the long way home.

screw 2011

2011-12-31T17:36:00.000Z

I was all geared up to do something pretty along the lines of this post from last year, but really, what's the point? Everyone has had enough of lists by now, including me, and the conclusions anyone would draw from a list of disappointments and a list of things I'm looking forward to are also incredibly obvious and can be summed up in a few lines.

Yeah, Neurosis and -(16)- will probably be my two albums of the year come the 2012 lists. And the shit I've heard of 2012, like the new Lord Mantis that is currently destroying my neighbours' party mood, already promises yet another rich year.

As for all the bitterness, naturally the competition over the biggest steaming turd award of 2011 was fiercely fought between the 'Lulu' and 'Illud pig-latin whatever' atrocities. I still have very, very little time for the massively overrated Mastodon or Opeth, I'm agonizingly sick of things like a) Enslaved being prog, b) Boris albums and c) albums with Mike Patton on them (The Book Of Knots excepted), the Fucked Up album was more or less three and a half hours longer than it should have been, Charred Walls Of The Damned still sound absolutely nothing like any of the talented people that constitute the line-up, people like Machine Head, Venom, Amon Amarth and Deicide behaved like fat, established aristocrats who don't even need to fart loud enough for units to be sold and put out albums blander than bone-dry rice cakes, and the Anathema and Burzum re-recordings were the equivalent of doing this all over the material they should have left the fuck alone.

And that's it. Now go and get drunk and I'll see you all next year. Here's the coolest music video of the year/ever.

2011 in review - best gigs

2011-12-24T20:01:00.009Z

That's right, I ain't done with listing things yet. The quantity of great concerts I've been to this year has been almost proportional to the pile of awesome records that have further filled my shelves, and I managed to finally have the live experience with some of my favourite bands ever. So here's the shows I'll remember most fondly from 2011.

All videos by Luana Magalhães and photos by me or her unless otherwise noted.

BEST GIGS OF 2011

1. WINTER

(during Roadburn Festival / @ 013, Tilburg, Holland / Apr 15th)

One of the most defining and important bands in my life, that I had never even considered possible seeing live. I was in complete disbelief when they were announced for my favourite festival, and I could barely move during the minimalist, suffocating performance. It was exactly how I imagined them - looking like regular guys, barely moving, just laying down the doom horror exactly as we've known it for over 20 years now. Unforgettable.

(video by kkpgijsbers)

2. SWANS

(@ Aula Magna, Lisboa, Portugal / Apr 9th and during Roadburn Festival / @ 013, Tilburg, Holland / Apr 16th)

Swans have for me the same importance as Winter and I had established the same resignation at never seeing them live before Michael Gira reactivated the band, so two obliterating performances in 7 days were almost overkill. One of the most intense musical experiences you can ever have.

3. TODAY IS THE DAY

(during Roadburn Festival / @ 013, Tilburg, Holland / Apr 14th and during SWR Festival / @ Barroselas, Portugal / May 1st)

It was inevitable that the band responsible for my album of the year would show the same kind of form on stage, and so they did. On both these occasions they rose high above the very high standards of the two festivals and showed they're going through one of the best, if not the best, periods of their entire career.

4. TRAP THEM

(during Roadburn Festival / @ 013, Tilburg, Holland / Apr 14th)

They raised a moshpit at Roadburn! That along is testament to the way Trap Them can bring the hellish chaos of their records to the stage, but here's the super-heavy 'Scars Allign' to convince you.

5. GODFLESH

(during Roadburn Festival / @ 013, Tilburg, Holland / Apr 15th and during Amplifest / @ Hard Club, Porto, Portugal / Oct 30th)

It's been the year of the "finally!", and those dream fulfilments came in copious amounts. Again, an esssential band in my musical upbringing and again two shows in the same year - a 'Streetcleaner'+'Tiny Tears' special at Roadburn and a slightly more varied set at Amplifest, but both of them as crushing as only Godflesh can be.

6. BLACK SUN

(during Seven Churches Festival / @ The Fighting Cocks, London, UK / Jun 25th)

"Do you like AC/DC? Do you know 'Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap'?," Black Sun's Russell McEwan asked me a couple of hours before this show. "Who doesn't?" I offered as reply to both questions. Then he asked if I wanted to sing it with them, which I politely denied. No one's ever done a crime heinous enough to warrant hearing me sing as a punishment. Unfortunately, between that moment and the time of the show, I had a few alcoholic incidents, and then all hell broke loose.

(photo by Antony Roberts)

7. SCOTT KELLY

(with Orthodox / @ Santiago Alquimista, Lisboa, Portugal / Mar 7th)

I spoke at length of this show here.

8. SÓLSTAFIR

(during Eistnaflug / @ Egilsbúð, Neskaupstaður, Iceland / Jul 7th)

Sólstafir, playing in their home country, in front of a fjord, performing songs from the then-unreleased 'Svartir Sandar', before an enraptured audience. Oh yes.

(video by karlhr)

9. DEATH IN JUNE

(with Die Weisse Rose / @ Casa de Lafões, Lisboa, Portugal / Oct 15th)

Douglas Pearce alone with a drum and an acoustic guitar (and that creepy mask that he took off after one song) is able to create one of the thickest, most enveloping atmospheres I've ever witnessed at a show. The renditions of the songs from 'But, What Ends When The Symbols Shatter?' were particularly harrowing.

10. MENACE RUINE

(during Roadburn Festival / @ 013, Tilburg, Holland / Apr 15th and during SWR Festival / @ Barroselas, Portugal / Apr 29th)

The Canadian duo must be used to performing in front of bewildered audiences, which happened on the SWR date, but for those in sync with their art, a Menace Ruine concert becomes almost ritualistic. Even with a nagging amp failure at Roadburn, they reproduced the best songs of their albums faithfully and with extreme passion.

11. TRIPTYKON

(during Eistnaflug / @ Egilsbúð, Neskaupstaður, Iceland / Jul 9th)Text

It's great to see Tom G. Warrior enjoying himself. Triptykon live shows are a mix between a cracking new band playing their very best songs and a Celtic Frost best-of, almost as a celebration of the great man's enduring, timeless talent.

12. GHOST

(during Roadburn Festival / @ 013, Tilburg, Holland / Apr 15th)

There's a lot of hatred for Ghost, but come on, people. Lighten up. The songs are solid and catchy, their image is well constructed and much more than just a gimmick and, above all, it's great fun. And if you think they're not a serious band, then you probably need to see them live. This show was a revelation for me, and they more than lived up to their theatrics - a tight, strong band, making the songs have even more impact than the album versions.

(video by kkpgijsbers)

13. COFFINS

(during Roadburn Afterburner / @ 013, Tilburg, Holland / Apr 17th)

The look on vocalist/guitarist Uchino's face when he saw the huge projection of the Coffins logo on the 013's main stage, right at the start of the gig, really says everything about this show. The Japanese band seemed as happy to be on stage as us old-school death metallers were about their presence on the Roadburn Afterburner event. The crusty, cavernous filth they spewed forth for almost an hour was exactly what the day needed.

14. BLACK MATH HORSEMAN

(during Roadburn Festival / @ 013, Tilburg, Holland / Apr 16th)

Candlemass were playing and I still abandoned their epic gig for 45 minutes or so because Black Math Horseman are simply unmissable. The dark siren-like chants of Tera Simms weave around Bryan Tulao's huge riffs for an enchanting experience.

15. MAGRUDERGRIND

(during SWR Festival / @ Barroselas, Portugal / May 1st)

An epic show of savagery, nothing more, nothing less. These guys tap into some primal inner source of rage and everyone in the audience seemingly just wants to start slapping each other hard. Even their encore, nearly forced by that enraged audience, was pissed off.

16. UNDERSMILE

(during Seven Churches Festival / @ The Fighting Cocks, London, UK / Jun 25th)

I've talked about them often, they're one of my favourite new bands from Europe, and this was my moment of discovery.

17. YEAR OF NO LIGHT

(during Roadburn Festival / @ Midi Theater, Tilburg, Holland / Apr 16th)

I'm not a big fan of Year Of No Light sans former vocalist Julien Perez, I must admit with some sadness, but this show was special - the band played a full soundtrack, of their own writing, to the classic expressionist horror film Vampyr, and it was terrifyingly awesome.

18. THE SECRET

(during Roadburn Festival / @ 013, Tilburg, Holland / Apr 14th)

Read the Trap Them description and apply to the smaller room of the 013. Immense fury.

19. YOB

(with Dark Castle and Kongh / @ Hard Club, Porto, Portugal / Oct 6th)

Not only YOB, but all three bands in the bill put on remarkably heavy, unrestrained performances this night. I traveled 300km to see them and it was worth every hour on the road, as YOB keep their permanent evolution with, this time, a grainier, colossal sound. And Mike is still one of the nicest people in the world.

