MEGADETH Rust In Peace (Capitol) cd 15.98
During the summer of 1990, while enjoying a three month holiday in Oslo, Norway, I (Elliott) came across a magazine that would be of untold influence to my thirteen-year old ears -- the 1990 Metal Hammer "Thrash Spectacular". This would serve to be my introduction to an obsession with extreme bands that would consume an unhealthy amount of my time and interest throughout middle and high school -- bands such as Exodus, Sepultura, Pungent Stench, Testament, Sacred Reich, and on and on. But the centerpiece of the issue was four articles on what Metal Hammer referred to as the "Big Four" of thrash, namely: Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer and Megadeth.
And now we have a re-mastered re-issue of Megadeth's Rust in Peace, originally released coincidentally enough, within weeks of my return from the land of fjords. Why is this significant? Well, because with the very notable exception of Slayer's Seasons in the Abyss, Rust in the Peace was arguably the last great album of the great '80s thrash bands. Sure most, if not all, of these bands continued to release albums up to the present, but really -- which of them would you seriously consider to be on par with their '80s predecessors? Exodus, Testament, Slayer, AnthraxÉit's like 1990 was an impenetrable divide that dictated, "No decent thrash may pass". And let's not even discuss the Black album. Anyway, the release of Rust in Peace heralded the end of an era, and did so with august aplomb, the group topping even their own previously great achievements. It was as if all bands of the ilk recognized that nothing more could be done within the confines of what was considered thrash. Thrash had, as they say, "jumped the shark".
But most importantly, Rust in Peace is simply a magnificent album, harkening back to a time when metal records were still collections of great songs. Every song on here is unique and there's not a bit of filler to be found. Take a look at the tracks: you get the MTV-friendly alien conspiracy hit single "Hangar 18"; the sheer aggression of "Take No Prisoners," one of their heaviest songs ever; the eerie occultism of "Five Magics"; the upbeat, almost poppy quality of "Poison Was The Cure"; the coke-sweating solipsism of "Lucretia"; the forlorn desolation of "Tornado Of Souls"; the austere drum and bass death march creepiness of "Dawn Patrol," (where you get to hear Dave's hilarious affected British accent) all book-ended by two of the finest thrash epics ever recorded -- the relentless juggernaut of an opener, "Holy WarsÉThe Punishment Due," and the apocalyptic groove of the closing title track. Rust in Peace also showcases the finest musicianship of their career, featuring the relentless guitar dueling between Mustaine and newly recruited Shrapnel recording artist Marty Friedman. Very rarely has such guitar-shop wankery been harnessed into such tastefully well-crafted songs -- the intro to "Holy Wars" alone is a must-hear. As for the vocals -- some have been at worst annoyed and at best amused by Dave's whining snarl but when you hear him scream "Paid by the alliance, to slay all the giants" I think you'll agree his delivery is perfectly fitting.
Like Black Sabbath's Volume 4 or Celtic Frost's Morbid Tales or Iron Maiden's Killers, Rust in Peace is a milestone of metallic perfection and one which you are doing your metal collection a grave disservice to be without. If you have any genuine interest in metal, any whatsoever -- a single Century Media sampler in your collection, even -- you MUST own this record. Do yourself a favor, hear one of the absolute pinnacles of thrash. It was the last of its era, setting a standard that the genre as a whole would be unable to match again. And don't just take my word for it...Allan's backing me up on this one too: Rust In Peace is a metal essential. This reissue is remixed and remastered, with four bonus tracks (3 demos of album tracks featuring original 'Deth guitarist Chris Poland and the unfinished, unreleased "My Creation").
MPEG Stream: "Holy Wars...The Punishment Due"
MPEG Stream: "Tornado Of Souls"

MEGADETH Rust In Peace (Capitol) lp 22.00
Easily one of our top-metal-albums-of-all-time (especially in the Big Four/Bay Area thrash division), now (again) released on vinyl! Here's what former AQ mailorder staffer (and current medical student!) Elliott had to say about it when we listed a cd reissue of it a while back:
During the summer of 1990, while enjoying a three month holiday in Oslo, Norway, I came across a magazine that would be of untold influence to my thirteen-year old ears - the 1990 Metal Hammer "Thrash Spectacular". This would serve to be my introduction to an obsession with extreme bands that would consume an unhealthy amount of my time and interest throughout middle and high school -- bands such as Exodus, Sepultura, Pungent Stench, Testament, Sacred Reich, and on and on. But the centerpiece of the issue was four articles on what Metal Hammer referred to as the "Big Four" of thrash, namely: Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer and Megadeth.
And now we have a re-mastered re-issue of Megadeth's Rust in Peace, originally released coincidentally enough, within weeks of my return from the land of fjords. Why is this significant? Well, because with the very notable exception of Slayer's Seasons in the Abyss, Rust in the Peace was arguably the last great album of the great '80s thrash bands. Sure most, if not all, of these bands continued to release albums up to the present, but really -- which of them would you seriously consider to be on par with their '80s predecessors? Exodus, Testament, Slayer, AnthraxÉit's like 1990 was an impenetrable divide that dictated, "No decent thrash may pass". And let's not even discuss the Black album. Anyway, the release of Rust in Peace heralded the end of an era, and did so with august aplomb, the group topping even their own previously great achievements. It was as if all bands of the ilk recognized that nothing more could be done within the confines of what was considered thrash. Thrash had, as they say, "jumped the shark".
But most importantly, Rust in Peace is simply a magnificent album, harkening back to a time when metal records were still collections of great songs. Every song on here is unique and there's not a bit of filler to be found. Take a look at the tracks: you get the MTV-friendly alien conspiracy hit single "Hangar 18"; the sheer aggression of "Take No Prisoners," one of their heaviest songs ever; the eerie occultism of "Five Magics"; the upbeat, almost poppy quality of "Poison Was The Cure"; the coke-sweating solipsism of "Lucretia"; the forlorn desolation of "Tornado Of Souls"; the austere drum and bass death march creepiness of "Dawn Patrol," (where you get to hear Dave's hilarious affected British accent) all book-ended by two of the finest thrash epics ever recorded -- the relentless juggernaut of an opener, "Holy WarsÉThe Punishment Due," and the apocalyptic groove of the closing title track. Rust in Peace also showcases the finest musicianship of their career, featuring the relentless guitar dueling between Mustaine and newly recruited Shrapnel recording artist Marty Friedman. Very rarely has such guitar-shop wankery been harnessed into such tastefully well-crafted songs -- the intro to "Holy Wars" alone is a must-hear. As for the vocals -- some have been at worst annoyed and at best amused by Dave's whining snarl but when you hear him scream "Paid by the alliance, to slay all the giants" I think you'll agree his delivery is perfectly fitting.
Like Black Sabbath's Volume 4 or Celtic Frost's Morbid Tales or Iron Maiden's Killers, Rust in Peace is a milestone of metallic perfection and one which you are doing your metal collection a grave disservice to be without. If you have any genuine interest in metal, any whatsoever -- a single Century Media sampler in your collection, even -- you MUST own this record. Do yourself a favor, hear one of the absolute pinnacles of thrash. It was the last of its era, setting a standard that the genre as a whole would be unable to match again. And don't just take my word for it...Allan's backing me up on this one too: Rust In Peace is a metal essential.
MPEG Stream: "Holy Wars...The Punishment Due"
MPEG Stream: "Tornado Of Souls"

MEGADETH So Far, So Good... So What! (Capitol) cd 16.98
Ah the Mega-re-issues just keep on coming! As it stands, So Far, So GoodÉSo What! ranks as the least essential of the set, but definitely still an excellent album and a more than adequate selection if you're still hungry for more Megadeth after Rust in Peace and Peace Sells. On this, Megadeth's third overall album we have the excellent opening pair, the atomic instrumental "Into the Lungs of Hell" and then the massive riffing of "Set the World Afire," plus Megadeth's first two quasi-ballads, the surprisingly decent "Mary Jane" and "In My Darkest Hour". Fear not though, they're both still plenty heavy! Closer "Hook in Mouth" has another classic riff and plenty of classic Mustaine sneer. Plus you get their laughably bad rendition of the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K." What's not to like? Come on, go for the 'Deth triumvirate! Like the others in this reissue batch, remixed/remastered and includes alternate-mix bonus tracks.
MPEG Stream: "Into The Lungs Of Hell"
MPEG Stream: "Set The World Afire"

MEGASUS s/t (20 Buck Spin) cd 10.98
Finally available on cd!!
A name like Megasus can only mean one thing. METAL. That's right, pounding, thrashing, ass kicking head banging metal from Providence Rhode Island, which just so happens to feature Brian from Lightning Bolt on drums. But NOT Brian Chippendale, nope, that's bass player Brian (Gibson!) pounding the skins, and hot damn, he's a pretty sick drummer for being such an insane bass player.
For those of you out there that play Rock Band or Guitar Hero, odds are you've probably heard Megasus before, one of their tracks was a huge hit on one of those games, downloaded about a million times, but for us, Megasus came out of nowhere, and proceeded to pummel us into submission!
Shredding classic style heavy metal, with a definite punk rock flavor, reminding us a bit of bands like Karp, that sort of punked up metal vibe, although with Megasus it's mostly the vocals, for the most part this is some seriously TRUE metal. Wild soaring leads, guitar harmonies, relentless drum pound, lots of chugging riffage, proggy arrangements, some stretches of doominess, the vocals a distorted howl, but for the most part this is just some seriously kick ass metal radness!
MPEG Stream: "Ten Kingdoms"
MPEG Stream: "Megasus"

