia.
MPEG Stream: "Samota"
MPEG Stream: "Modry Zal"

TRIST Willenskraft (Cold Dimensions) cd 14.98

TRIST / LONESUMMER split (Ars Magna) cd 8.98
`The return of one of our favorite one man weirdo (post) black metal outfits, Lonesummer, who hails from Philly and who teams up here with another aQ fave, another one man band, Trist, from the Czech Republic (not to be confused with the German Trist!), both of whom offer their own twisted take on black metal.
Trist is up first with a single 20+ minute epic, a slow depressive blackened dirge, all fuzzed out and dreamily buzzy, rife with melancholy melody, barely any vocals, and when they do surface, they're buried WAY down in the mix, the drums simple and buried in the mix, the guitars thick, the distortion crumbling, it's the sort of black metal for people who might not like black metal, since it's usually the vocals that drive people away, but even more, the sound here is washed out and shoegazey, we hear Sonic Youth and Bailter Space and My Bloody Valentine way more than Immortal or Darkthrone. Darkly mesmerizing, and dreamily hypnotic, even at 20 minutes odds are you'll find yourself setting your player for repeat.
Lonesummer is up next, and we never know what to expect, after all our favorite Lonesummer jam found LS mixing some old African record with his black buzz, but here, we're presented with what we've come to dig about LS, a mix of indie jangle, folky strum, and heavily melodic black buzz, the vocals here shrieky and hysterical, definitely of the Bethlehem variety, cranking up the weirdo factor for sure, cuz otherwise the music is darkly melodic, with some strange off kilter rhythms and soaring guitars. The second track is even poppier, sounding almost like Dinosaur Jr. or something, SUPER melodic, fuzzy and dreamily distorted, the vocals just pushing it over the top, and back into black metal land. And that's pretty much how the rest of the tracks play out, a sort of black buzz infused, fuzz guitar, indie rock, albeit on the blacker and buzzier side, with those vocals wild and shrieked, culminating in kick ass closer "Mundane Dreams About Flash Floods", which is the perfect mix of clean guitar strum, churning blackened heaviness, melodic jangle, vokill shriek, and even some almost mathy noise rockiness. Hard to describe, but then the best stuff usually is.
MPEG Stream: TRIST "Vabeni Pokojne Tmy"
MPEG Stream: LONESUMMER "Regrettably, Our Harvest Never Grew"
MPEG Stream: LONESUMMER "Mundane Dreams About Flash Floods"

TRISTEZA Dream Signals In Full Circles (Tiger Style) cd 13.98
San Diego's favorite five-piece melodic instrumental slow-core post-rock ambient drone sleep-core chiming blissful yadda yadda yadda... This is their follow-up to the popular "Spine and Sensory" album from a couple years ago. This record breaks no new ground in the grand scheme of things, but it does find the band experimenting more with subtle electronic flourishes to add more flavor to their sometimes grating dueling harpsichord-sounding guitar tones. The repetition becomes a novelty after a while, but fans of early 4AD and less dynamic Mogwai will probably really like this.

TRISTEZA Espuma (Gravity) cd 8.98
More blissed out post rock from San Diego's Tristeza! Word has it they've been working on a new full length with Pall Jenkins (Black Heart Procession). In the meantime though, their newest release is a 7-song long cdep (or is it a 7-song short album?!). There's nothing jagged or jarring about Espuma, everything swirls, swells and soothes in the most gentle fashion. Compared to their recent more heavily electronic laden releases, this strikes more of a glistening balance between that and their former more guitar centric sounds. Nice!
MPEG Stream: "Living Stains"

TRISTEZA Espuma (Gravity) lp 8.98
More blissed out post rock from San Diego's Tristeza! Word has it they've been working on a new full length with Pall Jenkins (Black Heart Procession). In the meantime though, their newest release is a 7-song long cdep (or is it a 7-song short album?!). There's nothing jagged or jarring about Espuma, everything swirls, swells and soothes in the most gentle fashion. Compared to their recent more heavily electronic laden releases, this strikes more of a glistening balance between that and their former more guitar centric sounds. Nice!
MPEG Stream: "Living Stains"

TRISTEZA Insound Tour Support (Insound) cd 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Four songs from this Tortoise-y post rock band, also a part of Insound website's budget "tour support" cd series. We're a little skeptical of Insound's motives ($, it seems) but fans will want this.

TRISTEZA Mixed Signals (Rocket Racer) 2lp 17.98
San Diego's post-emo heartthrobs, posterboys of heartfelt, emotional atmospheric Windham Hill Records-esque post-rock get in bed with Windy & Carl, Fridge, Simon Raymonde (of the Cocteau Twins), Marumari, Randomnumber (ex-Hood), Scientific American, Styrofoam, Yellow6, Astorria, DJ Jims (of Tristeza), Lackluster, Diagram Of Suburban Chaos and Snodgrass. Beautifully packaged in a gatefold sleeve and cute op art.

TRISTEZA s/t (Caffeine Vs. Nicotine) cd ep 8.98
Reissue of the first single from the highly acclaimed San Diego pretty post-rock "supergroup". Three songs: "Foreshadow", "Smoke Through Glass" and "Cinematography (Original Version)".

TRISTEZA Spine And Sensory (Makoto) cd 14.98
Emo driven instrumentals with hints at space rock popping up. Leaning more towards the spectrum of Sunny Day Real Estate & Rainer Maria.

TRISTEZA These Walls (Gravity) cd ep 7.98
Hot on the heels of their remix collection "Mixed Signals" comes this EP. It seems that recently this mellow instrumental quintet have been moving further from their gentle guitar-dominant post-rock tracks into more gentle electronic-accented post-rock sounds. This release seems quite transitional. Overall, it's just what we've come to expect from these San Diego fellows - well-executed, unobtrusive, pleasant soundtracks. Perhaps you may find the docile repetition either shimmeringly hypnotic or numbingly sleep-inducing? However, track 6 jolts us out of our slumber with a disruptive, skronky, horn-filled jazzy jam-out. And did they intend for the cover art to resemble intestines? Puzzling.
RealAudio clip: "Stop Grass"
RealAudio clip: "Auxilio Mate"

TRIVMPHS MORTIS Dagli Abissi Dei Dolore: Demos 2005-2006 (E.E.E. Recordings) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

MPEG Stream: "Ove Il Mio Odio Trovera Sempre Nuovo Vigore"
MPEG Stream: "Il Volo Dei Corbi Imperiali"

TRMRS Sea Things (Dead Beat) lp 14.98
NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!! Here's what we said about the previous cd-r version of this fave:
Ever hear of the TRMRS? Neither had we. Not until a couple scruffy looking dudes came into the store and dropped off a copy of their new cd-r, a hand painted, home made little gem, that definitely had us wondering what might be inside. And shit, if what's inside doesn't make these guys the next big thing, then we'd be pretty goddamn surprised.
Think Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Sic Alps, Waaves, Surfer Blood, Soft Pack, that sort of jangly, super hooky, slightly surfy psychedelic garage rock, and while there is definitely a glut of folks going for that sound, these guys do it way better than most, and totally make it their own. Self described as 'trash pop', that's pretty much what this sounds like, trashy and poppy, and loose and super rocking, the guitars are crunchy and jangly, the vocals a melodic yelp, the drums propulsive, reverb all over the place, and the songs are hooky as hell. More garagey and raw, than purely poppy, but that raw garage is infused with plenty of poppiness, reminding us a bit of a slightly more song oriented Coachwhips, you can definitely tell that live these guys probably have the crowd bouncing and sweaty and losing their shit. And it's easy to hear why.
Definitely a new favorite. And we'd be shocked if these guys didn't get snapped up by Mexican Summer or In The Red or Woodsist or even Captured Tracks or Woven Bones, and if any of that stuff is your jam, then these guys just might be your new favorite band.
MPEG Stream: "Shorter Days"
MPEG Stream: "Hello Self"
MPEG Stream: "Green Machine"
MPEG Stream: "Come In"