20. SKEPTICISM

(during Bracara Extreme Fest / @ CC Braga Viva, Braga, Portugal / Dec 10th)

Dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom.

That is all. Or you can read the festival review.

(shitty video made by my iPhone, and yes, those are my fingers)

2011 in review - album of the year

2011-12-21T22:55:00.000Z

ALBUM OF THE YEAR

TODAY IS THE DAY Pain Is A Warning

This should come as no surprise. Most of you that know me or comment on The long way home.'s facebook or my own have already guessed it, in fact. My admiration for Steve Austin and Today Is The Day has been obvious for years, and this year it went into total overdrive. You might have watched me going berserk up front if you were at SWR or Roadburn when they played two earth-shaking concerts like a band approaching the apocalypse (it should be said at this point that, despite the illustrious people who have passed through Today Is The Day's line-up, this is the most solid and crushing formation the band has ever had - hats duly tipped, Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Jones), two performances which prompted me to write a super excited band of the week post even before I had heard the album. Then, when I finally got 'Pain Is A Warning', it annihilated anything else I might have listened to for a month or so. At home, in the car or on my portable music player, nothing else was allowed. I was lucky enough to be the one to review it when it was awarded album of the month on Terrorizer, already proclaiming it album of the year in August. Recently I've lavished yet more praise on it on a radio show in which I guested, poisoning the minds of more youth with the malicious seed of Steve Austin. I've become so associated with this record that JGD even mentioned me when he talked about it on The Living Doorway's list. Several months and several hundred plays later, and the fascination hasn't diminished - it's playing right now as I type this (it's on 'Remember To Forget', to be precise) and I'm still stopping my writing often just to appreciate it properly during the most affecting bits. Why?

I've said it before, and it seems to become more relevant as time goes by, as new and recycled musical genres appear, disappear and reappear, as music itself and the way we approach and listen to it changes: never underestimate the power of a great song. Regardless of its simplicity (or complexity), a great song is universal. It stays within the listener, it's owned and becomes part of him as it's reinterpreted through his own experience and his own set of world-perceiving lenses. What constitutes a great song might be subjective - it's not just catchiness, or lasting power, or technical ability, or a great sound (although the Kurt Ballou work on this should be praised greatly), or a great voice, or a great story. It's a combination of everything with an extra little magic dust, but you know it when you hear it, and it stays with you. You'll always recognize it and stop what you're doing when you hear it somewhere. That's what 'Pain Is A Warning' is. All the way through. It happens nine times when you play it. It's a collection of nine great songs, stripped of everything that isn't the absolute essential and structured and alligned in such a way that the sum of which is even greater than their individual brilliance.

I don't think anyone realistically expects anything specific for each Today Is The Day release, so this has to be classified as a surprise. But if you look at the past discography - and listen to it, regularly - it makes perfect sense. It's like those ads, what to give the man who has everything?, what could Steve Austin do with Today Is The Day that he hadn't done before, and better than anyone else? Only this. Only this and nothing more. Strip down the chaos, the pain, the rage, the fire, bare them out in the open for all to see. If all it takes for a song to reach through to someone is beating on the same riff for three minutes, then so be it. If your message is such that you just have to sing low and quiet to express it, then so be it. No artistry, no witchery, no pretend, no posturing, no faking. Just truth. That's Today Is The Day.

2011 in review - top 100 albums of the year (part 4/4)

2011-12-20T18:49:00.005Z

25. TOXIC HOLOCAUST Conjure And Command

If you have a single ounce of a thrasher in you, your body will instinctively react to this album. Dark, rough and rampant, 'Conjure And Command' is the best thrash album in years, an unstoppable bulldozer of grainy thrash like no one does it anymore. Especially not those who really try very hard to do it, like all those silly neo-thrashers who've been polluting us these past few years. One listen of 'Bitch', or really any of the other nine metal-thrashin'-mad songs, will annihilate posers to dust.

24. CAÏNA Hands That Pluck

I practically wrote an ode to this one. It got me all dreamy and philosophical and shit. Damn you, Andy.

23. WOLD Freermasonry

It'll rape your ears and it'll consume your mind too. It did to me, at least. And I loved it.

22. ADERLATING Spear Of Gold And Seraphim Bone Pt. 1 / CLOAK OF ALTERING The Night Comes Illuminated With Death / DE MAGIA VETERUM The Divine Antithesis / GNAW THEIR TONGUES Per Flagellum Sanguemque, Tenebras

It's all Mories. Sickness, disease, blasphemy and celestial devastation pours forth from this man's mind like a wound that bleeds afresh, and yes, that's a reference to one of his songs. My long time affair with Gnaw Their Tongues' horrific soundscapes is well documented throughout this blog, and 'Per Flagellum Sanguemque, Tenebras' is yet one more step into the abyss, thickly orchestral yet perversely subterranean in its glorification of misery. Cloak Of Altering is a different, new beast that emerges from the carcass of an older one, and so I made them band of the week when the album came out. Aderlating got the exact same treatment, obviously, while I was being consumed by that spooky piece of blue madness. Finally, De Magia Veterum's blindingly unrelenting album came out earlier in the year and I was lucky enough to review it for Terrorizer, and "deluge of sonic information", as I put it in the end of that text, does sound just about right to describe how fucked your brain will be after prolonged exposure to any of these four twisted pieces of music from hell.

21. VIRUS The Agent That Shapes The Desert

This album has been responsible for more hits on my blog than any other, all because of this unassuming little post here. The album wasn't out yet when I said that, and I didn't even mean to brag about it or anything, but it sparked a tidal wave of hits on that page during the next days, of desperate people looking for a download link and probably being bitterly disappointed when they reached a blog that's made of just words and none of them is "mediafire". Having said that, the excitement is understandable. This is like 'The Black Flux' gone down a volcano and out on the other side of the earth, all twisted and spitting fire and brimstone and confusing blackjazz (the real one)gone very, very wrong. All these months later and I'm still trying to figure out a lot of it, but it's been a hell of a ride.

20. NECROS CHRISTOS Doom Of The Occvlt

Have you checked out The Living Doorway's list? Go on, it's much cooler than this one, and it also features Necros Christos. JGD eloquently says about it that "thee unholy doomened death of Necros Christos shall foul your soul with rapacious desecration of mind, body and spirit," and yeah, that's it. Why come up with something when all else has been said? 'Doom Of The Occvlt' is a goddamn unholy ritual of darkness, with chants and growls, twisting riffs and pants-shittingly intimidating atmospheres.

19. LOSS Despond

It might look like a rather limited genre, but it's still possible to create funeral doom that sounds new and relevant. Loss' debut album is the best one of its kind in many, many years, and it's absolutely soul-shattering. It will descend upon you slowly and unstoppably, a hopeless and hopelessly slow dissection of all the sadness and tragedy of this world. If you're feeling vaguely suicidal, just put it on. It'll be the last push you'll need.

18. J MASCIS Several Shades Of Why

I don't even know how to approach this one. J Mascis and his guitar have single-handedly converted me to a big, soft pile of mush and awe. The songs are simple but hit with the emotional power of a locomotive. It's not like Dinosaur Jr is a barren desert of feelings, but this much depth and lyrical nakedness is quite surprising from the quiet and usually deadpan J. I can picture myself in 30 years still listening to this regularly, and I guess that says it all.

17. 40 WATT SUN The Inside Room

Speaking of feelings, that's something that happens inside you when Patrick Walker opens his mouth to sing. Something snaps, something's switched off, or on, I don't know. It's melancholy, it's bitterness, it's longing, it's sadness, it's all your failures coming back to parade before your eyes. It's a cleaner, more peaceful and elegant suicide you'll want after this than after Loss, but you'll still want out.

16. THE ATLAS MOTH An Ache For The Distance

Everything fits in The Atlas Moth cauldron - from black metal to stoner, psychedelia and a lot of blues, anything but filler. As vocalist/guitarist Stavros told me during an interview for a magazine when the album was released, they've made the band's sound leaner and more to-the-point than on the 'A Glorified Piece Of Blue Sky' album. Wonderful as that one was, it does sound a stepstone towards a proper grown-man slab of heavy, mature music that is this record. Their use of David Kush's cleaning vocals in tandem with Stavros' full-throated roars is brilliant enough to use as a learning tape for the Mastodons of this world, and the entire journey of this album is full of "arrival" moments like that, moments when a band shows that they are absolutely sure what their personality is and of the best way to make it shine through.

15. AUTOPSY Macabre Eternal

It would have been so easy to just turn on the death metal autopilot and release any old pile of ugly riffs, and we would have probably lapped it up as well. It's fuckin' Autopsy, and they're back! We have a right to be excited, damn it! This band alongside Winter changed my perception of music and set me on a perpetual quest for the foulest sounds possible for the rest of my life. And now they're back, right in the middle of a little revival of all things death metal and old and dirty, and they honour their legacy with a record that will stand the test of time, a record that can be proudly shelved next to 'Mental Funeral' or 'Severed Survival', those two especially. It's rude, it's tasteless, it's ugly and it's as addictive as only the most rancid death metal can be. As only Autopsy can be.