MEGASUS s/t (Wild Power) lp 24.00
Available on vinyl one more time, new higher price though sorry:
A name like Megasus can only mean one thing. METAL. That's right, pounding, thrashing, ass kicking head banging metal from Providence Rhode Island, which just so happens to feature Brian from Lightning Bolt on drums. But NOT Brian Chippendale, nope, that's bass player Brian (Gibson!) pounding the skins, and hot damn, he's a pretty sick drummer for being such an insane bass player.
For those of you out there that play Rock Band or Guitar Hero, odds are you've probably heard Megasus before, one of their tracks was a huge hit on one of those games, downloaded about a million times, but for us, Megasus came out of nowhere, and proceeded to pummel us into submission!
Shredding classic style heavy metal, with a definite punk rock flavor, reminding us a bit of bands like Karp, that sort of punked up metal vibe, although with Megasus it's mostly the vocals, for the most part this is some seriously TRUE metal. Wild soaring leads, guitar harmonies, relentless drum pound, lots of chugging riffage, proggy arrangements, some stretches of doominess, the vocals a distorted howl, but for the most part this is just some seriously kick ass metal radness!
And the packaging, we talk about amazing packaging all the time, but wow, does this take the cake, an full color eye popping outer gatefold jacket, some sort of bloody winged goat, the logo and song titles embossed and stamped with gold foil, printed inner sleeve, pressed on 180 gram blood vinyl, comes with a poster, and a sticker. As well as a full album download. Phew.
MPEG Stream: "Ten Kingdoms"
MPEG Stream: "Megasus"

MEGATON LEVIATHAN MMIX (Volatile Rock) cd 6.98
This came out on ultra-limited (108 copies!) vinyl last year, but now for those of you missed out, or were lacking in that new-fangled turntable technology, here's the nice-priced compact disc version of MMIX by former aQ Record Of The Weekers, Megaton Leviathan, those droning Portland doomsters who, while as heavy as their name so inadequately attempts to indicate (it's a quote from a Judas Priest lyric, we now realize), are surprisingly somnolently mesmeric too!
Actually, before being a cd or an lp, this was a tape, their original 2009 demo, five tracks, around 34 minutes of doooOOOOOooooom. The first two tracks, "Water Wealth Hell On Earth" and "Guns And LSD" both were later rerecorded for their cd debut, Water Wealth Hell On Earth, that we made ROTW, while the other 3, "Repeating Patterns Of Love", "Time Fades", and "Turlock", all appeared redone on their 2011 demo cassette as well. But in any case, if you don't have those demos, or the previous vinyl version of MMIX, you haven't heard these exact recordings, and anyone who loved Water Wealth Hell On Earth as much as we did will want this for the three 'new' songs not found on there at all.
As we've previously stated, ML's doom is a special sort of "soft doom", as much spacey slowcore shoegaze as it is anything else, uniquely so even on these, their earliest recordings.
MPEG Stream: "Guns And LSD"
MPEG Stream: "Repeating Patterns Of Love"
MPEG Stream: "Turlock"

MEGATON LEVIATHAN MMIX (Volatile Rock) lp 13.98
At last, for those of you whose turntables are built sturdily enough to withstand the massive heaviness, here's some VINYL from former AQ Record Of The Weekers, Megaton Leviathan, those droning Portland doomsters who, while as heavy as their name so inadequately attempts to indicate, are surprisingly somnolently mesmeric too!
Released on their own label, it's a limited lp pressing of their original 2009 demo tape, five tracks, around 34 minutes of doooOOOOOooooom. The first two tracks, "Water Wealth Hell On Earth" and "Guns And LSD" both were later rerecorded for their cd debut that we made ROTW, while the other 3, "Repeating Patterns Of Love", "Time Fades", and "Turlock", all appeared redone on their 2011 demo cassette as well. So, no new songs, but if you don't have the original demo, you haven't heard these versions before, and in any case this is the only way to weigh your turntable down with their doom, as we said... though as we also have said, ML's doom is a special sort of "soft doom", as much spacey slowcore shoegaze as it is anything else, uniquely so even on these, their debut recordings.

MEGATON LEVIATHAN Repeating Patterns Of Love (Demo 2011) (Feretro) cassette 6.98
We all went a little crazy for the debut from Portland doomlords Megaton Leviathan, whose particular brand of doom was on the poppy, melodic, washed out and dreamy side of the doom spectrum. So much so that we felt obligated to come up with a new term for their sound, 'soft doom', when we made their cd a Record Of The Week. And we still can't get enough of these guys' woozy, spacey slowcore laced, drone flecked soft doom. So we were psyched to discover a brand new cassette, their newest demo, a teaser for their forthcoming full length, and if anything, the 'softness' of their doom has been transformed into something more like spaciness this time around. At least on the opening track, that sounds like Hawkwind crossed with Spacemen 3 and slowed down to a plodding, nodding dirge, hazy squalls of wah guitar, sung/spoken vocals, everything drenched in effects, shards of vocals, slivers of guitars, sent spinning into space trailing streaks of echo and reverb and delay, a sprawling drug rock space drone epic, that rivals most of the other bands out there who set their controls for space rock. In the case of Megaton Leviathan, it somehow sounds more organic, like their quest for slo-mo soft doom heaviness just somehow ended up here.
And as the record plays on, it becomes evident that the first track was no fluke, the doom almost entirely replaced by drugged out space rock and psychedelic slowcore, sure it's still dark and heavy, and slow and dirgey and okay, a bit doomy, but it's way less 'doom' and way more washed out, woozy, lysergic, hazy, gauzy, hypno-dronerock, repetitive, and cyclical, and hypnotic, the production simultaneously lush and lo-fi, the distortion cranked way up, but instead of making it heavy, it makes the sounds crumble and wash out and crystallize, making the overall sound seem that much more warm and rough and organic, especially when the band slips into slow spaciness, all low slung bass, melodic guitar echoes, and big drums, lumbering and loose, the sort of thing Three Mile Pilot were masters of in the old days, loads of space, all held together by sinewy basslines and krauty rhythms, and then the guitars come back in, and again, we're well past doom, the sound lifting free of the surface, and drifting heavenward, somehow mixing Hawkwind, Codeine, Low, Spacemen 3, Loop, a little doom, lots of drugs, and even more effects, into the sort of thing that should have fans of the current crop of space rockers (Wooden Shjips, Carlton Melton, White Hills, Moon Duo, Heads, Lumerians, White Noise Sound) losing their shit.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. Each one hand numbered, and record on swank reflective gold cassettes.

MEGATON LEVIATHAN Water Wealth Hell On Earth (Feretro) cd 11.98
It's hard to know what to expect from a band with a name like Megaton Leviathan. You might guess heavy. Probably loud. And you'd be right on both counts, but you probably wouldn't guess that these guys play some sort of super melodic, poppy, and very pretty doom. Or sort of doom. Soft doom? We sure as heck didn't.
But that's pretty much what ML are all about. Even categorizing them as doom doesn't do them justice. The tempos are slow, the mood is doomy, but unlike the typical downtuned sludgery and lumbering slo-mo pummel of most doom combos, these guys infuse their dirges with soaring shimmering clean guitars, the vocals are clean, not howled or grunted, but crooned, bathed in reverb, and draped over the almost ethereal sounding heaviness.
The drums are strange, big and boomy, but they perfectly suit the Nadja-like doom-gaze, the washed out blissy reverbed doom pop, the hazy, gauze-y, space-y doom flecked psychedelia these guys so effortlessly conjure up.
The 19 minute opener is split into two parts, the first half, is a gorgeous dirgey creep, with a melancholy main melody, swirling synth textures, and those moody crooned vox, all stretched out into a glorious bit of space doom dream pop haze, the effects swallowing the instruments up and sending them spinning into the cosmos, woozy, and dreamy and mesmerizing and strangely emotional with some of the best most beautiful hooks you'll ever hear in a 'doom' band.
The second half almost sounds like a dub version of the first, the riffs are stripped away, leaving a glistening filed of layered vocal mantras and electronic effects, the drums spare and abstract, the sound thick and lush and distorted, but blurred and free and swirly and psychedelic, some sort of alien spacedoom ur-drone, the perfect balance for the more riffy bliss of the first half.
After another short track (and by short we mean almost 6 minutes), which is another dirgey crawl, through fields of cloudy effects and smeared electronics, sounding like a modern space doom Codeine, all pretty and melancholy but still dark and heavy, comes the 33+ minute closer, "A Slow Death In D Minor", the whole first half of which sounds like SUNNO))) covering Tangerine Dream, thick downtuned glacial thrum, underpinning, swirling kosmische synths and jangly shimmering clean guitar chords. This could go on forever, and practically does, until about 18 minutes later, the drums come in, and pound out a strange skeletal beat, atop the still drifting buzz and shimmer, buried vocals and muted melodies churn just below the surface, until finally, the sound grows more and more melodic, and what sound like strings surface, and the track is transformed into some sort of chamber doom, until eventually, just the strings are left, to soar dramatically over a barely there layer of crackle and hum, before slipping into silence.
This could definitely be our new favorite doom record, if it didn't feel so wrong to and reductive to call Megaton Leviathan doom. But it's definitely a new favorite, for fans of all things dark and heavy and dreamy and melodic, droney and drifty and pretty and poppy and trance inducing.
MPEG Stream: "Water Wealth Hell On Earth - Part I"
MPEG Stream: "A Slow Death In D Minor"

MELECHESH Djinn (Osmose) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ok, so American death metallers Nile might have the market for Egyptian-themed metal all to themselves. And they're damn good at it. But what about the rest of the Middle East? Well, the guys in Melechesh play "Mesopotamian Metal"! And, they actually hail from the region -- several of the band are Arab-Israelis, now living in Europe. It's really an international effort, as on Djinn they are joined by new drummer Sir Proscriptor McGovern of Texan black trashers Absu! Hopefully you all know about him and them (see elsewhere this list for a review of the incredible new Absu disc). With Proscriptor, Melechesh take their Arabian Nights metal to new heights. Kinda like those '60s Turkish psych bands did on that fab "Hava Narghile" comp reviewed last list, the Melechesh legions fuse traditional Arabic music with their chosen brand of rock, in this case, black metal. The combination works really well, 'cause they do it with such heaviness and intensity. One of their slower numbers, "A Summoning Of Ifrit And Genii", might be one of the best metal songs we've heard all year. So, the music's great, and the occultic Middle Eastern concept's cool. They even have a song called "Rub The Lantern" (Hehehe, what's that an euphemism for? the Beavises among you are thinking...no, it's a song about rubbing the lantern, literally). Recommended. And it's amazing how much this ends up sounding like a metal version of Dick Dale...
RealAudio clip: "Whispers From The Tower"
RealAudio clip: "A Summoning Of Ifrit And Genii"
RealAudio clip: "Oasis Of Molten Gold"

