LEVIATHAN Massive Conspiracy Against All Life (Moribund) 2lp 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NOW AVAILABLE ON BLACK VINYL! Packaged in a super deluxe, full color, extra thick, gatefold sleeve, that makes Hildolf's (from Draugar) creepy cover art all the more striking. Includes a massive 12"x12" lyric / photo book, printed on cool textured paper, and LIMITED TO ONLY 500 COPIES!!! Here's what we had to say about the cd version when we reviewed it a few weeks back:
We talk about 'long awaited' releases all the time, records we hear about well before their actual release date, forcing us to wait and wait and wait, but few records have been as eagerly anticipated, or generated so many emails from customers as this, the latest from SF black metal behemoth Leviathan. Especially considering the rumors circulating that this may indeed be the final recording from Wrest and his one man band, Leviathan. If it is indeed a swansong, it's hard to imagine a more fitting or more powerful farewell-and-fuck-off.
Even being a huge fan and voracious devourer of black metal, we would be hard pressed to tell lots of BM bands apart. It's the nature of the beast in some ways. But the second we threw this on, even if we hadn't known what was playing, there's no mistaking the sound of Leviathan, the guitar tone, those demonic croaked vocals, the dizzying lush black buzzscapes, the convoluted song structures, the weird mathy rhythms and the incredible riffs.
Massive Conspiracy is not a huge departure from the sound of Tentacles Of Whorror, if anything, it just takes all the elements of that record and pushes them just that much further out. The sound is a bit more dense, more epic, the drumming is amazing (especially after the switch from electronic drums to real drums) the compositions more sprawling and expansive in scope. Which is saying a lot since past Leviathan records were pretty dang epic and sprawling already.
The sheer hatred of the titles is certainly expressed in the music as well, this is some scathing, hateful furious sound.
The record begins with some strange static, hissing drone-like buzz, ominous ambience beneath it, a haunting melody, then Wrest's howl and the record explodes in a flurry of rapid fire riffing and relentless blasting, but only briefly, the song immediately switches gear into a lurching lope, then right back into the blast. The song is peppered with super dense squalls of high end buzz, streaks of ultradistorted skree, while beneath all sorts of murky melodies lurk, almost like some old 78 was left playing in the background, giving the track an incredible creepy vibe, the last half of the song wraps itself around a slithery downtuned staccato riff, a gorgeously grim dirge that pounds its way to a burst of black chaos at the finish.
The second track is all whirring drones, loping drums, and Wrest's gurgling growl, a weird skeletal ambient dirge that is soon swallowed up by keening high end guitars, crunching downtuned churn, and some super freaky almost operatic vocals, the middle of the song is all full speed freaked out intensity, before again, the song locks into a super riffy groove, much like the opener, before finishing off in another black blaze.
The rest of the record follows suit, weaving super elaborate soundscapes of black metal buzz, and moody mathy meandering, dense black ambience, and swirling low end drones, the tracks rife with parts and bridges and confusional changes, all masterfully wound up into dense convoluted blackened, that while on their own are strange enough, are also peppered will all manner of sonic weirdness, be it slippery peals of woozy, dizzying melody, garbled vocal fragments, soaring harmony guitar melodies, super obtuse dynamics,
All culminating in the final two tracks. "Vulgar Asceticism" is definitely the most fucked, and maybe most amazing song Wrest has ever recorded. Even the opening, with its muted riffing and murky bass throb, staccato riff, and weird Greg Ginn-ish scrape and grind, before the song takes off. And the main riff is super warbly, almost sounding like he's playing with a slide, the notes wavering and detuning, only to be yanked back in line, and then bent way out of tune again, the result a blurry seasick lurch, exacerbated by the dynamics, the riffs often slipping into strange start stop stutters, until the song reaches it's middle stretch, the bass and drums locked into a relentless midtempo blast, while layers of guitars, and various riffs slip and slide, waver and warble, a super dizzy expanse of funhouse mirror blackness that is as fucked up and far out as it is amazing and masterful.
The closer, "Noisome Ash Crown" is an appropriately somber end to Massive Conspiracy, maybe even Leviathan itself. The whole first half a funereal crawl, a bleak grim landscape of whirring thick black ambience, and strange squalls of processed vocals, squiggles of distorted guitar, the drums a solid framework for the drifting abyss above. A strange washed out, gauzy black ambient bridge, gives way to a crushing almost industrial dirge, the melodies majestic and sorrowful, the vocals harrowing and harsh, the drums furiously flailing before transforming into muted little tangles, the rest of the song following suit, a dark minor key outro that gives way to the same black static that started the record.
MPEG Stream: "Vesture Dipped In The Blood Of Morning"
MPEG Stream: "Merging With Sword, Onto Them"
MPEG Stream: "Made As The Stale Wine Of Wrath"

LEVIATHAN Tentacles of Whorror (Moribund) cd 14.98
Summer may just have begun here in San Francisco, but with the release of this new album from local one-man black metal act Leviathan, it sure seems like winter time (plus you all know what Mark Twain said about summer in San Francisco anyway). Brrr. The frosty riffs and blood freezing atmospheres are warmed only by the blasting drums... But you know what, Leviathan hardly needs our attempts at cliched black metal hyperbole to stand proud amid the clutter of corpse-painted pretenders. Leave aside all that and listen: this is keenly crafted, weirdly artful, utterly uncompromising metal. From mathy mayhem to slow, doomy dirge, Leviathan displays unfettered creativity, immense musical skill, and intense emotional involvement in his art (those being dark emotions, if you have to ask). In the evolution of Leviathan, this brings in a torrent of old-school riffage (i.e. Celtic Frost and Slayer) and wired-for-Destruction song constructs while also slowing down more than even before to bathe in ambient weirdness and melody. Vocally, Leviathan's exhalations are like exhumations, the bringing forth of seemingly wordless death (though in fact, Leviathan has lyrics and they're so interestingly twisted). More proof, if any was needed, why Leviathan is in absolute fact one of not only our favorite black metal acts (enough so that Andee released the debut Verratter on his tUMULt label) but also considered so by many others across the globe. And is that some amazing Comus-ish cover art or what? It's by Dan Higgs of Lungfish, and its stark, disturbed violence and eccentricity perfectly captures this album's whorror.
MPEG Stream: "Heir To The House Of The Ghoul"
MPEG Stream: "Tentacles Of Whorror"

LEVIATHAN Tentacles Of Whorror (Profound Lore / Moribund) 2lp 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now on limited edition import double vinyl (blood red vinyl too!) -- with a vinyl-only BONUS TRACK! What we said when the cd version came out:
Summer may just have begun here in San Francisco, but with the release of this new album from local one-man black metal act Leviathan, it sure seems like winter time (plus you all know what Mark Twain said about summer in San Francisco anyway). Brrr. The frosty riffs and blood freezing atmospheres are warmed only by the blasting drums... But you know what, Leviathan hardly needs our attempts at cliched black metal hyperbole to stand proud amid the clutter of corpse-painted pretenders. Leave aside all that and listen: this is keenly crafted, weirdly artful, utterly uncompromising metal. From mathy mayhem to slow, doomy dirge, Leviathan displays unfettered creativity, immense musical skill, and intense emotional involvement in his art (those being dark emotions, if you have to ask). In the evolution of Leviathan, this brings in a torrent of old-school riffage (i.e. Celtic Frost and Slayer) and wired-for-Destruction song constructs while also slowing down more than even before to bathe in ambient weirdness and melody. Vocally, Leviathan's exhalations are like exhumations, the bringing forth of seemingly wordless death (though in fact, Leviathan has lyrics and they're so interestingly twisted). More proof, if any was needed, why Leviathan is in absolute fact one of not only our favorite black metal acts (enough so that Andee released the debut Verratter on his tUMULt label) but also considered so by many others across the globe. And is that some amazing Comus-ish cover art or what? Its stark, disturbed violence and eccentricity perfectly captures this album's whorror.
MPEG Stream: "Heir To The House Of The Ghoul"
MPEG Stream: "Tentacles Of Whorror"

LEVIATHAN The Blind Wound (Southern Lord) lp 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Before everybody has a big ol' black metal meltdown, this is NOT a brand new Leviathan record (although there is a new one coming soon). This is in fact the Leviathan half of the recent split with Sapthuran released on Battle Kommand Records a little while back. However, it is the first (and only) time these songs will be available all by themselves, and on vinyl! And what a gorgeous slab of vinyl it is. A brand new painting by Wrest, the man behind Leviathan, adorns the cover, and it is truly gorgeous and horrifying, some sort of shadowy horned thing, a nice thick sleeve with the text printed in reflective gloss over the image. Very striking. The vinyl is either half red / half green, or half green / half black, and no you can't specify which color you want. It's random. Which means DO NOT ASK for a specific color, you will get whichever one gets grabbed at random, and of course, it's super limited, so only one per customer. So now that that's all out of the way we can explain just why you absolutely NEED this record:
The mighty Wrest and his black metal behemoth Leviathan resurfaces once again, and once again Wrest does not disappoint. In fact if anything (and if it's even possible at this point) the Leviathan material on The Blind Wound is even more fucked up and out there than ever. That Leviathan sound is present and in full effect, a blurry swirling buzz of crazy riffs, impossible drumming, those insane vocals, and completely bizarre song structures, almost proggy at points, never hesitating to stop and start, stutter through some improbably complex series of time signatures or bliss out into some strange ambient soundscape. And as if Wrest's compositional style and playing weren't unique enough, every track is rife with all manner of weird parts, bizarre sounds and fucked up sonic detritus. From strange tripped out drone-ambience, angular almost Greg Ginnish guitar freakouts, impossibly tortured and affected vocals that go from guttural rumble to hellish howl, to creepy otherworldly keyboard like backgrounds, to sludgy almost doomlike breakdowns to full on krautrock / mathrock workouts, albeit slathered in plenty of buzz and fuzz. The final track finishes things off in a completely unexpected way, with a warm and fuzzy slow motion smear of gauzy muted My Bloody Valentine / M83 guitars and simple blown out drumming. As always, amazing!
MPEG Stream: "Odious Convulsions (They Are Not Worthy Of His Name)"
MPEG Stream: "Crushing The Proliapsed Oviducts Of Virtue"

LEVIATHAN The Speed of Darkness (Viva Hate) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A long while back we reviewed a split cd by SF black metal legend Leviathan and the Bathory worshipping Polish horde Iuvenes. As much as we may have dug the Iuvenes stuff, the Leviathan material was the real reason we all tuned in. So now Viva Hate have gone and taken just Wrest's half of the split and released it on vinyl (this is either the second or third, and supposedly final pressing), with all new art, printed inner sleeves, and pressed on INSANELY thick clear vinyl. Here's what we had to say about this stuff first time around:
Finally a little more Leviathan to hold us over until his next forthcoming full length, Tentacles of Whorror! This time around it's a split with European old schoolers Iuvenes who traffic in buzzy blurry black metal, Bathory style. But let's not kid ourselves, Leviathan is why we're here and Wrest does not disappoint. Grinding suffocating swarms of buzzing guitars, ultra creepy, deeply depressing ambience, completely and brilliantly fucked drumming, haunting Burzum-y keyboards, and that inhuman bowels-of-hell rasp that occasionally erupts into an utterly terrifying demonic shriek. But it's the songs, the songs are just so fucking good. So many black metal bands make all the right sounds, but can't actually write real songs. Wrest continues to explore and push the boundaries of black metal with Leviathan, exploring distinctly non-black metal sounds and ideas, but manages to stay grim and true the whole time. The songs here are punishing and crushingly dense, disturbing and evil as fuck, but days later, you'll find these riffs stuck in your head like a crown of thorns! Essential!
MPEG Stream: "I Miss Watching You Die"

LEVIATHAN The Tenth Sub Level Of Suicide (Moribund) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Wrest and his one-man-black-metal-band Leviathan return, with the corpses of Christians and poseurs littering the bleak landscape evoked by his sonic barrage of inhuman vokills, majestic riffing, and punishing drums. Pure misanthropic musical mayhem. Surely you remember Leviathan -- Andee put out the debut double cd Verrater on tUMULt only nine months ago, and that's been a very successful release. But Verrater was only the tip of the blackened iceberg that is Wrest/Leviathan's ability and need to make intelligent and emotional extreme rock music. Hence, this suicidal statement spawned so soon. At AQ, we fancy ourselves connoisseurs of this kind of stuff, and believe us -- this guy is good (and evil)!! What we mean is, as raw as it gets, there's some intense talent on display here. Lots of San Francisco bands have gotten hyped recently, but here's one that really deserves worship. Chaotically complex, pitilessly crafted tracks like the nine-minute long "Sardoniscorn" somehow maintain this music's one-foot-in-the-grave old school spikes n' corpsepaint directive while simultaneously getting totally arty and out there with epic, prog, avant-garde elements. Doomy drone, weird downtempo percussive interludes, atonal piano, ambient psychedelia, extreme vocal unpleasantness, lots of distortion and feedback. Yes! So it's no surprise that tUMULt and Aquarius (and our customers) weren't the only entities to appreciate the grim genius of Leviathan, as Wrest's project has now been signed to multi-album deals with two black metal specialists, Moribund in the States and Drakkar over in Europe, this album being the first fruit of that deal. We even recently discovered that none other than pagan pop star and psych/krautrock maniac Julian Cope is a big Leviathan fan, recommending Verrater on his website! So, this is another one for both black metal freaks (who will find this worthy of keeping company with your Burzum, Satyricon, Immortal, etc. records) as well as any other adventurous music-lovers unafraid of dabbling in the weird and wretched...
MPEG Stream: "Fucking Your Ghost In Chains Of Ice"
MPEG Stream: "Sardoniscorn"

LEVIATHAN The Tenth Sub Level Of Suicide (Moribund) 2lp 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL! A SUPER LIMITED DOUBLE LP!!
Ultra deluxe double lp in a nice thick gatefold, limited to 500 copies worldwide!!! These will be gone before you know it...
Wrest and his one-man-black-metal-band Leviathan return, with the corpses of Christians and poseurs littering the bleak landscape evoked by his sonic barrage of inhuman vokills, majestic riffing, and punishing drums. Pure misanthropic musical mayhem. Surely you remember Leviathan -- Andee put out the debut double cd Verrater on tUMULt only nine months ago, and that's been a very successful release. But Verrater was only the tip of the blackened iceberg that is Wrest/Leviathan's ability and need to make intelligent and emotional extreme rock music. Hence, this suicidal statement spawned so soon. At AQ, we fancy ourselves connoisseurs of this kind of stuff, and believe us -- this guy is good (and evil)!! What we mean is, as raw as it gets, there's some intense talent on display here. Lots of San Francisco bands have gotten hyped recently, but here's one that really deserves worship. Chaotically complex, pitilessly crafted tracks like the nine-minute long "Sardoniscorn" somehow maintain this music's one-foot-in-the-grave old school spikes n' corpsepaint directive while simultaneously getting totally arty and out there with epic, prog, avant-garde elements. Doomy drone, weird downtempo percussive interludes, atonal piano, ambient psychedelia, extreme vocal unpleasantness, lots of distortion and feedback. Yes! So it's no surprise that tUMULt and Aquarius (and our customers) weren't the only entities to appreciate the grim genius of Leviathan, as Wrest's project has now been signed to multi-album deals with two black metal specialists, Moribund in the States and Drakkar over in Europe, this album being the first fruit of that deal. We even recently discovered that none other than pagan pop star and psych/krautrock maniac Julian Cope is a big Leviathan fan, recommending Verrater on his website! So, this is another one for both black metal freaks (who will find this worthy of keeping company with your Burzum, Satyricon, Immortal, etc. records) as well as any other adventurous music-lovers unafraid of dabbling in the weird and wretched...
MPEG Stream: "Fucking Your Ghost In Chains Of Ice"
MPEG Stream: "Sardoniscorn"

