Album Review: Ketch - The Anthems Of Dread

Hailing from Arvada, Colorado, a city built on the original site where the first nugget of Rockies gold was discovered in 1850, doom-dwellers Ketch have discovered something far darker lurking in their waters.

Anyone dipping their sluice pan in this river will find a mixture of death, sludge and, as their album-title so eloquently describes, plenty of dread. This first long-player from them comes with their self-titled EP tacked on the end so this release certainly isn’t short on playtime.

They open up with a lilting bassline that curls itself around your senses like smoke, but soon bursts into flame and meaty riffery. With the screeching vocal completing the set, those listening will be sent whirling like dervishes, banging heads, punching fists. “Fertile Rites By Sacrifice” is a fine introduction – simple, aggressive and weighty.

From here things start getting a little fraught as the disturbing madness that lurks within their song-writing starts tearing the structures apart. Chaotic rhythms, furred-up electrics, anomalous chords and bristling vocal that tears maniacally at the flesh. Rumbling butchery that eventually catches the groove before suddenly disappearing from view.

“En Nomine Eius” [translation: “In The Name Of Jesus Christ”] echoes elegiacally, warbling sweetly before tearing your face clean off with a single swipe. The double-kicking fury is bone-shattering. Like a mix of Iron Monkey and Slabdragger, with hints of Monolord and Weedeater, this is heaviosity in overdrive; low-lidded and psychotic. Pitching straight into “Monsters Of The World”, an atonal death growling bastard from the very depths of Hell itself. You know something’s afoot when your cat fixes you with narrowed eyes and pins its ears back yet refuses to move from the room.

One sore point – “Estranged”, with its tuneless piano collapse and echoing whispers intoning scripture it’s clearly designed to bring to mind the horrors that lurk in the mind, but by the second play simply starts drives you nuts. “ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY…”

Happily, all’s well that ends well as they resort to type. Oh, and their 5-track EP that follows has plenty to offer the doom fiends amongst you. Definitely, check out “Counting Sunsets” – it’s a cold-blooded killer of a track.

Ketch don’t do things by halves. This is hearty, brutal fare with exotic flourishes that hint at something beyond your usual experience. Slap on your death mask, bring your weed and come get some.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2017/05/ketch-the-anthems-of-dread-aesthetic-death/

Album Review: pg.lost – Versus

Having previously written music with effect-saturated vocals, the Swedish quartet have gone for instrumental, more synth-driven pieces this time around, apparently due to Kristian Karlsson’s (bass, vocals) recent heavy touring schedule playing keys with Cult of Luna. Guitarist Gustav Almberg has commented that “I guess this has helped us to take the band into a bit of a new direction sound wise“.

Richly-layered, warm and emotive the album opens on the thumpingly heavy “Ikaros”. The synth fizzes, the drums pulse and the guitar fires off arpeggios to keep the whole piece drifting along. There’s short snatches of something akin to 80s computer games lurking in there too all leading to the maniacally crazed sandstorm finish.

Moving through the driving thrust and distorted bass of “Off The Beaten Path” we alight at the oblique Giorgio Moroder-esque synthetic wash, poppish dynamics and cinematic trickery of “Monolith”. Here, the music begins to stab and test the listener to create a force that unites the pacier groove of the kind displayed by Station-era Russian Circles with the dark tones and blackened crush of the sorely-missed ISIS.

It does become apparent as you dig deeper that the subtlety of this particular instrumental album often means the music slips into classic rhythmic shapes (four-four beats, elongated stretches without rise, fall or melody, etc.). In these moments, you’d usually find lyrics or instrumental solos. Here, pg.lost have resiliently left their music undeveloped and, yes, uncluttered as it is, each piece is given room to breathe. It’s certainly a matter of taste whether you buy into that styling though. I have to confess I crave a more developed, instantaneous instrumental sound but that’s just me.

Stretching 7 songs over a 53-minute runtime, the band certainly rely on the listener taking time out to appreciate the music. Those with short attention spans need not apply. It’s just too easy to freewheel past the gentler or more simplistic tracks like the title-track or “Deserter”.

Happily they do like a good rumble to finish up so you’ll probably be shaken awake for the stark, bristling ambience of “A Final Vision”. It’s a joy that is every bit the equal of the wonderful, naturalistic flow that If These Trees Could Talk seem to generate so effortlessly.

At the end of the day, despite its impressive dynamic range and lush sonics, it doesn’t really add a great deal of new ideas to this rapidly-expanding genre. Despite that, it’s still a thoroughly solid addition from a record label that is getting a habit for polishing rough diamonds.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2016/10/pg-lost-versus-pelagic/

Album Review: Earth Ship – Hollowed

Berlin’s Earth Ship are a band that crosses genres. Depending on your state of mind when you press play, you’ll hear something different each and every time.

Firing out two parts doom and one part southern metal, Earth Ship have managed to muster an album that collects, like music nerds, a vast range of their influences. Starting out with a driven, downbeat Alice In Chains vibe they steadily ramp up the pace and the power to peak at something equating to Kylesa’s whirlwind crush before bringing it back through thrash and blackened metal to settle back into a doomy groove.

Blasting off the wall of noise with a scowling bag of nails vocal, opener “Reduced To Ashes” melts an initially gutsy, visceral sound into a driven dual vocal that mimics the melancholic laments of the aforementioned Alice In Chains. At ts heart the jerking back-and-forth swinging rhythm is a simple structure by design, so it’s a surprise to find it repeating throughout the album. Following up, the title-track introduces itself as its tonal brother, attacking from a different angle with half-paced, down-tuned chugs creating an imposing force. This looser blueprint risks demoting it to mere filler but at least it warns you just how complex their constructive thought processes are.

Deeper in, the variation continues – morose, lush verses, driven with effortless power by twin vocals, melt into a roared death attack. Surrounding it they use an amalgam of High On Fire’s immense vocal grunt, Monster Magnet’s heady theatrics and Torche’s relentless cyclical riffing to shock and invigorate.

“Conjured” provides a wicked groove interspersed with harmonised vocal “aahs” and is both accessible and memorable. Then, diving into the abyss, “Monolith” offers up a suitably menacing, rumbling undercurrent with big blackened melancholic tones. Imposing its wrath upon the listener it echoes through to violating feedback. “In Fire’s Light” is even darker, heavier and throws ever more powerful hits. It also features the enigmatically repeating line “The sands of time are running low…”. Here, they sound like a beefed-up Purified In Blood.