TRMRS Sea Things (self-released) cd-r 8.98
Ever hear of the TRMRS? Neither had we. Not until a couple scruffy looking dudes came into the store and dropped off a copy of their new cd-r, a hand painted, home made little gem, that definitely had us wondering what might be inside. And shit, if what's inside doesn't make these guys the next big thing, then we'd be pretty goddamn surprised.
Think Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Sic Alps, Waaves, Surfer Blood, Soft Pack, that sort of jangly, super hooky, slightly surfy psychedelic garage rock, and while there is definitely a glut of folks going for that sound, these guys do it way better than most, and totally make it their own. Self described as 'trash pop', that's pretty much what this sounds like, trashy and poppy, and loose and super rocking, the guitars are crunchy and jangly, the vocals a melodic yelp, the drums propulsive, reverb all over the place, and the songs are hooky as hell. More garagey and raw, than purely poppy, but that raw garage is infused with plenty of poppiness, reminding us a bit of a slightly more song oriented Coachwhips, you can definitely tell that live these guys probably have the crowd bouncing and sweaty and losing their shit. And it's easy to hear why.
Definitely a new favorite. And we'd be shocked if these guys didn't get snapped up by Mexican Summer or In The Red or Woodsist or even Captured Tracks or Woven Bones, and if any of that stuff is your jam, then these guys just might be your new favorite band.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Each one in a super fancy hand painted, silkscreened, collaged cover, every one unique, and all hand numbered!
MPEG Stream: "Shorter Days"
MPEG Stream: "Hello Self"
MPEG Stream: "Green Machine"
MPEG Stream: "Come In"

TRMRS Surf Titties (Words & Dreams) cassette 5.98
These guys kicked out asses recently with the distortion drenched blown out garage rock jangle pop of their debut Sea Things, positioning them firmly alongside sonic brethren like Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Sic Alps, Waaves, Surfer Blood, Soft Pack, and all the rest. This new tape offers up a handful of new songs, paired with a selection of tracks from Sea Things, so for those who somehow missed out on that gem, or who were waiting for the cassette version (?), well here's what we had to say about Sea Things (the rest of you can skip this part):
Jangly, super hooky, slightly surfy, psychedelic garage rock. And while there may be a glut of folks going for that sound, these guys do it way better than most, and totally make it their own. Self described as 'trash pop', that's pretty much what this sounds like, trashy and poppy, and loose and super rocking, the guitars are crunchy and jangly, the vocals a melodic yelp, the drums propulsive, reverb all over the place, and the songs are hooky as hell. More garagey and raw, than purely poppy, but that raw garage is infused with plenty of poppiness, reminding us a bit of a slightly more song oriented Coachwhips, you can definitely tell that live these guys probably have the crowd bouncing and sweaty and losing their shit. And it's easy to hear why.
The new tracks here, are as you might have guessed, more of the same, cut from the same sonic cloth, with maybe a bit more production polish here and there, some cool backwards effects, a slightly less lo-fi sound, but then the sound is as much of this music as the songs are, so the sound stays appropriately fuzzy and washed out and reverby, and in places gets even more noisy and crunchy than before, the 4 jams here offering up another heaping helping of gloriously buzzy Sixties influenced surf rocky fuzz pop that could have (and probably did) come straight from the same sessions that produced Sea Things, but hell, we're not complaining, more TRMRS is what we were hankering for anyway, so here it is. And the new songs do kill, hooky and rocking, sweat drenched and distorted, and catchy as all get out. And like we mentioned before, we're surprised these guys haven't yet landed on some big label (Mexican Summer? In The Red?) yet, but we're guessing it's only a matter of time.
Comes with two stickers, one of which has a download code for a digital version of the whole tape! Sweet occultic skull artwork too!

TROLL Pathless Land (Orange Sun) cd 6.98
This Pathless Land contains five moody latenight multilingual tunes, and certainly leaves you craving more! Subtle, smoky and just a little bit mysterious and trippy. The second song "Western" is a definite stand-out bringing to mind the wonderful duets of Serge Gainsbourg and Francoise Hardy or Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra. In-store play never fails to draw more than a few customer queries. A very impressive follow-up to their Que Son los Trolls y en Que Nos Ayudan? cd from a couple of years ago!
MPEG Stream: "Western"
MPEG Stream: "Tex Bossa Redux (Aero-Mic'd Remix)"

TROLL Que Son los Trolls y en Que Nos Ayudan? (Orange Sun) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Local quintet Troll has made a delightfully ambitious record. The flavor is sort of Pizzicato 5 meets Os Mutantes meets Amon Duul, and each song is a minor gem, albeit a little rough 'round the edges', with multiple vocalists, epic harmonies, intensely simmering guitar, and well-written, unpredictable songs, dynamic pieces that grow and develop within themselves. Being smart folk with wonderful taste in music (we should know: they're AQ-customers!), Troll describe themselves quite accurately: "The sound is a combination of hard Nordic and Spanish garage, mellow blissful euro-tinged psychedelia, Japanese tropicalia and ambient jazz. The languages sung on the album are Danish, Spanish, Japanese, French and English." Nice.
RealAudio clip: "Blue Skies"
RealAudio clip: "Silver Mountain"
RealAudio clip: "El Vampiro"

TROLL Universal (Voices of Wonder) cd 14.98
Troll stars Nagash (of Kovenant, Dimmu Borgir fame) and drummer extraordinaire Hellhammer (Mayhem, Kovenant, Arcturus, and about two dozen other bands). These Norwegian black metal vets have tied their long hair back in ponytails and traded their medieval blade weapons for pistols and shotguns, thus giving their Satanic image a Tarantino style makeover. But the music is still punishing, bleak black metal with epic guitars, raspy vox, and both acoustic guitar and ambient electronic interludes -- nothing to disappoint fans of Dimmu, Mayhem, etc. In the realm of "modernized" Norwegian black metal, this is much better than Kovenant (the electro-dance beats are used sparingly) but not as good and grim as Thorns or Zyklon, or as weird as Fleurety or Arcturus.
RealAudio clip: "Sannhetens Plagiat"

TROLLER s/t (Holodeck) lp 26.00
Now on vinyl!! Originally released on a limited tape, here is what we had to say about this Texan gloom-rock combo back on list #388:
To dedicated readers of the New Arrival list, there can be no doubt that goth and industrial sounds from the eighties are back in a huge way. But rather than riding the nostalgia train, most of the groups we love who mine this sound are putting their own spin on it, adding unique elements to distinguish a sense of honest and progressive devotion from a mere genre exercise. Case in point is this debut tape from Austin-based heavy gloomers, Troller. Coming out of the same fervent scene that was birthed from the ashes of Silver Pines: Pure X, Survive (whose 10" debut is also reviewed on this list), Sleep Over, and Thousand Foot Whale Claw, Troller mine classic death rock, but slow it down with a heavy shoe-gazing doominess. You can tell the female singer has a voice as big as Zola Jesus, or Siouxsie, but what we like most about it is that she restrains her delivery from overwrought passion up front in the mix, instead letting it moulder at times in a dour misanthropic mire with the chilly synths and the booming plod of the drum machine patterns. The band has a knack for sculpting dark ambient soundscapes that are alien, pensive and luridly bleak.
MPEG Stream: "Milk"