LEVIATHAN True Traitor, True Whore (Profound Lore) cd 13.98
For a while it seemed like West Coast one man black metal horde Leviathan was no more. More and more disillusioned with the modern black metal scene, an ongoing dispute with his label, a seemingly constant battle with personal demons (which no doubt inspired the sounds of Leviathan), 2008's Massive Conspiracy Against All Life was seemingly to be Leviathan's swan song, and it was a pretty epic finish to an already epic career. Then it seemed the whole world was talking about Leviathan again, or specifically the man behind Leviathan, Wrest, aka Jef Whitehead, but the focus wasn't musical, it was personal, as Whitehead was involved in a high profile series of disturbing allegations, which for now remain unresolved, legally and otherwise, and definitely had many fans writing Leviathan off completely. And as if testament to the fact that demons drive the music of Leviathan, this recent experience, and its ongoing ramifications, seemingly inspired Leviathan to start back up, and to record again, creating art from pain, and ultimately making one of the meanest, darkest, heaviest Leviathan records yet, no doubt reflecting the anger and confusion that has consumed Whithead's life over this last year. One need look no further than the album title, or the track titles, it's definitely not subtle, but then black metal never really was. And if singing about Satan was considered grim and kvlt, we can only imagine what folks will make of True Traitor, True Whore, where as the subject matter is indeed grim, the spirit hateful and brutal, TTTW is a musical venting like no one has seen before. Sure the histories of rock music, and metal music are littered with angry missives to ex-lovers, to enemies, hell, even to friends, but rarely has that anger been so fully rendered as pure black sound.
And while much of what we loved about Leviathan remains, we had mentioned in a previous review that while we might have trouble telling much black metal apart, Leviathan was, and seemingly always will be immediately recognizable, but, a lot has changed, in the last three years, that disillusionment with black metal has resulted in much of TTTW moving away from the black buzz, and the production too, handled by Sanford Parker, who also had a hand in Nachtmystium's transformation into something much more psychedelic than black, but the opening track, "True Whorror", at least for the first two minutes, are definitely as grim and black and buzzy as ever, Whitehead's demonic croak in full effect, the guitars insectoid and wildly frenzied, plenty of gnarled atonal melody, and some wild chaotic drumming, but then at about two minutes, we get our first hint of what is to come, a lilting surprisingly melodic bridge, with some cool almost sitar sounding guitars, some strange industrial sounds in the background, a weird creepy sample, and then it's back to the buzz and blast, but the sound flits constantly from grim to melodic, from frantic and twisted, to woozy and almost psychedelic.
"Her Circle Is The Noose" is almost like nineties post rock, blackened, with weird reverbed vox, plenty of clean layered guitars, loping rhythm, the main riff, more of a haunting arpeggiated melody, the Slint vibe is huge, it's not until about 3 minutes in, that the song launches into a blurry blast, but the guitars spitting out wild upper register skree, only to slip right back into that blackened post rock lope. "Brought Up To This Bottom" is a bit more black, but it's also even more tripped out, with some strange sonar like pings, a super dynamic stop/start arrangement, the sound definitely much more lush and psychedelic than past releases, the recording epic and massive, with some of the sounds so in-the-red they seem to be crumbling from the speakers, the drums sounding better than ever, definitely the most live, reminding us at times of Don Caballero's Damon Che. "Contrary Pulse", is all echoey and reverby and strangely murky, a washed out droney chunk of hypnorock, that occasionally splinters into something more black and buzzy, but even then, the sound is much less about buzz and blast, and when the song is creeping and droning, the vibe is weirdly industrial and seriously sinister.
A couple old tracks from the early demos (and later compiled on the tUMULt double disc Verrater) get redone here, the first is "Shed This Skin", which works surprisingly well in this new context, and benefits from the modern overhaul / reinterpretation, Whitehead's cool sinister croon, and with an added lushness that was only hinted at on the original, not to mention more clean guitars, and a way more psychedelic vibe. "Every Orifice Yawning Her Price", is another one that bucks black metal convention, minus Whitehead's inhuman howl, the music is weirdly post rocky, and almost sea shanty-ish, with some cool bits of warm psychedelic clean guitar swirl, as well as a cool tripped out, droney second half, where the drums continue to pound away, beneath a wild tangle of spidery melody and garbled vox, as well as thick chordal swells that swirl and pulse. Which leads right into the way more metal "Harlot Rises [Mesmerized Again]", that adds some Kiss-like flange to the drums to great effect, and after a pounding almost doomy into, switches gear, and becomes almost poppy, still blackened and post rocky, but definitely with a pop vibe. And this track might be the weirdest of all, splintering partway through into a sort of spaced out breakdown, that shifts from twisted dramatic synth/drum workouts to woozy psych trip-out, and a seriously dreamy droney outro.
Finally, the record finishes off with another old demo track, "Blood Red And True", which was definitely one of our favorite classic Leviathan jams, and like "Shed This Skin", ends up sounding amazing in its new form, the guitars impossibly thick and chunky, the vocals sick as ever, a churning chugging blackened melodic doom, the heavy parts epic and majestic, the tripped out parts, way more psychedelic, layered and lysergic, the sound impossibly lush and evocative, about as close to soaring epic Godspeed style post rock as Leviathan has ever gotten, a super dramatic finish for sure.
Yet again, Whitehead continues to push the limits of black metal with Leviathan, even moreso now that he seems to have abandoned any bonds to the scene that claimed him, and while this is definitely the most bitter and angry Leviathan record yet, it's also probably the strangest, and most progressive, and our favorite in a while, managing to keep the true core of Leviathan's sound while moving well past the tired tropes of the grim and the black, and here's hoping that this is not the last we hear from Leviathan.
Packaged in a super striking digipak, with reflective ink printing, and cyrillic style type.
MPEG Stream: "True Whorror"
MPEG Stream: "Her Circle Is The Noose"
MPEG Stream: "Every Orifice Yawning Her Price"

LEVIATHAN Verrater (tUMULt) 2cd 14.98
By now, pretty much every blackmetalhead who hasn't been lost in a grim and frostbitten forest for the last decade is well aware, and most likely a huge fan of the mighty Leviathan, which is just one man, Wrest, who along with likeminded outfits Xasthur, Draugar, Crebain and a handful of others have managed to reinvent and reinvigorate black metal in the last few years, while turning California into a land as grim and as black as the Norwegian clime that spawned the genre. But there was a time, when Leviathan hadn't released any proper records at all, outside of a handful of cassettes and home made cd-r's. This double disc collects the best bits from all of those releases and was the first glimpse many folks would get of the blackness that would come to define modern USBM.
Here's what we had to say about Verrater the first time around (with some minor updates and adjustments):
Those of you who live in San Francisco may have seen or even bought some of the many self released cassettes by the mysterious one man black metal band called Leviathan. Or some of you may have seen Andee or Allan sporting their Leviathan shirts, or you may have even seen Wrest, the man behind Leviathan lurking around AQ...regardless, Leviathan is the latest and certainly one of the greatest of the Bay Area black metal bands (Ludicra, Sangre Amado, Crebain, Draugar and the godlike Weakling [both also on tUMULt], etc...) who seem to exist in some sort of vacuum here while elsewhere, band after unoriginal band keep getting signed to huge labels and hyped to death even though most of them suck.
For this release Andee and Wrest went through the 13 full length Leviathan cassettes/cd-r's (as of the release of Verrater that number had leapt to 15!) Leviathan had recorded since 1998 to compile a good overview. But they couldn't whittle it down enough so one disc became two, with the first disc being the newer stuff, and disc two being the older, raw-er material.
Verrater is pure, primitive, cult, home recorded evil. Two discs, twenty two tracks, one hundred and forty three minutes of buzzing, howling, pummelling, black metal. Think Burzum, Darkthrone, Immortal, that sort of thing, but with all sorts of weird twists and sonic surprises. Yes, Leviathan is grimmer than grim metal that the frost & forest lords of Norway should bow down to, but it's also pure expression unfettered by genre restraints, although informed and inspired by them. Like Weakling, Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra, Caacrinolas, Ludicra, Potentiam, Enslaved, and some other AQ-championed black metal acts, this is not just one for fans of black metal only! It's dark, weird, noisy, disturbing art embodying one man's vision that should be heard by anyone into avantgarde, experimental, psychically and physically powerful rock music. From blasting howling fury to moody ambient blackness to off kilter weirdness to droning riffery to soul crushing heaviness. What's truly remarkable is that one man, playing all the instruments himself, and recording at home, can evoke such strong emotions and invoke such musical demons. Original, evil, hateful, misanthropic, bizarre and truly black metal.
MPEG Stream: "Courtship Of The Discarded"
MPEG Stream: "In This Slaveship"
MPEG Stream: "The Whole Of Deceit"
MPEG Stream: "Shed This Skin"

LEVIATHAN / ACHERONTAS Sic Luceat Lux (Zyklon-B Productions) cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Seems like rumors regarding the end of Leviathan were greatly exaggerated. Not only is Leviathan still a going concern, but then out of nowhere pops this brand new, bad ass split, with a Greek band called Achernotas, who we knew by name but had never heard until now.
Needless to say, most aQ metalheads won't need much more prodding than the words "new Leviathan record", then there's the fact that the cd AND vinyl version of this split are both insanely limited, which means once we sell out of these, odds are we won't be able to get more, which is a huge bummer, because not only are the Leviathan tracks awesome (obviously), but we're pretty psyched on Acherontas as well.
The Leviathan tracks sound like maybe they're a bit older, perhaps before the shift from electronic drums to acoustic drums, the sound is murky, but still gnarled and chaotic and dense, the arrangements furious and frenzied, the drumming insane, and that unmistakable demonic croak. Lots of glitch and buzz, tangled atonal melodies, a heaving wall of blackened chaos, but it is Leviathan, so there's plenty of dark brooding ambience, some classic metal sounding chug, some spaced out almost doomy sounding blackness, the sound here falls somewhere right between classic Leviathan and the more twisted sonic soundscapes of Lurker Of Chalice.
The Acherontas tracks start off with haunting reverb drenched piano, creating a creepy otherworldly vibe, before the band launches into some super grim sounding black pound, the drums simple but intense, the guitars super distorted, the riffs woozy and minor key, the sound slipping easily from loping Burzumic plod, to proggy almost folky swirl, with clean guitars and strangely complex drumming, smothered in ethereal effects, the vocals especially harsh, dripping with demonic intensity, then suddenly transforming into deep haunting croon, the guitars following suit, growing more and more melodic and lovely, still all wrapped in a haze of distorted buzz, eventually fading out in a blur of minor key miserablism. Really awesome stuff. Definitely need to hear more from these guys.
But for now, if you do want one of these, cd OR lp, act fast, these have been selling like crazy and we're down to about half of what we started with. The cds come in a nice digipak (although be warned, some of the edges are a little worn in shipping, nothing we can do about it, these are probably all we're gonna get), and the lp is a super striking pictured disc, that comes in a heavy sleeve with a printed 12" x 12" insert.
MPEG Stream: LEVIATHAN "Crusted, Blackened"
MPEG Stream: LEVIATHAN "To A Grotesque Of Swollen Flesh"
MPEG Stream: ACHERONTAS "Velvet Aurora"
MPEG Stream: ACHERONTAS "Kornugia"

LEVIATHAN / ACHERONTAS Sic Luceat Lux (Zyklon-B Productions) picture disc lp 31.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Seems like rumors regarding the end of Leviathan were greatly exaggerated. Not only is Leviathan still a going concern, but then out of nowhere pops this brand new, bad ass split, with a Greek band called Achernotas, who we knew by name but had never heard until now.
Needless to say, most aQ metalheads won't need much more prodding than the words "new Leviathan record", then there's the fact that the cd AND vinyl version of this split are both insanely limited, which means once we sell out of these, odds are we won't be able to get more, which is a huge bummer, because not only are the Leviathan tracks awesome (obviously), but we're pretty psyched on Acherontas as well.
The Leviathan tracks sound like maybe they're a bit older, perhaps before the shift from electronic drums to acoustic drums, the sound is murky, but still gnarled and chaotic and dense, the arrangements furious and frenzied, the drumming insane, and that unmistakable demonic croak. Lots of glitch and buzz, tangled atonal melodies, a heaving wall of blackened chaos, but it is Leviathan, so there's plenty of dark brooding ambience, some classic metal sounding chug, some spaced out almost doomy sounding blackness, the sound here falls somewhere right between classic Leviathan and the more twisted sonic soundscapes of Lurker Of Chalice.
The Acherontas tracks start off with haunting reverb drenched piano, creating a creepy otherworldly vibe, before the band launches into some super grim sounding black pound, the drums simple but intense, the guitars super distorted, the riffs woozy and minor key, the sound slipping easily from loping Burzumic plod, to proggy almost folky swirl, with clean guitars and strangely complex drumming, smothered in ethereal effects, the vocals especially harsh, dripping with demonic intensity, then suddenly transforming into deep haunting croon, the guitars following suit, growing more and more melodic and lovely, still all wrapped in a haze of distorted buzz, eventually fading out in a blur of minor key miserablism. Really awesome stuff. Definitely need to hear more from these guys.
But for now, if you do want one of these, cd OR lp, act fast, these have been selling like crazy and we're down to about half of what we started with. The cds come in a nice digipak (although be warned, some of the edges are a little worn in shipping, nothing we can do about it, these are probably all we're gonna get), and the lp is a super striking pictured disc, that comes in a heavy sleeve with a printed 12" x 12" insert.
MPEG Stream: LEVIATHAN "Crusted, Blackened"
MPEG Stream: LEVIATHAN "To A Grotesque Of Swollen Flesh"
MPEG Stream: ACHERONTAS "Velvet Aurora"
MPEG Stream: ACHERONTAS "Kornugia"

LEVIATHAN / AD HOMINEM / FUNERAL WINDS / ETERNNITY Black Metal Against The World (Undercover) 7" 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We only have a dozen of these. We will NEVER get more. So this is one of those first come first served deals, quick on the buzzer, don't delay or you're shit out of luck. SERIOUSLY. Four black metal bands from all over the world. One 7". One track each. Grim and evil and cult and gone before you know it. Leviathan, Ad Hominem, Funeral Winds, Eternity. In a gorgous black on black gatefold sleeve. And as it says on the back of the record: "This piece of hate is limited." Indeed...but only in number.