Wading through, the succulent, thick layers envelop you. Whichever you choose to lock onto, be it the scrawling multiple-overlaid vocal, the demonic throat-scouring or the slow, persistent driven quality, you are always plugged in. And then there’s the moments when they revert to feeding in old school elements. One particular track that will give you a shit-eating grin is the thrashed-up “Castle Of Sorrow”. The fiery, metallic tang, of the thing throwing out curses in twin-speed attack with pillar-to-post riffage is a joy. Even the monotonous closer “The Edge Of Time” has value here with its long, weighty, sustained chord strikes and maddening Acid King-esque ethereal doom.

There are negatives to consider. These aren’t so much songs as they are a series of flavours. There is an over-reliance on sheer power when the variety of attack should be the star. With trigger points supplied by the guttural roared sections they do have a tendency to batter the eardrums a little too often. A solid wall of noise each time will only drive you in one direction. And the album does rely a little too much on needless party tricks. As an example, “Safeguard Of Death”‘s automaton vocal intoning instructions over and over will drive you nuts.

Earth Ship are essentially like getting all your favourite foods and putting them on a single plate. Consume each individual part carefully and you’ll love this experience. Mix them all up and it’ll taste like something you’d give to your dog.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2016/07/earth-ship-hollowed-napalm/

Album Review: Sink - Ark Of Contempt And Anger

Marked up as psychic AOR, Sink’s latest offering is far more subversive than that initial description suggests. It is, after all, an exploration into the reasons behind man’s very existence, deconstructing his own self-awareness – pure waffle or a valuable assessment? Naturally, any work that credits the occultist Genesis P-Orridge and mystic Therese Neumann is going to challenge our own conceptions of the self.

As an example of the depths we are plunging here, the PR blurb that accompanies this offers us the enigmatic line – “The history of music is merely fuel to be burned”.  It’s a bastardization of an Ayn Rand quote but this and other half-spoken observations throughout the album are our stark warning that we are expected to look beyond the obvious for this one.

Think on that as you swim into the opener, “Hunger” and that glowing, buzzing, chiming warp which lurks behind a wall of monotonous, lyrical chaos.The switch-up that follows tickles the band’s folk souls, powering down to bring us echoing pipes and a blackened, melancholic lament. Oddly, “Dream Map” forms the link between tracks one and two, ingesting parts of each and throwing in a crackling fire, ironworked effects and a slow 80’s synth.

Never ones to rest in one place, the synthetic pulse of “Consolation” offers up another change of tone, drawing inspiration from such diverse sources as Jean-Michel Jarre and 65daysofstatic. With no real direction it feels odd and misplaced – a snatch of something unbidden and incomplete. Much of what you’ll experience here though is merely that – more quick grabs at the ether than true songs.

As an example of this “Crystal Ship” is seemingly just a series of sounds thrown together. Part-industrial, part-tribal, a repeating single-note it conjures a dark, occluded picture driven by anger to the point where disintegration is the only exit strategy. Quite mental, oddly disturbing and yet curiously mesmeric. Likewise, the arena echo of “Terminal”, is at its heart just a sequence of recorded sounds. Passing traffic that morphs into the pounding of train wheels on a track. Then, there’s “World Asthma” – a minute of slow piano split asunder by static interference – it achieves what exactly? I’m losing my patience here.

Happily, “So We’ll Go No More A-Roving” does carry a purpose. It’s a slow, doomy, boy-girl lament; a Vangelis-esque tale of love dripping with real sentiment.

Yes, at it’s core Ark Of Contempt… is just a series of fiercly deconstructed songs, hammered, kneaded, and teased out into simplistic musical threads. It’s a melancholic album with a bold, dynamic range and those with inquiring, open minds will find it both invigorating and thought-provoking. However it does require a largesse of patience to escape the rigid, spartan structures and some will find it lacking in colour. On the plus side, it’s unafraid of ditching the vocal lines where necessary and, consequently leaves room for the acoustic-only tracks to release the grey matter from too much torturous instruction.

Bandcamp = https://sinkprocess.bandcamp.com/album/ark-of-contempt-and-anger

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2016/06/sink-ark-of-contempt-and-anger-svart/

Album Review: Nadja – Sv

Drone, at its most monotone, can drive some wild. It is a beast that dwells beyond the reach of most, existing in a parallel universe to the dark fury of the majority of heavy metal acts; light years from the sugary sweet licks of rock n’ roll. Dip a toe in and you’ll fail to judge the temperature or miss the drag from the tugging swell of what lies beneath. It is music for the slow-movers, the thinkers, the heavy-lidded.

Nadja are masters of this particular genre and this 41-minute single-track album is a true work of art. Aidan Baker & Leah Buckareff have combined the elemental with the industrial and set it to the bruising grind of dark electronica.

An eerie opening constructs itself a sub-aquatic world with an electrical buzz and an mechanical hum that builds to a visceral crescendo. By five minutes the bass rumble and harmonic nuts and bolts have begun to lock into place. At seven and a half minutes the percussive elements have steadily begun to fizz and click into life. At nine minutes the steady morphosis is ebbing and flowing. The whole has become an unstoppable locomotive riding the rails, chuntering and chittering with gritty signs of life. Deeper in the sounds have begun to fully combine – here, the electronic beat drives ever onwards and the sub-level bottom-end rattles the ribs. As the mind empties and the focus becomes absolute, “Sievert” lords it as dance music for the undead.

Thirty-three minutes down and the switch-up occurs, changing its angle of impact to open up the rhythm and create space. Here, it is like riding the back of a vast, lumbering beast. The drums come into focus and the music’s black grip tightens. Dread takes over and the slow degradation of the world Nadja have created shows its first cracks. The crust snaps, time patterns and effects warp and reality begins to leak back in. That space you’ve been staring at on the wall for the last half-hour is no longer your focal point as Baker strikes the single piano key that breaks the spell.