14. SÓLSTAFIR Svartir Sandar

It's been a succession of revelations. There was the initial fascinating shock of 'Masterpiece Of Bitterness' in 2005, then another leap with 'Köld' in 2009, then seeing them live in 2010, then actually meeting them in their own country this year and listening to the album with them and then watching them perform several songs off it a few hours later. And then receiving the album at last and listening to it over and over in utter silence and, again, fascination. Always a growth, always discovering more details to love about this Icelandic bunch of good-humoured cowboyvikings. Addi the vocalist likes to joke that they're like Duran Duran with distortion pedals, but there's so much more than that going on throughout these two discs. Epic but intimate, mellow but fiery, expertly balanced in the way that it grows until the final climax, it's a memorable record all the way, it's one of the most ambitious of the year, and it delivers on all counts. And I'm still waiting to hear from my doctor on how to remove the main melody of 'Fjara' out of my head.

13. THE BOOK OF KNOTS Garden Of Fainting Stars

It throws at you one of the most unforgettably infectious songs of the year right off the bat, then a creepy Blixa Bargeld incarnating a spy (probably) talking about international airport mystery and fruit flies, Nils Frykdahl and Dawn McCarthy (Faun Fables, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum) comparing moondust to gunpowder and even Mike Patton, sick to the back teeth as we probably all are of seeing him pop up on every second record, lays down a remarkable vocal performance. There are a lot more guests and endless little details that will derail your thoughts like the heaviest, most disorienting of jetlags would (yeah, there's an aviation theme too), but where for a lesser band it would all amount to an over-ambitious, disjointed mess, for The Book Of Knots it turns out into a completely coherent work of genius. Here's my Terrorizer review for a slightly more structured opinion:

"Even more so than on its two predecessors, ‘Garden…’, the closing chapter on a conceptual sea-land-air trilogy, amazes by the way this insanely talented quartet manage to keep everything together. Its cohesiveness is remarkable, considering not only the presence of weirdo guests (seriously, Mike Patton, Blixa Bargeld, Mike Watt, it’s enough for a spontaneous headache) on most songs, but also the ambitiously fractured approach to the songwriting itself. At first it’ll feel like they’re merely randomly throwing bits of soundtracks to movies that never existed, chamber music gone wrong or the odd moment of eerie violence at you, but soon those scraps will reveal themselves as part of a terrifyingly epic whole you won’t be able to let go of. Difficult, twisted, but endlessly rewarding."

12. ANCIENT VVISDOM A Godlike Inferno / HEXVESSEL Dawnbearer

The devil is in the details, they say, but nowadays those details don't really include electricity. AVV are the most Satanically charged of these two remarkable projects, a sort of Ghost-like but serious approach to their demonic summonings in the sense that they let the melodies and the harmonies lullabye you into hellish submission. Acoustic guitars, deep clean vocals and a great focus on Nathan Opposition's percussion give these songs a genuine, ritualistic ambiance that embodies everything the currently overused term "occult" should mean. Hexvessel is Mathew McNerney, or Kvohst as he was better known during his memorable stints in Dødheimsgard or <code>, among others, digging deep through his heathen British roots. 'Dawnbearer' is a profoundly touching, hazy work of psychedelic British folk, a sort of update to the Canterbury sound through the eyes of a musician with a different background but who is able to capture the very same essence as the genre pioneers, with an extra dash of maliciousness.

11. RWAKE Rest

My review of this album that was published on Rock-a-Rolla magazine is exhaustive enough to explain why anyone into heavy music of any kind should go crazy over this record. A true career highlight.

"Make sure you’ve got someone with you to take a picture of your face after your first listen to Rest. We should all send them to the band so they’ll make a little collage out of it, and that would work better than any review. All those goggly eyes and open mouths. You see, regardless of expectations, and I’m sure most of yours were huge, Rest will surprise, enthrall and affect you in ways you wouldn’t imagine it to. After the spooky intro sets the mood, the band dump the 12 minutes of ‘It Was Beautiful But Now It’s Sour’, probably their best song ever, on your lap, and that’s the start of almost an hour of juggling intense emotions. It’s strange to call songs like this, or the 16 minute long ‘The Culling’, or 14 minute long closer ‘Was Only A Dream’, epics, as we tend to associate that word with warriors standing on the top of hills, and they’re not huge transcendent movements like, say, Neurosis do it, but that’s still exactly what they are. Emotional epics, if you can stomach that description. They are dissonant, ominous, sinister and jarring meanderings through the darkest recesses of the soul, not chaotic but heavy-hearted, not urgent but still immeasurably heavy. Every component is given the time to develop and hit its goal with precision, Gravy and Kiffin go through their impressive guitarwork with remarkable complementarity, nothing is rushed, nothing is unnecessarily drawn out either. Even the samples are poignant, you might even forget the one at the beginning of ‘The Culling’ was already used by Entombed. The magnitude of Rest will change the way you look at Rwake forever, because it makes them step up into the very select category of bands that are above labels. They’re not a “Southern” band anymore, or merely a sludge band, or whatever they used to be called. The various shades of ghostly grey evoked by this album can only be the work of mature individuals, in tune with both their music and their feelings."

10. WILLIAM ELLIOTT WHITMORE Field Songs

You know how it goes by now - that man, that voice, those songs. William's down-to-earth, honest music has been an important companion of mine for years, and while none of his records feel all that similar to each other, there's a coherence, a constant thread and a personality that makes you feel instantly at home whenever there's a new one. I talked a bit more in depth about William and this new album here.

09. TOM WAITS Bad As Me / DAVID LYNCH Crazy Clown Time

To be honest, none of these records were here when I first built up the list. I had only started to listen to 'Bad As Me' and it wasn't connecting so much with me (which felt like a bit of a tragedy, honestly) and I hadn't even lent an ear to 'Crazy Clown Time'. Silly me. After both hit, as I should have predicted they would, I found myself with two very, very important records to cram into the list somehow. Timing helped, but somehow it feels right to group these two men in the same position. They'd be ungroupable with anyone else in the world otherwise, and the connection is precisely that - their unique vision of the world, often outrageous, carnivalesque and just a little bit insane. Also, and appropriately so for this list decision, they both dabble in each other's main art medium - Waits has been in a few films and Lynch has done his bit of songcraft. So, why was the Tom Waits album a slow grower for me? Strangely enough, because it's his most accessible record in years. The oddity of the last few albums has attained such heights that a more sedate (in a Tom Waits context, mind you) collection of songs seemed like a bit thin at first. However, it quickly gained its rightful place in the Waits canon with painfully beautiful Waits-ballads (it's a whole category unto itself) 'Last Leaf' or 'Pay Me' and brawlers like 'Chicago' or the amazing 'Hell Broke Luce', a sort of thematic evil twin of the moving 'Day After Tomorrow'. It's yet another album of sheer brilliance, and as it grows even further I'll probably regret not having it even higher on the list. David Lynch's album, on the other hand, is quite immediate and it even makes a slight bit more sense than his movies, but not that much. Which is exactly what we'd expect. The songs are pretty simple, but the bluesy moods, dance beats and reverb-drenched vocals all combine for a ghostly, kaleidoscopic experience that has its high points on apparent extremes - the simple catchiness of first single 'Good Day Today' and the impenetrable but delicious alienness of the vocoder speech in 'Strange And Unproductive Thinking'. Check out the lyrics to that one, and tune out.

08. MITOCHONDRION Parasignosis / ANTEDILUVIAN Through The Cervix Of Hawwah

You had been warned about Mitochondrion way before the unholy black masses of this underworld were subjected to the swirling maelstrom of nihilist darkness that is 'Parasignosis', so there's no excuse for not being into them and knowing all about this beastfucker of a record. Unless you're a wuss, in which case you won't have much interest in the recent Antediluvian release, also from the land of unruly bestial metal (Canada, if you haven't been following). It's a sort of Mitochondrion buried under soft, rotten soil and left there to fester, however boasting a surprisingly good production. The cavernous, breathless feeling comes from the songwriting itself, without any sort of external witchery, and the Cervix of Hawwah, whatever it is, will feel like a very lonely, very scary place throughout this supremely bleak album.

07. ALTAR OF PLAGUES Mammal

This band can do no wrong. On their second full-length they're already one of the most exciting and unique voices in extreme music, and 'Mammal' got a justly deserved Album of the Month accolade in Terrorizer magazine when it was released. Fortunately I was the author of that text, so I can use it here as a reminder of why you should not only own, but play this very often.