LEVIATHAN / IUVENES The Speed of Darkness / Live In Eternal Sin (No Colours) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Managed to get just a few more of these in stock! Direct from Wrest of Leviathan. And we are told these will be the last copies ever so don't miss out AGAIN. Here's what we had to say about this split when we first got it in:
Finally a little more Leviathan to hold us over until his next forthcoming full length, Tentacles of Whorror! This time a round it's a split with European old schoolers Iuvenes who traffic in buzzy blurry black metal, Bathory style. Really simple blast beats over superdistrorted riffs and growled gutteral vocals with squiggly leads buried waaaay doooown in the mix. Droning and repetetive and very hypontic. But let's not kid ourselves, Leviathan is why we're here and Wrest does not diappoint. Grinding suffocating swarms of buzzing guitars, ultra creepy, deeply depressing ambience, completely and brilliantly fucked drumming, haunting Burzum-y keyboards, and that inhuman bowels-of-hell rasp that occasionally erupts into an utterly terrifying demonic shriek. But it's the songs, the songs are just so fucking good. So many black metal bands make all the right sounds, but can't actually write real songs. Wrest continues to explore and push the boundaries of black metal with Leviathan, exploring distinctly non-black metal sounds and ideas, but manages to stay grim and true the whole time. The songs here are punishing and crushingly dense, disturbing and evil as fuck, but days later, you'll find these riffs stuck in your head like a crown of thorns! Essential!
MPEG Stream: LEVIATHAN "I Miss Watching You Die"
MPEG Stream: IUVENES "Necromatron"

LEVIATHAN / SAPTHURAN split (Battle Kommand) cd 14.98
The mighty Wrest and his black metal behemoth Leviathan resurfaces once again, this time teamed up with fellow USBM outift Sapthuran. It's a good matchup in so much as Sapthuran sounds quite a bit like the current crop of West Coast black metal (Xasthur, Crebain, Draugar, etc.) which is definitely a good thing. Midtempo buzz and blur, with haunting clean guitar melodies in the background, that come to the forefront briefly on the second folky ambient track, only to be summarily obliterated by Sapthuran's closer, a dizzying blurry buzz of droning riffs buried vocal howl and splattery blast beats. Definitly need to hear more from these guys (we actually have Sapthuran's full length in stock, just ask).
But as always, Leviathan is the main event, the reason we all showed up, and once again Wrest does not disappoint. In fact if anything (and if it's even possible at this point) the Leviathan material on this split is even more fucked up and out there than ever. That Leviathan sound is present and in full effect, a blurry swirling buzz of crazy riffs, impossible drumming, those insane vocals, and completely bizarre song structures, almost proggy at points, never hesitating to stop and start, stutter through some improbably complex series of time signatures or bliss out into some strange ambient soundscape. And as if Wrest's compositional style and playing weren't unique enough, every track is rife with all manner of weird parts, bizarre sounds and fucked up sonic detritus. From strange tripped out drone-ambience, angular almost Greg Ginnish guitar freakouts, impossibly tortured and affected vocals that go from gutteral rumble to hellish howl, to creepy otherworldly keyboard like backgrounds, to sludgy almost doomlike breakdowns to full on krautrock / mathrock workouts, albeit slathered in plenty of buzz and fuzz. The final track finishes things off in a completely unexpected way, with a warm and fuzzy slow motion smear of gauzy muted My Bloody Valentine / M83 guitars and simple blown out drumming. As always, amazing!
MPEG Stream: SAPTHURAN "As A Tale Told By The Leaves And Whispered By The Wind"
MPEG Stream: LEVIATHAN "Odious Convulsions (They Are Not Worthy Of His Name)"
MPEG Stream: LEVIATHAN "Crushing The Proliapsed Oviducts Of Virtue"

LIAM Journey... Two Years and a Fragment (Pest Productions) cd 14.98
Another awesome discovery from Chinese black metal label Pest Productions. A few lists back we reviewed the bafflingly brilliant depressive black metal outfit Heartless, with its over the top vocals, and surprisingly twisted blackened sound, as well as the killer outsider blackness of Icelandic horde Dysthymia, and now we have the oddly named Liam, a German post rock / black metal outfit whose washed out shoegazey depressive drift should definitely hit the spot for anyone into Alcest, Ameseours, Les Discrets, Lifelover and other pop minded blackened outfits.
Journey... Two Years and a Fragment collects two long out of print eps, 2007's My Journey To The Sky and 2008's Two Years And A Fragment. My Journey To The Sky is all instrumental, and plays out much more like a metallic post rock record, the blackness mostly implied, the chords ring out, the arrangements are epic and slow building, the crescendos massive, the sound mathy and mesmerizing, the vibe melancholy, washed out and dreamy, definitely super shoegazey, more Mogwai than Mutiilation for sure, the songs are so majestic and melodic, in fact, if these guys didn't simply consider themselves a black metal band, odds are no one would even know.
Two Years And A Fragment is a very slightly blacker beast, kicking off with some harsh vokills, but they quickly fade into the background, leaving just a darkly buzzy gloom pop, the vocals WAY down in the mix, the sound lush, and buzzy, but so melodic and minor key, and with plenty of clean vocals, definitely reminding us of a more depressive Lifelover, or a way less melodic Katatonia. The arrangements are awesome though, the stop start chug, the clean vocal harmonies, and the swoonsome melodic miserablism. Long stretches of buzzy prettiness, three songs clocking in at about 28 minutes, but it sort of sounds like three movements of one single epic track, heavy for sure, and there are harsh vox, but overall this is just some fantastically melodic, hook filled epic shoegazey gloom pop, and we love it. Definitely not heavy enough for the grim throng, but fans of this sort of thing will maybe have a new favorite band, and all you metallic post rock obsessives, here's your chance to dabble in something a bit blacker. But only a bit.
MPEG Stream: "Born"
MPEG Stream: "Wide"
MPEG Stream: "A Decision"

LIBIDO SPACE DIMENSION s/t (Gyokumon) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Most of you have yet to hear the mighty Solar Anus, Japan's masters of stumbling psychedelic doom (although thanks to tUMULt's forthcoming double cd collection of the first three SA albums, you soon will -- beware!), but in the mean time, Solar Anus mainman Tenkotu Kawaho and his label Gyokumon (a word which loosely translates as asshole, in keeping with the anal theme) give us the lysergic, fuzzed out stoner psych-rock of another great Japanese band, Libido Space Dimension (a name we'll forgive 'cause they're Japanese, and so good). LSD channel the spirit of Hendrix through the overdrive dimension inhabited by Japanese noise-psych-rock monsters like Mainliner and High Rise, and mix in some modern stoner metal stylings a la Monster Magnet (in fact they even cover 'Long Hair', from MM's "25...tab" ep). LSD certainly put their Orange amps to the test with their ultra-fuzzed out guitar explosions/explorations... Factoring in their hyper-distorted, buried in the mix vocals and frenetic, spastic Mitch Mitchell-style drumming, they go to the top of the heap of '70s worshipping stoner rock bands. Plus, being from Japan, they have that unpredictable X-factor most US bands lack, allowing them to do things like segue into the freaky trance/techno electronica that ends the album!
RealAudio clip: "Long Hair"
RealAudio clip: "Gokumonki"
RealAudio clip: "Tatooed Dancer"
RealAudio clip: "Nehang"

LIFELOVER Dekadens (Osmose) cd ep 10.98
Latest from Swedish blackened doom pop weirdos Lifelover, which we have been trying to get for a while, and it's a doozy, melding the twisted demented depressive black metal strangeness of their early records, with the more streamlined, lush heaviness of their most recent recordings, resulting in what might be their most full realized release yet.
Featuring members of Ondskapt, Hypothermia, Dimhymn and IXXI, one could be forgiven for expecting something much more grim and black, hateful and harrowing, but instead, the band have been moving more toward a sound much more akin to groups like Katatonia, epic, lush, depressive doom pop, the guitars and drums massive, the melodies melancholy and mournful, but with the unhinged maniacal vocals that defined the first few records. Live videos display the group's incredible (and incredibly bloody) stage presence, with the vocalist, wearing a white long sleeve dress shirt, and doing some strange herky jerky dances, but within a few songs, things get decidedly darker, that white shirt soaked through with blood, the band locked into a frenzied fierce assault, but STILL, the music manages to be lush and sprawling and epic and weirdly impossibly poppy. Not sure why it works, or even how, but Lifelover are not only master showmen, but masters of crafting off kilter blackened pop. And Dekadens is most definitely testament to that. Not nearly as weird or experimental as past records, the first four tracks are a practically flawless explosion of the sound these guys have seemed to master, the production loud and lush, the riffing incredible, the drums not blasting, but pounding, the vocals a shrieking caterwaul, all wound into some incredible heavy pop music, still with hints of blackness, some double kick drumming, chugging guitars, those vocals, but however much of that there is, this still is ultimately pop music.
The second half of the record, things get a bit weirder; "Androider" almost sounds like some sort of alien modern rock, if it weren't for those unhinged vocals, it's not hard to imagine a song like this ending up on MTV, with some woozy clean guitar breaks, a soaring chorus, and some clean crooning vox, eventually slipping into a gorgeous minor key lament. "Visomdsord" is all clean guitar and skeletal drumming, soaring melancholy melodies, weirdly processed spoken vocals, gloomy Joy Divisiony basslines, and a second half that gets more and more dreamy and abstract. And then finally "Destination: Ingenstans" has possibly the poppiest main riff of the bunch, total sugary sweet, still distorted and crunchy, but majestic and major key, before a brief hushed drifty interlude, and then a burst of mathy proggy blackened heaviness, maybe the heaviest thing on the record, before the song chills out again, returning to something much more meditative, clean guitars, jangly and shimmery, the only vestige of blackened weirdness, a still tortured hellish howl, creating something at once dreamlike and melodic, haunting and harrowing.
So goddamn good. Lifelover are probably one of the most original 'black metal' bands around. And one of our favorites, and it's hard for us to imagine anyone listening to Dekadens not agreeing wholeheartedly...
MPEG Stream: "Luguber Framtid"
MPEG Stream: "Myspys"
MPEG Stream: "Androider"
MPEG Stream: "Destination: Ingenstans"

LIFELOVER Erotik (Total Holocaust) cd 14.98
We first discovered the band Lifelover a year or two back and were kind of knocked for a loop. Their first record (which we have yet to list) was on the same label as Bone Awl, Urfaust, Planet Aids, Vrolok, Emit, Gauhaert, so we were sort of expecting some bizarre black metal, and while it was indeed sort of black metal, it was most definitely bizarre. Album art featuring multiple photos of a naked young Scandinavian woman, covered in blood and laying in the grass in the middle of a bright summer day, the music inside was just as unexpected. A sort of dark metallic pop. A buzzing blasting mournful melancholy sound that reminded us mostly of Katatonia, albeit a bit more damaged and demented.
The new record, Erotik, is even stranger, and sounds even MORE like some strange variation of Katatonia. Again the root of the sound is a dark loping minor key melancholia, buzzing guitars, not so much black as grey, monotone vocals way down in the mix, simple drumming, bits of extra percussion, but most notably, lots of piano, a sparse minor key plinking spread across most of the songs, or strange chordal clusters, WAY up in the mix surfacing within driving riffs or amidst droning spacious shimmer. It's definitely that more-metal Cure sound, also a bit like Beyond Dawn, that sort of gloomy eighties vibe, gothy and depressive, moody and dark and spacious, with super catchy and epic melodies. But, and this is a very big BUT, Lifelover are SOOOOOO much more fucked up.
Some songs begin as droning doleful midtempo rockers, but then the vocals begin to come unhinged, more manic, more on-the-verge, soon the singing has transformed into hysterical shrieks and maniacal howls. Sometimes the band will drop out and all there will be left are swoonsome strings, with some strange muttering over the top, sometimes the muttering is backwards. Once in a while there is straight up indie rock jangly guitar, often paired with double kick drums??! And piano too. And did we mention harmonica? Strange samples too, people talking, and children... weird synths, muted almost techno-like rhythms, reverb drenched pianos drifting in space. And then there are handclaps. Yep, handclaps, in songs that are so dour and dark, handclaps are the last thing you expect. But they work. In some really strange way, they sound perfect. Every song is sort of like that, 'normal' on the surface, but always slightly twisted. So yeah, simple moody midtempo blackened pop, but with piano, and demented vocals and handclaps... and lots of um... backwards stuff... especially...
In the 11 minute final track, the amazing "Nitlott", which begins with almost cheerful sounding piano, simple soaring strings, an almost straight up ballad, with hushed vocals, spoken in Swedish, that get more agitated but never quite flip out like elsewhere. This goes on for nearly 5 minutes before the metal kicks in, but it's not any old metal, it's backwards, the guitars being sucked backwards with that distinct sssshhhhhwwwooo before each note, the reversed decay now transformed into the note's attack. A chugging riff turned into a smeared metal blur, the drums a weird backwards sssffft sssffft sssffft, with occasional stretches where the riff is flipped forward briefly, before the band launches back into its strange backwards march. The whole thing ending with a delicate minor key guitar melody hovering and then dreamily drifting off. So awesome. And so weird. Maybe our new favorite black metal record. Then again, this is barely even a black metal record... maybe it would be a bit more accurate to call Erotik our new favorite black-depressive-backwards-piano-jangle-bliss-drone-techno-pop-experi-metal record... Absolutely!
MPEG Stream: "Nitlott"
MPEG Stream: "Sweet Illness Of Mine"
MPEG Stream: "Vallkommen Till Pulvercity"