Summing up, Sv is experimental drone that slowly warms to its task before worming its way inside and reconfiguring your heartbeat, your pulse, your brainwaves. Helpless, you’ll dance to its multi-layered echoing vibe over and over.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2016/05/nadja-sv-essence-music/

Album Review: Holy Grove - Holy Grove

Formed in 2012, this release marks the eponymous debut album from the doom-friendly quartet from Portland, Oregon. Sounding like a mind-meld between the cauldron-staring Black Pyramid, the dynamic Blues Pills, and the fantasy riff-chucking of The Sword, Holy Grove’s self-titled debut focusses on pitching buzzing stoner into 70s doom riffs that glisten with Lovecraftian intent.

Opener “Death of Magic” swings a sackful of big hearty bass, ladles on the groove and rocks you from pillar to post. Throughout fuzz-driven guitar riffs pitch and yaw all around whilst Vidal’s softly echoing vocal floats above it all. Her determinedly heartfelt cries bear a striking similarity to the storming output from Acid King’s Lori S.

Further in, “Nix” pulls out some feisty hooks and chucks in more psychedelic noodling before dropping into a half-time cosmic crawl to end. The heartstone of the piece though is the one-two segued caress of the title-track and the addictive bluesy lines of “Huntress”. They bear emotion that grips and won’t let go – “Kneel down at the altar”, indeed.

The Sabbathian-influenced “Caravan” wraps itself around the classic riff of the aforementioned’s “Evil Woman” before the 9-minuter, “Hanged Man”, with its dark chanting and punishing, warped overdrive tips a hat to Saint Vitus and seals the deal.

They’ve clearly had a ball making this album; you can hear the glee in their riff worship. Their continued deference to the metal gods of times past works for them as it stands up on its own – a stonking creation. Yep, there’s nothing truly innovational here but it’s still a thoroughly joyful experience and they are deservedly going down a storm in the live arena.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2016/04/holy-grove-st-heavy-psych-sounds/

Album Review: Karma To Burn – Mountain Czar

Since time immemorial man has been hitting big things with smaller things to make noise for pleasure. For twenty of those years Karma To Burn have been doing the same thing. Today, they are still rattling out their special brand of euphoric instrumentals preset with thick grooves and deliberately obtuse track-titles. They may have a new bassist but the rule of thumb for this American trio still seems to be if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Averse to the idea of being labelled as either stoners or desert-dwellers, despite navigating the good ship Karma along similar currents, they do seem to have settled upon a descriptor and so shall hereforth be labelled in my collection as Mountain Rock.

Diving straight into this EP, it seems the badge certainly fits. Vast grooves roll off the conveyor belt like avalanches. Opener “Sixty-Two” digs out a thunderous underscore of heaving drums and bucking guitars. It riffs off that with little bending chord structures and diving arpeggios. Following up, “Sixty-One” sports a similar rolling rhythm but with a feistier edge and with a battle metal twist. It’s like something The Sword might dig out, only with the heaviosity ramped up to 11.

Elsewhere, the star of the show “Sixty” simply grips it and rips it. An addictive opening riff which is pre-loaded with a subtle minor that instantly shifts up the neck and will prove an irresistible force – there simply won’t be a single static soul on their forthcoming European tour when they dig this one out. That’s an absolute guarantee. As a counterpoint, “Sixty-Three” has a great opening spoken rip from “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” but from there it’s all pretty docile as they rotate around a gently-paced swinging surf rock pattern.

Sadly, they also pick this one to rip up their rulebook by choosing to butcher a classic in a misguided attempt at blowing minds. “Uccidendo Un Segno” is the culprit (a cover of Tom Petty’s “Running Down A Dream”) introducing Stefanie Savy, an Italian vocalist singing in her native language. A solo by Sons Of Morpheus guitarist Manuel Bissing completes the surprise. It sticks out like a sore thumb, blasting away mindlessly and breaking the classy buzz that the first three tracks built up in a heartbeat. Petty’s is a work of genius and I hate having to refer to that song in anything other than glowing terms – but what the hell were they thinking of? It’s a germ of an idea that needed to be left in the jam room or worked upon to create more of the original’s simple nous and foot on/foot off cadence.

Still, you can’t win ’em all and with whited-out retro rock so heavily back in favour, they may not be hitting the bullseye every time but they are certainly bang on point with this.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2016/03/karma-to-burn-mountain-czar-rodeostar/

Album Review: VŌDŪN – Possession

London turbo-doom trio, VŌDŪN, are a live act like no other. Dabbling in all things voodoo they paint their music and themselves accordingly and allow the crowd’s focus to fall naturally upon their vocal icon – one Chantal Brown (a.k.a. Oya), once member of Chrome Hoof. She is the veritable stick of dynamite with a crystalline, pulsing vocal that borders on the operatic. Crush that into a small room and throw in Ogoun and Marassa (her co-conspirators) and their gutsy, thundering backline and you’ve got an overwhelming burst of colour-drenched music.

One fleeting experience with them at the London Underworld, watching them steal the show from opening slot, was enough to burn their name onto my cortex; so it was a happy day when their debut album landed in my inbox. Could they reproduce anything like the same impact shorn of their visual show?

From the off, we quickly learn that their moniker refers to the god of the West African Yoruba people and their religion – the inspiration behind the distorted voodoo tropes we’ve all assimilated from the movies. Through a series of track-linking spoken passages, we also learn that the band can come across as a little preachy.

Skipping over that then, the music itself is indelibly marked with many of Skindred’s tribal touchpoints and rumbles along with a passionate, rhythmic flow. Oya’s enormous vocal immediately takes centre-stage which is only right considering the quality. I can see how the dominance of it could be a marmite issue and the shock value has diminshed somewhat from being within touching distance of it which is a shame. Any way you take it though, she sells every note and gives her all in an impassioned display of both control and range.

There are plenty of standout tracks: “Bloodstones” simmers with joyously soft blue notes that whip up into gutsy driven climaxes; her own “Oya” allows our resplendent vocalist to fully stretch out her peacock’s feathers; “Legbas Feast” brings in folky elements and enigmatic sounds of the jungle to create campfire music to dance to; and “Mawu” delivers an unctuously thick, fuzzed undercurrent that stands in direct contrast to Oya’s vocal clarity.