TROLLER s/t (Holodeck) cassette 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
To dedicated readers of the New Arrival list, there can be no doubt that goth and industrial sounds from the eighties are back in a huge way. But rather than riding the nostalgia train, most of the groups we love who are mining this sound and putting their own spin on it, adding unique elements to distinguish a sense of honest and progressive devotion from a mere genre exercise. Case in point is this debut tape from Austin-based heavy gloomers, Troller. Coming out of the same fervent scene that was birthed from the ashes of Silver Pines: Pure X, Survive, Sleep Over, and Thousand Foot Whale Claw (for a good overview of this scene, check out the Brain Club Vol. #000001 LP compilation), Troller mine classic death rock, but slow it down with a heavy shoe-gazing doominess. You can tell the female singer has a voice as big as Zola Jesus, or Siouxie, but what we like most about it is that she restrains her delivery from overwrought passion up front in the mix, instead letting it moulder at times in a dour misanthropic mire with the chilly synths and the booming plod of the drum machine patterns. In between each proper song is an untitled instrumental that shows the band's knack for sculpting dark ambient soundscapes that are alien, pensive and luridly bleak.
MPEG Stream: "Milk"

TROLLFEST Willkommen Folk Tell Drekka Fest (Omvina) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We discovered a little stash of these recently in the closet, the 2005 debut from these bizarre Norwegian black metal trolls, who will obviously appeal to the same folks who dig Finntroll (us!!), similarly combining polka-like folk music, all fiddles and jaw harp and campfire twang, with tangled, maniacal almost punkish black metal blasting, singing in their own Trollish tongue (known as Trollsprak), and dizzying genre hopping arrangements, that flit from furious black buzz, to fiddle laced buzz drenched sea shanty, to ale hoisting drinking song, to sea sick black metal waltz, the various parts and sounds constantly tangling and intertwining, buzz meets jawharp, fiddle meets blast beat, it's pretty goofy, but pretty fun too, not sure if these guys go whole hog and dress up like trolls, but it sure sounds like they do. And the cover features a pretty awesome illustration of a beer drinking troll and his mad beast pet, seemingly carved into the trunk of an old tree. Nice! Only a few of these around...
MPEG Stream: "Willkommen Folk Tell Drekka Fest"
MPEG Stream: "Helvetes Hunden Garm"

TROLLHEIM'S GROTT Bizarre Troll Technology (Woodcut) cd 14.98

TROLLHEIMS GROTT Bloodsoaked and Ill-Fated (Viking Musiiki) cd 14.98

TROLLMANN AV ILDTOPPBERG Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars (Monolith) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We wrote extensively about this mysterious and bizarre caveman doom duo a few lists back, and plan on reviewing all 4 of their amazing releases eventually, this being the second (we reviewed Forest Of Doom on list #254). And elsewhere on this list you'll also find a review of the equally amazing Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch, a Trollmann side project which is essentially the exact same band. But for those of you who are discovering Trollmann for the very first time, let's recap:
We have been obsessed with this band since the very first time we heard them years and years ago. We have spent the last 6 years or so trying to track down their records, as well as a place where we could order enough so we could review them and share them with the AQ faithful, who like us, truly appreciate the bizarre and the fucked.
And you don't get more bizarre and fucked than Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg. Well, to begin with, they're called Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg!! They have record titles like Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars and Dark Clouds Blacken The Sky On The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice and Tolling Beyond The Tombs Of Ancient Grimnity and Forest Of Doom. They have a similar sounding side project called Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch! The band members are pictured in drawings on the back of the cd, one as a strange little bearded gnome/elf sitting on a huge toadstool, the other a bearded furclad mountain man leaning on a mighty axe. The gnome is named Belegur and is credited with "Cosmic keys to gates unknown." The mountain man is Thundarr, and is credited with "Rumblings Of Doom, Prophecies Of Times To Come." For those of you well versed in that sort of thing, you'll realize that this duo is just bass and keyboards, which is remarkable in its own right. But the fact that Trollmann play a sort of medieval Skepticism style slow motion doom sludge with just bass and keyboards it seems even more amazing.
So there it is, if you're anything like us, it almost doesn't even matter what they sound like. But thankfully they are just as amazing and fucked as all that would lead you to imagine. While ostensibly Trollmann are a doom band, their peculiar brand of doom owes as much to William Basinski and Philip Jeck, at least sonically, as it does to Skepticism or Thergothon. Part of that is due to the incredibly lo-fi recording quality, tape hiss, and amp crumble, distortion that threatens to fall to pieces, a slow loping dronelike dirge that traverses strange landscapes of grit and glitch, of rumble and murky murmur. It's almost like Skepticism recorded by William Basinski, the tapes shoved in a box and stashed in an attic for 30 years, only to be rediscovered and released in all their slow motion crumbling drone doom glory.
Just bass and keyboards, Trollmann trudge through 4 songs in 51 minutes, huge sprawling expanses of murky muddy black ooooooooze, Black Mayonnaise cover Burzum? Maybe, if the results were then dubbed hundreds of times onto the crappiest tapes imaginable. But this is almost too delicate and dark, too lilting and lovely to be doom. But doom it is. A glorious soft focus dreamlike doom. Way less melodic than Forest Of Doom, Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars just might be our favorite Trollmann yet, imagine the songs of SUNNO))) and Thergothon and Skepticism reimagined by Tim Hecker, William Basinski and Philip Jeck. A late night, moonlit, drift through the branches of a black forest, the crackle of dead leaves, the creaking of bare branches, the black cloak of night a thick fuzzy shroud. So completely and utterly mind blowing. One of our all time essential 'doom' discs for sure.
MPEG Stream: "Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars"
MPEG Stream: "Aeons Of Darkness"

TROLLMANN AV ILDTOPPBERG Dark Clouds Blacken The Sky On The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice (Monolith) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Not sure what else to say about these guys that we haven't already said. If you've somehow managed to miss our reviews of their first couple records, Forest Of Doom and Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars, as well as the Trollmann side project Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch, for chrissakes, do yourself a favor and just order all three. And this one while you're at it. Check out the other reviews for a more in depth history of what has to be our all time favorite caveman doom duo, but to briefly recap:
Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg. C'mon, they're called Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg!! They have record titles like Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars and Dark Clouds Blacken The Sky On The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice and Tolling Beyond The Tombs Of Ancient Grimnity and Forest Of Doom. They have a similar sounding side project called Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch! The band members are pictured in drawings on the back of the cd, one as a strange little bearded gnome/elf sitting on a huge toadstool, the other a bearded furclad mountain man leaning on a mighty axe. The gnome is named Belegur and is credited with "Cosmic keys to gates unknown." The mountain man is Thundarr, and is credited with "Rumblings Of Doom, Prophecies Of Times To Come." For those of you well versed in that sort of thing, you'll realize that this duo is just bass and keyboards, which is remarkable in its own right. But the fact that Trollmann play a sort of medieval Skepticism style slow motion doom sludge with just bass and keyboards it seems even more amazing.
Phew, there's more of course, but that's it in a nutshell. Not only are they mysterious, and weird, and possessing a what-the-fuck quotient that's through the roof, the music is fucking amazing! This is not that so weird it's good, or so retarded it's amazing kind of thing, this is absolute genius. Dark and creepy, heavy and sloooooooooooooooow, minimal sludge soaked abstract ambient doom. Or something. Just bass and keyboards, spewing an unholy flow of low end throb, and grinding downtuned slither. The keyboard drones and spreads out in a fuzzy blur, only occasionally offering up some sort of melodic counterpoint to the bass, as it trudges sluggishly onward.
Of all the Trollmann records, Dark Clouds is probably the heaviest, the meanest, the least melodic and the most intense. The first two tracks, both shockingly under 3 minutes, set the tone, the first, is some sort of slow motion post rock drift, a thick wash of grinding low end sludge beneath garbled demonic whispers while above drift absolutely dreamy slow drifting harmonics. The second track is a stunner, almost 'rocking', at least by Trollmann standards, some sort of primitive caveman hardcore, huge throbbing, ultra distorted downtuned buzz, with fuzzed out Butthole Surfers-ish guitar leads, and super distorted death metal grunts a stumbling hyper aggressive pummel. But after that, it's back to business as usual. Long slow extended doomy drifts. Average track length hovering at about 15 minutes, the bass a throbbing, glacial presence, the riff stretched out into eons, each note reverberating and pulsing into oblivion before the next kicks in. The keyboard just adding another layer of buzzing sludge. The bass sometimes starts to stutter and pulse, creating some sort of super blown out low end rhythm, stumbling over a thick wash of keyboard buzz, before settling back down into its glacial groove.
Epic and massive and bewildering, hypnotic and bizarre and fucking brilliant!
MPEG Stream: "Descent From The Mountains Of Madness"
MPEG Stream: "Kuu Paistaa Lapi Saatanan Puut"
MPEG Stream: "Sa Jord Bloter Svarten Stjerne Av Satan Oppgangen Triumpherend In Himmel"