"This should not come as a surprise. Altar Of Plagues have been nothing short of dazzling since they erupted, fully-formed, onto a scene that was just starting to fully digest Wolves In The Throne Room and thinking of spitting out minor copies. After those two EPs, and especially after ‘White Tomb’, one of 2009’s finest, it became evident this was something else. There have never been easy pigeonholing references for the Cork band, they’ve always stood alone and unpolluted. ‘Mammal’ follows this, and it is instantly enrapturing. From the first two minutes of ‘Neptune Is Dead’, the 18 minute long (!) opener, with its tension-building atmosphere, it functions like a book you can’t stop reading, reduced to teetering on the edge of your seat waiting for the next chapter to unfold. The title itself is one of the best hints to what’s going on. ‘Mammal’, as opposed to most of the urban decay of ‘White Tomb’, is profoundly organic, at times tribal, even. Vocals are surprisingly raw and upfront when growled and shrieked, while distant singing like in the uneasy middle section of ‘Feather And Bone’ gives the song a feeling akin to being dropped in the middle of Neurosis’ ‘Locust Star’ video. Whereas in ‘White Tomb’ it was Graves At Sea’s Nathan Misterek who provided the sudden twist halfway, on ‘Mammal’ the narrative follows a similar path with a different actor, a disquieting chant bookending ‘When The Sun Drowns In The Ocean’ that firmly raises anxiety to dangerous levels. Finally, ‘All Life Converges To Some Center’ emerges as a remarkable conclusion, finishing off the long journey with a shining of desperate hope, the symbiosis of melancholy and fury similar to the feelings provoked by Horseback’s unforgettable ‘The Invisible Mountain’, to remember the last time we were such inspired by a piece of music. What to call this? Throughout these four movements, Altar Of Plagues put any post rock band to shame with the ability to frighteningly accumulate tension through crescendos of varying slopes, they unleash the hellish rage of a horde of corpsepainted forest-dwellers and they hazily bring down upon the listener enough weight to woo an army of bearded, stoned sludgemeisters. Call it just Altar Of Plagues, as that is one of the best guarantees of brilliance there is in extreme music today."

06. LEVIATHAN True Traitor, True Whore

Even to hardened veterans of noise and raw black metal and nasty sludge and whatever other musical deformities all you sickos like me subject yourselves to, 'True Traitor, True Whore' is a difficult album to stomach through in one go. The personal events that unfolded in Jef Whitehead aka Wrest's life prior to this recording have fueled the man with an amount of bile very rarely captured on tape, and this is as much a tortured black metal album as it is a terrifying journey through the darkest recesses of the human mind. The toxic vocal performance alone, a 'Dictius Te Necare'-esque rollercoaster full of frighteningly real growls, spits, roars and howls, would be enough to elevate this record into a special category, but the typically inhuman, hellish vortex of rage that is the Leviathan experience make it a difficult and disturbing classic.

05. AMEBIX Sonic Mass

You see, Morbid Angel? This is how to come back after a long period of inactivity (a much longer one in Amebix's case, on top of it) with a substantially different album and not suck. Much more than not sucking, 'Sonic Mass' is a grandiose work, one that maintains the band's personality, its prophetic, apocalyptic evocations, yet isn't stuck on the crust punk of their 80s records. The ferocity and the downright truth of it are still there, but Amebix 2011 are an expanded entity. As soon as the brooding opener 'Days' casts its lengthening shadow over the listener, as Rob Miller solemnly and very significantly proclaims "these days will never come again", it does feel like a mass, a congregation of watchers of the incoming end of times. The Baron's voice is in fact one of the most fascinating new attractions of the Amebix sound, as his bellicose roar is frequently complemented by an affecting clean tone that brings to mind Jaz Coleman. The whole album, in fact, exhales an industrialized post-punk vibe, but it's perverse to associate Amebix with anyone else, so individual is what they've accomplished here. As writer Adam Stone so wonderfully puts it in his review at The Sleeping Shaman, "Amebix are far more than the sum of the bands they have enjoyed listening to – every fucker has their influences. Amebix are Amebix too." In this day and age, for a band that is returning after 24 years of absence, no praise can be higher than that.

04. WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM Celestial Lineage

Talk to anyone who reviews music often and I think everyone will tell you that the hardest records to review are the ones you personally love the most. It's sometimes difficult to strike a balance between fanboy and serious writer, so after 100-something records, some of which I've already talked about in detail over the past months, words are hard to come by. And good lord, have I talked about 'Celestial Lineage'. I've done a cover article with them on issue #34, and I even took one of its songs recently to a national radio show here in Portugal, which will probably delight everyone from the casual listener to the people in charge, who'll be listening to rural-cosmic atmospheric black metal hit the airwaves for 7 minutes or so. Who cares, though. It's amply deserved, and if I was in charge of anything I'd force every kid on the planet to listen to Wolves In The Throne Room's swansong every day at school. To help educate your own kids, here's an excerpt of my gushing review of it that I wrote for Terrorizer magazine:

"(...) even an apparent faux-pas like the dense and opaque ‘Black Cascade’ seems to have been a necessary catharsis to reach the amazing expansion that occurs throughout ‘Celestial Lineage’. That previous record’s impenetrable, remorseless darkness is met here with the more mystical ambiance of yore, including the ghostly ‘Malevolent Grain’ EP, to create a flowing organic whole that appears to have sprung from nature all by itself, seemingly keeping the human intervention of the channelling duo to a minimum. Indeed, a duo - the current line-up has been reduced to the core Weaver brothers, enriched with notable vocal participations by Jessika Kenney, not a stranger in the WITTR universe but used in the forefront like never before, and Aaron Turner who discreetly contributes with orations, both contrasting Nathan’s tortured shrieks. Forsaking their traditional four long songs format for a more delicately balanced structure, with three long pieces (the opener and the two last songs), two amazing shorter songs (the floaty chaos of ‘Rainbow Illness’ and the raw BM fury segueing into stargazing awe of ‘Subterranean Initiation’) and two mood-setting interludes, WITTR’s music breathes like never before, sustained on the fabulous warm and grainy Randall Dunn production job, the final drop on a goblet overflowing with the nectar of sheer perfection."

03. TRAP THEM Darker Handcraft

It took a while, but people have finally caught on to Trap Them. They're the spiritual daddies of the blackened hardcore craze that's sweeping extreme music right now (see positions #37, #47, #52 and #64 of this very same list, take a stroll around bandcamp or just visit Southern Lord's website for proof), but no one has managed to come close to the crushing power that each and every Trap Them song brings. Fueled by one of the most intense frontmen ever, Ryan McKinney (also a brilliant lyricist who has created an entire universe of characters for Trap Them's albums), and one of the very best riff-masters ever, Brian Izzi, the impact of this band is similar to that of Converge or even Neurosis, in that they have their very own unmistakable mindspace, with a far-reaching and constantly present concept, and they move according to their own will, their own art, their own urges. You might have noticed a trend in my list, and one that is more evident as the highest places roll in - with a few notable exceptions, it's difficult to come up with a neat category for a lot of these bands. There's nothing wrong with the well-worn path. I adore a lot of bands who are shining examples of that. But it's endlessly exciting to follow the development of music that we will look back upon like the beginning of something new. And that's what happens with Trap Them. There's as much Japanese hardcore as there is Swedish death metal in 'Darker Handcraft', but the overall gist of it is pure Trap Them, no categories. Again, as I said on Amebix's text just above, there is no higher praise. Here's a band of the week post I did on them before they played Roadburn. They did, and there was a moshpit. A fucking moshpit. At Roadburn. Think about it.