Having fully road-tested it, there is an unerring similarity between the tracks and the album loses its sense of purpose as it reaches its conclusion. One particular thorn is “Divinity” that quickly abandons its drive for a dissolute structure that skips between structural sections without truly defining any of them.

VŌDŪN’s number one selling point is that they bring something fresh-sounding to a stagnant scene. They seem boundless by design and big on extracting the core triumvirate of soul, psych and blues. With a compelling live show already nailed on, if they stick to those three emotion-sparking keystones they will remain a beguiling act to follow.



Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2016/03/vodun-possession-riff-rock-records/

Album Review: S00N – Vol. 1

Atmospheric doom quartet Soon is the brainchild of Stuart McLamb and drummer Thomas Simpson. As purveyors of indie pop, their main project being The Love Language, it’s an unusual sidestep but is a most welcome one and offers up listeners the opportunity to immerse themselves in music with a metallic canvas streaked with innovative flecks of folk and dreampop.

Although the band do find room to go low and slow, they shrug off doom’s more contemplative concepts. Instead they choose to mix up the delivery to try and keep the run-times down. The end result is a stingy album length of 35 mins.

Diving in, the instant connection to Mars Red Sky is established with opener “We Are On Your Side” revelling in its catchy vocal hook and heavy power chord combo. Lilting through the verses they lighten the crush and coat the music with a watery psychedelic wash.

From here, the tracks fire in and fade out leaving the unsuspecting a little punch drunk. They act as mere tasters of something potentially stronger. In this form, they are just fillers that lack direction. “See You Soon” and “Gold Soul” are particular culprits of these narrowed horizons. There is pillar, there is post, but the journey between them is what counts and these tracks gutter like dying candles.

An album of contrasts then, the band glory in the fact that they can stick “Glass Hours” next to “Mauveine” – one is a punky panic of flailing arms, the other a bowed beauty of gentile folk maudling. It is the final two-track statement that takes the biscuit though. “Take a trip down to the feeling / Take your hands off, take it easy” intones the three-way vocal as the band slip back into a more recognisably ponderous vibe – one that shares a commonality with the superbly bluesy experimentation of Orange Goblin and the bliss-kissed mind of Monster Magnet. Then the segue from penultimate to ultimate hits and peels away to reveal the very “abyss-gazing” that their own blurb swears blind the band don’t do.

Soon promise to be an infuriating enigma. How can an album so replete with half-baked ideas and antagonistic contradictions still produce moments of genius like these?

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2016/03/soon-vol-1-temple-of-torturous/

Album Review: Absent/Minded – Alight

Founded in 2009, this gritty German collective seem most adept at summoning up swathes of death-doom all weighed down with a depressive post and black metal gloom that lingers long after the last note has sounded out. Now on their third album, their former sludgier efforts being Pulsar and Earthtone, they’ve called in V. Santura (Dark Fortress, Tryptikon) and this time they’re really gunning to leave their mark.

Well they certainly manage to injure with second track “Stargazin'” hammering home the emotional turmoil that surrounded the events of the doomed space shuttle Challenger. It plays out as a series of sound effects and news and interview clips over a strong memorable riff and thumping chords that roll around, echo and splinter. Such simple construction opens old wounds far quicker than any set of lyrics ever could.

Further in, the album’s stuttering portfolio fails to really menace as it should with the tracks staying rooted in one place. Depressive black tones bleed into long sequences of occult psyche and death and such tracks as “Clouds” and the lyrical curiosities “Skies Of No Return” and “So Dark The Con Of Man” provide little more than music to curl up to. The latter track implies that either somebody has been paying attention to the works of American author Dan Brown or those by Norwegian hip-hop duo Madcon and most certainly it seems to imply the infestation of religious thought. As an aside, the idea to base the con around the concept is interesting as they also use Carl Sagan’s famous quote about the earth being a single organism and “an organism at war with itself is doomed”.

Elsewhere, there is their usual solid fare of steady punishing death-doom. Powering up on overdrive they load their bases with sombre riffs, occasional spasms of double-kick and a death-rattle vocal. Suddenly, something loud and obnoxious and not overwrought. “Arrivers” proves to be another gem and offers an oblique shift in purpose – suddenly the sonic blitzkrieg of chugs and intrusive grunt finally gives the listener something to sink their teeth into.

Violent, abortive and, at times, bordering on grotesque Absent/Minded manage to graft together a raft of genres without ever truly nailing their colours to the mast. The times they actually hold the attention come all too briefly and in short sharp shocks of content. The potential in their thematic choices and the simpler, more urgent constructions do prove, however, that they have the capacity to provide a few shocks. Absent/Minded they may be but they certainly won’t be forgotten.

Stream here: https://aminded.bandcamp.com/

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2016/01/absentminded-alight-sr/

Album Review: Wilt – Moving Monoliths

Upon forming, back in 2010, Winnipeg’s Wilt’s original intention was to create a black metal studio-only project. Since, the duo of guitarist Brett Goodchild and vocalist Jordan Dorge have assembled a full lineup and have started hitting the festival circuit with a bit of success.
Now, for this, their debut long-player, the quintet bring us four snaking tracks of blackened doom filled with buckets of blast beats, swathes of dissonance, extended chord couplets and the standard fayre of screeching, drone-tastic, monochromatic, acid-gargling vocals direct from the colourless lips of the undead themselves.

What hits you hardest of all, besides Dorge’s toasted throat, is the lack of warmth or colour in their music. It’s to be expected considering the subject matter offers “a unique glimpse into the human condition, for all its faults, heartbreak and despair” but it is no less of a shock to find it so brutally emotionless in the way in which it dissects the insidious disease within.

Right from the off, they fire up the slow, atmospheric doom machine. When the freezing blasts of drum and screech eventually kick in they cut through the fog like a shadowy, howling phantom. The downbeat tone and dark portents hit home and the temperature plummets. Beware the tuneless quality of “The Elder” – it is particularly nasty and relentlessly unforgiving. You absolutely get the sense of the horror and of the soul being torn asunder.

With each of the first three tracks cruising on past the 11-minute mark, all the while hammering their mournful tune with the same monochromatic attack and pitch, it really is heavy-going. The crumb of comfort here is the variation of pace which allows for some particularly neat shifts in vehemence. After 41 excruciating minutes it seems safe to surmise that this really is a work bereft of joy.