LIFELOVER Konkurs (Avantgarde Music) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
For a band that counts among its lineup members of suicidal black metallers Hypothermia, satanic black blasters Ondskapt, weirdo blackened doomsters Dimhymn, and buzzing black and rollers IXXI, Lifelover still manage to confound, somehow creating music at once the sum of all those parts, and at the same time a sound completely cracked, totally damaged, and gleefully bizarre, to the point of seemingly alienating all but the most broadminded of listeners. But if you're like us, and were crazy obsessed with Lifelover's last two discs, Pulver and Erotik, both confusional mixes of downtuned depressive black buzz, haunting epic minor key sadcore, and a plenty of sonic whatthefuck, then Konkurs should hit the spot big time. But even if you've yet to hear Lifelover before now, you still might fight yourself ensorcelled, as have many of the less metal minded folks around here. Lifelover occupy some strange space, not quite pop, not quite black metal. The guitars are distorted, but they don't quite buzz, the melodies are grim and depressive, but more gloomy and melancholic than hateful and harsh. Fans of groups like Alcest, Amesoeurs and especially Katatonia, at least those who aren't averse to some serious weirdness, could very well discover a whole new, darker and more demented side to their musical taste, courtesy of these freaked out Swedes.
Konkurs manages to expand on the sonic universe explored over the course of the two prior discs, while taking the sound even further, better production, more diverse and expansive instrumentation, better songs, and while bizarre, not nearly as schizophrenic, with a much better flow, like a proper album, as opposed to a collection of strange songs, but it's all still laced with plenty of gorgeously gloomy melodies, awesome metallic crunch, all sorts of tortured maniacal vocals, the tracks are peppered with skittery drum machines, bizarre feedbacked melodies, plaintive piano, swoonsome crooned vocals, all wrapped around gloriously miserable and epic minor key dirges, and super catchy twisted blackened doom pop.
From the very first moment, a strange echo drenched metallic clang, the band swoops in cloaked in a warm haze of black buzz, draped over a time keeping trash can lid cymbal, the vocals anguished and tortured, the guitars woven into soaring majestic melodies, while a piano plinks out its own sad melody right alongside. It really does sound like some Katatonia B-side, but filtered through some sort of cracked black lens. And from there, the record swoons and swirls, the tracks unfurling woozily, the second track has a killer main hook, a murky piano / fuzzy guitar harmony, blurred and smeared beneath simple motorik drumming, while the track after that borrows a little groove from Norwegian Nirvana worshipping black metallers Khold, but add a whole 'nother dimension of soft focus miserablism. Every track, no matter how normal, or how fucked up, is impossibly catchy, hooks galore, but also rife with elements that in any other band would stick out like a blackened and bloodied sore thumb. Whether it's some grinding muted chunk chunk chunk guitar, a recording of some polka-like accordion music, or a shimmery stretch of detuned piano, or perhaps some ominous spoken word, a bit of folky guitar strum, recordings of waves lapping on the shore, Sunn 0)))-like slow motion black guitar buzz, or lots of piano, almost always wreathed in tons of effects making it ethereal and shimmery, those elements seem to melt into the sounds around them, and after a few listens it's almost impossible to imagine the songs without them.
Not really heavy, not really all that black, but then that doesn't seem to be at all the point when it comes to Lifelover. Instead, the sounds here are a mysterious strain of outsider pop music, infused with elements of black metal and doom and slowcore and all sorts of other things, but those remain just elements, and become harder and harder to discern within the swirling jangly grinding blasting buzzing droney drifty twisted catchy and creepy whole that is Konkurs. Brilliant. And baffling. And beautiful. And absolutely recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Shallow"
MPEG Stream: "Mental Central Dialog"
MPEG Stream: "Brand"
MPEG Stream: "Spiken I Kistan"

LIFELOVER Pulver (Goatowarex) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally, the debut from these Swedish twisted doom pop black metal freeks is available once again. We listed record number two, Erotik, a while back, and like us, everybody freaked out, digging these guys' strangely off kilter black melancholia, so much that we had trouble keeping it in stock. Like a damaged, blackened Katatonia, Lifelover are creating some of the most original and not entirely black, black metal we've heard in ages.
On the same label that brought us discs from Bone Awl, Urfaust, Planet Aids, Vrolok, Emit, Gauhaert, Lifelover's sound couldn't have been further from what we were expecting. Our first clue should have been the cover art. A series of photos of a nude blonde woman, covered in blood, reclining in lush grass and blossoming wildflowers. Inside, old woodcuts, photos of boats, apartment buildings, and then the creepy band photos, featuring all four members, the strangely named (), B, LR and 1853.
But what exactly does it sound like? Well, Katatonia is definitely a good starting point, super moody and melancholic, soaring and dramatic, guitars that do almost everything else but buzz, jangle, strum, shimmer, keen, roar, and ok, maybe they buzz a bit, but they tend to be much more melodic than textural, although the sounds is definitely lush and layered. The arrangements are simple, but never straight forward, there is piano all over the place, the vocals are wild and unkempt, howling and hysterical, sometimes haunting and spoken, drenched in reverb, the drums go from simple time keeping to strange stumble to thunderous pound usually during the same song, and amidst and within the music are all manner of samples and found sounds, Swedish folk songs, panicked crowds, weird voices, record crackle, amp buzz, and lots of other indescribably sonic events.
It's easy to hear some Factory records here, some Joy Division for sure, definitely a bit of the Fall, Gang Of Four. Minus the metallic buzz and the unhinged vocals, these guys might even be entering Interpol / Editors territory. A sort of modern moody new wave. Downcast and introspective, but with Lifelover, it all ends up completely twisted and damaged and a bit buzzy. In a very very good way. There's been much discussion here about which Lifelover record is better, Pulver or Erotik, and the split is pretty even, but no matter which side anyone falls on, they definitely agree that BOTH are absolutely essential.
MPEG Stream: "Nackskott"
MPEG Stream: "M/S Salmonella"
MPEG Stream: "Mitt Oppna Oga"
MPEG Stream: "Stockholm"

LIGHT A Million Dead Beneath The Ice (self-released) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
From its humble beginnings as a genre, black metal has changed dramatically, transformed into something style and sound based rather than belief based. And where black metal was once strictly the province of the grim and kvlt, and yes, the actual metalheads, it's now gained a certain cache, a definite hip factor, where any band, metal or not, is likely to feature one member with his or her own solo black metal project. We're not complaining, not in the least, it's these fresh injections into black metal's sonic gene pool that keep it interesting, that produce more and more strange and wonderful variations, a great many perpetrated by folks new to metal completely, who were lured to the darkside by black metal specifically, its mystery and unique sound, the sonic possibilities offered by its murky symphony of buzz and blast, rumble and shriek, sounds easily twisted into all manner of shapes.
We got this particular cd-r in the mail a few weeks ago, and as we've mentioned before we do get quite a few. Our first impression was that it would most likely be some sort of minimal drone record, very stark white packaging, hand made, the band is called Light, with song titles like "When The Green Midwestern Sky Comes Crashing Down", and "When The Flood Waters Come Rushing In", the packaging unfolds to reveal nothing but the song titles, rendered in a flowery script, but on the disc, there was what appears to be a smear of actual blood (which we later discovered was in fact menstrual blood!). The first clue as to what sort of mysterious darkness lurked inside...
Once we threw it on, we knew this was something else entirely, there is plenty of drone indeed, but the drone is only one element of Light's mysterious lugubrious buzz drenched blackened crawl. Almost like a more lo-fi Skepticism, Light trudge along at tarpit tempos, the guitars not so much riffing as unfurling thick swirls of soft fuzz, the vocals howled and wailed, but way off in the distance, the drums strangely un-drumlike, more like pots and pans, a clattery, skeletal percussion, the whole thing held together by the warm dramatic keyboards, that sound like the Haunted Mansion soundtrack played at 16rpm, all smeared and blurred together into something only barely black metal, only barely doom, a thick lurching slow motion black doomdrone, evocative and cinematic, at once epic and sprawling, lo-fi and ultra personal. Creepy and haunting, but strangely melodic and beautiful. Think Trollmann, Abruptum, Celestiial, Catacombs, Monument of Urns and again Skepticism, but filtered through the cracked lo-fi filter of underground cd-r dronemusic. If one was unfamiliar with black metal, one might be reminded of Lustmord, or some other sort of deathambient, but with the confusional addition of actual riffs, and those hellish vox, and the strange primitive percussion, the end result a sort of metallicized slowcore, or a washed out ultradoom, or a blurred bleary black metal, however you describe it, Light have crafted some truly original, gorgeously bleak, warm and almost dreamy, slow motion buzzing black beauty.
Hand folded, hand assembled, stark white sleeves, with a Japanese style obi, and an extra inner sleeve, crazy limited to maybe 50 copies or so.
MPEG Stream: "When The Green Midwestern Sky Comes Crashing Down"
MPEG Stream: "When The Flood Waters Come Rushing In"

LIGHT Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever (self-released) cd-r 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Earlier this year, we reviewed a super limited avant outsider blackened doom record called A Million Dead Beneath The Ice, by a duo called Light. Which was anything but light, in fact, it was one of the darkest and most harrowing discs we'd heard in a long time, a slow motion drone drenched funereal crawl, with a lush almost orchestrated feel that definitely reminded us of Skepticism. And if anything, record number two, the awesomely titled Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever is even more! More black, more doomy, more droney, more beautiful, more harsh and more bizarre.
One long hour long track, which begins with a slowly cycling piano figure, draped over a wash of reverbed tones, distant rumbles, the sound gorgeous, slightly atonal, ominous and sinister, and then there are the vocals, a nearly impossible to describe high pitched shriek, that almost sounds like someone screaming as they breathe in, a twisted strangled howl, totally at odds with the music underneath, reminding us a bit of Tomb Of..., who also paired up piano and black metal vokills, but Light seems borne more of a free noise aesthetic. Minus the vocals, the sound on Life Is Meaningless, is a sort of abstract slowcore crawl, a little post rocky, a little doomy, a bit of black ambient drift, but the vocals are just SOOOO creepy, it definitely pushes it into a whole other realm. And suddenly what could have been something darkly pretty, becomes something fucked up and grimly gorgeous.
Like the first release (which is long out of print so don't ask), the packaging is a hand folded, hand assembled, plain grey origami style sleeve, with a Japanese style obi, and an extra inner sleeve, as well as a hand written insert, and again crazy limited to less than 50 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever (excerpt 2)"

LIGHT Worse Than Anyone Would Have Expected (self-released) cd-r 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Third and final release from this depressive black doom duo, and it's a fitting epitaph to a short but brilliant streak. Three super limited cd-r's, less than 200 all told, each one overflowing with blackened misery and gorgeous harrowing sonic blackness, the first, titled A Million Dead Beneath The Ice, gave way to the second, titled Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever, which brings us to Worse Than Anyone Would Have Expected, which should give you a decent impression of the overall vibe and tone of Light's distinctly UN-light sound.
Three looooooong tracks, thick caustic layers of buzzing low end drone, sparsely strummed acoustic guitar, shrieked vocals way down in the mix, funereal, glacial, miserable, not even plodding as there seems to be no drums, or if they are there, they're practically inaudible. The melodies are lilting and melancholic, there's some piano, the rumbling buzzing backdrop seems to coalesce into some sort of melody, the whole thing lurching in slow motion, grim, and dense, and miserably and mournfully lovely. Totally hypnotic .
The second track offers up more of the same, another lovely black expanse of pointillist piano, harrowing screams, and slow swells of black buzz, before finally segueing into the epic closing track, a formula similar to the first two, but somehow even slower, more abject, more ambient, so slow and spaced out and minimal, that it nearly ceases being metal or doom and is transformed into some sort of black ambient slowcore, a haunting doomic creep, that to these ears is as pretty as it is grim and harsh.
LIMITED TO ONLY 50 COPIES. Gorgeous packaging, black on black, black disc, elaborately folded sleeve with a black on black printed obi, super fancy, and most likely gone before you know it...
MPEG Stream: "The City"
MPEG Stream: "Again"

LIGHT SHALL PREVAIL Defeat The Reign Of The Horned One Through The Light Of Christ (E.E.E. Recordings) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Who would have thought that there was a world of black metallers out there bowing before the Lord, and no, not the Dark Lord, the, um LORD Lord. You know... Jesus Christ. God. It's true, there's a whole world of UN-black metal out there, white metal, with all the buzz and blast and then some, but none of the evil. Up until now, the spirit of these bands while not a secret, tended to be more subtle. With titles like "Goatcrush", "To The Unholy", "Unblackened", still sounded pretty evil, and band names like Agathothodion, Glaciial, Flaskavsae, if one weren't paying attention, one might be forgiven for thinking these bands were indeed true grim black metal.
But now we have the latest from Light Shall Prevail (get it?), whose new cd-r pulls no punches, especially with the title: "Defeat The Reign Of The Horned One Through The Light Of Christ." Okay. This is some seriously, spiritual, totally positive, but still extremely harsh and buzzing and ultra fucked up Un-black metal. Those of you who remember our review of Light Shall Prevail's last ep, might just remember us hailing the song "Goatcrush" as maybe the best black metal song EVER!!! And this disc has about ten contenders for the very same honor.
When you actually think about it, these bands are indeed true, and not even just in a religious sense, they are true to their vision, and their ideals. Although we're not exactly sure what it is exactly that makes white metal so completely and amazingly twisted and tweaked. But we like it! As grim as any black metal band you can name, in fact, if anything the sound of these bands, Light Shall Prevail especially, is more grim and true, unique and fucked up, way more individual and out there than the majority of the cookie cutter black metal bands we hear every day. Light Shall Prevail is the work of E.H. who also runs the mighty E.E.E. label and who has been releasing amazing and totally brilliant unblack metal for a decade now. We've reviewed records by Glaciial, Light Shall Prevail, Agathothodion, but there's tons of other amazing white metal bands, Bedeiah, Whispers From A Dead World, Drommer, Offerblod, Dark Procession, Wrathful Plague, Aristaeus, Nahum, Flaskavsae, With Fire, Elgibbor, Moiriah, we can't keep up. We've discovered this whole new trove of mind blowing (un)black metal and we can not get enough!
Light Shall Prevail might be the closest to sounding like a classic Norwegian style black metal band, however, there are plenty of elements that will have you alternating between scratching your head, banging it wildly and bowing it in reverence. The drums are a machine, and thus do some fucked up things no human drummer could (or would) do, whether its' stuttering impossible fast and machinelike, or sounding processed and overblown way down in the murky buzz, then there's the recording, super lo-fi, so much so that the blown out in the red distortion and tape hiss and all the various recording inconsistencies are as much a part of the sound as the riffs or the vocals, and holy shit, the vocals, from alien sleestak garble to weird anguished howl to demonic shriek. And the songs just rule. killer riffs, convoluted arrangements, trippy psychedelic breakdowns, fucked up dubbed out drum parts, guitars that go from weird processed stutter, to insectoid buzz to reverb drenched twang, usually within the same song.
A couple of our customers absolutely refused to pick up any of these unblack records, they were seemingly offended by the idea of unblack black metal, but ultimately it's their loss. We'd venture to guess that 99% of black metal fans (and probably bands for that matter), aren't actually Satanists anyway and very probably like the music FOR the music, not for the corpse paint or the spikes or the faux scary grimness, and as cool and fun as it is to get into the whole theater of it, the mysterious forest born black metal, the corpse-painted wraiths spewing hateful sounds direct from the depths of hell... ultimately, this is MUSIC, pure and simple, dark, mysterious, fucked up, passionate, buzzing, brutal, grim, blackened, brilliant music, and Light Shall Prevail are most definitely all of those things and more....
MPEG Stream: "The Lament Of The Prophet"
MPEG Stream: "Wicked Deeds Of The Rich"
MPEG Stream: "The Remnant Regathered"