02. TOMBS Path Of Totality

We do take some pride in the having been there, us metal folk, don't we? Maybe I have a bit of tunnel vision, but I do take my musical strolls outside all this extremity very often, and I seldomly encounter anyone boasting that they were at a particular basement gig in 1989, or that they have a tape with the first hissy recordings of a particular artist. In our case, however, that almost a status mark. And that's kinda cool, if you're not an asshole about it. It shows dedication to the life and work of an artist. Anyway, this is because I like to lay claim to something of the sort when it comes to Tombs. Not that many people were into Anodyne throughout the 90s, Mike Hill's noise-hardcore band in the Boston scene, and I never really understood why, as it seemed to me they had everything. Monster grooves, blinding intensity, hard work ethic, the lot. So I was terribly excited when I got the first self-titled Tombs EP and I listened to it to death. I remember looking them up on last.fm, and I was the only listener. So I took upon myself a mission of sorts, to help everyone realize how absolutely amazing this band is. Fortunately, Mike and the boys have helped plenty. 'Winter Hours', the first full-length, and the split with Planks (and also the compilation of all the non-album material, 'Fear Is The Weapon' that has some very tasty raw versions of some of the best songs), have always shown a band growing, rising, maturing. The black metal/sludge/psychedelic/stoner/post metal cauldron of sound gets more and more expansive from release to release, and 'Path Of Totality' is yet another huge leap. The grey cover is an apt colour-coding hint of what's inside, as Mike's greatly enriched vocal styles now include a monochrome clean vocal chant that he uses on a couple of songs like 'Passageways' or 'Silent World'to astonishingly sombre effect. There's real thought behind every minute of this album - look up what the path of totality is (and ignore any reference to Korn who have stolen this title for their dumb and irrelevant record) and you'll see how the all-consuming grey whirlwind of these songs fits it perfectly. What's more, they are able to capture this almost intangible greatness on stage too, where they sound like an army of 30 instead of a mere trio. Here's my Terrorizer review of it, from June this year, where it was already obvious this would be very high up on my list:

"Captivating and utterly essential from the word go with the remarkable self-titled debut EP, a status further reinforced by subsequent full-length ‘Winter Hours’ ‘Path Of Totality’ sees Tombs drift further out into a special and entirely uninhabited musical land. Traces of black metal, sludge, doom, noise rock and post-everything are all engulfed in the darkened maelstrom of devastating songs like opener ‘Black Hole Of Summer’ or the slow-burning hell that is the subtly melodic ‘Passageways’. Featuring stellar performances not only from Mike but also the rest of the solid three-piece, as bassist Carson James and drummer Andrew Hernandez provide an all-consuming monster of a rhythm section, ‘Path Of Totality’ will be among the very best albums of 2011. Don’t miss it."

Stay tuned for the album of the year.

2011 in review - top 100 albums of the year (part 3/4)

2011-12-15T02:24:00.002Z

50. CROOKED FINGERS Breaks In The Armor / CROOKED NECKS Alright Is Exactly What It Isn't

See what I did there? I even had half a mind to throw in a demo from some rancid black metal band I heard the other day called Crooked Cross, but that would be just overkill. Besides, that one's not very good, and these two albums, even if they have nothing at all to do with each other musically, are both wonderful. Eric Bachmann returns to the simpler and more affecting bitter melodies of his singer/songwriter-like approach of past Crooked Fingers after a megalomaniac super-orchestrated 2008 album called 'Forfeit / Fortune' that didn't make any sense, while Crooked Necks are yet another unique offer from R.Loren's Handmade Birds label. An outrgeously beautiful but quietly threatening twisted dream of shoegazing ambiance, it's deeply enveloping and truly original.

49. CROWBAR Sever The Wicked Hand

Crowbar are one of my favourite bands ever, and this album was initially higher up on my list, but with hindsight it's noticeable that some of these songs don't hold up as solidly as some of their best records did in their entirety. Plus, there's some talk of god in there and it's not about impaling him on a rusty spike, which is always irksome. Still, it's great to have them back, and the massively crushing emotional weight of songs like 'Liquid Sky And Cold Black Earth' or 'The Cemetery Angels' cannot be argued with. Okay Crowbar is still miles ahead of most bands on their prime.

48. WOLVHAMMER The Obsidian Plains

They keep getting darker and dirtier. And I keep enjoying them more and more. Read the band of the week post to find out why.

47. UNKIND Harhakuvat

Angry, blackened hardcore, sounds familiar from this list? Yeah, I'd say expect these people to get picked up by Southern Lord soon if they weren't already on Relapse. Deservedly so, as this bunch of Finns stand up way above the (high) current standard for this kind of thing. Sombre, crusty and with a sharp metallic edge, it does the band name total justice.

46. WILL HAVEN Voir Dire

Well, this is Will Haven's second-best album ever, a very close second to 'El Diablo'. That says it all, doesn't it? If not, procure a copy of said beast at the earliest opportunity and then spin this piece of roaring, about-to-break-apart savagery right after. And then go have a lie down, you'll need it.

45. ASHCAN ORCHID The Woods

I discovered Ashcan Orchid on a random download because I'm a sucker for gothic americana weirdness like Jay Munly and its ilk, and they totally wrapped themselves around my heart. 'The Woods' is probably one of my most played records of the last six months. And you know what? Sometimes other people have already said exactly what you want to. The blurb from CDBaby (no author mentioned, apologies for the lack of credit) where I purchased the record really describes it with precise perfection:

"Part American Cabaret, part Gothicana, Ashcan Orchid weaves ambient tapestries of melody and folklore. At times melancholic, other times manic, always lush and deeply textured portraits of murder, longing, and l’amour. The Sextet deftly sweeps you from debaucherous reverie to fiendish nightmares, from lycanthropic love songs to the edge of madness. The vocals frolic and swoon while the banjo gently plucks along like a Louisiana swamp boat. Saxophones moan out a sympathetic funeral dirge while the saw weeps mournfully. Accordions and Guitars flicker and spark like a gypsy campfire in time with an iconoclast rhythm. Cantillating scandalous hymns of carnage and lament; brutal, honest and timelessly out of time come the sordid tales of Ashcan Orchid."

44. LENTO Icon / OMEGA MASSIF Karpatia

Fuck vocals! Both Lento and Omega Massif are able to turn your bones into dust without anyone opening their whiny mouths, through short doomy blasts of enormously incisive riffs in the case of Lento and by means of tectonic plates moving all over you in the case of Omega Massif, either work fine. Two of the best instrumental metal albums ever.

43. KRALLICE Diotima

Sweeping, swooping, sometimes soothing, sometimes disturbing, it's all there with Krallice. The best of their three albums so far, 'Diotima' is refreshingly free of pretense and overblown philosophy pseudo-intellectualisms (yes, Liturgy, this is for you). It just oscillates, vibrates and slashes through foggy atmospheres and devilishly perverse vocalizations (both Nick McMaster's death roar and Mick Barr's shriek are able to tear down angels from the sky with their power and viciousness), affirming Krallice as one of the very best of this sort of long-winding, forward-thinking atmospheric black metal bands.

42. GRAVEYARD Hisingen Blues

Before this record, many probably still saw Graveyard under the mighty commercial shadow of the über-fake Witchcraft, because of the members' shared past, but 'Hisingen Blues' sets everything straight. It's the record where Graveyard set out decisively on their own path, a path full of bluesy hard rockin' anthems, memorable, groovy and hard-hitting. If you're not air-guitaring and singing the chorus to 'Uncomfortably Numb' at the top of your voice after three listens, go and try out for a zombie role on The Walking Dead, because that's what you probably are.

41. DEFEATER Empty Days & Sleepless Nights / TOUCHÉ AMORÉ Parting The Sea Between Brightness And Me

Another touching story of human tragedy and woe told through the unique narrative voice of Defeater, furiously emotional hardcore amplified by Derek Archambault's gut-wrenchingly honest vocals. The Sleepless Nights bit of the album is actually a series of acoustic songs that recount the last chapters of this story of a broken man, in the vein of interludes and a few live bits Derek usually does, and they're amazingly well done. Touché Amoré's record isn't as good as Defeater's, it's even a bit unfair to have them this high up on the list, but it's still a good one and it sounds exactly like Defeater, right down to the vocals, so if you like one you'll lap up the other for sure.

40. A STORM OF LIGHT As The Valley Of Death Becomes Us, Our Silver Memories Fade / Latitudes / MORNE Asylum

Because of the people involved, that I profoundly admire, I've very nearly forced myself to like A Storm Of Light since their first album came out. It's not like the two that have been released so far are bad albums, not at all, so it hasn't been a huge struggle, but I've always felt that something hadn't quite clicked yet. On 'As The Valley Of Death Becomes Us, Our Silver Memories Fade', it finally did. It's the first time I've really been impressed with an A Storm Of Light release right from the beginning, and the first time that they've sounded totally comfortable with what they're doing. Eschewing tedious post-rock meanderings and recognizing precisely where Josh Graham's vocals should and shouldn't go are the biggest reasons as to why this album sounds lean, tight and very captivating, a sort of barebones A Storm Of Light when compared to the previous two albums that allows them to do so much more with the songs. Latitudes is just an EP, but it's worthy of mention beceause it's a sort of halfway step between the two phases, a separate but very meaningful step in a band that just might turn into something more important than it seemed at first. When you get right down to it, it's the angst that nails it, the palpable feeling of both morose and aggressive depression that 'As The Valley...' exhales. It's exactly what Morne's album transpires, and that's why I felt it fit perfectly next to it. Crustier, cruder sludge as it is, it nevertheless also owes a huge debt to Neurosis and it inhabits a similar mindplace than A Storm Of Light does, so you should throw yourself into the restless waters of both of them with the abandon of the condemned.