MELECHESH Emissaries (Osmose) cd 13.98
Holy crap this band SLAYS. What (the death metal band) Nile are to Egypt, this black metal outfit is to Iraq... That is, Melechesh consider themselves to play "Mesopotamian metal", lyrically focused on the mythology and mysticism of ancient Sumer. Except that, moreso than Nile, the music of Melechesh more fully incorporates influences from the traditional folk musics of the Middle East. So they're kind of an extreme metal version of the '60s Turkish psych bands we love so much, the garagey fuzz guitars replaced with downtuned distorted METAL guitars, making bellydance music with blastbeats. And, unlike Nile who are Americans, the guys in Melechesh actually all originally hail from the region (they're Arabs, emigrated to Europe). Well, they used to have a Texan in the band, the illustrious occultic drumbeast known as Proscriptor (of Absu fame) but on this album he's been replaced with a new drummer, Xul. Proscriptor's a tough act to follow but this Xul guy manages to do so quite well! Wow.
We've raved about 'em before, so hopefully you've already got some Melechesh in your collection and are as excited as we are about this new release, which is from the get-go a raging maelstrom of vicious riffage and masterful metal composition. Crushing AND catchy, technical, and very very METAL, yet with that extra Middle Eastern X-factor that makes it even better in our book, and allows the band to slow down for extra-ethnic, atmospheric interludes like "The Scribes Of Kur". Really, there's nothing we can find fault with here at all. A seriously great Middle Eastern metal assault, which even includes a cover of a song by a (Middle Eastern influenced) Canadian pop band, The Tea Party, weirdly, and cooly, enough. It's a shame that it's impossible to think about the ancient cultures and traditions of Middle East, and Iraq in particular, that Melechesh drawns such inspiration from, without of course dwelling on the current fucked up situation there, which sadly hasn't gotten any better since the release of Melechesh's last album back in 2003...
MPEG Stream: "Rebirth Of The Nemesis"
MPEG Stream: "Deluge Of Delusional Dreams"

MELECHESH Emissaries (Osmose Productions) lp 21.00
Now available on vinyl!!
Holy crap this band SLAYS. What (the death metal band) Nile are to Egypt, this black metal outfit is to Iraq... That is, Melechesh consider themselves to play "Mesopotamian metal", lyrically focused on the mythology and mysticism of ancient Sumer. Except that, moreso than Nile, the music of Melechesh more fully incorporates influences from the traditional folk musics of the Middle East. So they're kind of an extreme metal version of the '60s Turkish psych bands we love so much, the garagey fuzz guitars replaced with downtuned distorted METAL guitars, making bellydance music with blastbeats. And, unlike Nile who are Americans, the guys in Melechesh actually all originally hail from the region (they're Arabs, emigrated to Europe). Well, they used to have a Texan in the band, the illustrious occultic drumbeast known as Proscriptor (of Absu fame) but on this album he's been replaced with a new drummer, Xul. Proscriptor's a tough act to follow but this Xul guy manages to do so quite well! Wow.
We've raved about 'em before, so hopefully you've already got some Melechesh in your collection and are as excited as we are about this new release, which is from the get-go a raging maelstrom of vicious riffage and masterful metal composition. Crushing AND catchy, technical, and very very METAL, yet with that extra Middle Eastern X-factor that makes it even better in our book, and allows the band to slow down for extra-ethnic, atmospheric interludes like "The Scribes Of Kur". Really, there's nothing we can find fault with here at all. A seriously great Middle Eastern metal assault, which even includes a cover of a song by a (Middle Eastern influenced) Canadian pop band, The Tea Party, weirdly, and cooly, enough. It's a shame that it's impossible to think about the ancient cultures and traditions of Middle East, and Iraq in particular, that Melechesh drawns such inspiration from, without of course dwelling on the current fucked up situation there, which sadly hasn't gotten any better since the release of Melechesh's last album back in 2003...
MPEG Stream: "Rebirth Of The Nemesis"
MPEG Stream: "Deluge Of Delusional Dreams"

MELECHESH Epigenesis (Nuclear Blast) cd 15.98
Good grief, but Melechesh certainly makes it tough for other 'extreme' metal bands to compete. If it wasn't enough that they're masters of razor sharp, ripping blackened deathly thrashy metal, they've also got the Middle Eastern thing going for 'em. Not just lyrically (they're into Mesopotamian mythology) but musically as well this has Middle Eastern motifs, heck there's even some bouzouki on here, and you know how much we like Middle Eastern influenced rock music, all that '60 Turkish psych stuff, well this is the modern metal equivalent! Plus these guys are a lot "closer to the source" than, say, those Egyptology obsessives in Nile, who are Americans. Melechesh are Palestinian Arabs, originally from Israel, and this album was recorded at a studio in Istanbul.
It's been four years since their last album, the amazing Emissaries, and they haven't changed much, except to get even better if possible. These songs are, as always, both crushing and catchy, as well as mystically, "magickally" atmospheric... mesmerizingly so, via the heaving heaviness of such tracks as "The Magickan And The Drones" (the magick wins out), full of sinuous, serious, seasawing riffage that leaves us utterly hypnotized. Elsewhere, the blazing fast battery does the same trick. Yet another AQ-approved aspect of Melechesh is how fist-pumpingly metal they manage to be, showing that their Middle Eastern sound might also have something to do with Iron Maiden's "Powerslave"!
Definitely for fans of Absu (whose Proscriptor was in fact a Melechesh member for a while), with whom they share some similarities of sound and vision; also of course the aforementioned Nile (though those guys are much more death metal) and Morbid Angel (who also are inspired by ancient Sumer). For another concocted comparison, imagine Dissection with a Middle Eastern makeover, maybe.
Highly recommended, this pushes a lot of buttons for us, definitely gonna be a major contender for 2010 top tens. Like we said, when you're listening to this, it's hard to see what else could compete. Comes packaged in a digipak, with suitably esoterically evocative artwork.
MPEG Stream: "Grand Gathas Of Baal Sin"
MPEG Stream: "Sacred Geometry"
MPEG Stream: "Mystics Of The Pillar"

MELECHESH Sphynx (Osmose) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Those crazy "Mesopotamian" metallers Melechesh are back, following up their last album, Djinn, considered a best of 2002 metal release 'round here, with this equally killer collection of tunes. The band consists of two Arab-Israelis now living in Europe and, perhaps the key to how Melechesh has become such a force to be reckoned with, percussion perfectionist Proscriptor of Texas black thrashers Absu. Dunno how they get together to practice or write songs, but whatever they do seems to work! As on Djinn, they meld traditional Middle Eastern music with black/death metal, kind of like an extreme update of the way those "Turkish Delights" garage-psych bands did it. They take their influences seriously -- in fact there's an enhanced portion of the cd that will fill your computer screen with lengthy explanations of their musicology, complete with guitar tabulature, drum beat analysis, and even pictures of the "oriental" instruments used alongside the usual electric guitars, bass and drums on the album! Then again, this is also state of the art metal. Sphynx is crammed with riffs, complex detail, constant changes, the utmost in headbanging tech. Totally adrenalized, thrashy and catchy. Fans should happily note that this includes their awesome track from the last Osmose World Domination sampler. Oh, and in case you're wondering, we found no overt references to the war in Iraq. These guys are more interested in ancient supernatural stuff than they are in our less-than-mystical world of strife.
MPEG Stream: "Tablets Of Fate"

MELENCOLIA ESTATICA Hel (Temple Of Torturous) cd 14.98
This is the first we've heard from this one woman black metal band, the work of a single entity almost comically named Climaxia, but there's nothing comical about Hel, an epic and super progressive slab of experimental atmospheric black metal. Inspired by Fritz Lang's Metropolis, this six part songsuite finds ME weaving an impossibly lush landscape of black buzz, industrial murk, dreamy almost psychedelic ambience, part one pretty much lays it all out, loping black metal, more muddy and washed out than buzzy, giving the whole thing a seriously dreamlike quality, the sound sound shifts, and splinters into a strange soaring blackened majesty, with some insanely deep demonic bellowed vokills, which get processed and transformed into clouds of hisses and whispers, before the buzz peels away, leaving clean guitar, murky drumming, a sky full of tangled voices, the sound super cinematic and WAY creepy, and then in swoop some angelic clean female vox, the effect choral, almost liturgical really, the sound seeming to grow more and more abstract, more psychedelic, the metal elements disappearing in a cloud of druggy FX heavy swirl. But we're still only partway through, the sound explodes into a grinding gout of heaviness, before once again transforming into a sort of gloomy dirge rock, the vocals now a throaty croon, haunting and heavy.
The second track begins in full black metal buzz mode, but again, the timbre and quality of the sound makes it much more dreamy and tranced out, those growled demonic vokills the only thing making it sound truly black metal, and even here, after a minute, the sound devolves into a stretch of clean guitar drift, before launching into another blast of blackness. The whole record, while heavy on the black buzz, spends much of its time drifting through fields of psychedelic shimmer, distant buzz, and slow, dirgey atmospheric creeps, and it's those interludes and non-metal parts that seem to seep into the blacker buzzier parts, transforming them into something much more moody and melancholic, not to mention all sorts of strange effects, warble guitars, twisted harmonies, dubbed out drumming, each song imbued with a sort of soft cacophony, that constantly threatens to overtake the black buzz, and often gloriously does!
Packaged in a super swank black and gold six panel embossed digipak...
MPEG Stream: "I"
MPEG Stream: "II"
MPEG Stream: "III"

MELT BANANA 13 Hedgehogs (MxBx Singles 1994-1999) (A-Zap) cd 13.98
In the bizarre musical world of Japan's Melt Banana, seven inch singles are hedgehogs, and MB's got a whole mess of em, most WAY out of print and long unavailable. So finally, all of these long sought after hedgehogs, all released between 1994 and 1999, have been gathered up, gussied up, digitized and released on one single compact disc. 13 Hedgehogs featuring all of MB's tracks from the singles "Hedgehog", "It's In The Pillcase", "Untitled (Piano One)", "Eleventh" and "Dead Spex" as well as their tracks from splits with God Is My Co-Pilot, Discordance Axis, Pencilneck, Target Shoppers, Stilluppsteypa, Plainfield, Xerobot, and Killout Trash. Phew. 56 tracks of maniacal squealing and squeaking, stop-start, ultra dense, mega complex confusional punk / grind / pop / whatthefuck! So ridiculous and so totally amazing!
MPEG Stream: "So Unfilial Rule"
MPEG Stream: "Buddhism Core"
MPEG Stream: "Dead Spex"
MPEG Stream: "Last Finger Split"
MPEG Stream: "Bad Gut Missed Fist"

MELT BANANA / THREE STUDIES FOR A CRUCIFIXION split (Passacaglia) 8" 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We recently reviewed a record by the Deadsea, a chaotic mix of black metal, and post rock and prog and sludge metal which we all dug like crazy, and as we mentioned in the review, one of the Deadsea guys used to be in the band Three Studies For A Crucifixion. So we managed to get a just a handful of these long out of print 8" eps for those of you who wanted more -- oh, and for you Melt Banana fans as well!! Here's what we had to say about it when we first had it way back when:
Tokyo's Melt-Banana have made a much welcome return to their hardcore roots with six new songs, fast and furious as ever. Three Studies for a Crucifixion, from Athens, OH, contribute two tracks of technical spazz and grind. VERY limited, so act fast.