LIGHT SHALL PREVAIL Goatcrush (E.E.E. Recordings) cd-r ep 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We talk about black metal all the time. Cuz, we love it. A lot. The blacker and more evil the better. Harsh and hateful, nihilistic and brutal, true evil rendered in sound!
But why exactly are the black metal hordes so angry? What exactly are they fighting against? God? The Christians? The powers of Good? Themselves? Well if we've learned anything, it's that good can not exist without evil. Dark can not exist without light, and black metal can not exist without white metal.
What?
That's right, it's time for the darkness to be pushed back a bit. It's time for that age old battle to be fought with buzzing riffs and thrashing blast beats, howled anguished vocals and rumbling low end. And at the front lines are Light Shall Prevail, masters of their own bizarre black metal buzz. That's right, it's still black metal, in fact, this white metal is more black and fucked up and awesomely weird than most of the more 'true' and 'grim' stuff we hear all the time.
Strange off kilter riffing, insanely fast blasts (either a drum machine, or an unbelievable drummer), super damaged start stop arrangements, weirdly catchy melodies, all prickly and tangled up in the fuzzy black ambience. A super heavy, but still lo-fi production. And the vocals. SO nuts, From monstrous growls, to Urfaust like croon, to shrieked howl. Such an awesome combination. Lots of midtempo chug mixed in with the buzzing blasts too. In fact just listen to the title track, probably the weirdest, catchiest black metal song EVER, with it's convoluted stop start gallop. So fucking cool.
Absolutely essential black metal listening. Even for the grim and evil amongst you. Once you hear this buzzing brilliance you won't be able to resist the power of the light. Just don't get too close, lest your black soul be cleansed and redeemed!
MPEG Stream: "Goatcrush"
MPEG Stream: "Refusal Of Damnation"
MPEG Stream: "The Call To Repentance"

LIGHT SHALL PREVAIL I Long To Destroy The Darkness Forever (E.E.E. Recordings) 3xcd-r 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This whole unblack metal movement is still relatively new for us, having only discovered this burgeoning scene within the last year, but we've become sort of obsessed, going totally nuts for records from Drommer (reviewed elsewhere on this list), Glaciial, Agathothodion, and the band that seems to sort of rule and define the scene, Light Shall Prevail, whose main man also runs the mighty E.E.E. label, home to pretty much all our favorite unblack artists.
We've reviewed two LSP discs, the Goatcrush ep (featuring what Andee considers to be maybe one of the greatest black metal songs of all time, the stuttering convoluted title track) and the most recent full length Defeat The Reign Of The Horned One Through The Light Of Christ. Both completely mindblowing, buzzy and blasting but super strange and not at all like the rest of the black metal we hear. Well, apparently, LSP has been recording like crazy for the last few years and I Long To Destroy The Darkness Forever contains every bit of recorded material to date, excluding the two proper releases. And while there's plenty of blasting buzz and epic un-blackness, it's the early lo-fi stuff that is totally blowing our mind. It's easy to see why the newer more polished stuff is still so weird, cuz the early stuff is so completely damaged and bizarrely brilliant.
Going all the way back to 2003, the majority of the first disc is culled from one of the first LSP recording and goes from ultra lo-fi grim buzz, to strange mechanical, almost industrial buzz and stutter, at times almost sounding like a skipping cd, or some 4 tracked industrial house music, but with creepy keyboards and growled vocals, the drums and guitar so distorted that a few tracks almost sound like some sort of weird fuzz collage, underpinned by impossibly quiet beats, and creepy gurgles, but sometimes blissing out into what almost sounds like some weird jangly buzz pop. The last three tracks on the first disc are the earliest, and are pretty killer too, not quite as fucked up sounding, more like a killer grim practice space recording, all blown out cymbals and muted insectoid buzz, but as with future E.E.E. productions, completely unhinged vocals, impossible low vomitous growls that spill over the rest of the music like some spewed black bile. So good.
Disc two jumps ahead 2 or 3 years, and things are still pretty weird, fuzzed out indie jangle, lots of tape hiss, but the metal is much heavier, with louder guitar, weird programmed drums, and another bizarre vocal inflection, a screeched anguished mewl that sometimes dips into a growly grunt. The riffs totally slay and the groundwork is being set for future LSP aktions. Some track still veer into some serious fucked up sonic territory, cymbals so hot and sizzling they swallow up everything around them, long expanses of Skaters' style lo-fi murk, and a few moments of strange black balladry.
Finally, disc three, culled from two split releases from last year, finds LSP sounding pretty much like they do now, a confusionally brilliant and baffling black metal buzz, from furious thrashing blasts, to loping midtempo lurch, to strange ambient strum and shuffle, to doomy trudge, to blissy drift and back again, with fucked up vocals, amazingly convoluted drum machine programming, incredible riffs, all sorts of fuzzy and buzzy ambience, just absolutely some of the most original and intense (un) black metal we've ever heard.
Packaged in a slim triple jewel case with NO tray card, so don't panic, that's the way they come. A photocopied cd booklet with all the track info and liner notes inside.
And of course, this is ULTRA LIMITED! And ALREADY OUT OF PRINT! We took more than half of the pressing, but even so, these won't be around long...
MPEG Stream: "Stuck In The Black Ice"
MPEG Stream: "Lay Flowers On My Grave"
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Three"

LIGHT SHALL PREVAIL Retrospective - A Collection Of Rare And Unreleased Tracks: 2001-2005 (E.E.E. Recordings) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We're not sure which is more amazing, the brilliant hypnotic blackness that is the damaged unblack metal of Light Shall Prevail, or the impossibly varied sound quality each track displays. Granted these were all recorded at various times, and in various places, but most bands tend to use the same 4 track or 8 track, so the variances are slight, but these tracks are all over the map, from blasting ear splitting drums and barely audible guitars, to blown out in the red speaker frying fury, to muddy murky fuzzy blur, to damaged tape dropout buzz, but the thing is, it's like having another instrument. It's almost as if instead of using a different effect, or some strange instrument, the studio became the instrument, as if some songs required crazy ultra distorted production, while others needed to be super clean, same with the guitars, they go from brittle jangle to muddy buzz, all of it fucking gorgeous and demented.
Let's back up a few steps. Light Shall Prevail is spearheading an ever growing movement of un-black metal, white metal, Christian metal, and in doing so creating some of the most original, most damage, most fucked up, and most brilliant (un)black metal we've heard in forever. Not only that, but he also runs the E.E.E. label who seem to single handedly be spreading the word, unleashing cd-r after cd-r of amazing and perplexing unblackness on the world. By now avid readers of the AQ list should have already been exposed to some of our favorite unblack metal bands: the "non-religious dark ambient" of Drommer, the white metal super group Glaciial, Light Shall Prevail obviously, and the bizarre un-blackness of Agathothodion. There's so much good stuff we can barely keep up. A bunch of the best tracks will be compiled for a future double disc un-black compilation on Andee's tUMULt label, but for now we whole heartedly recommend tracking down every single E.E.E. release you can. They're all heavy and weird and fucked up and amazing. None maybe more than this one, another collection of unreleased tracks from unblack flagship outfit Light Shall Prevail.
Beginning with a 38 second track of nothing but tape buzz sort of sets the mood, with "The Dark Dark Fortress" following up right afterwards, a moody looping riff, simple blasting drums, and a demonic throat shredding shriek that pins the needles, sends everything in the red and swallows all the other instruments whole. There seems to be only one part, but it's a good one, with the vocals doing impossible and harsh things, soaring and shrieking and adding a whole layer of distorted damage to the buzzing droning blackness. "There Is Something In The Trees" is next, with a killer super poppy riff, very Nirvana-esque, with drums buried WAY down in the mix, almost like a super rapid heartbeat, all except for the high-hat, and the vocals are a slowed down gargle, dripping over everything like melting black tar, and again, it a single mesmerizing riff looped over and over and over until we're totally mesmerized and under its spell. "One Thousand Winters, is ultra lo-fi, the guitars a mere whisper, the drums a relentless machine, sounding not unlike a typewriter gone haywire.
"Stuck In The Black Ice" might bee one of our favorites, beginning with muted muddy jangle guitar, before the drums (and the distortion kick in) and suddenly everything is ultra distorted, totally saturated, crumbling and blown out, the vocals and the guitar both competing for midrange space, the drums a throbbing blast of muddy hiss, so completely fierce and furious and so goddamn great. "Lay Flowers On My Grave" is doomy and midtempo, the guitars barely audible, bathed in flanger, slowly whirring through its cycle, the drums relentless, a simple click-click-click, the vocals, sung-spoken, in a demented drawl, everything distant and washed out sounding, adding even more melancholia to the depressive despondent vibe, and the breakdown where the main guitar drops out, leaving a faraway clean guitar, the haunting vocals and that never ending single beat rhythm, is ultra creepy indeed.
The rest of the collection continues in the same gloriously haphazard trajectory. Every track simple and buzzing, the guitars a veritable spectrum of various shades of buzz and murk and mud and blur and blow out, the vocals too, from hysterical shriek to maniacal mumble to super distorted cookie monster to growled guttural grunt, the drums a constant mesmerizing pulse, at times it's almost like some experimental noise rock record, incorporating black metal elements, but at other times, it's still some of the most raw and intensely personal metal we've heard. EVER.
MPEG Stream: "The Dark Dark Fortress"
MPEG Stream: "There Is Something In The Trees"
MPEG Stream: "One Thousand Winters"
MPEG Stream: "Stuck In The Black Ice"

LIGHT SHALL PREVAIL Unearthen Hymns Of Revolt (E.E.E. Recordings) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
By now, it should be painfully obvious, that around these parts we seriously love our damaged and demented, fucked up and freaky music. The weirder the better, be it strange production, inept playing, shoddy recording, or truly inspired madness, we can't get enough strange sounds. The sad thing is that many of our favorite strange sound makers, gradually evolve, which is not always bad thing, but often means as bands get better, as the recordings get tighter, the production more polished, the songwriting less haphazard, well, often a band begins to sound more and more like the rest of the regular bands, and less like all the things that made them so unique and special.
Thankfully, such is not the case with king of the unblack scene, Light Shall Prevail. This is the fifth or sixth release so far from this one man Christian black metal band, and most definitely the tightest and most polished, but just as far out, fucked up, brilliant and blackened as any records past. Sure some of the older stuff benefited from insane production, turning black blasts into buzzing smears of what the fuck, or making blurred frosty riffage sound like alien house music, and on Goatcrush, he may have crafted the greatest chunk of buzzing blackness EVER, in the title track, be it black, unblack or whatever... But Unearthen Hymns Of Revolt is another glorious step in his songwriting evolution, and a definite step up in production and we're loving it. No matter how much we dug all the fucked up weirdness in the past, at the heart of all of those tracks, every one, was an amazing riff, and a killer song. Now it's just easier to hear them.
Three songs may seem like an ep, but these three looong tracks add up to almost thirty minutes. And as usual, every inch is packed with roiling buzzing fuzzed out blasts, insane programmed drums, bizarre super effected vocals, all tangled up into super complex and convoluted arrangements that manage to be trancelike and droney at the same time. We've gushed like crazy about LSP, the E.E.E. label, all the other unblack bands, check the AQ site for more words and sounds testifying as to the baffling brilliance of this stuff. Needless to say, if you're already a convert, you need this one too, and if you've yet to be baptized in the unblack waters of Light Shall Prevail, this is as good a place to start as any. In fact, it might be the best place to start, as these three tracks sound the most like classic grim black metal out of any of the previously released LSP stuff. But what makes it all so great, is that the weirdness, the fucked up-ness still lurks right below the surface, revealing themselves more and more on subsequent listens. Trust us, some of the best (un)black metal you'll ever hear. Check out the last few minutes of the 15+ minute closer, as the guitars begin to digitally crumble, the drums splintering into clouds of sizzle and skitter, a weird blackened meltdown, so bizarre and so fucking awesome. And how about the best (un)black metal song title ever: "Bonded By (His) Blood". Needless to say SO RECOMMENDED.
And while you're at it, order ALL the E.E.E. stuff, not only is it all amazing, but the label recently had their headquarters broken into and burgled, losing tons of money and equipment, instruments and computers, they're amazing folks, making amazing music and could use the support!!
MPEG Stream: "Spake"
MPEG Stream: "Bonded By (His) Blood"

LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH Baphometic Chaosivm (Metal Blade) cd 14.98
Full length number three from these LA black thrashers, and easily their most ambitious. Just check out the opener, which weaves a dark spell that's simultaneously harrowing and hellish, melodic and psychedelic, the drums a tribal churn, the vokills a sick rasp, but its most notable element is the use of the bass as lead instrument, the guitars swirling and indistinct, while the bass picks out the moody melody. It's only an intro but it definitely sets the stage for some interesting sonic elements to pop up throughout, but once the song proper kicks in, the bass returns to it's typical black metal role sadly, as being mostly inaudible, but the band lay down a fierce sprawl of Scandinavian buzz and blast, with some awesome classic metal leads, some cool dynamic stop starts and a pretty progged out arrangement, and when the song shifts gears again near the end, the sound seem to ooze and melt and slither psychedelically before finishing off more metallically.
The band mix it up throughout, though, clean chantlike vocals, distorted and weirdly processed, droned out ambience, warped soundscaping, super cinematic ambience, that sounds almost sampled, churning dirgelike doom, and that bass does surface elsewhere, adding extra melody, more layers, plenty of heft throughout, there's definitely a late period Marduk vibe to much of the record, due in no small part to the doomy dirginess, but the band spend most of the time spewing some seriously sick black death heaviness, roiling riffage wrapped around insane torrential drumming, tranced out and super hypnotic, in fact, much of the record seems more hypnotic than heavy, which is not a bad thing, but definitely positions this outside of most black/thrash metal, the production not massive as much as it is textured and tripped out, strap on some headphones and you can hear all sorts of aktion in the background, that at times sounds almost like some demonic symphony weaving a tense minor key backdrop.
Check out the extremely badass video as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXZKxu9Zcx0 (we've never seen the drummer do the twirling hair thing, WHILE playing!)
MPEG Stream: "Baphometic Chaosivm"
MPEG Stream: "Acid Gate"
MPEG Stream: "Psychic Waters"

LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH The Golden Plague (BlackMetal.Com) cd 13.98
What's in a name? Pretty much everything when the name is LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH. Really, fuck all these bands called Sword something or other, how can they not be completely and utterly slain by a horde with a name like LSOD!? They can't, and they shall!
We reviewed the new record by Endless Blizzard last time around, a black hole heavy platter packed with furious frenzied wintry blackened old school black metal, well, EB guitarist, Roskva, was wielding his axe in LSOD before the Endless Blizzard even began. As you might imagine, the sounds are similar, a definite nod to classic old school metal, a bit of death, a bit of thrash, raw and filthy, but still plenty mathy and complex, the drums manic, with impossible flurries of lightning fast blasts, the guitars thick and downtuned, snarling and buzzing, the vokills a guttural caterwaul, the songs veering from black thrash into pounding blackened doom to almost crusty grindy thrash. Plenty of nods to Celtic Frost and Hellhammer, as well as the Nordic BM aristocracy, with a SUPER heavy production, that manages to make the whole thing crushing and brutal, without losing any of its raw grimness. Way recommended. Especially if you dug the Endless Blizzard. Yet another horde to perhaps be considered for inclusion in the rarified ranks of the West Coast USBM elite.
MPEG Stream: "The Golden Plague"
MPEG Stream: "Plunder & Lightning"

