Southern Lord Black Cascade, the third album from Wolves In The Throne Room, is truly epic stuff, clocking in at four superb monolithic compositions. For me it ticks all the black metal boxes: big guitar riffs, big keyboard parts, triplets galore, and tempos that run from the majestically slow to death blasts and back again. Black Cascade is symphonic, but not as furious as, say, Emperor. Nor do […]
Album review
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Holy Mountain Restraint is not a word you usually associate with psychedelia. “Excessive”, yes, “silly”, perhaps, but “restrained”? Nonetheless Dos, Wooden Shjips’ follow-up to their 2007 self-titled album, is for the most part a very restrained psych record. On each of the album’s five expansive tracks the bass and drums are pared back to a hypnotic krautrock throb, and while the guitars enjoy a few overblown wigout moments […]
Interlink Audio Berlin-based Artridge, self-proclaimed purveyors of post-industrial chamber music and imaginary soundtracks, are back with a new full-length CD on German label Interlink. With a four-year gap since their previous album, Artridge have developed a knack for effortless eclecticism and a talent for lush orchestration. This all-instrumental CD takes in elements of krautrock, trip-hop, metal riffing, soundscapes, jazz, gentle breakbeats, and even a touch of the blues, […]
Label: Sonic360 Format: CD;CDS/12″/Digital Download Mockery is the breathtaking début album from Littl Shyning Man, a.k.a. Christopher Haworth, which was originally released in 2005. To me it struck a chord with Mothlite‘s The Flax of Reverie – a huge symphonic sweeping spectrum of style: a mixture of electronics and instruments, frantic modernist string pieces, vocal harmonies, spoken word, raw buzzing noise, drum and bass joins folk in a […]
Label: Rise Above Format: CD,LP Flute-tinged witch rock debut from Toronto’s Blood Ceremony. These days a lot of metal bands head straight for the big Black Sabbath riff, slow it down, and just stay there. However, I don’t think Blood Ceremony are too interested in what lots of metal bands are doing these days. They look back to the era of bands such as Coven, Affinity, and Black […]
Label: City Slang (Europe)/ Ernest Jenning Record Co (USA) Format: CD O‘Death’s stated intention with Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin was to capture the energy of their live sets on record, and anyone who has seen one of O’Death’s riotous shows will know that this is a hell of a tall order. The resulting album is a gypsy stomp barn burner, a chaotic celebratory oom-pah punk sea shanty set to […]
Label: ATP Recordings Format: CD Fuck Buttons are fucking great. They are Bristol-based Andrew Hung and Ben Power. Their début album is superb – a huge wall of big buzzing electronic drones with more distortion and screaming vocals that your average stoner/doom metal band. Unlike some (most?) noise electronica though, there is much more to Fuck Buttons than a wall of noise for noise’s sake. Using an eclectic collection […]
Label: Beta-lactam ring Records Format: CD I dunno quite what you call the sub-genre of music which seemed to spring fully-formed from the head of Lee Hazlewood a long time ago before being kicked into touch by the punks and goths, but you know the one I mean. It’s got the Bad Seeds, Gallon Drunk, Tindersticks, Crime And The City Solution and other such magnificent acts in it, and […]
Sounds Familyre With a name like Wovenhand, one could be forgiven for expecting some sort of pagan/folk metal malarkey – you know, that whole portmanteau word thing, like Skyclad or Dragonsbum or something. When you learn that the reference is to hands woven in prayer, however, the picture changes somewhat. Perhaps something a little more fragile, more intimate… Then you put the thing on, and all these preconceptions […]
Label: TeePee Format: CD,2LP Earthless rock. Earthless know that rock isn’t found in the middle of the verse or tucked away politely in the corner of a chorus. Earthless know that rock is huge tube driven distorted excess. And that’s exactly what they did at Roadburn. One and a half hours of primal solo and riff on the main stage of the Roadburn festival. It wasn’t a gig they […]
Frenzy of the Absolute, by Belgian drone master Fear Falls Burning, is one of the sparsest and most haunting collection of drones it has been my pleasure to hear. It’s big, and sinister, and oppressive, and intensely doom laden. This is the first I’ve heard of his work, and I can see that I’ve been missing something rather special. On Frenzy of the Absolute he works in collaboration […]
The End Skin Turns to Glass is epic stuff, I love it. Huge shoegazer doom from Toronto-based duo Nadja, who began as a solo project of Aidan Baker. In 2005 Leah Buckareff joined him allowing them to leave the studio and go live, though this album was originally released in 2003 in a slightly different version with Buckareff on bass and vocals. Between them they make a sound […]
Label: Southern Lord Format: CD,2LP Boris love to surprise, and the opener “Flower Sun Rain” does just that. They go straight for Jpop in the form of a cover of a PYG song. My surprise came at All Tomorrow’s Parties seeing Earth, Boris, then SunnO))) and, reasonably enough, expecting a good wall to wall evening of drone and just not getting it: country doom, ballads, and on stage […]
Southern Lord The progression from early Earth to modern Earth makes perfect sense, to me at least. Behind the change from dirty droning guitars to country doom, Earth retain a distinctive quality. The sound has changed, and the lineup has changed around Dylan Carlson, but the quality remains: a slow slow moving riff looping round and round, seemingly going nowhere, and catching you out when you start to […]
Southern Lord Before Sunn O))) there was Burning Witch, formed in the mid ’90s by Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson, although none of their recordings actually features Anderson who had started Goatsnake by that time. Crippled Lucifer is a reissue of their 1996 Towers… and 1997 Rift.Canyon.Dreams releases – two discs of fabulous doom. This release of Crippled Lucifer is expanded from the 1998 Southern Lord edition (subtitled Seven […]
Label: Mute Format: CD OK, confession time- I have yet to get around to seeing the film to which this is the soundtrack, though I have been assured by people who have and whose opinions I respect that it’s awesome. Though that’s not really the point – the point is that I’m only able to judge this album on how well its stands up on its own. Don’t […]
Label: Beta-lactam Ring Records Format: CD Fom the opening blasts of the title track, it’s apparent that Epitafio a la Permanencia is going to be more than just strange – it’s going to be weird. First off Un Festín Sagital get top marks for impersonating Magma within the first few bars, then dropping the dramatic chorale motif for now in favour of a deliciously avant slide into the meanders of […]
Label: Attack Attack Format: CD There’s something a little disorienting about this CD right from the off — it uses a different font. Yup, that’s right, gone is the stencilled military-style lettering they’ve been using for… blimey, for about TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS! (Doing a quick bit of mental arithmetic I’ve just frightened myself with the realisation that my first New Model Army gig was some eighteen years ago. I’ll get me slippers). […]