MELTAOT First And Second Rites (The Tapeworm) cassette 7.98
One of four new releases on the always fascinating, and often perplexing UK tape label The Tapeworm. This one comes courtesy of long time aQ customer and pal, bad ass artist, and scribe for the mighty Wire, Mr. Edwin Pouncey, aka Savage Pencil, along with his partner Sharon Gal, a UK artist and broadcaster. Besides doing time together in a noisy rock outfit called Pestrepeller, the duo unleash a pretty grim din as Meltaot, whose sound is a strange assemblage of abstract guitar drones, whispered incantations, abstract percussion, all woven into a candlelit crawl through some subterranean sonic doomscape, equal parts harrowing atmosphere, noisy abstraction and blackened beauty. Imagine a more artrock Abruptum, lots of squealing feedback way off in the distance, thick chordal buzz up front, lots of space, plenty of scrapes and creaks, moans and whispers, the female vocals are feral and haunting, sometimes slipping into some sort of demonic processed chantlike vokills. We also definitely hear some Angelblood, but picked apart and stretched out into some sort of unholy soundtrack to an endless night lost in a haunted forest, pursued by some unspeakable evil. Intense, and weirdly beautiful, each side a single track, each titled a 'rite', which is precisely what these sound like, the mysterious rites of some forestkult, conjuring up all manner of sonic demoncy.
Fans of atmospheric blackness and grimnoize will for sure dig, and even people into other abstract foresty weirdness, a la Sylvester Anfang, Avarus and the like, as long as they're up for something a bit darker, could do with a wonder through these black woods.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES! With a killer Savage Pencil cover illustration.

MELVINS 26 Songs (Ipecac) cd 17.98
Twenty-six songs! This used to be a mere ten. Yes, "26 Songs" is an expanded reissue of the out of print "10 Songs". Recorded live to 2-track in 1986 by the line-up of Buzz, Dale, and then-bassist Matt Lukin (who later defected to Mudhoney), this was indeed 10 songs from the mighty Melvins' earliest daze, when their Black Flag / Black Sabbath meld was at its most obvious, potent, raw (and fast, some of the time!). Utterly essential heaviness in other words. Did we say "mere" ten? Not really, since every one of those ten songs is forever embedded in the mind of this Melvins fan. "#2 Pencil" -- so doomy and vile a song. "Snake Appeal" -- the guys rip through what could be an old Corrosion of Conformity thrasher. "At A Crawl" -- well, that's the Melvins right there. Etc., etc. And, like Ipecac's reissue of another early Melvins classic, "Gluey Porch Treatments", there's a bunch of garage demos and alternate takes added on to make Melvins fans salivate, as you can compare multiple, grungier, faster takes on "10 Songs" songs (and some other tunes you'll recognize). The disc winds up with the drug-addled ramblings of their old pal "Hugh" as an added bonus (which means that this disc, despite the title, really features "only" 25 actual songs). It's just too bad the new cover design for this new version is so computer-done and busy and typical of recent Melvins packaging (forget the flowers, guys!). We much prefer the stylish simplicity of its earlier incarnation(s). But, the extra tracks certainly make up for our aesthetic quibbles about the graphic design!
MPEG Stream: "Easy As It Was"
MPEG Stream: "Grinding Process"
MPEG Stream: "Grinding Process [demo #2]"

MELVINS A Senile Animal (Ipecac) cd 17.98
Hard to believe the Melvins are still around. And that they STILL don't suck. After like, what... 200 albums? Equally hard to believe that they have somehow morphed from one of the most difficult and gloriously difficult bands to ever sign to a major label (outside of the Butthole Surfers) into purveyors of super kick ass, head banging stoner Stooges stomp rock. But hell, we're not complaining...
And who cares if this is release #1 or #201. Or how many bassists they've pile up in their "morgue" (like Spinal Tap was with drummers), it still packs a mighty wallop, and gives us just what we've come to love and adore and expect from the Melvins, almost too much so, but more on that in a minute.
A Senile Animal is the first "true" Melvins album since 2004's Pigs of the Roman Empire teamup with infrasound specialist Lustmord, and sees the Melvins circa 2006, aka Buzz & Dale, join forces with the equally chaotic duo of Jared & Cody, otherwise known as Big Business (Jared also ex-Karp).
Together as the (new) Melvins they are bigger and badder than ever. With the power of THREE vocalists, TWO bass players, and most excitingly, a DOUBLE DRUM attack, a sort of hybrid drum kit manned by two different drummers!!
We haven't seen it yet, and heard they share cymbals or hit some of the same drums, or maybe hold hands while rocking out, but however they get it done, it WORKS. BIG TIME!
This record will definitely hit the spot for those of you craving more of that heavy / catchy sludge pop, found on past Melvins classics like Houdini or Stoner Witch. In fact, a lot of A Senile Animal sounds like it was just plucked from those very same sessions. Not a bad thing mind you. It's just that some of us, especially after the gorgeous fucked up heavy weirdness of Pigs of the Roman Empire, imagined that the Melvins might have been headed down a much more twisted and fucked up musical path. And while that is not necessarily the case, we're not too disappointed. In fact this disc's got most of us too busy rocking out and banging our heads and air guitaring and flailing wildly about to even notice.
And we sure as heck can't wait to see the crazy drum kit thing everyones talking about, and to have our asses thoroughly kicked by the NEW Melvins, not so much a quintet as much as a POWER-POWER trio! Fuck yeah.
MPEG Stream: "Blood Witch"
MPEG Stream: "Civilized Worm"
MPEG Stream: "The Hawk"

MELVINS Everybody Loves Sausages (Ipecac) cd 15.98
Fact: the Melvins are one of the best bands ever, and continue to be one of the best bands ever.
Fact: the Melvins are always awesome when it comes to doing covers (their version of "Candy-O" by The Cars from Ozma being our favorite, closely followed by their version of KISS's "Going Blind" from Houdini), usually "making them their own" 100 percent.
Fact: they've just released a disc that's all covers, with some guest vocalists, and the song selection is quite eclectic to say the least, occasionally obscure too, including one that maybe only folks from San Francisco will freak out over - they do a song by the Pop-O-Pies!!! Cool.
Our only complaint about this, really, is that with the presence of the guest vocalists, some of the covers, while totally spot-on or otherwise interesting & well-done, maybe don't sound as much like the Melvins as we'd like - if Buzz woulda sung 'em all, we'd be even happier. But it's a quibble.
So, what more do you need to know? Well, the dang tracklist, perhaps. Here it is:
1. "Warhead" by Venom, featuring Scott Kelly of Neurosis
2. "Best Friend" by Queen, featuring Caleb Benjamin of Tweak Bird
3. "Black Betty" not by but as performed by Ram Jam
4. "Set It On Fire" by the The Scientists, featuring Mark Arm of Mudhoney
5. "Station To Station" by David Bowie, featuring J.G. Thirlwell of Foetus
6. "Attitude" by The Kinks, featuring Clem Burke from Blondie
7. "Female Trouble" by Divine
8. "Carpe Diem" by The Fuggs
9. "Timothy Leary Lives" by the Pop-O-Pies
10. "In Every Dream Home A Heartache" by Roxy Music, featuring both Jello Biafra and Kevin Rutmanis (formerly of both the Cows and the Melvins)
11. "Romance" by Tales of Terror
12. "Art School" by The Jam, featuring Tom Hazelmeyer of Halo Of Flies
13. "Heathen Earth" by Throbbing Gristle
Wow, quite a diverse & cool selection, eh? If you're a Melvins fan, you probably want this (unless, perhaps, you hated The Crybaby, which also featured a lot of unlikely covers/collaborations). 'Cause after all, heck, everybody does love sausages!
MPEG Stream: "Warhead"
MPEG Stream: "Station To Station"
MPEG Stream: "Female Trouble"

MELVINS Mangled Demos From 1983 (Ipecac) cd 14.98
The words "Footloose and fancy-free and out of school" come from your speakers, beginning the disc and thusly, we embark on the career of that "juggernaut of pummel" known as the Melvins.
Here is a collection of "never heard before" (demo, live, rehearsal) recordings dating back to 1983! Remember 1983? I do...ugh! Anyways, a "pre-Dale Crover" line-up (which includes a young punk-ass named Matt Lukin on bass, you might also know him from another little band, Mudhoney?) bashes and thrashes it out with songs and tone reminiscent of Flipper / Bad Brains / Fang / Poison Idea / Black Flag -- this is NOT to say they sound like they are emulating the aforementioned legends, we're just saying that the Melvins, at such a tender age and still without the "other greatest drummer" Dale Crover, pretty much came into this world screaming and wailing. Buzz Osborne definitely is / was / is blessed / cursed as a "5-string motherfucker". Word. The liner notes by Buzz go on about how they were hacks at the time, but LEGIONS (after listening to this) will attest to "the power of the riff" that a (pre) King Buzzo packed at the age of 20 somewhere in Shithole City, WA (or maybe it was the town next to it?). This release is packed with all the fury and "pent-up-ness" that only comes from growing up on the outside of "cool" or "rich". (Well, it speaks to me, anyways...) There are songs on here that show up shortly after -- and many years later -- down that ugly road of "former bass players"...
It's refreshing to hear (punk) rock like this right now. There are even funny moments of (drunken?) banter on here that will make you laugh and think back and reminisce (or not) on your own "destruction ride" through your late teens/early twenties, etc. The actual sound on this thing is incredibly solid too, for something from the "golden age of hardcore".
A must own, if you will. But you already knew that, didn't you?
MPEG Stream: "The Real You"
MPEG Stream: "Bibulous Confabulation (during rehearsal)"