LIK Lekamen Illusionen Kallet (Agonia) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Managed to get a little handful of these back in!
Third and last album from this now defunct, Swedish one-man band (hey how can a one man band "split up"?). It's one of those wonderfully weird black metal records where the usual tropes -- grim, dark, buzzing -- while applicable, don't fully describe it. A lot of this IS buzzy and fuzzy and dirgey and doomy, but also has a finger-snapping folkiness to it, almost jaunty. Deep voiced Viking vocals range over the midpaced, heavy, riff-centric compositions, in which we sense a strange stiffness of rhythm, unsteady at the busier margins of the beat, a seasick slowingdown and speedingup, that gives this some of its unusual feel / amateur charm. As this short-but-epic disc (four songs, 24 and a half minutes) progresses, Lik's atmospheric moodiness increases, the tempos slow, guitar licks (liks?) stretch out gorgeously to psych proportions. There's an almost pop undercurrent here, an emotional sweetness... it's not standard black metal nor is it a lesson in chops. But WE like it a lot. If you read some other online reviews we've found, though, apparently that makes us "retards". Want to join us in the special ed class at black metal high school? Then put Lik (and some Benighted Leams, and of course some Striborg!) in your shopping cart...
MPEG Stream: "I Tidens Ande Ar Det Tron"
MPEG Stream: "Rod Puls"

LIKBLEK s/t (Daemon Worship Productions) cd 13.98

LITURGY Aesthethica (Thrill Jockey) cd 15.98
What is it about this band that inspires such controversy? Sure, any band of short haired hipsters that decides to play black metal is bound to get some heat from the true grim hordes, but with Liturgy it's off the charts. Could be frontman Hunter Hunt-Hendrix's diatribes on the intellectual roots of his band and music, maybe that combined with his pretty boy looks and his valley girl like diction - but hey it's all about the music, and as far as we're concerned Liturgy have definitely taken black metal and twisted it all up and made it their own. Sure we love the true grim classics, corpsepaint and raw primitive buzz, blasting necro metal, we do, and we maybe always will, but we gave up long ago on the whole 'troo' thing. If being true means only listening to one kind of music, and even then, only made by a certain approved sect of musicians, who would want that. It's a discussion that could go on for ages, and does on pretty much every metal messageboard on the web, but if you're reading this, odds are you're like us, you like cool, weird, GOOD music, and you don't care if someone thinks the music you love is 'true' or 'pure' or whatever, and odds are you don't just like black metal.
Which we think is probably a prerequisite for liking Liturgy. Because while this is most definitely black metal, all of HHH's intellectual posturing, just might not be posturing after all, cuz this stuff is WEIRD. FUCKED UP. SUPER COMPLEX. Minimal, but somehow totally maximal too. The black metal tropes are present and accounted for, super fast picking, soaring minor key melodies, insectoid buzz, frantic blast beats, howled vox, but, the arrangements, the song structure, even the sound, is far removed from Burzum and Immortal and Satyricon and Mayhem and all the rest. In the past, we've described Liturgy as sounding like a black metal Arvo Part, and that definitely still applies, it's as if these guys filter their BM through Part and Feldman and some sort of modern minimalism. The songs are rife with drones, and intricate harmonies, the rhythms complicated and convoluted, the buzz often wound up into soaring sheets of high end frenzy, the drums locked tight with the guitars, the songs often, a series of short phrases repeated over and over, very minimal and mesmerizing.
Opener "High Gold" is the perfect example, with it's soaring majestic black metallisms, arranged into seemingly brief blasts, lush high end swells, a sort of psychedelic ur-drone rendered in blasts and buzz. "True Will" is slightly more traditionally black metal, but even here, the band lock into these impossibly dense drones, where all the instruments lock onto a single high note and hold it, and keep holding it, creating so much tension, before splintering back into something more traditionally buzzy, but only slightly. The sound is ALL high end, all upper register, brittle and soaring. There did seem to be one other element in play, but on we couldn't put our finger on untilÉ
"Generation" which finds the band loosing a serious math rock onslaught, super technical, totally repetitive, the guitars churning, locking tight into these gnarled bits of crunch and chug, the drums mathy and meticulous, it's like these guys took 2 or 3 of their favorite riffs from Don Caballero songs and composed a super heavy, super minimal, almost looped sounding in places, math rock epic. It's so good. And you can hear the other element that finds it's way into the more black metal jams on the record, AND you can also observe the band's unique compositional strategy more easily in the math rock context, so when the next track begins, it's a killer mix of blasting soaring blackness, and gnarled mathiness, AND of course modern minimalism.
So yeah, the true grim corpsepainted hordes should definitely avoid this, they wouldn't enjoy it, or even get it, anyway, but for everyone else, this is some epic, majestic, and yeah, transcendental, math infused minimal black metal majesty of the highest order.
MPEG Stream: "High Gold"
MPEG Stream: "Returner"
MPEG Stream: "Generation"
MPEG Stream: "Veins Of God"

LITURGY Aesthethica (Thrill Jockey) 2lp 17.98
What is it about this band that inspires such controversy? Sure, any band of short haired hipsters that decides to play black metal is bound to get some heat from the true grim hordes, but with Liturgy it's off the charts. Could be frontman Hunter Hunt-Hendrix's diatribes on the intellectual roots of his band and music, maybe that combined with his pretty boy looks and his valley girl like diction - but hey it's all about the music, and as far as we're concerned Liturgy have definitely taken black metal and twisted it all up and made it their own. Sure we love the true grim classics, corpsepaint and raw primitive buzz, blasting necro metal, we do, and we maybe always will, but we gave up long ago on the whole 'troo' thing. If being true means only listening to one kind of music, and even then, only made by a certain approved sect of musicians, who would want that. It's a discussion that could go on for ages, and does on pretty much every metal messageboard on the web, but if you're reading this, odds are you're like us, you like cool, weird, GOOD music, and you don't care if someone thinks the music you love is 'true' or 'pure' or whatever, and odds are you don't just like black metal.
Which we think is probably a prerequisite for liking Liturgy. Because while this is most definitely black metal, all of HHH's intellectual posturing, just might not be posturing after all, cuz this stuff is WEIRD. FUCKED UP. SUPER COMPLEX. Minimal, but somehow totally maximal too. The black metal tropes are present and accounted for, super fast picking, soaring minor key melodies, insectoid buzz, frantic blast beats, howled vox, but, the arrangements, the song structure, even the sound, is far removed from Burzum and Immortal and Satyricon and Mayhem and all the rest. In the past, we've described Liturgy as sounding like a black metal Arvo Part, and that definitely still applies, it's as if these guys filter their BM through Part and Feldman and some sort of modern minimalism. The songs are rife with drones, and intricate harmonies, the rhythms complicated and convoluted, the buzz often wound up into soaring sheets of high end frenzy, the drums locked tight with the guitars, the songs often, a series of short phrases repeated over and over, very minimal and mesmerizing.
Opener "High Gold" is the perfect example, with it's soaring majestic black metallisms, arranged into seemingly brief blasts, lush high end swells, a sort of psychedelic ur-drone rendered in blasts and buzz. "True Will" is slightly more traditionally black metal, but even here, the band lock into these impossibly dense drones, where all the instruments lock onto a single high note and hold it, and keep holding it, creating so much tension, before splintering back into something more traditionally buzzy, but only slightly. The sound is ALL high end, all upper register, brittle and soaring. There did seem to be one other element in play, but on we couldn't put our finger on untilÉ
"Generation" which finds the band loosing a serious math rock onslaught, super technical, totally repetitive, the guitars churning, locking tight into these gnarled bits of crunch and chug, the drums mathy and meticulous, it's like these guys took 2 or 3 of their favorite riffs from Don Caballero songs and composed a super heavy, super minimal, almost looped sounding in places, math rock epic. It's so good. And you can hear the other element that finds it's way into the more black metal jams on the record, AND you can also observe the band's unique compositional strategy more easily in the math rock context, so when the next track begins, it's a killer mix of blasting soaring blackness, and gnarled mathiness, AND of course modern minimalism.
So yeah, the true grim corpsepainted hordes should definitely avoid this, they wouldn't enjoy it, or even get it, anyway, but for everyone else, this is some epic, majestic, and yeah, transcendental, math infused minimal black metal majesty of the highest order.
MPEG Stream: "High Gold"
MPEG Stream: "Returner"
MPEG Stream: "Generation"
MPEG Stream: "Veins Of God"

LITURGY Renihilation (20 Buck Spin) lp 14.98
Now available on vinyl!
These guys sent us an lp a long while back, and somehow we totally slept on it. Not sure why, a 12" x 12" image of a cloudy sky, the sun glinting in the background, and the words "PURE TRANSCENDENTAL BLACK METAL" writ large in big black records across the front, and inside, just what the cover promised some seriously buzzing blazing blackness. It's not surprising these guys found there way to 20 Buck Spin, a pretty good fit for sure for this NY horde.
Unlike the blissed out blackened ethereal transcendentalism of the lp, back when Liturgy was a one man bedroom black metal band, Renihilation finds Liturgy expanded to a 4 piece, and the sound is much more raw and organic, still blown out and pretty blissy, goddamn soaring and epic in fact, but it sounds more like a proper rock band, although the drumming is still inhumanly fast, and the band lock into these cool, weird, and very un-black metal sounding high end trills, that only make the sound that much more mysterious and mystical. The band claim some unlikely non-metal influences, but as you get into Renihilation, it's easy to hear that there's way more going on here than Ulver or Darkthrone worship, the band slipping into lurching, almost mathy breakdowns, incredible dynamics, that almost sounds like Harvey Milk at 78rpm, the sort of stop start, sway and lumber, that only works if the band is tight as fuck.
These songs are not super long either, but they feel majestic, and sprawling, and never ending, in a good way, the guitars are frantic, the drumming relentless, the guitars seem to exist only in the upper registers, like wild psychedelic leads transformed into some sort of blackened tremolo picking, so instead of black metal, these jams almost sound like modern classical compositions, like Arvo Part composing for black metal band, when a song ends, you feel exhausted, and drained, like at the end of a long journey, but before you can even catch your breath, the band explode into action once again. And before you know it, they're locked into another high end blast of extreme tension, no let up, no slipping into acoustic interludes, it's almost like the musical version holding your breath, soaring as high and for as long as (in)humanly possible, so when the band does pause briefly, it knocks you on your ass, of when they switch gears and get all spacious and dynamic, it nearly blows your mind.
When we first got this, we only listened to it a couple times, and thought it was pretty cool, but on repeated listens it is proving itself to be truly transcendental, and unlike almost all of the other black metal out there, and is quickly becoming a contender for black metal record of the year.
MPEG Stream: "Pagan Dawn"
MPEG Stream: "Mysterium"
MPEG Stream: "Ecstatic Rite"

LITURGY Renihilation (Ormolycka) cassette 5.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
BACK IN STOCK!!
This incredible collection of Pure Transcendental Black Metal is now available again, this time on the KVLT-est of formats, the cassette tape, and if you needed another reason to buy this Liturgy record again, other than it RULES, and that as we mentioned, KASSETTES ARE KVLT, well, the tape version includes a bonus track, a remix in fact, by our very own Andee. His FIRST EVER remix. Created with basically no knowledge of sound programs, and none of the original tracks, but within those constraints, he's whipped up a pretty kick ass, heavy, noisy, old school jungle version of maybe our favorite Liturgy track.
Here's what we had to say about Renihilation when we first listed it a year or two back:
These guys sent us an lp a long while back, and somehow we totally slept on it. Not sure why, a 12" x 12" image of a cloudy sky, the sun glinting in the background, and the words "PURE TRANSCENDENTAL BLACK METAL" writ large in big black records across the front, and inside, just what the cover promised some seriously buzzing blazing blackness. It's not surprising these guys found their way to 20 Buck Spin, a pretty good fit for sure for this NY horde.
Unlike the blissed out blackened ethereal transcendentalism of the lp, back when Liturgy was a one man bedroom black metal band, Renihilation finds Liturgy expanded to a 4 piece, and the sound is much more raw and organic, still blown out and pretty blissy, goddamn soaring and epic in fact, but it sounds more like a proper rock band, although the drumming is still inhumanly fast, and the band lock into these cool, weird, and very un-black metal sounding high end trills, that only make the sound that much more mysterious and mystical. The band claim some unlikely non-metal influences, but as you get into Renihilation, it's easy to hear that there's way more going on here than Ulver or Darkthrone worship, the band slipping into lurching, almost mathy breakdowns, incredible dynamics, that almost sounds like Harvey Milk at 78rpm, the sort of stop start, sway and lumber, that only works if the band is tight as fuck.
These songs are not super long either, but they feel majestic, and sprawling, and never ending, in a good way, the guitars are frantic, the drumming relentless, the guitars seem to exist only in the upper registers, like wild psychedelic leads transformed into some sort of blackened tremolo picking, so instead of black metal, these jams almost sound like modern classical compositions, like Arvo Part composing for black metal band, when a song ends, you feel exhausted, and drained, like at the end of a long journey, but before you can even catch your breath, the band explode into action once again. And before you know it, they're locked into another high end blast of extreme tension, no let up, no slipping into acoustic interludes, it's almost like the musical version holding your breath, soaring as high and for as long as (in)humanly possible, so when the band does pause briefly, it knocks you on your ass, of when they switch gears and get all spacious and dynamic, it nearly blows your mind.
When we first got this, we only listened to it a couple times, and thought it was pretty cool, but on repeated listens it is proving itself to be truly transcendental, unlike almost all of the other black metal out there, and is quickly becoming one of our new favorite black metal records...
MPEG Stream: "Pagan Dawn"
MPEG Stream: "Mysterium"
MPEG Stream: "Ecstatic Rite"
MPEG Stream: "PGN>DWN (TICWAR-ped MIX) (Excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "PGN>DWN (TICWAR-ped MIX) (Excerpt 2)"

LOCRIAN Dort Is Der Weg b/w Frozen In Ash (Flingco) 7" 10.98
Latest from these blackened doomdrone soundscapers, once again demonstrating that these guys definitely don't let any sort of genre classification define what they do, cuz what they do here is let their krautrock freak flag fly, whipping up a gorgeous chunk of hazy, rhythmic psychedelia, a reinterpretation of a classic Popol Vuh jam (from 1976), which does indeed channel the same sort of brooding, blissy mesmer, a dreamy, dark dirge, hypnotic and hazy, spidery guitar melodies over simple spare propulsive drumming, all wreathed by distant synth shimmer, the female vocals adding an ethereal angelic vibe to the proceedings. The track explodes about halfway through in a little squall of blackened psychnoise, only to slip right back into it, albeit a bit louder and heavier, some seriously mesmerizing metallic shoegaze krautrock heaviness, that had us sort of wishing these guys sounded like this all the time.
But then the B side goes ahead and reminds us why, as cool as that would be, we would most definitely miss what these guys do already. And what they do here is, lay down some frantic buzzy black metal riffing, letting the riffs unfurl into long streaks of tangled melodies and layered lush blackdronebuzz. Howled vokills come in, and the sounds drifts ever closer to pure black metal, the tension in waiting for the song to kick in, the blasting beats, the galloping crush, but instead, a sort of liquid black drone surface from below, and begins to envelop the sounds, the whole track growing darker and more dense, until finally, inexplicably, the band introduce melancholy acoustic guitar, and what sounds like piano, changing the tenor of the song completely, the buzzing riff no longer defining the sound, but instead acting as a blurred shimmery backdrop for the creeping dirgey drift that's now at the forefront, the drums minimal and spare, the sound seeming to build once again for an inevitable black metal blow out, but instead, the song shifts and fades out an soft squall of hazy shimmer and slowly dissipating psychedelia.
Maybe the best stuff we've heard from these guys, which at this point is saying a LOT.
Gorgeous packaging too, a striking black on black 4 panel sleeve, includes a sticker and a download code. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES.
MPEG Stream: "Dort Ist Der Weg"