TROLLMANN AV ILDTOPPBERG Forest Of Doom (Monolith) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We have been obsessed with this band since the very first time we heard them years and years ago. We have spent the last 6 years or so trying to track down records by this band, as well as a place where we could order enough so we could review them and share them with the AQ faithful, who like us, truly appreciate the bizarre and the fucked.
And you don't get more bizarre and fucked than Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg. Well, to begin with, they're called Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg!! They have record titles like Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars and Dark Clouds Blacken The Sky On The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice and Tolling Beyond The Tombs Of Ancient Grimnity and Forest Of Doom. They have a similar sounding side project called Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch! The band members are pictured in drawings on the back of the cd, one as a strange little bearded gnome/elf sitting on a huge toadstool, the other a bearded furclad mountain man leaning on a mighty axe. The gnome is named Belegur and is credited with "Cosmic keys to gates unknown." The mountain man is Thundarr, and is credited with "Rumblings Of Doom, Prophecies Of Times To Come." For those of you well versed in that sort of thing, you'll realize that this duo is just bass and keyboards, which is remarkable in its own right. But the fact that Trollmann play a sort of medieval Skepticism style slow motion doom sludge with just bass and keyboards it seems even more amazing.
How can you not love this band already? It gets even better when you finally face their dreamy doomic meanderings. Huge downtuned bass, long stretches of droning crumbling low end. Minor key guitar lines drifting lazily over the top. Playful Renaissance faire style melodies hover over super doomy slow motion bass riffs. Long stretches of massive funereal sludge, each one a lower register death march like trudge, but with creepy quivering keyboards above the roiling blackness. Deep spoken vocals intone mysterious wisdom, over simple wandering bass lines and fluttering flute like synth. Once in a while, the keyboards and the bass will sync up and begin playing the same melody, which turns the song into some weird sounding caveman classical music.
This band is so totally out there. So gorgeously lugubrious and depressive, but with strangely cheerful and sometimes completely incongruous keyboard melodies. It's like wandering through some ancient world, wandering from tiny village to creepy haunted woodland and back again. So totally amazing. One of our favorite bands EVER. We'll try to review all the other records soon as well as the Trollmann side project Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch!! Stay tuned.
MPEG Stream: "The Forest Of Doom"
MPEG Stream: "Voyage Threough The Aether 1"
MPEG Stream: "The Ancients"

TROLLMANN AV ILDTOPPBERG Live At The Tut 'N Shive (Monolith) cd-r 7.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
If Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg were a cult, a shadowy forest horde of trolls and cavemen, like we had always imagined (hoped?), we would be right there beneath the heavy canopy, eyes wide in the arboreal darkness, bowing before Thundarr and Mordraaneth, trudging through the woods all glassy eyed, chanting in unison, letting Trollmann's subsonic vibrations lull us into a strange doomed trance, filthy and unkempt, clad in loin cloths, faces painted with black mud, spears in hands, first-borns sacrificed, we would gladly give up our daily lives, to serve their trollish dominion. But instead, Trollmann are just a human UK doom duo, keyboards and bass, and if our wild obsession alluded to in the above ramblings didn't clue you in, we LOVE these guys, and for now, will have to make do with raving maniacally about how awesome they are and getting our hands on every possible shred of recorded music they've produced. At least until they actually do become a cult.
To be honest, we were always sort of convinced that Trollmann was some bedroom recorded side project. Some metal guy just sort of experimenting and exploring sounds and soundscapes. The purported facts were just too good to be true, a caveman/troll duo, one member named Thundarr, responsible for "Rumblings of doom" and "Prophecies of times to come", the other member called Mordraaneth, he responsible for "Cosmic keys to gates unknown". The band members always pictured on the record sleeves in drawings, bearded, carrying clubs, seated on huge toadstools. Album titles like Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars and Dark Clouds Blacken The Sky On The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice. It all seems sort of absurd, until you actually hear the music, then it all suddenly makes some sort of impossible sense. It's like a doom metal Land Of The Lost. We all headed down to the club to see some doom band play, but got sucked into some other dimension, and ended up prostrate before Thundarr and Mordraaneth, as they proceeded to create a music, both beautiful and otherworldly, heavy and dreamlike, spreading over us like a black cloud.
So imagine our surprise when we discovered, there was a LIVE recording of Trollmann. Performing on this plane, in this time, to be witnessed by mere mortals. How could that be possible? And where could such a momentous performance take place? Well, here it is. Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg's very first live Aktion, a low end doom drone ritual performed where else but... IN A PUB!!! That's right, the Tut 'N Shive. The good ol' pub down on the corner.
Even just listening, you can practically hear the pub slowly transforming into some vine draped cave, dank and dark, lit from within, some unearthly glow, while two shadowy figures lurk on a small stage-like outcropping of rock. And proceed to fill the room, with viscous black beauty. The only real distraction from this sonic transformation is the between song reaction. 20 or 30 punters, pints in hand, cheering, clapping and hooting, laughing and talking before the next huge wave of black bile comes washing over them. It's not so much distracting as surreal. To imagine this music actually being performed, in a pub, in front of a crowd. It's actually pretty amazing, if not a little unreal.
Three looooooooooooong tracks. The first, begins with a strange throbbing bass, pulsing beneath a glimmering, shimmery keyboard drone, the bass slowly transforming into a huge lurching bass riff, repeated over and over, a totally mesmerizing slow motion doom groove, with huge monstrous guttural vocals all wrapped in thick sheets of amplifier buzz and cavernous reverb. Most definitely the heaviest Trollmann yet, but as it progresses, the sound becomes more fuzzy and the notes less distinct... eventually fading into black.
The second begins with a thick swirl of rumbling low end, glowing and growling, shifting glacially, the overtones beating against each other, a thick dense black cloud of sound, slowly modulating and subtly changing shape. While beneath the roiling blackness, the keyboard offers up a drifting melancholy shimmer, simple mournful melodies that hover and slowly fade, Trollmann at their most dreamlike and ambient. But before long, this droning black shimmer begins to build, slowly swelling into a super majestic, cinematic dirge, massive soaring low end melodies, howled anguished vocals, like Moss playing Godspeed, but then slowed down and somehow rendered impossibly fuzzy and blissy, while remaining intense and threatening.
The final ritual, sounds a bit like Total or Sunroof!, but only if their instrumental arsenal consisted of nothing but bass guitars and HUGE Stonehenge like speaker cabinets, a near static wall of throbbing low end sound wrapped like thick black drifts around a soft shimmery, distant melody, a melancholia drifting well beneath the rumble and whir, eventually becoming more and more tangled, the track becoming so blown out and blurry, so grainy and soft focus it almost sounds like some sort of Pop Ambient Doom.
As disappointed as we are, that Trollmann do in fact exist in the mortal plane, and do practice their strange sonic alchemy in local pubs, the music still compels us, mesmerizes us, possesses us, it blackens our ears and our souls, and thus we are at the ready, to gather up an army, to slip free of this world, to strip off our clothes, to paint our faces and march bravely into the black forest, to serve the mighty Trollmann...
MPEG Stream: "Aeons Of Darkness"
MPEG Stream: "Doomtrolls Of Grelsch"