MELVINS Mangled Demos From 1983 (Alternative Tentacles) 2x10" 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NOW ON VINYL!! Double 10" at that!
The words "Footloose and fancy-free and out of school" come from your speakers, beginning the disc and thusly, we embark on the career of that "juggernaut of pummel" known as the Melvins.
Here is a collection of "never heard before" (demo, live, rehearsal) recordings dating back to 1983! Remember 1983? I do...ugh! Anyways, a "pre-Dale Crover" line-up (which includes a young punk-ass named Matt Lukin on bass, you might also know him from another little band, Mudhoney?) bashes and thrashes it out with songs and tone reminiscent of Flipper / Bad Brains / Fang / Poison Idea / Black Flag -- this is NOT to say they sound like they are emulating the aforementioned legends, we're just saying that the Melvins, at such a tender age and still without the "other greatest drummer" Dale Crover, pretty much came into this world screaming and wailing. Buzz Osborne definitely is / was / is blessed / cursed as a "5-string motherfucker". Word. The liner notes by Buzz go on about how they were hacks at the time, but LEGIONS (after listening to this) will attest to "the power of the riff" that a (pre) King Buzzo packed at the age of 20 somewhere in Shithole City, WA (or maybe it was the town next to it?). This release is packed with all the fury and "pent-up-ness" that only comes from growing up on the outside of "cool" or "rich". (Well, it speaks to me, anyways...) There are songs on here that show up shortly after -- and many years later -- down that ugly road of "former bass players"...
It's refreshing to hear (punk) rock like this right now. There are even funny moments of (drunken?) banter on here that will make you laugh and think back and reminisce (or not) on your own "destruction ride" through your late teens/early twenties, etc. The actual sound on this thing is incredibly solid too, for something from the "golden age of hardcore".
A must own, if you will. But you already knew that, didn't you?
MPEG Stream: "The Real You"
MPEG Stream: "Bibulous Confabulation (during rehearsal)"

MELVINS Neither Here Nor There (Ipecac) book + cd 35.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Won't go into too much detail here, since if you're not already a bit obsessed with the Melvins, you're probably not gonna need a 200 page book about em. But thos of you who ARE into the Melvins. WAY into the Melvins will definitely need this. Over two hundred pages of artwork, photos, tour diaries, discographies, interviews, stories, inserts, ALL the artwork from all their releases and more. Also includes a greatest hits cd. Odds are you have most of it, but there are a few surprises. Definitely super cool and gorgeously laid out. And of course, limited!

MELVINS Nude With Boots (Ipecac) cd 16.98
Y'know, the Melvins have been one of our favorite bands for so long we practically take 'em for granted. But when a new album comes out, it's still pretty exciting. Almost like it must have been in the '60s when, like, a new Beatles LP would be released, that's what it's like for us and the Melvins... except heck the Melvins have been around now for, like, 100x as long as the Beatles' whole career lasted.
So, yes, yah, yay, it's a new Melvins! Again on Ipecac, which means it's yet another Melvins cd with the front cover on the back and the tracklist on the front. You think they'd be over that by now, but the Melvins are all about being quirky now aren't they? Well, being quirky and HEAVY. And we're pleased to report that Nude With Boots is plenty heavy! As expected, though with the Melvins you also have to expect the unexpected too. But from the get go, Nude With Boots hammers it down, maybe a bit more uptempo rockin' than typical, lead-off track "The Kicking Machine" being just that, ass kicking that is, a hooky slab of classic rockin' riffola. Replete with chunky guitars, catchy vocal choruses, and splattering percussion to spare. The next track up, "Billy Fish" is another big, bangin' number. And then when track three, "Dog Island" hits, though, it's CRUSHING. And you realize that the album's only getting started. That song's 7 and a half minutes of herky-jerky slo-mo heaviness, creeped out and melodically fist-waving too. Yep, this is shaping up to be a quite satisfying Melvins experience, one that so far stacks up with the likes of Houdini. No kidding.
How do they do it? The Melvins have such an *authoritative* sound. Heavier than thou for sure. Distinctively untouchable. It's like they have access to better stuff than anyone. Stuff? Dunno, gear, drugs, organic vegetables, whatever it is that makes them sound like they do, the Melvins are in a league unto themselves.
One not so secret weapon: Buzz's always amazing, melodic yet gritty vocals, which we realize sound like Gene Simmons crossed with Ozzy Osbourne. And, as well, his usual cryptic, imagistic lyrics.
Furthermore, there's simply so much geetar badassitude on this album, Buzz blasting riffs and sweet licks all over the place, and of course Dale's drum fills are sweet (and punishing) too. We defy you to try to listen to this album and not a) air-guitar b) air-drum or c) at the very least, headbang. Maybe even sing along! If you can figure out the words that is.
Of course, along with the rippin' rock, this also has its copious share of abstractly wacked weirdness, ambient interludes like the 1:05 "Flush" ferinstance. Or the atmospheric moody SUNNO))) styled murk of the cleverly titled "Dies Iraea". Or the bizarre bludgeon n' scrape of "The Savage Hippy" and the even more out there "It Tastes Better Than the Truth", a twofer in the extreme tradition of Melvins album-enders, the latter practically sounding like a chaotic Khanate on a ketamine bender. Or Wildildlife...
So, sometimes it almost sounds like this is a uber-produced Ozzy or Alice Cooper album from the '80s or '90s that's been taken over by the real inmates of one of the padded cell insane asylums that those two cartoon characters always were checking into/outof (on the album covers anyway, rehabs in real life), hard rock pop that's been utterly warped and weirded out...
Maybe it's just as well that Melvins never got as huge as pals Nirvana during the Grunge years. They had a major label dalliance, yes, but survived it, and are still with us to crank out what's simply the classic rock of our generation (with a heavy dose of weirdness). Nude With Boots makes you remember, oh yeah, ROCK MUSIC. We love rock music. Damn, it's good. We've been really into the rejuvenated Harvey Milk lately, a Melvinsy band for sure, but you've gotta give it up to the originals, the one and only Melvins. All hail.
MPEG Stream: "The Kicking Machine"
MPEG Stream: "Dog Island"
MPEG Stream: "The Savage Hippy"

MELVINS s/t (From The Nursery) 12" 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Just got this in TODAY, no time to really "review" it, no need to either, as we only got a handful and it's limited edition vinyl from the MELVINS after all. Here's the facts: "A limited edition three-track 12-inch EP from MELVINS featuring a long version of "Dies Iraea" and a remix of "It Tastes Better Than The Truth" on the A-side, and a 9-minute version of The Wipers' "Youth of America" on the flip. None of these tracks have appeared on vinyl prior. Limited to 2,000 copies (with 1,500 for distribution) pressed on silver/gray vinyl, with artwork by Steven Parrino".

MELVINS Sugar Daddy Live (Ipecac) cd 14.98
Well, if you're a Melvins fan you know that not only do these weirdos still make awesome albums (their most recent, The Bride Screamed Murder, we raved about when it came out a year ago) but they also still utterly slay live. With, what, almost 30 years of experience, they are as potent as ever. We just saw 'em live the other day, on the first evening of a two-night stand here in SF, doin' songs from Houdini, Lysol, and Eggnog, and boy their current 2 drummer line up sure packs a wallop. And guitarist/vocalist Buzz still looks striking in his mumu and outlandish 'fro. The Melvins are a heavy band of world-historical stature and we expect 'em to keep on rocking for at least as long as their forebears KISS!
So, as fans, of course we're curious about this new live album, and expectations are met, performance-wise they're on top of their game. The real question surely any fan has, is just what songs get the Melvins/Big Business treatment, there's 13 tracks here mostly showcasing the best of their more recent material but also digging into their massive discography for a few old faves. The first five tracks are Big Biz era stuff, from 2008's Nude With Boots (this recording comes from that tour) and 2006's Senile Animal, then they reach waaay back for an epic rendition of "Eye Flys" from 1986 opus Gluey Porch Treatments, followed by "Tipping The Lion" from 1996's Stag (a good choice, just 'cause we hardly ever pull that one out to listen to, but this makes us want to), and then it's back to Senile Animal stuff, four in a row, before, wha? a voice and drums version of "The Star Spangled Banner", that's right. They were feeling patriotic, apparently. Or just wanted to fuck with people, more likely. Then, for the grand finale, they offer up an anthem of their own, a crushing, extended version of "Boris" from Bullhead (1991), which will remind you why the band Boris chose that name!
If you're a Melvins fan from way back, but haven't acquainted yrself with their modern double drummer incarnation, this should convince you it was a good idea, and that they've still got songs to compete impressively with past "hits", a few a which you get to hear here as well. And if you're not a Melvins fan, well obviously live albums like this aren't intended for you anyway, so why are you still reading this review?
MPEG Stream: "Nude With Boots"
MPEG Stream: "Kicking Machine"
MPEG Stream: "Tipping The Lion"