LOCRIAN Drenched Lands (Small Doses / At War With False Noise) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Somehow this is exactly what we've been hankering for. A sprawling blackened songsuite, equal parts dark ambience, dense drones, heavy electronics, buzzy lo-fi almost new wave sounding keyboards, spidery post rock guitars and soft noise. Even writing it, that seems like a pretty unworkable, or unrealistic combination, but somehow these Midwesterners make it work. Big time.
They definitely could be considered sonic brethren of bands like SUNNO))), Pussygutt, MZ412, Troum, To Blacken The Pages, Wolf Eyes, Vulture Club and the like. However, Locrian take that sound someplace all their own, creating actual SONGS, as opposed to just soundscapes or drones. And there's a definitely black metal component for sure, no matter how abstract. Guitars are everywhere, seemingly the foundation for Locrian's sound, although as often as the guitars are unfurling spidery post rocky melodies, or distant reverbed riffs, they are also smeared into warm whirling clouds, left to drift and gradually change shape, or pulled apart and allowed to crumble into jagged little shards. Noise in a big component too, often the prettiest parts are treated with a patina of grinding soft focus electronics, or groaning downtuned tones.
The record opens with a gorgeous, elegiac guitar part, simple and stripped down, like it could be a black metal intro, until the organ comes in, wheezy and warbly, giving the track a weirdly lo-fi almost industrial vibe, definitely had us wishing it was in fact more than just a two minute intro.
That is until track two, "Ghost Repeater" takes over. An epic slow motion drift, strange echoey sounds floating in a warm muted sea of buzz and drone, glitched out bits of electronics, and eventually, a very epic black metal riff, that remains off in the distance, repeated and repeated until it too simply becomes another layer of sound.
"Barren Temple Obscured By Contaminated Fogs" (another great title), begins again with some creepy spindly guitar, draped over a deep pulsing low end, before transforming into some seriously abject and WAY abstract blacknoise. Shrieked distorted vokills over that same spidery guitar, Abruptum like ambience meets warped Goblinesque synth drones, the whole track twisted and warbly, eventually the vocals dropping out, leaving the buzzing guitars and wheezing keyboards to play out a super haunting horrorscape. "Epicedium" is delicate and crystalline, noodly guitar lines looped beneath a glimmering softly throbbing drone, peppered with fragmented strums, soon the track begins to grow gradually more and more distorted, the guitars more tense and frantic, the mood so haunting and weirdly beautiful and so subtly dramatic, reminding us of a super twisted soundtrack to some lost Giallo.
The record proper ends with another awesomely titled jam: "Obsolete Elegy In Cast Concrete", tolling bells, space kraut drones, all washed out and shimmery, the bed for some seriously corrosive guitar buzz and grind, adding layer after layer of crunch and rumble, but also slipping to some seriously black chug, joined by still more harsh hellish vox, a strange combination for sure but manages to be both beautiful and brutal, until the very end, where the track shifts gears and becomes all dramatic and melodic and weirdly majestic.
The cd features a bonus track called "Greyfield Shrines", which is nearly as long as all of the other tracks combined, a sprawling slow building blackened world of sound that slithers from hushed drift, to fractured buzz, to woozy moody ambience to blown out speaker shredding crunch, absolutely epic, super cinematic, mysterious, and even at it's noisiest, still quite melodic and blackly beautiful. Most definitely a track that could have been (and we think maybe was) a record all on its own.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES. Cool fold over arigato-pack style sleeve, with a full color printed booklet. And for anyone going to the Matchitehew metal/noise festival in Chicago in a few weeks, you'll be able to catch these guys live.
MPEG Stream: "Obsolete Elegy In Effluvia and Dross"
MPEG Stream: "Ghost Repeater"
MPEG Stream: "Obsolete Elegy In Lost Concrete"

LOCRIAN Drenched Lands (Bloodlust) lp + 3" cd-r 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL AS AN LP + 3" CD-R (as the record apparently was too long to fit on a single lp)!!!
Somehow this is exactly what we've been hankering for. A sprawling blackened songsuite, equal parts dark ambience, dense drones, heavy electronics, buzzy lo-fi almost new wave sounding keyboards, spidery post rock guitars and soft noise. Even writing it, that seems like a pretty unworkable, or unrealistic combination, but somehow these Midwesterners make it work. Big time.
They definitely could be considered sonic brethren of bands like SUNNO))), Pussygutt, MZ412, Troum, To Blacken The Pages, Wolf Eyes, Vulture Club and the like. However, Locrian take that sound someplace all their own, creating actual SONGS, as opposed to just soundscapes or drones. And there's a definitely black metal component for sure, no matter how abstract. Guitars are everywhere, seemingly the foundation for Locrian's sound, although as often as the guitars are unfurling spidery post rocky melodies, or distant reverbed riffs, they are also smeared into warm whirling clouds, left to drift and gradually change shape, or pulled apart and allowed to crumble into jagged little shards. Noise in a big component too, often the prettiest parts are treated with a patina of grinding soft focus electronics, or groaning downtuned tones.
The record opens with a gorgeous, elegiac guitar part, simple and stripped down, like it could be a black metal intro, until the organ comes in, wheezy and warbly, giving the track a weirdly lo-fi almost industrial vibe, definitely had us wishing it was in fact more than just a two minute intro.
That is until track two, "Ghost Repeater" takes over. An epic slow motion drift, strange echoey sounds floating in a warm muted sea of buzz and drone, glitched out bits of electronics, and eventually, a very epic black metal riff, that remains off in the distance, repeated and repeated until it too simply becomes another layer of sound.
"Barren Temple Obscured By Contaminated Fogs" (another great title), begins again with some creepy spindly guitar, draped over a deep pulsing low end, before transforming into some seriously abject and WAY abstract blacknoise. Shrieked distorted vokills over that same spidery guitar, Abruptum like ambience meets warped Goblinesque synth drones, the whole track twisted and warbly, eventually the vocals dropping out, leaving the buzzing guitars and wheezing keyboards to play out a super haunting horrorscape. "Epicedium" is delicate and crystalline, noodly guitar lines looped beneath a glimmering softly throbbing drone, peppered with fragmented strums, soon the track begins to grow gradually more and more distorted, the guitars more tense and frantic, the mood so haunting and weirdly beautiful and so subtly dramatic, reminding us of a super twisted soundtrack to some lost Giallo.
The record proper ends with another awesomely titled jam: "Obsolete Elegy In Cast Concrete", tolling bells, space kraut drones, all washed out and shimmery, the bed for some seriously corrosive guitar buzz and grind, adding layer after layer of crunch and rumble, but also slipping to some seriously black chug, joined by still more harsh hellish vox, a strange combination for sure but manages to be both beautiful and brutal, until the very end, where the track shifts gears and becomes all dramatic and melodic and weirdly majestic.
The 3" cd-r features a cd track that's not on the vinyl called "Greyfield Shrines", which is nearly as long as all of the other tracks combined, a sprawling slow building blackened world of sound that slithers from hushed drift, to fractured buzz, to woozy moody ambience to blown out speaker shredding crunch, absolutely epic, super cinematic, mysterious, and even at it's noisiest, still quite melodic and blackly beautiful. Most definitely a track that could have been (and we think maybe was) a record all on its own.
MPEG Stream: "Obsolete Elegy In Effluvia and Dross"
MPEG Stream: "Ghost Repeater"
MPEG Stream: "Obsolete Elegy In Lost Concrete"

LOCRIAN Falling Towers / After The Torchlight (Black Horzions) cassette 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest jam from these atmospheric black metal drone ambient soundscapers. Now expanded to a trio, this epic two track workout finds the band sounding better than ever. Slow burning riffs churn relentlessly over a swirl of electronics and rumbling drones, vocals drift ghostlike throughout, melodies peal amidst the crumbling low end and heaving blackness, like some epic post doom, stripped of it drums and blurred into whirling shimmering riffscapes, haunting and otherworldly, abject and post industrial, pulsing and throbbing, gradually transforming from doomdrone to dreamdrift, but remaining heavy and mysterious.
The second track begins with a buzzing black riff, but instead of exploding into a blast of black fury, the riff seems to melt into the background, the various drones and tones bleeding into the riff, all smeared into a swirling black cloud of slow burning blackness, washed out and gauzy, growing more and more abstract, the riff pulled apart, the notes left to drift amidst a vast sea of wheezing chordal shimmer and crumbling glitched out electronics. So awesome. And if that wasn't enough, the flipside features a palindromic rendering of the two songs, the whole first side played in reverse, a warped woozy, swooping bit of twisted droned out black mystery.
Super sweet packaging, silver reflective sticker on the tape, seven panel, silver ink on black matte j-card. LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!

LOCRIAN Plague Journal (Bloodlust!) 7" 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Super limited tour only 7", we got the very last handful. Unlike the blackened drones on Locrian's full length, this is way more in the realm of guitar heaviness, not quite black metal, but there is definitely some shades of black happening. A killer riff fragment, looped over and over, hypnotic and trancelike, slowly evolving in tone and timbre, getting higher and more jagged, while all around it, the ambient sounds build to a thunderous almost industrial cacophony.
The B side is a billowy bit of spaced out drift, trippy synth shimmer, another looped bit of abstract guitar, swirling effects, layered textures, erupting into a stretch of slow motion doominess right at the end. More dark heavy beauty from this Chicago duo.
All white cover, white labels, very little info, a Xeroxed insert with liner notes. 300 copies, these are the last ones ever.

LOCRIAN Visible / Invisible (Small Doses) 3"cd-r 4.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ultra crazy limited tour only 3"cd-r from these Chicago blackened dronelords, we tried to order a ton of these, but managed to get less than a dozen. Considering it was limited to 93 copies, and most of those went on tour with the band, these are most likely the last and only copies we'll ever get.
Which is a bummer cuz this is really great. Two tracks, both the same length, the second is the exact reverse of track one - which makes this a musical palindrome. Prettier than most of the other Locrian stuff, delicate and drifty, washed out and woozy, long fuzzy layered drones, a little bit space-y, very hypnotic and trancelike, the end of the first track (and thus the beginning of the second) builds to a buzzing blown out looped sounding coda, which then follows the reverse path through the length of the second track eventually settling back down into some soft sun dappled dronebliss, before finally fading out completely. Quite lovely, even the heavy parts are more pretty than heavy. Only 10 or so of these in stock. Be quick, or be without...
LIMITED TO 93 COPIES. Housed in a mini plastic sleeve, with a cool black on black fold out insert.
MPEG Stream: "Visible / Invisible"
MPEG Stream: "Invisible / Visible"

LOCRIAN & CHRISTOPH HEEMANN s/t (Handmade Birds) cd 12.98
Now here to list on compact disc, too!
Christoph Heemann (of HNAS , Mirror, and many other storied tape music/drone outfits), finds himself in yet another collaboration, this time with none other than aQ faves, Chicago's blackened doom drone duo Locrian, and the results are fruitful to say the least. Albeit a bleak and black fruit, that the shiny and happy amongst you might be hesitant to taste. But then, there's much to enjoy, even for the less adventurous, in the moody drifting darkness conjured up here.
We see Locrian dialing back the harshness in favor of a more hushed and dreary post apocalyptic soundscapery. Opener "Hecatomb" starts with a creepily stark, almost Nitschian drone, complete with what sound like a cacophony of burbling horns, with disassociated fragments of 12 string guitar floating atop a heady haze of drifting textures. Part way through a lush drift of beautiful piano harmonies intermingle with a pulsating tom tom, while scraping doom-laden electronics lie buried beneath the surface, creating a haunting whirlpool of mesmeric aphotic bliss. The proceedings take a much grimmer turn with "Loathe The Light". As the title suggests, this is a dark one. Wonderfully depressive skeletal guitars outline the overall feeling of doomed helplessness. Scraping cymbals swell and clang and hiss, tortured blacked screams reverberate inside some long forgotten cavern. The mood is tense and forlorn and beautiful. "Edgeless City" has more of a lost in the cold depths of space vibe. Writhing guitar textures seep out across a barren moonscape, buzzing and dubbed out, it builds subtly into a spacious brooding stasis. A throbbing grumbling underpins the whole thing, a moody desolate soundtrack for impending end times. The last cut "The Drowned Forest" is a deep and murky miasma of death time vocal crooning and cold twisting drone harmonics, completely enveloping and angelic, like a much bleaker depressive Tim Hecker, the track as a whole developing into a churning lush hypnotizing swirl of glacial black drone. A stunning collaboration brought to us by the always ruling Handmade Birds imprint. RECOMMENDED!
MPEG Stream: "Hecatomb"
MPEG Stream: "The Drowned Forest"

LOCRIAN & CHRISTOPH HEEMANN s/t (Handmade Birds) lp 24.00
Christoph Heemann (of HNAS , Mirror, and many other storied tape music/drone outfits), finds himself in yet another collaboration, this time with none other than aQ faves, Chicago's blackened doom drone duo Locrian, and the results are fruitful to say the least. Albeit a bleak and black fruit, that the shiny and happy amongst you might be hesitant to taste. But then, there's much to enjoy, even for the less adventurous, in the moody drifting darkness conjured up here.
We see Locrian dialing back the harshness in favor of a more hushed and dreary post apocalyptic soundscapery. Opener "Hecatomb" starts with a creepily stark, almost Nitschian drone, complete with what sound like a cacophony of burbling horns, with disassociated fragments of 12 string guitar floating atop a heady haze of drifting textures. Part way through a lush drift of beautiful piano harmonies intermingle with a pulsating tom tom, while scraping doom-laden electronics lie buried beneath the surface, creating a haunting whirlpool of mesmeric aphotic bliss. The proceedings take a much grimmer turn with "Loathe The Light". As the title suggests, this is a dark one. Wonderfully depressive skeletal guitars outline the overall feeling of doomed helplessness. Scraping cymbals swell and clang and hiss, tortured blacked screams reverberate inside some long forgotten cavern. The mood is tense and forlorn and beautiful. "Edgeless City" has more of a lost in the cold depths of space vibe. Writhing guitar textures seep out across a barren moonscape, buzzing and dubbed out, it builds subtly into a spacious brooding stasis. A throbbing grumbling underpins the whole thing, a moody desolate soundtrack for impending end times. The last cut "The Drowned Forest" is a deep and murky miasma of death time vocal crooning and cold twisting drone harmonics, completely enveloping and angelic, like a much bleaker depressive Tim Hecker, the track as a whole developing into a churning lush hypnotizing swirl of glacial black drone. A stunning collaboration brought to us by the always ruling Handmade Birds imprint. RECOMMENDED!
Fyi, there's a cd version too, we have a handful, waiting to get more though...
MPEG Stream: "Hecatomb"
MPEG Stream: "The Drowned Forest"