39. LONESUMMER There Are Few Tomorrows For Feeding Our Worries

Some bands just try to piece together apparently random styles in the hope that it'll somehow click and they'll be hailed for coming up with something "new". It's like trying baked beans with hot chocolate sauce because, hey, no one does it, so it must be great! You can spot them a mile away. And then, there is the natural evolution of a sound that calls for something else, and when you realize, you're stepping into something that's rather different from the norm. If you've heard Lonesummer before, you might remember a difficult to bear wall of harsh black metal noise, but the one-man project has grown and flourished into something otherworldly beautiful. The raw, punishing element is still there, as well as the clanking, brutal abuse of instrumentation, but now it's fused (note the term. Fused. It's exactly like that) with a very shoegaze-pop desperation, as if 'Under A Funeral Moon' was a collaboration album with Blasphemy and The Jesus And Mary Chain about suicidal heartbreak, and the result is frankly staggering. This has been released recently, and I must admit I've had trouble listening to anything else in the past couple of weeks. It's a wonder my family hasn't put me under suicide watch.

38. END OF LEVEL BOSS Eklectric

It's definitely been the year of bands coming into their own, and End Of Level Boss' third album is yet another shining example of that. Amazingly original, dissonant heavy music that defies categorization while still worshipping at the altar of Voivod. I can't wait for their Roadburn show, and I was already this excited back when I made them band of the week.

37. HOT GRAVES Knights In White Phosphorus

This position is irrelevant. Any band with a song called 'Worship The Goat', with the lyrics "NO TIME FOR REBUTTAL / THERE'S NO TIME TO WASTE / COME TAKE THIS CHALICE / THIS BLOOD YOU MUST TASTE / WORSHIP THE GOAT!", deserves any place in any list. It's their choice, they've earned it. Especially if the song in question is a trailblazing mix of crust and old thrash, all rolled into one zombified carcass of rot, and especially if the album offers 14 more in the exact same vein. Fuck yeah.

36. BARN OWL Lost In The Glare / Shadowland / EVAN CAMINITI When California Falls Into The Sea / JON PORRAS Undercurrent

Barn Owl are one of the very few drone/ambient artists who still understand that it's important for your releases to have time to mean something both to the band itself and the people who will hear it. Even if you can be consistently flabbergasting in everything you put out, after that 93rd split 7" this month it all starts to be a bit of a blur. So, by that standard, this was a pretty productive year for the Californian duo - one EP, 'Shadowland', synthesizer-rich and sounding like everything was put through huge stacks of tube amps (because it was), one full length album, 'Lost In The Glare', a deeply engaging sweep of both luminous radiance and quietly brooding darkness, and a solo album for each of them, a ghostlier, murkier one for Jon and a hypnotic guitar ode to Arizona Bay. Just play them all in succession and let yourself drift off this tedious mundane existence.

35. BRUTAL TRUTH End Time / ROTTEN SOUND Cursed / WORMROT Dirge / MARUTA Forward Into Regression

It's simple, if you have any interest at all in grindcore, you need all of these. Several generations at play here - first of all, there's the legendary Brutal Truth with a drastically heavy affair that frequently harks back to 'Need To Control' (dude, that first song) and some other of their prime moments. Then, surely legends in the making, Finns Rotten Sound stay steady on the path they've been carving, one of astounding power and an increasingly unique sound. They'll be mentioned in the same breath as the genre greats in ten years, if they aren't already, and the blinding display of barely restrained violence of 'Cursed' will be one of the major stepping stones for immortality. Maruta have tragically split up last month, so 'Forward Into Regression' will stand as the epitaph for a band that should have gone beyond just two albums. Seeing them live this year was a revelation, and they seemed well on their way to become one of the prime grinders of the world. Just like their touring partners on that occasion, Wormrot, who keep laying waste to everything in their path with gritty, unstoppable old-school grind. I talked about them a bit on TLD when the record came out.

34. DREDG Chuckles And Mr. Squeezy

My love affair with Dredg continues, even if they make a record barely without any guitars. It's in fact a testament to the songwriting power of these guys that no matter what their instrumental approach is, even if it's with a Dan The Automator production, lots of synths and sleepy chillout moods instead of the energy of stuff like 'El Cielo' for instance, it always sounds exactly and unmistakably like Dredg. And Gavin's voice is still the stuff of dreams, even on a syrupy yet bitter ballad like 'Where I'll End Up'. Hell, especially on those.

33. HAWKS AND DOVES Year One

Oh, Hawks And Doves? It's a band with Gared O'Donnell of Planes Mistaken For Stars on vocals and guitar. What, do you need more? Because if you do, you seriously need to lock yourself somewhere with the Planes Mistaken For Stars discography for a week to understand. Anyway, this was actually a little surprising, not so much in the more bare singer/songwriter style as the 2009 7" hinted at, but more a full band, with hints of Planes and americana, as well as a more barroom sort of groove that suits Gared's gravely voice perfectly. So good to have that voice back.

32. DEAFHEAVEN Roads To Judah

I told you, didn't I? 'Roads To Judah' is everything that demo hinted at, and more. Haunting but strangely uplifting, ferocious but surprisingly beautiful, it's a delicate balance of feelings and moods that can only be crudely called black metal because there's really not anything else to describe them as. It's shoegaze, it's progressive, but it stays glued to your brain and your heart so much more than 99% other bands that combine all those elements. "Euphoric melacholia" and "beautiful sadness" were two of the attempts I made at describing them in that analysis of the demo, and this record amplifies them both with heart-stopping results.

31. NEGATIVE PLANE Stained Glass Revelations

Murky, creeping Lovecraftian darkness, early Celtic Frost savagery and a truly frightening intensity all combine for one of the most difficult but also rewarding black metal albums of late. 'Angels Of Veiled Bone' sounds like it was recorded by three animated corpses, hidden in a Satanic underground abode built right beneath the abandoned church. It's fucking grim.

30. ASH BORER Ash Borer / SERVILE SECT Trvth / CIRCLE OF OUROBORUS Eleven Fingers

Ash Borer was band of the week when this album came out and the same happened to Circle Of Ouroborus, and as you can see from what I wrote there, they weren't easy nuts to crack. Buried within these albums is some of the most opaque and headfucking extreme music you will ever hear, so only the insane apply here. I'm sure you'll all enjoy the ride as much as I did. Servile Sect share a record label with Circle Of Ouroborus, and they're similarly out-there-somewhere. In space, to be more precise, where no one can hear you scream but where the blackened, piercing environments of 'Trvth' are perfectly audible, thank you very much.

29. BLUT AUS NORD 777 - Sect(s) / 777 - The Desanctification

This pair of albums, the two first parts of a trilogy, contains some of the best material the revolutionary Blut Aus Nord have ever released, and that's saying something. Much more concrete than their recent, more abstract works, they combine an otherworldly distance and menace with passages of true blinding intensity. More clearly black metal on 'Sect(s)', dissonant and showing traces of Ministry or Godflesh industrial darkness on 'The Desanctification', this is a two-part void that will consume you if you give it half a chance. Harold Camping will probably come out of retirement to announce another end of the world when the final part of the trilogy comes out in 2012.

28. INDIAN Guiltless

Grrrroaaaaaaarghhhhhh. Indian are unpleasant, noisy and rude. Drugs, misery, filth, mud and suffering pour from them like old blood from an ever-opening sore, and they'll hate every second of the enjoyment you might get from such a confrontational piece of music. It's one of those that you can't explain why you like it to a normal person without them thinking you're one fucked up weirdo. Which you probably are. Aren't we all.

27. DISMA Towards The Megalith

Just go on the members tab and look at the pedigree of these people! How could their first album not sound like it was bellowed forth by fucking Cthulhu himself? It was, and it was his favourite messenger, Incantation, who carried it up to the surface. Proper death metal is back, and it's hungry for revenge. Cower.

26. YOB Atma

YOB represent everything that is good about underground music. Polite and intelligent people writing gigantic doom songs, rich in sludginess and psychedelia, albums that are never alike, shows that seem to shake the foundations of the planet, Scott Kelly as guest vocalist, you name it, YOB have it. 'Atma' is unique, as they all are, and it's roughly somewhere between the more monochrome viciousness of 'The Great Cessation' and the band's more exploratory work like 'Elaborations Of Carbon'. In short, it's awesome and everyone should own it. Simple as that.

2011 in review - top 100 albums of the year (part 2/4)

2011-12-08T16:58:00.001Z

75. WHITE HORSE The Revenant Gospels - Volume III

Ugh. A sort of esoteric Gnaw Their Tongues, with some connections to the new occult poster-girl Chelsea Wolfe, White Horse is abstract, beyond-the-grave ghostly horror that sounds like it was recorded way before recording equipment actually existed. Mysterious, distant and bleakly funereal, it's music to contact all the dead relatives you didn't like to.

74. OBSEQUIAE Suspended In The Brume Of Eos

Tanner from the sublime Celestiial (who were in the list last year) was kind enough to introduce me to this, the first album from, Obsequiae, a duo in which he is guitarist/vocalist, and I was totally blown away. There's a star-gazing elegance with which they evoke the wonder and magic of the Middle Ages, fusing it with sizeable amounts of intelligent, mid-paced black metal maelstrom, making for a most fascinating first record.