MELVINS The Bride Screamed Murder (Ipecac) cd 16.98
Has it really been two whole years already since the last Melvins long player, the supremely rockin' Nude With Boots? They've been around so long and yet remain so vital and prolific and reliable, it always seems like they just put something out the other day, yet each release is a marvelous surprise. This is their third album since they recruited bass/drums duo Big Business into the band, and this phase of the Melvins' storied career has been a fruitful one.
The first minute or two of the first track "The Water Glass" starts off sounding very much typically thunderous heavier than thou Melvins... but woah, hey, it then takes a MAJOR turn into, what, a rhythmic marching band drumline thing (why not, they've got two drummers), with call and response vocal chant, the Melvins as cheerleaders or drill sergeants gettin' pumped up and ready to go. We're smiling like fools, and confused, what IS this? It's somehow like the MC5 or Dictators meet the Boredoms or go-go music or, we dunno, it'd be awesome and hilarious to see this live. Wow. All right, fair warning, this is clearly the Melvins getting weird on us, something of course they've have always had a knack for. Nude With Boots had its experimental moments, as all Melvins records do, more than moments sometimes, to varying degrees of accessibility, and this one ups the ante, coming closer in WTF?-ness to their recent radical remix album Chicken Scratch... and this time in ways that we don't think we've heard from them before.
All the while keeping it damn catchy, and HEAVY too, at least some of the time. Right on cue, track two again kicks out the jams in old school Melvins style... but a percussive breakdown isn't far away. Neither are cinematic keys, herky jerky prog parts (Ruins-esque, even, or Nomeansno-ish), quirky POP, frenzied metal, and plenty more random what the fuck weirdness, as warned. Such as a ploddingly odd, semi-abstract cover of "My Generation", ferinstance, or the lonely harmonica and hymn-like a cappella of the album's final track, "PG X 3" (and that's not even what's weird about that one). As always, they're part Kiss and The Cars, heavied up and punk rocked, and now we're realizing that Sparks just might be another big fave of theirs.
So, go along for the ride, trust us. And them. Ok, maybe "Hospital Up" is a bit of a throw-away (random improv scatter there). But otherwise, we're sold. And maybe it's the frequent vocal holler, echoing with chorus effect, or the double drummer bombastic battery, but this album sounds particularly triumphant. As well it should. One of the best bands ever, once again deliver the goods. And it can't be easy, after, what, 30 albums??? All we know is, THE MELVINS RULE. End of story.
MPEG Stream: "The Water Glass"
MPEG Stream: "Evil New War God"
MPEG Stream: "Pig House"

MELVINS + LUSTMORD Pigs Of The Roman Empire (Ipecac) cd 17.98
Folks have been chomping at the bit for months since it was first announced that the kings of sludgy goofy heaviness were to team up with the master of creepy, sinister ambience. And we do mean 'team up' as in write and record together, not a split record or anything like that, a good ol' collaboration! So here it is. The first track is a creepy slithering dark snippet of sound, super minimal and slowly shifting. So much as we thought, the only way these two behemoths of the underground could cooperate and have it work would be for it to be a drone record. Well the second track blows that theory out of the water. A wickedly fierce, super dynamic barn burner, with a KILLER riff, and some spooky drone-y breakdowns complete with a haunting little melody played on the strings above the neck, and then some serious shredding leads. Maybe the best Melvins song in forever!! But what excatly is Lustmord doing while the Melvins rock? Maybe he strapped on a guitar and joined in the riffing. Or more likely, he supplied the track with all of its weird little sounds and murky background noises. Either way, who cares? It's an incredible track. The next track is a weird tribal workout done Melvins style, with exotic tribal percussion over rumbly drones and distorted guitars providing the melodies. Sounding not unlike a way heavier Muslimgauze! The centerpiece of the record though has to be the 20+ minute title track which sounds like the perfect hybridization of the two bands. Massive slow rolling drones slip and slide through clouds of machine like whirs and muffled outer space sounds, distant clatter and swirling sonic splatter. Eventually the guitars roll in like a huge crushing wave of sound, very Earth-like before it slowly develops into another killer riff, repeated over and over and over, bombarded on all sides by strange effects, swooping chunks of sound and strange, clipped 'almost-vocals' before trailing off into a slowly decaying barely there minimal hum. The rest of the record sort of seesaws back and forth between pounding and churning classic Melvins style sort-of-metal riffing, and really haunting otherworldly minimal dronescapes. VERY reminiscent of Old Man Gloom's drone / dirge combo. But hey, you can't argue with more drone or more dirge or more sludge or more Melvins or more Lustmord. Not at all. When all is said and done, Pigs Of The Roman Empire sounds like someone took a really great Melvins record, and a really great Lustmord record, and sort of chopped them up, and mixed and matched and made the perfect hybrid of the two. Which when you think about it is pretty awesome. We've thought of doing that all the time. Earth and George Winston, Bjork and Thuja, Squarepusher and Jandek, Motorhead and PJ Harvey, A Minor Forest and Keiji Haino (well that one's mainly to piss Andee off), and the list goes on and on and on.
MPEG Stream: "III"
MPEG Stream: "The Bloated Pope"
MPEG Stream: "toadi Acceleratio"

MELVINS + LUSTMORD Pigs Of The Roman Empire (Alternative Tentacles) 2lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NOW ON VINYL!! What we said about this great Melvins album when it came out on cd last year on Ipecac:
Folks have been chomping at the bit for months since it was first announced that the kings of sludgy goofy heaviness were to team up with the master of creepy, sinister ambience. And we do mean 'team up' as in write and record together, not a split record or anything like that, a good ol' collaboration! So here it is. The first track is a creepy slithering dark snippet of sound, super minimal and slowly shifting. So much as we thought, the only way these two behemoths of the underground could cooperate and have it work would be for it to be a drone record. Well the second track blows that theory out of the water. A wickedly fierce, super dynamic barn burner, with a KILLER riff, and some spooky drone-y breakdowns complete with a haunting little melody played on the strings above the neck, and then some serious shredding leads. Maybe the best Melvins song in forever!! But what excatly is Lustmord doing while the Melvins rock? Maybe he strapped on a guitar and joined in the riffing. Or more likely, he supplied the track with all of its weird little sounds and murky background noises. Either way, who cares? It's an incredible track. The next track is a weird tribal workout done Melvins style, with exotic tribal percussion over rumbly drones and distorted guitars providing the melodies. Sounding not unlike a way heavier Muslimgauze! The centerpiece of the record though has to be the 20+ minute title track which sounds like the perfect hybridization of the two bands. Massive slow rolling drones slip and slide through clouds of machine like whirs and muffled outer space sounds, distant clatter and swirling sonic splatter. Eventually the guitars roll in like a huge crushing wave of sound, very Earth-like before it slowly develops into another killer riff, repeated over and over and over, bombarded on all sides by strange effects, swooping chunks of sound and strange, clipped 'almost-vocals' before trailing off into a slowly decaying barely there minimal hum. The rest of the record sort of seesaws back and forth between pounding and churning classic Melvins style sort-of-metal riffing, and really haunting otherworldly minimal dronescapes. VERY reminiscent of Old Man Gloom's drone / dirge combo. But hey, you can't argue with more drone or more dirge or more sludge or more Melvins or more Lustmord. Not at all. When all is said and done, Pigs Of The Roman Empire sounds like someone took a really great Melvins record, and a really great Lustmord record, and sort of chopped them up, and mixed and matched and made the perfect hybrid of the two. Which when you think about it is pretty awesome. We've thought of doing that all the time. Earth and George Winston, Bjork and Thuja, Squarepusher and Jandek, Motorhead and PJ Harvey, A Minor Forest and Keiji Haino (well that one's mainly to piss Andee off), and the list goes on and on and on.
MPEG Stream: "III"
MPEG Stream: "The Bloated Pope"
MPEG Stream: "toadi Acceleratio"

MELVINS / BRIAN WALSBY Manchild 4 (Bifocal Media) comic book + cd 16.98
If you were going to create a comic book that would appeal equally to fans of Harvey Pekar (American Splendor) and punk metallers the Melvins, Brian Walsby's Manchild would be it. It IS it. Autobiographical, confessional comix about his life, love, and music. Lots and lots of music. Much of this is devoted to stuff about indie/punk/HC/metal, back in the day... Especially for anyone of a certain age, with nostalgia for the '80s and '90s underground rock scene, this is a must! Walsby is a good artist, and writer, and in fact almost each and every panel found on these many, many pages (this is thick!) is packed with text you'll need to squint a bit to read, but it's worth it.
We haven't read the whole thing yet, but we can tell you that in this issue, there's a bunch of stories about bands he's been in (ferinstance Walsby played drums for Snake Nation, with CoC's Woody Weatherman and Mike Dean, and he was also in Shiny Beast, wow, we had no idea) and stuff about his life now, like how he met his current girlfriend, who has a toddler, what what that's been like.... He illustrates some other folks' tales about quitting their jobs, there's a two-page piece about Jason Newsted, all sorts of random, cool shit, usually pretty funny or weird or interesting, sometimes really something to think about.
In addition to the longer stories, there's plenty of one-page and half-page bits, good laughs like the one about reformed '80s hardcore bands, renamed: 700 Seconds, Middle Aged Threat, Adult Brigade, Youth Of Yesterday, Post-Adolescents, Semi-Negative Approach... Or the one about Jimi Hendrix in Heaven, getting pissed that he's required to "jam" with every other rockstar who dies and goes there after him (he's like, "I finally get Janis and Jerry off of my back... and then I have to play with this...'Dimebag Darrell'?").
The comic book would be worth it by itself, but sweetening the deal, this is shrinkwrapped with a LIVE MELVINS CD! Entitled Pick Your Battles, it's about 50 minutes long, presenting 15 tracks taken from two shows, Berkeley back in 1989 and Boston 2008. True Melvins fans want this, even if they don't like comic books, but why wouldn't you like comic books, especially this one?
MPEG Stream: "Oven (live '89)"
MPEG Stream: "Boris (live '08)"