With so little variation and such a harsh, caustic attack marrying itself to the depressive tone, it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea but, as they probably say in Canada, if you don’t like the cold, get out of the fridge.

Listen now: https://wiltmanitoba.bandcamp.com/

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2015/11/wilt-moving-monoliths-bindrune/

Album Review: Year Of The Goat – The Unspeakable

Album number two from Swedish occult dark rockers, Year Of The Goat, comes with heaps of their usual melodrama plus a subtle blend of multiple genres. Each one is shot through with their own stylized affectations woven into more recognisable musical touchstones.

The vast 13-minute pastiche of opener “All He Has Read” thrusts us from an introductory summoning of dark spirits before it switches up and kicks into gear with echoing bell tolls and melodic riffs. There are forceful impressions of folk in the rhythmical drum runs and the accompanying rise and fall of the backing vocals breathe a symphonic air into proceedings. The insidious tone of the second movement and minor chords of the guitars mark out the band’s gothic leanings whilst the whole employs some, at times, pretty rough cloak-and-dagger lyrics all breathed out by Thomas Sabbathi’s strained, affected delivery. I had to check the liner notes to check to see if it wasn’t actually Suede’s Bernard Butler!

Upbeat numbers like “Pillars Of The South”, the addictive blast of “Riders & Vultures” and the bluesier “Vermin” jink back and forth upon solid riffs whilst slower, more foreboding tracks like “The Emma”, laced with pantomime villainy, and the Jethro Tull-esque “World Of Wonders” drink deep upon proggy blasts of mellotron allowing the band to really sink their teeth into the flesh of their chosen subject matter.

Dig deeper and you’ll find wedged into the middle of the album are the curio couplet “The Wind” and “Black Sunlight”. Both are invigorated by employing the galloping country rhythms, harrowing narrative and dull baritone of Nick Cave. A trickle of unhinged discomfiture in a sea of assuredness.

Relentlessly engaging without ever really demanding of the listener, The Unspeakable is a solid hitter played with a straight bat. It’ll certainly be interesting to see if next time out they go for something a little more thematically grizzled, perhaps with an eye towards engaging with the extreme, because this hints at it and they have left plenty of room for manoeuvre.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2015/07/year-of-the-goat-the-unspeakable-napalm/

Album Review: The Whorehouse Massacre – Altar Of The Goat Skull

Self-releasing all but one of their first five releases, these fly-by-wire monsters from Ohio are a bit of a rare find. With few having heard their suffocating wall-of-death sound before, it’s a delight to finally wrap ears around it. Well, a delight compared to being poked in the eye with a burnt stick; a delight compared to being put in the stocks and having bricks thrown at you; a delight compared to having your ears syringed with hydrochloric acid. You get the idea.

One suspects their live show must be a bit hairy seeing as the three members all play bass. Luckily, Kyle M. is also adept at playing lead guitar and their vocalist, Willy P., also has a knack for bashing ten bells out of a drumkit. They’ve been hoiking out demos and EPs since 2005, and this latest release marks a compilation of some of their later material. Shot through with distortion and overdrive, the music within is undeniably aggressive, oppressively doomy, dense to the point of crushing and yet curiously hypnotic.

“Indignation” is the equivalent of aural mincemeat. Teeth-rattling bottom-end, sludge-hurling chugs and Neanderthal guttural sounds and animal grunts that form themselves into such eloquent wordplay as “Steel toe mother fucking your head into the curb” and “Choke on your last fucking screams”. No surprise then when it all slowly begins to disintegrate into a torrent of feedback. “Buried In The Darkness” digs out a soft and sweet longwave riff, whilst the scrambling “Bowels Of Hell” goes for something with a similarly bludgeoning sound and equally sympathetic lyrics – “Just another example of living human waste”. Oh hell, what a bundle of joy, this is.

There are no pauses between tracks but you’ll catch when they switch as the thing is like a patchwork quilt of jumps, skips and oblique key changes. There is very little variation in tone or deviation from style. “Sewer Dreams” makes a stab at it, with some flitting, tuneless, ethnic instrument buzzing like a rampant fly stuck in your right ear, but even here they refuse to let you out of the gutter. The grooviest thing is the Sloth cover, “Sassy Pants”, which pitches back and forth with a lively drum section and a quick switch-up in chord structures. It’s quickly down into their usual fare of heads-down, dark droning though. If you can make it as far as the fearsome “Temples Of Perdition” you’re doing well, but I swear if you do the band will have broken you. They broke me there – hell, I even cracked an exhausted smile. Something I last did at an Annotations Of An Autopsy show back in late 2008.

Essentially this is 45 minutes of careless, low-fi slops and barrel-scraping, death-obsessed, elephantine doom-mongering watered-down to the simple joys of constructing a song round a riff, spewing hate and ejecting face-melting levels of distortion. Basic, honest music with zero frills. And therein lays the true pleasure of The Whorehouse Massacre. With so many bands these days welding multiple genres together and throwing everything but the kitchen sink at their music, TWM stick a defiant middle finger up and say “suck on this, you fuck”.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2015/06/the-whorehouse-massacre-altar-of-the-goat-skull-transcending-obscurity/

Album Review: Vattnet Viskar – Settler

Hailing from the American heartlands yet taking their name for the Swedish for “the water is whispering”, Vattnet Viskar have always been an innovative, multi-faceted band. On the one hand, their clear first love is for the more familial strains of second wave black metal with its speeding double-kick, cascading chords and vocal scowling. On the other, their nous for conjuring strong grooves and melancholic, progressive noodling allows for a deeper connection to the various outlying strains of the genre.

Spending months rather than weeks writing this latest effort allowed the band to really stretch themselves. Bassist Casey Aylward explains: “I think we had a lot of time in the studio to mess around with details and textures… we were diving into different territories a lot on this record”. This extra time taken meant they were keen to find a producer who could bring the most out of the wealth of this fresh-sounding material and so they searched out Sanford Parker (Yob, Twilight). He certainly seems to have given the music more colour than much of their previous material and has retained the visceral edge that so defines them.