73. LOOKING FOR AN ANSWER Eterno Treblinka

These Spaniards have been around for ages, but hopefully now they're on Relapse the rest of the world will start paying attention. And it's so easy to love them - if any inch of you appreciates environmentally aware grindcore in the vein of early Napalm Death, this'll be your thing. I wrote a bit more about then on The Living Doorway a few months ago.

72. YOUNG WIDOWS In And Out Of Youth And Lightness

It's noir rock, people. Groovy and catchy at times, brooding and subtle some other times, with a clear highlight to show other people why you love them on top of it ('Future Heart'), Young Widows are unique and I'm already looking forward to the next record and how they next skull art will look like.

71. VANHELGD Church Of Death

If we're gonna have a deluge of any genre, let it be rancid, old-school death metal. Seriously. Vanhelgd can clone 50 bands like them that they'll probably all make my 2012 list. 'Church Of Death' sound old, cavernous and totally crushing, just like it used to be.

70. LOCRIAN The Clearing

It arrived in the nick of time, the new Locrian incantation, just before I was closing my list, but it brought with it the usual ominous mood, a sort of Earth gone black metal thick atmosphere that sounds like distant evil spirits getting closer and closer until they swallow you up into an infinite void of nothingness.

69. METH DRINKER Meth Drinker

Fortunately, for every awe-inspiring, dream-creating record like the Locrian above (okay, more nightmare than dream, but still), there's a repulsive reality check like Meth Drinker to remind you of the disease-ridden gutter we really live in. A horrible sludge bomb that hits you like a junkie's well-aimed spit attack, it totally made me want to stink up Terrorizer's pretty front page by making them band of the week a few months ago, so go and read that if you feel like covering yourself in more dirt.

68. ULVER Wars Of The Roses

Not as much of a huge landmark as the previous monument of elegance and darkening subtlety, 'Shadows Of The Sun', 'Wars Of The Roses' is a sort of development of those monochrome sunset moods, allowing some other shady hues to creep in. Although it seems to lack a single defining moment to cap it all off, despite the huge closing poem piece, there's no arguing with the emotional power of songs like 'February MMX' or 'Norwegian Gothic'. Oh, and they're finally starting to be really amazing live too.

67. LAKE OF TEARS Illwill

The ever-shapeshifting Lake Of Tears get all angry on this new album, and there's even the occasional thrashy moment here and there. Might sound like an odd mix, especially since the best Lake Of Tears moments have been the more delicately emotional ones throughout their brilliantly varied and unjustly ignored career, but somehow it works. Chalk up one more brand of darkness these Swedes have visited and conquered.

66. CONCEALMENT Phenakism

My Portuguese album of the year, from a band that will surely reach great heights if they keep on this path. Even Starkweather's Rennie Resmini puts in a typically fiery guest performance on an album that is chaotic, intense, insanely technical but one from which you can extract the main ingredient that sometimes the Meshuggahs of this world so lack - proper, expertly crafted songs. Do yourself a favour and lend this one an ear, even if you have to look up the meaning of that album title first.

65. CULT OF YOUTH Cult Of Youth
Post-punk, neofolk and, well, a bit of proper folk too. Sounds confusing, doesn't it? However, the second album from this unique band, looser and less martial than their debut, isn't all that hard to digest, such is the lushly crafted nature of the Death In June-ish songs. Look, Sean Ragon sounds just like Michael Gira on most of the album. That alone should suffice as a recommendation.

64. BACCHUS Bacchus / BALACLAVA Crimes Of Faith / DEAD IN THE DIRT Fear / HEARTLESS Hell Is Other People / NEW LOWS Harvest Of The Carcass / NIGHT HAG Gilded Age / SARABANTE Remnants

I know, right?! This serves to illustrate how many of these dark hardcore/crust/whatever bands have popped up in the past couple of years (and how many probably will - heck, even Skitsystem have signed with Southern Lord now), not to mention the other similar ones that are scattered throughout the list in the upcoming positions because they have something that makes them reach an even superior level. The fact that they're all here doesn't mean they're all 100% alike, actually the opposite - if they're here, it's because they all have something unique and recognizable to them and still manage to rise up above the growing mass. As I've said before, the moment will come when we're sick of this kind of thing, but it's not here yet. Oh, and I had already talked about a few of these on a band of the week post.

63. BASTARD PRIEST Ghouls Of The Endless Night

True story - a friend of mine who's an equally enthusiastic fan of Bastard Priest played it to another friend of ours who didn't know the band, and without telling him who it was, asked him if he could guess when this album was recorded. His answer? 1986. That's probably all you need to know about this gruesome punked-up slab of death metal, but read my band of the week post on them if you want more.

62. WOODEN SHJIPS West

Recorded in a real studio for once, with rather shorter songs a slight little bit of variation, but essentially, the hypnotism beats remain the same. Even if there's a backwards song and stuff, it'll still drill into your brain just as the other ones did. That's really all we require of Ripley and the boys, and they do it like no one else can.

61. ALASKAN Adversity; Woe

From the depths of bandcamp, this huge discovery led me to purchase, oh, just about everything Alaskan have ever done, including a tape. Tapes are the new cool. Anyway, they're the shit - atmospheric doom, 'Oceanic'-like post metal and a substancial amount of grit and agressiveness all combine for a very affecting, brutal whole. Don't miss it.

60. ULCERATE The Destroyers Of All

Another one of those super-technical bands that you really only just notice are that gifted when you come up for air in between beatings. On their third album, these Kiwis are approaching critical mass, and 'The Destroyers Of All' are sort of like what would happen if Neurosis felt like doing a death metal album. It would destroy all, wouldn't it? Well, there you go.

59. WOODS OF DESOLATION Torn Beyond Reason

I was desperately into that album when it came out earlier in the year, and I made sure everyone knew about it in my band of the week post about it. I still am and still put in on whenever I want to feel like my life is worthless and have a good cry about it. Also, the Wolves In The Throne Room playing Alcest songs description I made up on that post still sounds like a perfect one to me.

58. THE SKULL DEFEKTS Peer Amid

I'm sure it has happened many times. Band members sitting around after rehearsal, having a beer, and thinking "how can we make this all more awesome?", and someone says "well, we could have Daniel Higgs on vocals," and everyone agrees and laughs and then looks blankly at the wall just wishing it would be possible. The Skull Defekts just fuckin' went for it, so here they are, all full of Higgs and his profound rambly nature, delivering the best album of their career and a perfect example of contemporary post-punk.

57. THE FUCKING WRATH Valley Of The Serpent's Soul

Don't read, don't think, just fucking rock. Okay, you can read a bit of what I said about them before. And yes, one of them looks like Ron Jeremy, and that's worth like a leap of 20 positions in the list.

56. RED FANG Murder The Mountains

I swear I'm not getting tired of writing, but this one's easy to figure out as well. This video, the best of the year, will provide ample reasons as to why Red Fang are cooler and rock harder than you.

55. THE MAN-EATING TREE Harvest

How do you know you're a great band? When you can do a cover of 'Nights In White Satin' without a hint of cheese in sight. The Man-Eating Tree not only pull that one off, they manage to spice up the brilliance of last year's 'Vine' (that made my list too) with added variation and depth, and mesmerizing songs like 'At The Green Country Chapel' or 'Down To The Color Of The Eye'. And that voice...

54. RAVENCULT Morbid Blood

Pure, solid, stomping blasts of black metal the way it should be. Nothing more, nothing less. Hail Satan.

53. HEINALI AND MATT FINNEY Ain't No Night

I interviewed Matt Finney himself, the American half of this American/Ukrainian duo, when this album was about to come out, and by then I already had a head full of darkness by listening to this way too much that it's healthy. Finney's dejected but brutal wordpower is amply complemented by Heinali's talent for creating noise and atmosphere, and on this album the two men are in sync like they've never been before, erecting a tower of despair and bitter sarcasm. Wanna know how crazy these people are? Since releasing this, they've done a cover of 'Junior Dad'. Yes, that 'Junior Dad'. Here. I rest my case.

52. ALL PIGS MUST DIE God Is War

So this wasn't lumped with everyone else on #64 because there's a bit more to it. Maybe their experience from other bands (APMD consist of Kevin Baker from the The Hope Conspiracy, Ben Koller from Converge and Adam Wentworth and Matt Woods from Bloodhorse) helps, but whatever it is, they manage to sink even further in the spiral of darkness and negativity. Equal parts Celtic Frost and Discharge, it definitely lives up to the amazing self-titled EP they released last year.

51. CAVE IN White Silence

It's like a summing up of everything that's great about Cave In, basically. The 'Planets Of Old' EP already hinted that this was going to be something special. Showing the same white-hot (pun intended!) fury of the immortal 'Until Your Heart Stops' landmark but not leaving behind their adventurous nature, Brodsky and pals achieve a perfect balance that culminates in 'Sing My Loves', just about the best song they have ever written. Guaranteed to move you, both physically and emotionally.