TROLLMANN AV ILDTOPPBERG Live At The Tyne (Monolith) dvd-r 6.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
The time has come. Hard to believe. Trollman in the flesh. Live. Their mortal forms revealed to all. Thundarr and Mordraaneth. Rumblings Of Doom, Prophecies Of Times To Come, Cosmic Keys To Gates Unknown. All before our very eyes.
Not sure what we were expecting, so much of Trollmann was mystery, those strange drawings on the cds, the bizarre monickers, the lengthy song titles. And hell, the sound. Huge expanses of slow motion doom. Hellish drones spread out like a black fog. We were sort of expecting some sort of SUNNO))) thing. Dry ice, hoods, robes, back lit shadows. But nah, that's a little too contrived. Maybe they would be hidden behind some stones, or huge curtains. Or maybe they would be monsters, creatures of the night, exposed for the very first time, a horrific but impossibly compelling sight.
No matter how you slice it, with a mysterious band, it's hard not to be disappointed, and to be totally honest we were a little at first, but then, the whole thing became more and more surreal, and it was hard not to love these guys even more.
It starts with skeletal, taciturn looking long hair man in a long sleeve Burzum t-shirt, seated at a keyboard in front of a huge black tapestry of a long haired, mustachioed skull wearing an Indian headress above crossed swords. Beside him, stands another long haired fellow, in jeans and a black t-shirt, holding a black bass. All to the strains of a skull rattling low end doomdrone. But then the camera pulls back to reveal the fact that they seem to be outside, DURING THE DAY! They also seem to be under a bridge. Beneath a brick arch, with a muddy hillside in the background, trees and bushes. On the wall behind the band in the background a strange brass plaque, and what appears to be a pig's head on a stick. The whole thing is filmed with a super jittery camcorder, sudden unexpected zooms, face, fingers on strings, the dirt hillside in the background, the skull on the tapestry, and while the band plays, you can hear people talking, obviously not that into the band, one guy even comes to the front of the stage, beer in hand, and begins to taunt the band, making hand gestures and mugging fro the crowd. Someone in the audience yells "You're fucking SHITE!!!". People laugh, but the band remain expressionless, intent on the harsh soundworld they're weaving beneath this bridge.
The second track begins the same way, the taciturn man seated at his keyboard, beneath the Indian skull, but at this point, either the cameraman is getting bored, or has gotten too drunk to really keep the camera still or keep his attention on the band. Lots of jittery shots of the floor, the wall beside the band, the band members' feet, the crowd, drunk dudes and cute metal girls, amps, the trees behind the stage, the houses on the other side of the bridge, and most bizarrely of all, a couple of little dogs, one of whom proceeds to run back and forth in front of the stage, seemingly unperturbed by the roaring doomic dirge emanating from the speakers. And the cameraman seems unduly interested in the dog, considering he is meant to be capturing the slow motion might of Trollmann. Much more crowd chatter this time around, but somehow it just adds to the sound. Laughing and inane drunken conversations are inadvertently woven into the black fabric of Trollmann's sound. A bespectacled man mouths "Awesome. Fucking awesome... " Someone holds a cigarette beneath the camera letting the smoke whip by the lens like the world's most inexpensive special effect. All the while, Trollmann remain impassive, statue like, emitting an impossibly gorgeous ambient dirge, chanted vocals, over a pulsing bass drone and shimmery keyboards. Almost like Moss crossed with SUNNO))) only with Gregorian chant-like vocals. The whole thing is incredibly surreal, the camera bobbing from the ground to the sky to the band to the crowd and back again, the sky darkening behind the band, the crowd growing less and less distinct, and more like featureless shadows, wraiths... it's somehow sort of perfect.
Outside of the camera panning back to reveal a troll atop a toadstool clutching his keyboard, and a huge furry caveman with a club in one hand and a bass guitar in the other, performing on the edge of a fiery abyss, wreathed in clouds of vampire bats and thick curls of black smoke, we really couldn't have wished for more...

TROLLMANN AV ILDTOPPBERG Tolling Beyond The Tombs Of Ancient Grimnity (Monolith) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It's finally here. The fourth part of the Trollmann quadrilogy, a mysterious assemblage of four recordings, once kept together in a hidden temple, far beneath the Earth's crust. But over millennia, scattered far and wide. We have long been searching. It took us years to find all four. We first searched in the Forest Of Doom, and soon discovered the first recording, wrapped in a blood soaked cloth and kept at the bottom of a deep well, protected by a strange group of deformed bear like creatures. Once this was in our possession, we struck out in search of the second piece of this mysterious dronedoom puzzle. We soon discovered the second sacred recording by reciting a series of Arcane Runes which Adorned The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars. We holed up in our secret lair, every time the two recordings were brought together they gave off an unearthly glow and emitted some impossibly slow heavy dirgelike sound. We knew we were on the right path.
Years passed, and we found ourselves in a truly strange land, arid and barren, always dark and freezing cold, when suddenly, Dark Clouds Blackened The Sky and it became apparent that it was in fact The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice, and had we tarried a moment longer, the third recording would have been lost to us. Three pieces collected, each recording, a bleak rumbling world of black sound leading us closer and closer to whoever, or whatever is Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg. Perhaps we will never know. We may perish before we have discovered the truth.
Here it is, seemingly ages since we first set out upon this quest, with our final breath, our last ounce of strength, we began Tolling Beyond The Tombs Of Ancient Grimnity, and lo and behold, there it was, the fourth part, the key, the last part of the fourfold sonic grail that is Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg. We may be bidding farewell to this plane, and it may have taken us many lifetimes, but we shall die with a smile on our lips, and ears full of black buzz and cavernous rumbling. Adieu.
What the hell are we talking about? Well, if you're just tuning in, only our most favorite, caveman ultra doom duo EVER, Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg, who we first discovered years ago and as the story above suggests have ever since been trying to track down the rest of their recordings. Recently we finally did, and have been wallowing in Trollmann's peculiar brand of funereal ambient doom ever since. Just bass and keyboards, no drums, no guitars. Each record sonically similar, but each with its own particular sound, every one a different facet of Trollmann's strange sonic world. First their was Forest Of Doom, then there was Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars, after that there was Dark Clouds Blacken The Sky On The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice, and now, we have Tolling Beyond The Tombs Of Ancient Grimnity, quite possibly the prettiest and most ambient of the four, but no less ominous and dark.
Tolling begins with a simple, subtle slow motion bass line, over which drifts a dreamy melancholy synth melody. Dark and mournful and vaguely foresty, this drifts on and on an on, very trance like, until about half way through the track's 15 minutes, the bass suddenly becomes distorted, and the track becomes somehow creepier and more intense, the same melody, the same loping rhythm, but wrapped in a tattered cloak of crumbling distortion. Some strange blend of new age, dark ambience and doooooom. At times it almost sounds like a doom metal Three Mile Pilot.
Track two is another epic, 17 minutes, beginning with a simple buzzing low end, a rumbling drone, that seems to spread like some viscous black liquid, gradually growing more and more dense, the low end pulses closer and closer together until a rhythm seems to surface. The keyboard joins in, offering haunting atonal notes, that hover and drift above the monotonous throb, angular and ultra creepy. The bass and keyboard all tangled up in unlikely melodies and weird dissonant tangles, almost like abstract free jazz Trollmann if you can imagine such a thing. But even at its most jagged and atonal, it still manages to be dark and droney. And really really creepy.
The album closer, the 11 minute long title track, begins with some shimmery harmonics, before the bass kicks in, all super fuzzy and ultra blown out, not so much weaving a melody, as laying down layer after layer of thick fuzz, a haunting black riff stretched out into long stretches of rumbling whir, while the harmonics in the background become more and more dense. The entire track building in intensity, a furiously buzzing lugubrious crawl, that suddenly fades to silence.
We've written plenty about the mysterious men behind Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg, Belegur on "Cosmic keys to gates unknown" and Thundarr on "Rumblings Of Doom and Prophecies Of Times To Come", and the other recordings, just check elsewhere on the AQ site, but Tolling is as good a place to start as any, and if you're anything like us, you too will be mesmerized by the strange sounds of Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg, and will embark on your own spiritual quest to track down all of their sacred recordings (we've made it a bit easier, as we carry 'em all! Including an amazing live record, AND a live dvd, where the men of Trollmann reveal their mortal forms!)
Needless to say, utterly recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Aether"
MPEG Stream: "Dooms Children"