Firing us into a squall of feedback, “Dawnlands” sets the pace with classic lines and dark portents before “Colony” picks up the baton and introduces a strident, battle-hardened groove to proceedings. Here, the lyrics begin to disintegrate into binary and the structure and pacing quick-steps between the track’s many facets. Like some bizarre, mutated combination of Lamb Of God’s “Straight For The Sun”, Isis’ “Wavering Radiant” and Steak Number Eight’s “Photonic”, the magical post-doom of “Yearn” settles into a memorable, cyclical riff accompanied by a roared vocal hook. It takes just these three tracks together for us to establish our place upon Settler‘s musical roundabout.

Like its neighbour, the accurately-titled “Glory” similarly takes its influence from the post-metal kinks of Isis, yet summons their more explosive side, piling raging power on top of Nicholas Thornbury’s maniacal, howled vocal. It pitches us straight into the slowly-emerging structure and hefty theatrics of the truly epic “Heirs”. It’s a track that whisks us from speeding metallic grunt to drifting melodics and barbarous, deathly grooves before finally cramming us into the closing dynamic oblivion of something truly special.

Most certainly there are weaknesses in the album, but these are confined to the odd disrupting stumble between segues and a failure to fully-integrate the faster, less accessible parts. The fans should be happy with the result but mere passers-by may find themselves alienated by the looser, more ragged hits of “Impact” and the title-track. What cannot be disputed is Vattnet Viskar’s desire to experiment. From the very first glance of that conflicted and emotionally-cutting front cover (a recreated photo of a beaming Christa McAuliffe training for NASA’s ill-fated 1986 Challenger mission) right through to Settler‘s closing combination of melody and feedback, the band are seeking to expand our minds and their own. They toy with a huge concept by applying varying degrees of pacing and atmospherics. The end result isn’t flawless but it is, ultimately, beguiling.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2015/06/vattnet-viskar-settler-century-media/

Album Review: High On Fire – Luminiferous

One band who undeniably create a weighty wall-of-sound, an earthy noise that explodes from fathoms below the surface, is High On Fire – they never were a band for the faint-hearted. Embedded into the driving whirlwind that is Des Kensel’s colossal drums we find Jeff Matz’s dirty distorted bass tone smashing into the wrecking ball riffs that burst from Matt Pike’s “nine strings of Hell”. Combined it creates kaleidoscopic swathes of fuzz and metal distortion. Yet, it’s not all about swamping brains and busting eardums. Thanks to the standard epic production and mixing from the legendary Kurt Ballou, the voluminous, viscous gloop of a groove is also layered deep enough to retain the band’s true rock n’ roll leanings.

For four straight tracks they strap you beneath the wings of an aircraft, dangling in the heat from the jet engine, billowing in the drag of 60,000 tonnes of thrust. Opener “The Black Plot” powers up their instantly recognisable swathe of rotational vortexes and gutsy, crushing machinations whilst the howling “Carcosa” and “The Sunless Years” both come infused with a warming buzz, oodles of stoner doom grunt, wild resounding solos and are splattered with the thick, gargled vocal that rattles from the scarred lining of Pike’s newly-sober throat. A veritable bag of nails, it laughs in the face of the earth-shaking instrumentation attempting to flatten it.

This time round, happily for those needing a breather after the spiky, speed-demons that are “Slave The Hive” and the title-track, California’s finest have littered the album with little air holes out of which pours energising melodics and sleek, dark portents that wrap themselves round simmering, beautifully-paced growers. Riding upon “The Falconist” you absolutely get the sense of mounting the back of this rising bird of prey, wedged between its beating wings. It douses itself in hints of classic rock and NWOBHM with its simplistic progressions and organic patterns. From the crush of Torche and Crowbar into the loving arms of Iron Maiden yet never leaving the core of their sound far behind. It would be remiss of me here then to not also mention the Monster Magnet-esque psychedelics and echoing, vocal drift that forms “The Cave”. It is the brooding hinge on which this whole album swings. Without it, the album would be bereft of its most interesting flavour.

Having torn into Luminiferous, their seventh long-player, with the same verve and power that they riddled their debut with, it seems almost unfathomable that the band even know how to create a weak or maniacally experimental album. The one thing that they rarely pull from their repertoire, however, and something that is missing here too, is the invention of a brash, repeating lyrical hook, an unforgettable riff or irresistible earworm. Instead, they choose to build their music close to the ground; they were born to do so. It defines them. The need to lay a rock-solid foundation oozes from their pores. As a consequence, the High On Fire label has become a sign of assured quality. Fans will know what to expect, newbies will either move on or absolutely devour its intensity and crave more. Just remember, before you press play… buckle up.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2015/06/high-on-fire-luminiferous-century-media/

Album Review: Secrets of the Sky – Pathway

With Secrets Of The Sky’s sophomore effort they really have thrown caution to the wind, tweaking their delivery and content to fully realise an album with one continuous, free-flowing storyline. It picks up from the very point where their scintillating debut, To Sail Black Waters, left us. Thus, after the rigours of an ocean-bound journey, we find ourselves tramping from the shore along the Pathway which leads down into echoing caverns where cackling witches lie in wait to torture and burn the emotions from us.

Thus, with something akin to the storytelling of Agalloch, Anathema or Alcest whilst drunk on Sabbathian doom and Opethian melancholy, the Californian quintet unveil an opus with cold, bleak beginnings leading to later forays into their harder, darker material.

Now, 13 tracks for a band like SOTS would indicate a complete change of tack. It is with some relief, then, that once you’ve got past the superb concept of having seven short, tension-building, feeder sound recordings then you’re left with a mere six full-lengths to pore over. Yes, it’s a gimmick to separate one type from the other but at least they don’t hide them behind complex titles, opting for simple Roman numeral formatting instead.

Following the introductory crashing of waves upon a shoreline (which also neatly bookends the album), they serve up “Three Swords” and our first taste of Garett Gazay’s clean vocal, which rises from amidst a swathe of minor keys, starting at a whisper, continuing through to strident song and finally into his more recognisable blackened shriek and roar. Initially the light, melancholic tone can make the clean vocal feel tentative, weak and, dare it be said, tuneless and at times overtly preachy. It’s hard to ignore the way they baby-step you into the album with dull, cyclical phrases such as “lying on a river” (from “Three Swords”), or “love this [life]” and “I don’t care anymore” (from “Another Light”) but they are balanced by the simple joys provided by the shrewd folk metal crunch of “Angels In Vine” and the brilliantly dark split-delivery of “Garden Of Prayers”, with the latter-half subtly hinting at the enigmatic delivery of Palms’ Chino Moreno.