MELVINS / BRIAN WALSBY The Making Love Demos / Manchild 3 cd+book 14.98
It's a comic book! It's a Melvins cd! It's pretty darn cool is what it is. Cartoonist Brian Walsby spoofs and skewers various icons of old school punk/alt rock culture, and puts his own personal family history on the page too ("My Old Man!"). It's mostly subversively funny, sarcastic stuff. Lots of chuckles for those with a bit of nostalgia for the good ol' days of '80s punk rock for sure!! One of our favorite comix in here is "Whatever Happened To You Favorite Eighties Hardcore Mascots" which imagines the DRI "thrash guy" finding a new career as a school crossing guard, and the Black Flag bars being sold to Hank Williams III who "dropped one bar and used the rest for his new logo." Some of the other pieces in this fairly thick book include an illustrated article celebrating TV's SCTV, a Walsby/Melvins 2006 tour diary, a memoir entitled "How I Survived Grunge", "The Rules Of Young Rock Bands" (which include holding the microphone like a glass of wine, and combining two kinds of bad singing: whiny, nasal and hysterical screaming), several comic strips about The Dios (a la The Osbournes), a tribute to Cheap Trick, and much much more. If you like stuff like Peter Bagge's Hate or Chunklet magazine this is for you.
This book makes a perfect team up with Walsby's old pals, wise ass scene vets the Melvins, who contribute a 20+ minute cd to the package, entitled "The Making Love Demos". These eight songs are DIY four-track recordings from back in '87, from the Buzz/Dale/Matt lineup, several of which later wound up in re-recorded form on their classic Ozma album, and some you've never ever heard before. Wow. Melvins fans are gonna be stoked. Heavy grinding nastiness, perfectly filthily home-recorded, that's way more punk than grunge.
MPEG Stream: "Creepy Smell"
MPEG Stream: "Excess Pool"

MELVINS / PATTON OSWALT split (Chunklet) 7" 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Boy, did we get lucky. We heard about this and at first wrongly assumed it was Mike Patton with the Melvins. And as much as we love Mike Patton, we were pretty tickled to discover that in was in fact, Patton Oswalt, one of our favorite comedians, sharing this split with the Melvins.
The thing is, this was never technically available to stores or distros. But we did manage to track a handful down for our AQ faithful. Unfortunately, because of the scarcity and the fact that technically they weren't available wholesale, the price ended up being a bit steep. But hey, $16 from us is is a whole heckuva lot better than $75 on eBay!
So act fast, these will disappear in a blink of an eye.
As with all Chunklet stuff, gorgeously packaged with killer (and hilarious) Jay Ryan cover art, screen printed onto thick cardstock sleeves.
And like with all ultra limited stuff, only one per customer please...

MELVINS LITE, THE Freak Puke (Ipecac) cd 14.98
Melvins LITE? What? That makes no sense. We want our Melvins HEAVY.
Well don't worry, 'cause the godlike Melvins, despite their many many years and many many albums, never ever disappoint (unless perhaps deliberately, as with 'difficult' stuff like Prick and Colossus Of Destiny). So of course Freak Puke is heavy. 'Tis their usual (unusual) blend of rockin' heaviness and utter weirdness. They're just calling themselves Melvins Lite on this record because it's a trio this time, with Buzz Osbourne and Dale Crover joined by bassist extraordinare Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle, Fantomas, etc.), rather than being the four-piece unit that has constituted the Melvins as of late. However, their dual-drummer lineup, with Buzz and Dale and the two dudes from Big Business, is just on hiatus. Apparently Buzz and Dale thought it would be interesting to pull a temporary lineup switcheroo and record with their old pal Trevor, who plays a stand-up bass and thus brings in some 20th century avant-garde string-scrabble elements to the lurching, lumbering mix, particularly on track 2, "Inner Ear Rupture". Elsewhere, ingredients include gloom-doom atmospheres, mathrock dynamics, druggy grunge, AND uptempo noise pop catchiness, as you'd expect from these guys. Plus all the UNexpected stuff you'd also expect. With Trevor's upright bass getting in its licks all right.
Opener "Mr. Rip Off" has an oddly spaced out, loose '60s/'70s Floydian psych feel (in a way), with dreamy droney vox and distorted guitar. That vibe recurs, among plenty of 'Melvinsy' twists and turns throughout the disc. Oh, and they do a cover of "Let Me Roll It" by Paul McCartney and Wings!
For fans of any of these folks (possibly including Paul McCartney), Freak Puke by 'Melvins Lite' is an interesting detour / change of pace that's not so different, really.
MPEG Stream: "Mr. Rip Off"
MPEG Stream: "Baby, Won't You Weird Me Out"
MPEG Stream: "Tommy Goes Berserk"

MELVINS, THE Gluey Porch Treatments (Boner) cassette 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

MEMORY GARDEN Mirage (Metal Blade) cd 16.98
Latest (third, I think) release by this Swedish band who are heavily influenced by the dark, epic, doom metal of countrymen Candlemass, circa '88. The chugging riffs, melancholic lead guitar, and the lamentations of their singer (whose soaring and sad wails are not quite as over the top as those of former Candlemass vocalist Messiah Marcolin, but close) all fit that doom blueprint, and will meet acceptance from fans of Solitude Aeturnus, Memento Mori, and the like as well. Really great stuff, actually, with some brilliant guitar solos.

MENACE RUINE Alight In Ashes (Profound Lore) cd 13.98
While we've definitely dug the last few records from Canadian blackened neo-folk duo Menace Ruine, we were initially a bit confused by their shift from grim, psychedelic, experimental black metal, to their newly minted neo-folk incarnation, and while much of the mood and musical ambience remained, some of us still longed for the group's previous incarnation. But over the course of the next two records, we grew to dig their witchy, mystical sound, one that shared seemingly everything but sound with the black metal that birthed them, sinister and haunting, abject and ritualistic, it's no surprise that they continue to be embraced by the BM scene, even though they had essentially ceased playing black metal long ago. But on Alight In Ashes, their blackened strain of neo-folk has definitely drifted even closer to the great black abyss, the sound already grim, but here even more cloaked in shadow, the soaring dramatic vocal incantations, the perfect foil for the roiling blurred riffage and muted power electronics that churn underneath. In fact, the music sounds like slow motion black metal, blurred into sinister swells of smeared riffage and buried rhythms, it makes for a fantastic combo, when coupled with the vocals, which we've seen compared to Nico, but we still hear Jex Thoth or Blood Ceremony or Christian Mistress, and in places, the vocals sound remarkably like a female Mike Scalzi from Slough Feg. The vibe throughout, much like the record before it, continues to be haunting and harrowing, very much like these are in fact mysterious rituals, and arcane incantations, the music often building to dense, near psychedelic crescendos, or slipping into hushed mesmer, the opening track might be the most black metal thing we've heard from Menace Ruine since they shed their black buzz, a sprawling, dynamic expanse of murky metallic churn and smeared shadowy psychedelic shimmer. Elsewhere, the sound shifts to something much more medieval, that ancient music simulated by electronic buzz and minimal percussion, or the music groans and heaves, like a symphony of moaning strings, even sans vocals, the music here would be some fascinating collection of blackened electronic ragas, but with the vocals, the sound is transformed into some sort of divine doom-ed blackened medieval folk, and we find ourselves no longer missing the black buzz one bit.
MPEG Stream: "Set Water To Flames"
MPEG Stream: "Salamandra"
MPEG Stream: "Burnt Offerings"

MENACE RUINE Alight In Ashes (Sige) 2lp 32.00
NOW ON DOUBLE VINYL!
While we've definitely dug the last few records from Canadian blackened neo-folk duo Menace Ruine, we were initially a bit confused by their shift from grim, psychedelic, experimental black metal, to their newly minted neo-folk incarnation, and while much of the mood and musical ambience remained, some of us still longed for the group's previous incarnation. But over the course of the next two records, we grew to dig their witchy, mystical sound, one that shared seemingly everything but sound with the black metal that birthed them, sinister and haunting, abject and ritualistic, it's no surprise that they continue to be embraced by the BM scene, even though they had essentially ceased playing black metal long ago. But on Alight In Ashes, their blackened strain of neo-folk has definitely drifted even closer to the great black abyss, the sound already grim, but here even more cloaked in shadow, the soaring dramatic vocal incantations, the perfect foil for the roiling blurred riffage and muted power electronics that churn underneath. In fact, the music sounds like slow motion black metal, blurred into sinister swells of smeared riffage and buried rhythms, it makes for a fantastic combo, when coupled with the vocals, which we've seen compared to Nico, but we still hear Jex Thoth or Blood Ceremony or Christian Mistress, and in places, the vocals sound remarkably like a female Mike Scalzi from Slough Feg. The vibe throughout, much like the record before it, continues to be haunting and harrowing, very much like these are in fact mysterious rituals, and arcane incantations, the music often building to dense, near psychedelic crescendos, or slipping into hushed mesmer, the opening track might be the most black metal thing we've heard from Menace Ruine since they shed their black buzz, a sprawling, dynamic expanse of murky metallic churn and smeared shadowy psychedelic shimmer. Elsewhere, the sound shifts to something much more medieval, that ancient music simulated by electronic buzz and minimal percussion, or the music groans and heaves, like a symphony of moaning strings, even sans vocals, the music here would be some fascinating collection of blackened electronic ragas, but with the vocals, the sound is transformed into some sort of divine doom-ed blackened medieval folk, and we find ourselves no longer missing the black buzz one bit.
MPEG Stream: "Set Water To Flames"
MPEG Stream: "Salamandra"
MPEG Stream: "Burnt Offerings"

MENACE RUINE Cult Of Ruins (Alien8 Recordings) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
What to make of a black metal band that has releases on both the Alien8 (Nadja, Merzbow, Acid Mothers Temple) and Tour De Garde (Ash Pool, Marblebog, Tomb Of..., Uno Actu) labels? That they're probably pretty weird? They are. And intense too. This is some sick stuff. Also beautiful, if you, like us, have fallen under the spell of this most extreme aesthetic, if you're someone whose eyes/imagination can scan the soot-blackend skies of an apocalyptic otherworld, and still spy flights of swans and stars beyond.
Menace Ruine, from the "frozen north" of Quebec, are the mysterious male/female duo of S. de La Moth and Genevieve. This James Plotkin-mastered Alien8 release is their debut album, after one demo (being reissued as a cassette on Tour De Garde). MR's original black metal art really made an immediate impression upon us despite how easily jaded we can be with the glut of black metal out there. It's the unholy layering of sometimes melodic feedback-sculpted ambient drone howl, with machine gun blasting... long stretches of atmospheric synth heavily infiltrated with sheer noise and distortion, scattered further with clanging industrial raw rhythms. There's almost 20th c. avant-garde moments of majesty, like some Romanian electronic composer gone insane in his or her sound laboratory, and others that with the occasional female vox bring to mind Wolves In The Throne Room wandering in another dimension. Or simply blaze with the burning black metal fires of not mere churches but whole civilizations.
For Alien8's first foray into the troo cvlt world of black metal, they couldn't have done much better, with a release that's indeed (oc)cult and true but also experimental, and not something that we've heard already a thousand times before, a rarity indeed! Fiercely recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Process Of Bestialization"
MPEG Stream: "Sky As A Reversed Abyss"
MPEG Stream: "Bonded By Wyrd"