TRON (Bally / Midway) video arcade game 0.25
As many of you have noticed by now, the jam packed shelves of aQuarius records, have been shifted slightly to make room for two new additions. Two of our all time favorite video game machines. Rastan. And Tron. Both were a huge part of our teen and pre-teen lives, sneaking off to the arcade, watching the older kids master the games before we got up the nerve to slife our quarters up onto that ledge right below the screen signifying that we were up next.
While Rastan will always be a classic (we'll review it on the next list), and a favorite, especially the soundtrack, some of the most amazing 8bit music ever recorded, like a video game Goblin (rumor has it there is a cd of the Rastan music, if we can track it down you KNOW we'll get them for the store), my heart will always belong to Tron.
It helps of course that the game is tied into one of the greatest movies ever. Certainly the greatest video game movie ever (and yes, we're counting Joysticks), and that the music was composed by Wendy Carlos, some of which is reproduced in the game, but the fact that the movie was essentially a video game, made the transition from big screen to little screen all the more natural. When playing the game, it's not hard to imagine you're IN the movie. And come on, is there anything more iconic than those kick ass light cycles?!
The game itself is a vision, the side of the cabinet adorned with stills from the movies, all of the characters rendered in their computer blue stripes, the screen is surrounded by black lights, giving everything an eerie glow, behind the screen, is a window, through which you can view the MCP in the distance, the goal of the game, and of the film. For a video game, it's quite immersive, and that's much of the magic. Other than the follow up, Discs Of Tron, in which you actually step INTO the game, hard to think of another game of this era that so completely transports you to another world.
But the game! Four different missions, 12 different levels, even the most obsessive among us, have never gotten past the 3rd or 4th level, even back in the day. One mission is the light cycles, where you drive leaving a wall of light behind you with which you trap the other enemy cycles, forcing them to crash and burn. It starts out easy, but as there are more cycles and they are way faster than yours, it's really really tough.
Then there's the tank mission. A glowing maze through which your tank cruises, as you summarily finish off one, three, five tanks, each one requiring three hits to kill, with a magic portal in the middle of the screen transporting you to some random area of the screen. The third mission, is the MCP cone, filled with colored blocks, that move side to side, the whole cone moving down the screen, you have to shoot out all the blocks, or at the very least, clear a path to make it into the cone. And finally, the grid bug level, where you are surrounded on all sides by computerized spiders that constantly regenerate and split into more spiders. You have to reach the middle before the timer runs out. Once inside the I/O tower you are beamed up to safety. The funny thing about this level is that the grid bugs were in the movie for not more than 3 or 4 seconds.
And that's it. Those four screens, growing in difficulty, speed, complexity. A totally addictive gaming experience, and as mentioned above, it's thee experience as much as the game. So much so that on several occasions, we've caught folks not playing Tron, but having their pictures taken WITH Tron. That pretty much says it all.
Also, don't bother adding this to your cart, it's a video game after all, we just wanted some of our mailorder customers to enjoy our new mini arcade vicariously via the list...

TROPES s/t (Paradigms) cd 12.98
Two new releases from UK boutique label Paradigms this list, both continuing Paradigms' shift toward sounds more abstract and ambient. An eclectic label for sure, we'd imagine there's definitely some fucked up heaviness lurking in the future, bit for now, we're happy to just drift through gorgeous hazy soundscapes with this latest disc from a group called Tropes, the work of German vocalist and soundscaper Susan Bauszat.
The sounds here are delicate and crystalline, shimmery, gauzy and utterly dreamy, but not without some ominous stirrings, the music is all soft muted synths and strings, guitar, flute, violin, all washed out and blurred into reverb drenched streaks, the perfect backdrop for Bauszat's layered vocals, tangled harmonies, dense and complex, but ethereal and angelic. Think Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Islaja, 4AD record and even more modern cd-r stuff like Grouper and Inca Ore. Dark and mysterious, lush expanses of billowing glistening sound, underpinned by shortwave buzz, insectoid skitter, bits of subtle glitch, swooping backwards melodies and all manner of soft focus sonic texture, but at it's heart the sound of Tropes is a simple stirring folk, vocals lustrous and emotive, drifting dreamlike through clouds of shimmer, abstract tangles of acoustic guitar wound gently around minimal electronic rhythms,soft washed out whirs and haunting cinematic strings. So lovely.
LIMITED TO 750 COPIES. Packaged in a mini lp style jacket, wrapped in a hand stamped brown paper outer sleeve.
MPEG Stream: "Silence May Whisper"
MPEG Stream: "What If I Say"

TROPICAL TRASH Fear Of Suffering (Sophomore Lounge) 7" 8.98
We first heard from Tropical Trash on a split cassette with No Copper (we have a few copies left if you want one!), their track was definitely cool, but also listening to this 7" now a bit misleading, but it seems that perhaps that track was intended for the split, as it was super heavy and noisy and abstract, fusing jazzy avant noise with tripped out experimental abstraction. Which is definitely a bit different that what's to be found here, although not completely removed. TT seem to traffic in a sort of chugging churning noise rock, at least on the A side, thick angular riffs, tribal drumming, weird mathy arrangements, strange sing songy vocals, buzzing distorted melodies that mirror the vox, rife with some surprising poppiness, a distinctly indie rock vibe going on for sure. Loose and ramshackle, with the song occasionally devolving into a seemingly random free noise splatter before lurching right back into action.
The B side offers up a handful of shorter songs and finds TT cranking up the volume a bit, definitely heavier and punkier, sounding in places like a supercharged Polvo or Pitchblende, weird chords, still more mathiness, but still plenty of melody and catchiness as well as the occasional punky blow out and some cool tripped out droniness. Features members of Siltbreeze outfit Sapat.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. Pressed on white vinyl! In handscreened covers with photo copied inserts.