Echoing footsteps upon a stone path, via the obstacles of trickling water, inhuman chuntering, industrial clanking and mantra chanting, have somehow led us inevitably to a roaring fire and the gloriously-consuming, black-edged “Fosforos”. It’s the signal for all-hell to let loose and the change of pace and instant freedom that comes with it is palpable. The chugs become more fervent and the screech and roars unhinged as the flames lick around our feet. Then, with a final flourish they power home their masterpiece, “Eternal Wolves”, which effortlessly combines the album’s constituent parts to create a single, unforgettable microcosm that positively glows from within with sweeping builds, chiming threads and poisonous barbs right through to that final guillotine moment.

There’s no doubting the sonic shift from the threatening, gritty malice of their debut to something more subtle, mournful and introspective. In its final moments, the picture is revealed in glorious monochrome. There are also definite bonus points here for ignoring the usual charade of tracklisting the heavier material up front, and thereby adhering to the ‘journey’ and the gradual unveiling of the concept. Consequently, the album flows beautifully through all of its rises and falls. Sure, it isn’t without its weaknesses, but it’s a Pathway I’d heartily recommend you walk.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2015/05/secrets-of-the-sky-pathway-metal-blade/

Album Review: Shakhtyor – Tunguska

With “demanding full-time jobs”, these Hamburgers’ often struggle to find time to write, practice and record. And yet here they are with their second album having thrashed out a finished product down at Tonmeisterei Studio with producer Roland Wiegener (Omega Massif, Kodiak, Long Distance Calling). The end result is certainly meaty, but is there something missing?

The instrumental Tunguska opens out with a High On Fire-esque sludge-fuelled attack but soon backs off into meandering doomy passages. Very quickly it becomes apparent that their aspirations stretch no further than hitting a sonic peak and beating their heads against the resultant wall-of-sound until either they or the listener crack. Tracks simply melt into one another as the band vary their attack as little as possible. So close are some of the tracks in style, tone and pitch that you’d almost believe they occupy parts of one almighty whole.

Essentially, the concept of instrumental doom has always been a flawed one. It works, to a degree, if the songwriting is crafty enough and the players and production are of the highest quality. Here, there is merely a sense of being trapped inside one almighty 48-minute jam. Never has a band needed a vocalist more than this lot. They are essentially a combination of Baroness’ sludge and exploratory burble with Kongh’s blackened gnarl and sonic drift – of course, with those bands’ key vocal element removed.

Take “Schlagwetter”, it is the aural equivalent of the M25. It’s cyclical, lane-changing, fast-slow construction irritates to the point of distraction. A certain pleasure could be derived from ramming the volume up to neighbour-bothering levels, with the slow build and crush of “Zerfall” inevitably doing the most damage. Fear not, though, there are tracks that work. “Pechblende”, for the simple reason that it’s shorter running time matches the impact of its sparse content, and “Solaris” which thunders down within a vicious, chug-happy psychedelic groove.

The curse of time may be the deciding factor here then, but there is evidence that, on the stage, Shakhtyor could be quite the band. In the studio, they aren’t a million miles away from making their mark either, they just need to expand their minds and develop their vision. Here’s hoping the boss cuts them a little slack.

Also on online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2015/04/shakhtyor-tunguska-cyclone-empire/

Album Review: Oceanwake – Sunless

Oceanwake are Luvia, Finland’s finest and purport to play “arctic experimental metal”. Sunless, their follow-up to debut Kingdom, proves this to be an intriguing amalgamation of Katatonia’s black doom, Enslaved’s dark heart and ISIS’ brooding post-metal.

From the off, there is an assault of haranguing aggression that very quickly collapses into extended lighter passages of soft, mournful melody. This heavy-soft approach is supported by atmospheric, echoing vocals that segue from a deep, barrel-chested roar into melodic, mournful wails. Both styles are presumably attempts to lock into the crush-to-croon vocal gymnastics of ISIS’ Aaron Turner and Bryant Clifford Meyer and both styles tickle the interest without wholly fulfilling such an imposing brief.

Undoubtedly, the band intend to live or die by “The Lay Of The Coming Storm” because, at 15 minutes and so lethargically paced, it’s quite a ball and chain to throw at the listener off the bat. Lurking beneath all these bleak, harmonic minors the album’s odd construction continues to drop drum parts and underscore the weightier passages with shimmering melodics.

The band do hit their stride as they grow into “Parhelion” and “Avanturine”. The former provides a Machine exhilaratingly crushing finish of growled lyrics, “All we are is dust / Scattered to the ocean”, and the latter provides a shot in the arm with a classy sequence of powerful riffing.

Having undergone a 13-month construction process from conception to post-production, with the band recording at the wonderfully named Chamber of Isolation & the JonneMusic Studio, all whilst under the watchful eye of Korpikaani frontman Jonne Järvelä, it is something of a surprise to find weaknesses in the production and frailities in the album’s sense of direction, pacing and flow.

This undemanding album does need its own space to shine but it still suffers from too many disparate structures and just not enough invention. Whilst their peers explore the extreme depths of tone and texture, Oceanwake carry their listener far more than they engage them. Undoubtedly, Sunless is a solid album but, taken at face value, you’d expect “arctic experimental metal” to chill you to your core.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2015/03/oceanwake-sunless-vicisolum/

Album Review: Amniac – Infinite

Fresh from the Greek fire, these young post-metallers’ offer up their raw debut long-player, Infinite, with arguably their weakest track smack-bang in the shop window. Naturally, being the metal detectorists we are, we weren’t deterred by such a foul odour and delved deeper to discover something far more appealing within. Indeed, here lies metal that dabbles in dark places, moulding the triple-threat of doom, black and sludge together to form a subversive, gnarled ball of bellicosity. 

That opening track, ‘And The Others Just Survive’, is all about the vocals and their relationship to the guitars. The whole comes at you in waves which only highlights the paucity in production values. The guitars work as a sludgy, dissonant series of chugs and twinkling top line, but the vocals aren’t quite so full. In fact, they are agonizingly short on body, leaving them sounding thin, weedy and loose in comparison to the string and drum thunder that surround them. Vocalist Upsetter has the gargled roars down pat but instead of sounding like the voice of the Devil he comes across like a bag of nails being hit against a hollow wall. Dwell ye not on this – it’s a failing that can be addressed in the studio next time around.