LOCRIAN / CENTURY PLANTS Dissolvers (Tape Drift) lp 13.98
Another fantastic split, on a list jam packed with killer splits, this one featuring recent aQ Record Of The Week honorees Locrian, whose The Crystal World double disc was a big hit around here, and Century Plants, a duo we dig who are WAY under represented on the aQ site, with only a single cd-r having ever been reviewed.
Unlike the black and buzz of The Crystal World, Locrian explores a sound world more hushed and minimal, more cinematic and soundtracky, two long tracks, that flow into one another, the first beginning with streaks of shimmering buzz, over deep ominous drifts, tinkling melodies way off in the distance, soon overcome by thick swaths of swirling thrum and whir, gorgeous shards of keening high end, bits of electronics and feedback, the sounds thickening as the track progresses, sounding more like a lost John Carpenter soundtrack that some avant/post black metal thing, haunting and atmospheric and mysterious. Which leads directly into the second track, pulsing, throbbing, muted melodies, a brooding tense slow build, strangely pretty, but still dark and ominous, plenty of murky buzz and roiling blackness beneath the surface, the track never exploding into something strictly heavy, instead, drifting darkly and dreamily as a suite of mysterious cinematic dronemusic.
Century Plants dial it down even further, an ultraminimal strum and drift, whispering riffage over a cavernous low end hum, tendrils of minor key melody intertwine with smears of moaning low end, soft swoops of backwards guitars, and super subtle effects, the sound gradually becoming more insistent, the guitars subtly buzzier and blacker. The second track begins similarly, a soft hushed shimmer, but quickly blossoms into something much more sinister, a thick slab of churning black SUNNO)))-ed buzz, a glacial low end drift, that heaves and roils, but is deftly smoothed into something more tranquil and otherworldly, than heavy and harrowing.
Fantastic stuff from both bands. Definitely needing to hear more Century Plants, and of course can never get enough of Locrian.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, housed in a beautiful silkscreened blue metallic ink on matte black sleeve, with heavy printed insert.

LONESUMMER Satisfaction Feels Like A Tomb (Starlight Temple Society) cd-r 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest demo from Philly one man black metal band Lonesummer, and it's a doozy. Like on the last record, What We Were, Lonesummer's sound continues to confound and baffle, only black metal on the surface, there's way more going on that just blast and buzz. On what We Were it was sampled jazz records, female vocals, all kinds of backwards effects, a serious heaping helping of noise, not to mention some shoegazey poppiness, all wound up into a swirling tripped out chunk of psychedelic blackness. On this latest, if anything, both the poppiness AND the noisiness have been cranked way up, for yet another amazing blackened slab of heavy/pretty whatthefuck.
The record opens with a crumbling wall of feedback and buzz, before the song erupts in a total blast of in-the-red metalgaze, all pretty pop drift buried beneath an avalanche of distortion and Merzbowian buzz, which leads right into a track that is WAY at the other end of the spectrum, softly buzzing guitars, simple skeletal drum machine, a bit like a lo-fi bedroom brewed Cure, but with harsh demonic vox, and a weird almost new age sounding synth solo. Sounds weird, and it is, but if you didn't want weird, you would most definitely have bailed out of this review about ten sentences back.
From there on out, it's a series of schizophrenic sonic freakouts, from ultra lo-fi grim garage style raw primitive black buzz, to washed out woozy blackened melancholy drift, brittle guitars, trash can drums, shrieked vokills, but all drifting on a dreamy pure pop melody, to super blown out chaotic noise rock, but even then, shot through with some sort of unlikely melody, the entire sound threatening to collapse beneath the weight of so much distorted buzz and amp shredding crunch.
"Hyalophagia" is a blast of almost pure white noise, with some sort of thrashing blackness going on underneath, finishing off with a bizarre collage of foreign language samples and elevator music melodies. "9-25" is all dour spidery slowcore guitars, unfurling crystalline melodies in a wide open expanse of reverbed shimmer, peppered with sizzling cymbals, and chiming swaths of almost lush sounding harmonies. "Watch The Walls Instead" sounds like Casio black metal, a skittery programmed beat shuffles beneath sheets of warm muted buzz, as if there was a depressive black metal shoe gaze demo preset on those little keyboards. The final three tracks are variations on extreme black noisiness, flitting from raw primitive blast, to in the red pounding crunch, and finally back to loping minor key lo-fi blissed out blackened pop.
LIMITED TO 125 COPIES. Nicely packaged in printed envelopes with cardstock gatefold inserts...
MPEG Stream: "Mundane Dreams About Flash Floods "
MPEG Stream: "Demerol Smile"
MPEG Stream: "I'm Sorry/It's Ok"

LONESUMMER What We Were (Starlight Temple Society) cd-r 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Any band that stirs up tons of shit on the net, inspiring vitriolic tirades, definitely gets us interested, whether they can back it up sonically is another thing entirely.
Velvet Cacoon might be the best example, beginning life as a supposed Eco-Fascist black metal band, who created their dense drone-y buzz with a 'diesel harp', only later revealing that they were taking the piss. But it hardly mattered, cuz the music they made was totally transcendent, their sick sense of humor and antagonism toward the rest of the black metal scene only added to their appeal. So it should come as no surprise that Lonesummer, who share a label with Velvet Cacoon, are inspiring similarly heated reactions. In their case, it's not because of any bullshit mythmaking, it's because their sound is seriously fucked up, like nothing you've ever heard. Taking inspiration from the new wave of buzzy poppy shoegazey black metal, but twisting it all up into a noise drenched, chopped and looped. barrage of beats and riffs and damaged effects and bizarre vocals, and delicate melodies and strange samples, a dizzying jumble, that for some might be total torture, but for us, and we would guess most adventurous listeners out there, What We Were might just become a fast favorite.
Obviously if you dig bands like Alcest and Lifelover and Amesoeurs, you should for sure check this out, and while Lonesummer do share some of the same sonic elements, this is SO MUCH WEIRDER.
Best to probably just go song by song, it's too varied and all over the map to really boil it down to a single descriptor.
"The Ones Who Grab My Hand, The Lost Souls" is a crushing barrage of noise, there seems to be some metal underneath the noise, but it's so obfuscated it's more like a pulse, or another layer of static, like a more rhythmic Merzbow, but laced with some hysterical shrieking vokills, before the song fragments and begins to crumble, and gets all mathy and chaotic and industrial, while underneath, some super distorted vocal jazz surfaces, scatting female vox, skittery drums, piano and bass, but all tangled up with Lonesummer's frantic crumbling buzz, so fucked up and so weird, but super cool.
The second track is more traditionally buzzy and black, but it's all relative, 3 minutes of the same muted muddy riff, programmed drum skitter, occasional demonic growl, but all smeared with hazy soft focus melodies, the whole thing blurred into a woozy mesmer, a bit like a Pop Ambient Wold. Then there's "Long Winter Way" that fills the first half of the track with delicate chiming minor key guitar, softly swaddled in reverb and delay, only to get all bleary eyed and gauzy and soft poppy and shoegazey toward the end, sounding more like Ariel Pink or John Maus than any metal we've ever heard. Backwards drums sizzle beneath loopy flurries of notes, all swirling in a cloud of soft hushed shimmer. The rest of the record is equally disparate, from lurching crushing low, blackened and super distorted, to blasting brittle black metal, all repetitive and wrapped in still more layers of fuzz and buzz and whir, to the blown out in-the-red distorto noise bliss of the title track, to the psychedelic smoldering crumble of "We All Looked So Perfect", like a music box plugged into a million distortion pedals, to the closer, a loping, super melodic slow core depressive dirge, with lovely clean guitars, howled vokills, and a shimmery vacuum cleaner buzz wrapped around everything, simultaneously ultra melodic, warmly washed out and blissfully otherworldly.
Guaranteed to piss off purists, but so is about 90 percent of the stuff we dig, but for anyone into fucked up and freaky, baffling and bizarre blackness, this might be your new favorite band.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES!!!! Gorgeously packaged in a full color oversized 7" style sleeve.
MPEG Stream: "The Ones Who Grab My Hand, The Lost Souls"
MPEG Stream: "Lone Tree Hill"
MPEG Stream: "Long Winter Way"

LONESUMMER / MARSH split (Starlight Temple Society) cassette 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Second missive from black metal weirdo Lonesummer, whose What We Were cd-r from last list was a huge hit around here. A twisted blend of strange samples, totally blown out black metal buzz, and weird sun dappled melodic pop, all wound into a massively confusional, incredibly fucked up bit of blackened avant noise pop, or something, tough to know exactly how to describe this. We have to imagine that most black metallers would find Lonesummer just way too damaged and freaky, but for us, it's exactly the sort of weirdness we've been dying for.
The opening track sums it up pretty nicely, beginning with some sample conversations, street noise, a hushed minimal drone, which explodes into a crumbling in-the-red almost white noise blow out, the sound so saturated, it's impossible to pick out instruments, the sound just a thick cloud of swirling buzz and skree, as the track progresses, riffs seem to materialize out of the ether, but instead of taking the form of a proper BM jam, it seems more than anything to add a sense of rhythm, creating a fucked up, looped bit of buzz drenched mesmer, before, the buzz fades out, leaving some sampled African music, which eventually fades out. Phew. The next song is just s far out, beginning with some new age swoosh, some sampled wind (or is it tape hiss), a delicate chiming melody, before a tiny bit of drum skitter leads into another explosion of impossibly distorted, but weirdly pretty and shoegaze-y blacknoise. 4 tracks total from Lonesummer, and goddamn we already want more!!!
Lonesummer are paired up here with Marsh, a one man band from Minneapolis, whose take on black metal is much more primitive and raw, a bit punky, with a definite D-beat vibe, so folks into Akitsa, Malveillance, Bone Awl, this is definitely your cup of tea, but Marsh manage to infuse their own vibe, the repetitive almost looped sounding arrangements, the cool hazy washed out production, loads of effects and like Lonesummer, a weirdly off kilter pop element too. Need to hear more from these guys as well.
LIMITED TO ONLY 50 COPIES, we got about half, but they won't last long, so grab one while you can. They come housed in hand sewn, African fabric, drawstring pouches, with two photocopied inserts.

LONESUMMER / MARSH split (Starlight Temple Society) cd-r 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This awesomely confusional weirdo black metal split now available on cd (cd-r actually), in a dvd case with printed insert and black and white cover art, the digital version of the tape we listed a while back (we still have a couple of those left if anybody wants one before they're gone)...
Second missive from black metal weirdo Lonesummer, whose What We Were cd-r from last list was a huge hit around here. A twisted blend of strange samples, totally blown out black metal buzz, and weird sun dappled melodic pop, all wound into a massively confusional, incredibly fucked up bit of blackened avant noise pop, or something, tough to know exactly how to describe this. We have to imagine that most black metallers would find Lonesummer just way too damaged and freaky, but for us, it's exactly the sort of weirdness we've been dying for.
The opening track sums it up pretty nicely, beginning with some sample conversations, street noise, a hushed minimal drone, which explodes into a crumbling in-the-red almost white noise blow out, the sound so saturated, it's impossible to pick out instruments, the sound just a thick cloud of swirling buzz and skree, as the track progresses, riffs seem to materialize out of the ether, but instead of taking the form of a proper BM jam, it seems more than anything to add a sense of rhythm, creating a fucked up, looped bit of buzz drenched mesmer, before, the buzz fades out, leaving some sampled African music, which eventually fades out. Phew. The next song is just s far out, beginning with some new age swoosh, some sampled wind (or is it tape hiss?), a delicate chiming melody, before a tiny bit of drum skitter leads into another explosion of impossibly distorted, but weirdly pretty and shoegaze-y blacknoise. 4 tracks total from Lonesummer, and goddamn we already want more!!!
Lonesummer are paired up here with Marsh, a one man band from Minneapolis, whose take on black metal is much more primitive and raw, a bit punky, with a definite D-beat vibe, so folks into Akitsa, Malveillance, Bone Awl, this is definitely your cup of tea, but Marsh manage to infuse their own vibe, the repetitive almost looped sounding arrangements, the cool hazy washed out production, loads of effects and like Lonesummer, a weirdly off kilter pop element too. Need to hear more from these guys as well.
MPEG Stream: LONESUMMER "Our Father's Father"
MPEG Stream: LONESUMMER "1135 mg"
MPEG Stream: MARSH "Canvas"

LONESUMMER / PLANNING FOR BURIAL split (Music Ruins Lives) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We only got about 10 of these, and sadly that's all we'll ever be able to get, a new blast of twisted what-the-fuck black metal weirdness from aQ faves Lonesummer, teamed up with new-to-us Planning For Burial.
Lonesummer are in fine form, introducing their tracks with a weird sampled TV jingles before unfurling sheets of white hot, ultra brittle blasting black metal buzz, super lo-fi, and chaotic, but shot through with strange melodies, and mysterious textures, shifting from frantic frenzied blowouts, to mournful depressive doomic crawls, the vocals a buried inhuman shriek, the guitars so caustic, the sound totally high end, as if they were being played through speakers consisting of nothing but tweeters, finishing off, with a gorgeous bit of melancholy clean jangle guitar pop, the vocals sweetly sorrowful, like a more twisted lo-fi Richard Youngs, that poppiness, no doubt present in the other songs as well, just buried under avalanches of crumbling corrosive crunch. Awesome.
Planning For Burial are not nearly so abrasive, in fact, they're barely black metal at all, instead, they craft a sort of buzz drenched dreamlike slowcore, the opening track is all creepy crawly, measured emotive vox, wheezing organs, all beneath a churning layer of crumbling distortion, the result is actually quite lovely. Then the drums come in, programmed and electronic, and it gets more dramatic and majestic, and sounds almost like some twisted, 4 track, buzz doused take on Antony And The Johnsons, which is absolutely a good thing. The second track takes a woozy, depressive Cure like drift, all tinkling minor key melodies, and shuffling rhythms, and wraps it in thick buzzing bass, and swirling ethereal synths, the beats big and electronic here too, sounding not at all unlike some of the more minimal and moody Witch House jams we've heard. Finally, PFB finish off with a gorgeous softly psychedelic guitar dronescape, all washed out, blurred and bleary, the vocals buried, the guitars lustrous and thick, total hazy shoegazey dream pop drift. So killer.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES and already out of print. We have the last 10 copies, so act fast...
MPEG Stream: PLANNING FOR BURIAL "Sleping In Separate Rooms"
MPEG Stream: LONESUMMER "Joy Is A Burden"