TROUBLE Psalm 9 (FRW Music) lp 22.00
REISSUED ON VINYL!!!
CLASSIC DOOM METAL. Can't get much more classic short of being one of the original Black Sabbath albums, really. Here's the long-awaited reissue of this, the 1984 debut from legendary Chicago doom-mongers Trouble. Alongside Candlemass and Pentagram and Saint Vitus, Trouble were the true heirs in the '80s to the Sabbath throne. And their mild case of Christianity only adds to the doomed vibe (ever read Revelations?) without being overtly preachy and goodytwoshoes like some other "white metal" bands were (Stryper ferinstance). And anyway, we really feel that religious belief totally adds to doom metal. Sabbath's "After Forever" made that official long before Trouble's Psalm 9... which isn't this album's original title, actually. It was self-titled when it first came out, but then they self-titled their fourth, Rick Rubin produced effort as well, so this got renamed. The Rick Rubin one is yet to be reissued, we're hoping it will 'cause it's quite possibly our favorite Trouble album, but this certainly is also an essential, containing several of their most awesome, best-loved tunes, including "The Tempter", "Assassin", "Bastards Will Pay" and eventual title track "Psalm 9". Plus it's also got the instrumental "Endtime" (later covered by Confessor), and their own cover of "Tales Of Brave Ulysses" by Cream!
If you haven't heard Trouble before, well... think Black Sabbath, yes, but different. They've got their own stamp on the trad. doom metal thing. It's fastern'd you'd think. And heavier than their forebears, due to the twin guitar lineup. And already here on Psalm 9, singer Eric Wagner has his raspy (almost Axl Rose-ish, actually) pipes tuned-up proper. It's one of those so recommended, that we're jealous of those of you who'll be hearing it for the first time things!
MPEG Stream: "The Tempter"
MPEG Stream: "Psalm 9"

TROUBLE Psalm 9 (Escapi Music) cd+dvd 25.00
CLASSIC DOOM METAL. Can't get much more classic short of being one of the original Black Sabbath albums, really. Here's the long-awaited reissue of this, the 1984 debut from legendary Chicago doom-mongers Trouble. Alongside Candlemass and Pentagram and Saint Vitus, Trouble were the true heirs in the '80s to the Sabbath throne. And their mild case of Christianity only adds to the doomed vibe (ever read Revelations?) without being overtly preachy and goodytwoshoes like some other "white metal" bands were (Stryper ferinstance). And anyway, we really feel that religious belief totally adds to doom metal. Sabbath's "After Forever" made that official long before Trouble's Psalm 9... which isn't this album's original title, actually. It was self-titled when it first came out, but then they self-titled their fourth, Rick Rubin produced effort as well, so this got renamed. The Rick Rubin one is yet to be reissued, we're hoping it will 'cause it's quite possibly our favorite Trouble album, but this certainly is also an essential, containing several of their most awesome, best-loved tunes, including "The Tempter", "Assassin", "Bastards Will Pay" and eventual title track "Psalm 9". Plus it's also got the instrumental "Endtime" (later covered by Confessor), and their own cover of "Tales Of Brave Ulysses" by Cream!
If you haven't heard Trouble before, well... think Black Sabbath, yes, but different. They've got their own stamp on the trad. doom metal thing. It's fastern'd you'd think. And heavier than their forebears, due to the twin guitar lineup. And already here on Psalm 9, singer Eric Wagner has his raspy (almost Axl Rose-ish, actually) pipes tuned-up proper. It's one of those so recommended, that we're jealous of those of you who'll be hearing it for the first time things!
And this new, deluxe, digitally remastered edition comes with not only a booklet full of photos and liner notes, but also a bonus DVD disc featuring the band performing on a local Chicago Public Access TV show way back in 1982! They're lip-synching, but they look cool -- and the interview portions are so inadvertently hilarious we're actually impressed that these guys weren't too embarrassed to allow it on here. So even if you already have this album, true Trouble fans would be wise to invest in this reissue as well.
MPEG Stream: "The Tempter"
MPEG Stream: "Psalm 9"

TROUBLE Simple Mind Condition (Escapi Music) cd 15.98
Must be a cold day in Hell. The long rumored, NEW Trouble album is finally here. Been a long time coming. In fact, it seemed like Judgment Day might get here first, that this would never happen, but it has. Chances are, those looking to pick up this expensive import are probably only gonna be fans already, so there's not much need for us to explain just how legendary these Chicago doom metallers are. Let's just say that along with Pentagram, Saint Vitus and Candlemass, in the eighties these guys were the bearers of the Black Sabbath torch...with hints of more psychedelic '60s stuff like Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and the Beatles surfacing in their music as well. Rick Rubin tried to break 'em big back in 1990 but it wasn't to be, though their eponymous Def American debut remains a (sadly out of print) classic. Various breakups, lineups, fuckups, and troubles befell, the band last releasing a studio album in 1995, Plastic Green Head, which easily could have been their swansong, their final epitaph. But twelve long years later they have reconvened (more or less) with the most crucial factor being that original vocalist Eric Wagner is at the mic. When we last heard him, on Dave Grohl's Probot project, it seemed criminal that Trouble wasn't happening at the time and that their future was, as ever, in doubt. Now, at last, at least, they're back (even if this release was damn hard for us to get) and at this point is just nice to hear Wagner crooning in his sincere soaring gargle over some heavy riffs once again!! Like Dio and his rainbows and wishing wells, Eric Wagner has still got Heaven on his mind. Other familiar Trouble tropes, musical and lyrical, abound, from swinging Sabbathy riffage to mellow stoner psych balladry about reaching "the end of my daze". Better than Plastic Green Head? As good as Manic Frustration? Up there with Run To The Light? Er, well, each fan must judge. One thing that's most definitely rad about this record is that they chose to do a cover of "Ride The Sky" by krautrock proto-metallers Lucifer's Friend!
MPEG Stream: "Pictures Of Life"
MPEG Stream: "If I Only Had A Reason"

TROUBLE The Skull (FRW Music) lp 22.00
REISSUED ON VINYL!!!
Nearby on this week's list we're highlighting the doomier-than-thou vinyl reissue of the 1984 debut from Chicago's classic doom metal squad Trouble. This here is the new vinyl reish of their equally heavy second album, The Skull, originally released on Metal Blade in 1985, which features such Trouble 'hits' as "Fear No Evil" and "Wickedness Of Man", along with its epic centerpiece, the nearly 12 minute "The Wish". As with the debut, you can expect plenty of Christian angst, ponderous Sabbathy riffage, and twin guitar duels! Heavy and moody, monolithic, classic TRUE doom for sure, but like the debut, Trouble for sure have their own vibe, due in no small part to vocalist Eric Wagner unique voice, one of the best in doom we'd dare posit, infusing every song the sort of doom-ed gravitas, few other vocalists can conjuure on their best days.
Folks who have been digging the current wave of retro doomlords, who have somehow gone this long without hearing Trouble, well, now's the time to fix that. Grab this AND the debut, and you'll be it true doom heaven (hell?)!!
MPEG Stream: "Fear No Evil"
MPEG Stream: "The Skull"

TROUBLE The Skull (Escapi Music) cd+dvd 25.00
Last list we highlighted the doomier-than-thou deluxe cd+dvd reissue of the 1984 debut from Chicago's classic doom metal squad Trouble. And now, here's the reish of their equally heavy second album, The Skull, originally released on Metal Blade in 1985, which features such Trouble 'hits' as "Fear No Evil" and "Wickedness Of Man", along with its epic centerpiece, the nearly 12 minute "The Wish". As with the debut, you can expect plenty of Christian angst, ponderous Sabbathy riffage, and twin guitar duels!
And, the bonus dvd disc this is packaged with has gotta be pretty exciting for fans: a complete live Trouble concert, filmed at a club called Malo's in Aurora, Illinois, circa 1984. There's an on-screen note at the beginning saying: "The following program is historic in many ways. One of the historic elements of this rare program is the old recording technology." And yeah, sure it's a Nth generation video dub, ultra-grainy and wavey. But with so much heavy metal atmosphere!! Lights, smoke, hair, headbanging... So cool. And they play nearly every song from Psalm 9 and The Skull, plus a couple more, including what would eventually become the title track of their third album, Run To The Light.
MPEG Stream: "Fear No Evil"
MPEG Stream: "The Skull"

TROUBLE FUNK Droppin' Bombs: The Definitive Trouble Funk (Harmless) 2cd 24.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.UK import.