 Where Amniac excel is in the way they rather craftily employ the vocal as an extra instrument, using it only in context. When extra power is needed, Upsetter steps up to the mic and fires out penetrative lyrics in sentences, repeating them mantra-like in clipped cycles. They aren’t restricted by genre either, sourcing several different tones and styles to complement each theme. In places like ‘Rise Like The Suns‘ they take on the dark instrumental overtones of Russian Circles, creating melancholic strands that feed into euphoric gutsy grooves that are more reminiscent of early Baroness. The hammering vehemence and frugal vocal parts of ‘The Infinite‘ play on elements of Secrets Of The Sky‘s delivery whilst ‘A System Waiting To Fail’ and ‘Our Kind The Plague’ grip like Steak Number Eight’s finest pieces. These pound out the same riffs again and again to leave a ditch. ‘A System…‘, in particular, features a notable Nirvana-esque on-beat vocal technique with a mesmeric accompanying section of rhythmic, monotone, juddering chugs that build to a hellish crescendo.

 Time and again the clever song construction collapses and rebuilds itself yet somehow retains an organic flow. The music has a solid sense of direction too, one that inexorably pulls you in. It may not be the most sophisticated post-metal you’ve ever come across but it sure is exhilarating. Certainly, techniques need to be honed, production tightened and marketing savvy acquired but, even in their current form, you can sense their keen, flaming eyes igniting the path to your soul. No surprise – Amniac is, after all, just a dyslexic maniac.

 

Also online @ Heavy Blog Is Heavy = http://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2015/01/30/amniac-infinite/

Lists: Heavy Blog Is Heavy's Best Of Selections, Part 2

Here's a few more of my contributions to those "Best Of" Selections from Heavy Blog Is Heavy...

Heavy Blog Is Heavy's Best Of: Debut Albums

In January of 1970, appropriately on Friday 13th, a hitherto unknown group of musicians released a debut album that shook the world, inspiring millions for years to come. With vocalist Ozzy Osbourne and bassist Geezer Butler drawing inspiration for its dark lyrics from horror writers H.P. Lovecraft and Dennis Wheatley, and guitarist Tony Iommi latching on to Butler’s love for Gustav Holst’s ‘Mars’ to develop the riffs, in hindsight, it almost seems inevitable that it caused such a storm. The press reaction that followed only served to stir the pot – “We strongly advise those of a nervous disposition NOT, repeat NOT, to listen alone” screamed one. Staring at the washed-out cover art of gravestones, a watermill and a white-faced, cloaked woman staring back is fair warning enough.


Of course, within lies the harrowing. Rain. Thunder. A church bell. That dark tritone that constitutes the standout riff – the diminished fifth… the augmented fourth… diabolus in musica… the Devil’s Interval. Something infinitely bleak, menacing, unholy lurks within. Sinking deeper you’ll discover talk of a “figure in black”, “Lucifer”, “eyes of fire” and magical wizards walking our streets. The multi-part, multi-toned majesties of ‘Sleeping Village’ and the stop/start riff-reprising ‘Warning’ instantly teach us to expect the unexpected where the Sabbath is concerned. “Heavy metal”, yells Ozzy amidst the riotous rumble of ‘N.I.B.’ and lo, a genre is born. Has there ever been a finer debut?

Heavy Blog Is Heavy's Best Of: Final Albums

This qualifies on the tenuous fact that it was Jim Morrison’s final album before he died. Later albums were released containing recordings of his vocal, but those contained tracks that he never wanted to put out. With Ray Manzarek and Bobby Krieger completing all missing lead vocal tracks it comes as no surprise to discover that those albums didn’t exactly set the world on fire. A band without it’s heart or soul is no band at all.

Now I’ve been in love L.A. Woman for a long, long time. It’s not just their masterpiece ‘Riders On The Storm’ that swings it, it’s the laconic shading and stone cold groove that the album is wrapped in. There’s the laid-back driving nirvana of ‘Cars Hiss By My Window’ and the gentle sashaying of ‘Hyacinth House’ on through to the staccato hep of ‘Been Down So Long’ and the jinking groove of ‘Love Her Madly’. From the downbeat to the upbeat, the album flows through the full range of blue emotions better than any other. And if you’re looking for a song to fall in love with, then you can do a lot worse than Jim’s love letter to the seedy underbelly and bright lights of Los Angeles – the title-track itself. Here, the lithe rhythm, dramatic structure and gorgeous lyricism all underpin that rickety Hammond organ and rocking vibe. The album is no less then a complete and utter joy.

Heavy Blog Is Heavy's Best Of: Doom

Back in the late Noughties, the doom cognoscenti were thrown into a state of temporary disarray when the proposed formation of a supergroup containing Dale Crover (Melvins’ drummer/vocalist), Al Cisneros (Om’s bassist/vocalist), Scott Kelly (Neurosis’ guitarist/vocalist) and Scott ‘Wino’ Weinrich (The Obsessed vocalist/guitarist), legends all, was rumoured. When Shrinebuilder finally formed and delivered their self-titled debut, their only album to date, there was nothing less than a volcanic eruption, literally (one actually blew it’s lid in Iceland and the fallout caused the cancellation of a European tour).

The Wino/Kelly mix of earth-shattering string dissonance and part-howl, part-croon gifted mighty tracks like the mighty ‘Pyramid Of The Moon’ and ‘The Architect’ with a thrilling taste of life inside a thresher. Crover must have almost annihilated his snare for the raging “Solar Benediction”, yet it was Cisneros grotty basslines that marked this record out as a cut above. It was his constants that allowed the music to drift into sequences of mystical noodling, providing the perfect platform for Wino to plug up any gaps in sound with wah, extravagant slide and morphing melody.
With it increasingly looking like the band will never reunite for a follow-up, this album has become an invaluable source of inspiration and enlightenment. No excuses then — buy, borrow or steal this gem and turn your brain into mush today.



Full selections online @ Heavy Blog Is Heavy.