MENACE RUINE In Vulva Infernum (Tour De Garde) cassette 5.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We reviewed the debut cd from this boy / girl black metal duo from Canada, a few lists back, released on the not typically black metal label Alien8, and gushed appropriately about its gorgeous drone drenched minimalist black buzz. We mentioned then that they also had a release on Tour De Garde, the label run by the guys in Akitsa, and we've now finally managed to track down a bunch of copies of that first tape.
If anything, this one is more metal (but in parts just as experimental), less minimal, with a sound much more intense, drums and vocals the focal point. The sound less blissed out and atmospheric. It's a strange sound, one that changed pretty dramatically for their next record, but we ended up digging this as much as the Alien8 release.
It's both the drums and the production that make this record so intense, the sound is super hot, the recording vivid and loud without being blown out, and the drums, programmed we assume, are furious and LOUD and pretty much drive all the action. Way up in the mix, pounding relentlessly, peppered with flurries of double kick and blasting fills, the guitar alternately unfurling clouds of harmonics, or grinding riff for riff right alongside the drums, turning the metal into something more looped sounding and trancelike, eventually exploding into a weird processed dronescape, all glitchy buzz, and streaks of hiss, whirring electronics, and bits of crumbling distortion, drums still there, buried now underneath this churning slab of fuzz and buzz and blur, until those drums lurch up of the murk, and the guitars lock back into a strange static riff, the rhythm more sparse, with dark throaty female vocals, suddenly the sound is some black gothic doom, still the guitars grind and soar, chunks of jagged melody are hurled back and forth, the sound is just so good, so intense, and so strange. This is so unlike any other black metal we've heard. Listening to this tape has us wanting to go back to the Alien8 disc and dig deeper into that one too.
Later on, the band dabble in huge trudging black doom, the guitars so processed and blown out, they emanate a warm fuzzy aura, the programmed drums monstrous and pummeling, making the rhythms sound almost like dance music at times, while sounding like a less lo-fi Nadja at others. Distant howled vocals, throbbing distorted low end. This shit is just so crushingly heavy but not at all in the way we're used to. Hard to describe. But we've listened to this tape about 4 times in a row now, and have no plans to stopÉ
Packaged in beautiful textured paper sleeves, some blue, some red.

MENACE RUINE The Die Is Cast (Alien8) cd 15.98
For their sophomore full length, Canada's Menace Ruine return not exactly as the heavy noise inspired black metal band you know and love, but as a neo-folk, noise-rock powerhouse. You may be wondering like us: did we miss something? And what exactly is the link? Well, maybe it's the misanthropic, anti-humanist ethos shared by both neo-folk and black metal artists that somehow ties them together. Or maybe it's the fascination with all things medieval. Or maybe it's the general brooding and ever-present sense of darkness. Could it be written off as a shared love of sonic tension? Wait, wait ... there is a difference between them somewhere, right? As the label astutely points out, in the wake of both Leviathan and Nachtmystium covering Death in June, this sort of explicit crossover makes tons of sense. And really, it might be a tad reductive to simply say that this sounds like a black metal band that wrote songs for Der Blutharsch, but it's not too far off the mark. Menace Ruine probably couldn't escape their uber-noise tendencies even if they wanted to, but other than that, the comparison essentially holds true. It is also worth noting that the label mentions an upcoming Merzbow collaboration. Woah! Man, you know a record is good when it isn't simply good, but it leaves your head spinning trying to figure out what just fucking happened, and if you've read this far then you've seen all our questions. This is what you'd hear if Moss, The Dead C, and Douglas P were caught in the middle of some bizarre, church burning audial orgy. Potential fans of something that could convolutedly be described as tortured, grim, militaristic folk-noise will absolutely want this. And if that doesn't scream recommended, then we're not really sure what the hell does.
MPEG Stream: "One Too Many"
MPEG Stream: "This Place of Power"

MENACE RUINE Union Of Reconcilables (Aurora Borealis) cd 17.98
Not quite black metal, though doubtless Menace Ruine would happily bask in the smoldering embers of a charred church somewheres up north. Not exactly militaristic neo-folk either. Nor are they a noise band. Well, maybe noise. But that's only part of it. Their dark, distorted drone textures are also often adorned with witchy female vocals, a la Jex Thoth. So, three albums in, this Quebec girl-boy duo of Genevive and S. de la Moth are still quite hard to define, though we know we like 'em, and the Menace Ruine music they make (indeed a mix of noise, drone, folk, and black metal moves) is grim as well as sometimes quite gorgeous, that is if you're like us and can find the beauty in ten-minute long tracks of misanthropic sonic miasma. Perhaps it's the way the ceremonial lamentation of Genevive's gentle singing merges with the slowly churning electronic extremes of intense, dense distortion and feedback... Certainly this new release via Aurora Borealis (following previous efforts on Alien8 and Tour De Garde) is a fine continuation of their unique post-black metal noise-folk aesthetic. If you liked The Die Is Cast that came before this, you'll probably like this too. And fans of bands as diverse as Burial Hex, Dead Raven Choir, Velvet Cacoon, Current 93, Wolf Eyes, and Alcest, among others, ought to check out Menace Ruine if you haven't already.
MPEG Stream: "Collapse"
MPEG Stream: "The Upper Hand"
MPEG Stream: "Not Only A Break In The Clouds But A Permanent Clearing Of The Sky"

MERCA Chup Amela (psycheDOOMelic) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
German stoner/doom, ex-Shepherd.

MERCEDES HELL Kingdom Together (Full Contact / Ektro) 7" 7.98
Another 7" slab of New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal weirdness from our pals in Circle. We're pretty sure it's them, it must be, that's Jussi on the cover with his hair in his face, posing in front of a dilapidated barn, and it sounds just like all the other NWOFHM acts they've invented that we so enjoy, like Steel Mammoth and Krypt Axeripper and Tractor Pulling and Motorspandex! And also quite a bit like Circle's own Katapult album come to think of it.
Bright burbling yet somehow metallic guitar riffage churns forth, amidst a warm swarm of distortion and synthy sounding FX. It's a lofi, catchy quasi-metal pop music, head bobbing if not banging, perfect for the rasping vocals crooning cryptic stoner hippie/hessian poetry: "One way road / down from the hills / straight to the cave of skulls / computer of yesterday" Huh? Or: "Stay with the rainbow / eat the dreams / burn the talent / fight the spirit / listen to soul". Brilliant.
And although this isn't black metal by a long shot, despite its Scandinavian origins, they did come up with one of the truly grimmest song titles ever: "We're Getting Old"! There's four songs here, 2 per side, the other titles being "Let's Eat Fire", "Agitation Evil", and "Kingdom Together".
Wonder if this band will someday do a full-length or if, as with most of their NWOFHM comrades, one 7" is all we get. Based on this, we'd be happy to hear more. Or, just more from the next new "band" these guys come up with!

MERMAID Red Led or Death (Munster Records) cd 14.98

MERRIMACK Grey Rigorism (Moribund) cd 14.98
The list can get a bit frustrating, in more ways than one, but we're constantly frustrated by too many records and not enough time, which means inevitably, some badass band that we love somehow never makes it onto the list. It happened with noiserock mice-fits White Mice finally reviewed elsewhere on this list, and it happened with French black metallers Merrimack, who are on full length number three, and who are only now making it onto the list for the first time. What can we say, we do our best, and as far as Merrimack is concerned, they rule, you should definitely buy this new one, and if you dig it as much as we think you will, you should buy the other two as well.
Why you ask? Cuz there's just something about French black metal. Something special, a definite vibe, a certain sound, although Grey Rigorism sounds very modern, and very Scandinavian, which is not a bad thing at all, but don't be expecting insane gnarled blackened weirdness or fucked up freaked out damaged black metal, Merrimack are super tight, their songs are dense and grim, slipping easily from midtempo pound, to furious blast, to almost industrial sounding stop start lurch, these guys would definitely have been right at home on Moonfog, along with Khold and Satyricon and other super slick sounding buzzing black hordes.
There are some strange moments here for sure, a couple tracks where the band lock into some doomy dirge while some mysterious French sample plays over the top, and the lengthy closing track, a multi parted epic that finds the band slipping from frantic blast to loping post rock to slow lumbering doom, there's some strange female spoken word part too laced amidst the howling vokills, but for the most part, Grey Rigorism is some super tight, well produced black buzzing grimness, and we dig it.
Features members of other elite French BM hordes Ancestral Fog, Corpus Christii, Glorior Belli and Morte Incandescente, and killer artwork by Seldon Hunt...
MPEG Stream: "The Golden Door"
MPEG Stream: "Omniabsence"
MPEG Stream: "By Thy Grace"

MERRIMACK Observations To The Horned (Moribund) cd 14.98

MERRIMACK Of Entropy And Life Denial (Moribund) cd 16.98

MPEG Stream: "Seraphic Conspiracy (Of The Angels And Their Mission)"
MPEG Stream: "Melancholia Balneam Diboli (Of Acedia And Her Daughters)"

MESHUGGAH Catch Thirtythree (Nuclear Blast) cd 16.98

MPEG Stream: "Autonomy Lost"
MPEG Stream: "Imprint Of The Unsaved"
MPEG Stream: "Disenchantment"

MESHUGGAH Chaosphere (Nuclear Blast) cd 14.98
Cyberetic sci-fi Swedish metallers return with this long-awaited full-length, which combines the most brutal vocals and heavy, twisted grooves with some totally off-the wall sounds, particularly in the sometimes almost jazz-fusion guitar department. Some song titles: "New Millenium Cyanide Christ", "The Exquisite Machinery of Torture"...the latter possibly a good description of this band.