TROUBLE FUNK E Flat Boogie (Swollen) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

TROUBLE FUNK Live / Early Singles (2 13 61) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yay, back in print (and now as a two-fer) are these two AWESOME documents of the legendary Washington DC band Trouble Funk's outtasite funkatology. Previously they were reissued as two individual cds on Hank Rollins' Infinite Zero imprint, but have been out of print for some time, so if you don't already have those versions, you'll want this. That is, if you have a rhythmic bone in yer body. Trouble Funk were prime proponents of what's known as Go-Go, a strain of funk that flourished in the DC area exclusively. Go-Go is all about the rhythm, with lots of rolling percussion being the basis for long jams that couldn't be much funkier. Indeed after parts A-B-C-and-D of the non-stop Live album (disc one) you'll be so funked out, especially if you've been behaving like the crowd on the recording, that you might have to take a nap or something before you put on disc two, Early Singles, and have to deal with the likes of "Super Grit" and "Get Down With Your Get Down". Early '80s DC Go-Go at its finest, and that's pretty fine!
MPEG Stream: "Live part A"
MPEG Stream: "Super Grit"

TROUBLED HORSE Step Inside (Metal Blade / Rise Above) cd 14.98
The new, five years in the making Witchcraft album is indeed awesome (and we finally just got the vinyl version in, which you'll find elsewhere on this week's list). But OLD Witchcraft, we still love too of course. So how 'bout some new old Witchcraft, sort of, in the form of the long awaited full-length debut from Troubled Horse, a band whose membership includes 3/4ths of the original Witchcraft lineup?! Rocking out with catchy riffs and vintage '70s sounds, these guys are everything we'd hope for from a band with such a pedigree. Comparisons to early Witchcraft are easy, but Troubled Horse get way more bluesy than Witchcraft ever has done, and add some swirling organ to the mix. The singer's style can be also more gruff and rough than that of Witchcraft's Magnus (though with his Swedish accent there's certain similarities too). But the basics are the same, Troubled Horse maybe stronger even in their overt Pentagram worship. The Pentagram is palpable here, indeed some of these tracks, like "Sleep In Your Head", "Shirleen" and especially "Don't Lie" (notable also for its Lovecraftian recitation halfway through) might as well BE new Pentagram songs. They certainly would be if the wizened one, Bobby Liebling, were on the mic. Other '70s era influences are evident too, of course, with tracks like "All Your Fears" coming closer to something a bit country-ish that the Rolling Stones woulda done in a sinister mood. Meanwhile, the twin guitar leads and harmonies of the swinging "Another Mans Name" bring to mind very early Wishbone Ash hard rockers like "Lady Whiskey". And the psych/garage rock side of this (as displayed straight out of the gate on stomping opener "Tainted Water") should appeal big time to fans of Troubled Horse's countrymen Dungen, to cite a more modern (but still retro) comparison. Furthermore, this is definitely for fans of bands like Witchcraft (natch), Horisont, Danava, Graveyard, Gypsyhawk, and Spiders (with whom they also share a member - keep an eye out, hopefully we'll have that band's new album in soon too). Packaged in a slipcased jewel case.
MPEG Stream: "Tainted Water"
MPEG Stream: "Bring My Horses Home"
MPEG Stream: "One Step Closer To My Grave"

TROUM "un/mahts" : "aetas vetus" (Equation) 7" picture disc 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ultra limited picture disc from AQ faves Troum. Limited to 444 copies, this gorgeous picture disc (which comes with a swirly numbered magnet as well!) is two blasts of rumbling chaotic drone, occasionally harsh and almost industrial, but more often absolutely dreamy and otherworldly.

TROUM Aiws (Transgredient) cd 17.98
For many years now, Troum has been mining one particular sound with few deviations from a signature of darkly smeared drone-instrumentals for guitar, bass, and other sound making machines. Their sound developed out of the post-industrial ambient arena populated by Zoviet France, Lustmord, and Hazard; yet, at the same time, Troum's billowing shadows of mournful melody and subharmonic rumble acted as something of a prototype for the ephemeral metal dirges conjured by the likes of Nadja and SUNNO))). As much as Troum's work has been at the center of a Venn Diagram that overlaps not only those aforementioned projects but also the post-rock dronscapisms of Machinefabriek, Stars Of The Lid, and Jasper TX, Troum (as well as Maeror Tri, the project which preceded Troum) has always sounded like Troum. Their signature is quite unique; and this uniqueness is only trumped by the remarkable consistency in the quality of their recordings. Because of this consistency and because of their ability to bridge the numerous signposts within the increasingly splintered network of drone music, Troum have earned themselves a loyal fanbase.
So for those of you who have been smitten with Troum (like many of us here), save yourself the trouble of reading this missive and just get this album. Their signature sound is firmly entrenched upon Aiws, making the album as good as the best parts of the Tjurkurrpa series and their remarkable collaboration with All Sides. Much has been said about Troum's spiralling grey kaleidoscopes of melancholia and crepuscular fogginess; and all of the hypnotically simple melodies dripping with dronecast effects that have made Troum's previous work so good are all present here on Aiws. Slow building, majestic crescendos steadily evolve out of an expansive dronescaping that Troum have long mastered. Don't expect anything new from Aiws, but who the hell cares when it sounds this great!
MPEG Stream: "Ahmanteins"
MPEG Stream: "Nehen"
MPEG Stream: "[Ga] Plaian"

TROUM Ajin (Equation) picture disc lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It's a bit hard to concentrate with the huge spinning eye at the center of this gorgeous picture disc watching me, though gazing into the swirling eye has a strikingly similar affect to listening to the music on side one of Ajin, a propulsive, sort-of-industrial dronescape, a bit removed from the thick swaths of layered guitar we've come to expect from this German duo. The drones are not static or slow shifting, no they are a swirling, active whirl of abstract melody and subtle sonic swoops, a background blur underpinning the propulsive krautrock rhythms that are the focal point here. Imagine a snippet of Can, or a brief snatch of classic Faust, chopped and looped into a totally mesmerizing sonic mantra. The rhythm shifts subtly, from murky to crystal clear, but never wavers, a rhythmic trip to the outer reaches of the universe or the inner reaches of the soul. The other side (the artwork is subtly and appropriately altered so that now the eyes is closed) is more of Troum's classic minimal whir, the first track, a rumbling slow moving flow of muted guitar and teutonic thrum, dark and thick and ominously tranquil. The final track sounds almost like chamber music Troum, sweetly mournful melodies swoon and keen, haunting and darkly romantic. So lovely.
Gorgeously packaged and designed, ultra thick vinyl picture disc, with the eye image and all manner of design filigree, in a heavy guage plastic sleeve, sealed with a full color sticker, and includes a full color numbered insert.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES WORLDWIDE!!!