2011 in review - top 100 albums of the year (part 1/4)

2011-12-07T01:38:00.003Z

Now, for the main event. I always preach the same message when I do these lists - if you can't think of at least 20 records you really, really liked in any year, then you're looking for your music in all the wrong places. Every year is a good year for music, and you don't have to lower your standards or branch out into genres you don't like to get a lot of enjoyment from new stuff every year. Of course, if you only listen to, say, raw black metal bands from the Ukraine who must have black and white album covers and no more than two members, it might be hard to put together a big list, but then again, in that case you're not much a music fan to even care about lists, are you?

Having said that, it is true that some years do offer an even bigger quantity of good records overall, and 2011 has been remarkable in that aspect. So much that a top 100 list was actually hard to put together (don't laugh, now) without leaving out a whole bunch of stuff I really loved. Therefore, in this year's list, I'll be using a little workaround to that, with some positions holding two or more albums. Not random pairings, of course, but music I feel is in some way connected and that you should listen to with equal urgency. See it like those stickers they use in records shops with "for fans of..." recommendations, or something. It's just an excuse to fit more great bands in the list and talk about them with you guys, which is the whole point.

Onwards!

100. JACK AND THE BEARDED FISHERMEN Places To Hide

See? It's a testament to the abundant quality of 2011 that a record as cool as this only sneaks in at #100. These weirdly-named Frenchies put out an unassuming little second album, but one that grows on you enormously the more you listened to it. Theirs is a curious mix of heavy riffs and melodious harmonies, with vocals that try and succeed in carrying better tunes than on their 2009 debut 'Hunting Isn't Easy... When Dogs Become Wolves'. Highly recommended whether you're into stoner, sludge, post metal or just damn good heavy music.

99. SAMIAM Trips

My love affair with Samiam is a long-term one, the hooks and subtleties of their quirky punk rock are completely stuck in me ever since I discovered their second album 'Soar' some 20 years go. So it's with great joy that all these years and all these albums later, they're still doing it with the same excitement as before. Of course, the brilliance of 1997's 'You Are Freaking Me Out' remains untouched, but the morose tales and perfectly crafted songs of Samiam are still universally appealing.

98. GROG Scooping The Cranial Insides / CORPUS CHRISTII Luciferian Frequencies

Two of the best examples of what Portugal's extreme music underground can offer, if anyone bothers to pay attention. Grog are a legendary deathgrind institution who came back with a vengeance after a few years of discographic inactivity, dropping this crushing record and a string of devastating live performances. Intense, wildly technical but still able to write great songs. Corpus Christii, on the other hand, are already more well-known internationally, especially in black metal circles, and 'Luciferian Frequencies' (their Candlelight debut and seventh album overall) is a journey of torment and horror, voiced through the unique screaming abilities of their leader and frontman, Nocturnus Horrendus.

97. FULL OF HELL Roots Of Earth Are Consuming My Home

What a fucking racket! You might want to pass up on this band if you just check out their photos or videos and realize how they look like scrawny little kids, but you'd be ignoring one of the most noisily abrasive experiences of the year. Sick vocals, patches of face-melting power electronics and confrontational sludge of variable speed are all thrown in a filthy cauldron, and the end result is very ugly and very promising indeed.

96. COLD BODY RADIATION Deer Twilight

Cold Body Radiation's 2010 debut 'The Great White Emptiness' already made it into my list last year, and it's great to have such a wonderful follow-up shortly after. "Hazy, nebulous and distant, its cosmic slumber will numb you into a bittersweet oblivion," is how I described it at the time, and 'Deer Twilight' has a similar effect, except I find it less cold and more vague and meandering in comparison, a different mood with the same distant fascination.

95. ASVA Presences Of Absences

Asva's 'What You Don't Know Is Frontier', from 2008, is one of the best records of its (rather vague, admittedly) genre, throwing drone and doom and post rock into the night and letting the stars do the rest. 'Presences Of Absences' isn't as instantly captivating, maybe an effect of Stuart Dahlquist allowing new members (Asva is a constantly renewing open collaboration affair centered on Stuart) Greg Gilmore, Jake Weller and Kayo Dot's Toby Driver a bigger role in the songwriting than before, but its diversity will inevitably conquer you. Even Driver's vocals, apparently out of place on the first couple of listens, settle into the creepy beauty/horror duality and help make this an unsettling but remarkable album.

94. MOGWAI Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will

This is probably Mogwai's most natural, effortless record to date. For once, you can tell the band didn't really try to achieve ultra-heaviness or a crescendo bigger than the previous one, or anything. They just lied back and let their own inspiration and chemistry as a band do its thing, and the result is a wonderfully flowing album, even punctuated by the odd bit of experimentation like the upbeat 'Mexican Grand Prix', that ends up actually being one of the highlights of the album. A return to form in every way.

93. AN AUTUMN FOR CRIPPLED CHILDREN Everything

'Everything' is a great improvement over last year's 'Lost', it seems the mysterious Dutch trio has really captured their essence this time round. A basis of desperate black metal enwreathed in a thick layer of snowy melancholy, it's furious and achingly beautiful at the same time, as if one of the birds on the gorgeous cover would suddenly swoop down and attack you while you were admiring the perfect trajectory of its flight.

92. ABSU Abzu

Much tighter and to the point than 2009's 'Absu' (the first one on the Abyssic trilogy, of which 'Abzu' is obviously the second), 'Abzu' sees Proscriptor getting back to a more punishing delivery to his occult incantations, in the vein of 'Tara' or even earlier stuff like the amazing 'The Third Storm Of Cythraul' because of its more obvious raw approach. Business as crazy and as irresistible as usual.

91. VICTIMS A Dissident / ENTRAILS The Tomb Awaits

These two are fun to pair up because they're the perfect example of how you can take the same basic blueprint, Swedish death metal, and run with it in distinctly different directions to reach the results that suit your band's musical personality. Victims might even have their roots and basic intentions reside elsewhere, on the crusty d-beat that they so gloriously have practiced in the past few years, but their Dismember-drenched melodic leads and riffage shine through clearly, as if it's part of their inspiration DNA. You might not feel like you're listening to something revolutionary when you're banging your head and your fist to 'A Dissident', but this mix of NWOSDM and dis-crust is actually pretty refreshing and part of the reason why it feels so exciting. Entrails, on the other hand, didn't really run anywhere with their influences. This is essentially an Entombed album with the last few letters of the band name changed, but that's okay. It ain't broke, and not every album we enjoy has to be experimental black spazz-o-core or whatever. I'd even love for there to be a new Ent-metal movement, with every band being called Ent-something and doing their very best impression of Entombed. Besides, Entrails have a right to sound like this, because they've been there since the beginning of it all, recording some demos in the early 90s that they never released and then disappearing until their 2008 resurgence.

90. SERPENT VENOM Carnal Altar

I got this album really early due to the band's enormous kindness towards one puny journalist who's into doom such as myself, so I already knew all those sombre and soaring riffs and twisting vocal lines (by the unique throat of ex-Sloth Gaz Ricketts) by heart when the album finally came out. We may be poor as dirt, but sometimes it pays off to be a music writer. I did a band of the week post about Serpent Venom that should cover all your info needs.

89. THE WOUNDED KIONGS In The Chapel Of The Black Hand

Their first album 'The Shadow Over Atlantis' made it into my 2010 list, a year where they blew me away with a great Roadburn show as well, but then almost the whole line-up changed, leaving only leader and guitarist (and pianist) Steve Mills as the sole remaining member, and I feared that magic couldn't be recaptured so easily. Especially since the new vocalist turned out to be a girl, Sharie Neyland. Nothing against girls, but that would surely mean a whole new approach to the sound... or not. It's great to be wrong sometimes. 'In The Chapel Of The Black Hand' features the very same occult mood as its predecessor, the same traditional Sabbath/Pentagram doom vibe, and Sharie has an astonishing set of pipes and carries the ghostly melodies with class and aplomb.

88. DOPETHRONE Dark Foil

It's one of those things - I've always avoided listening to Dopethrone before on principle, because I thought it was silly for a band to name itself after such a well known album. Well, it's a stupid principle. I'm glad 'Dark Foil' is strong enough to break through my randomly built mind barriers and smash them down through vicious vocals, mean and dark riffs and an absolutely outrageous cover of Bill Withers' 'Ain't No Sunshine' that's, like, the best cover ever. I've gone back to 'Demonsmoke', their debut, to catch up, and while it's not as loose or devilishly groovy as this one, it's still a kickass record. I'm looking forward to their Roadburn show in 2012, where I intend to go up to them and apologize personally for ignoring them for so long.

87. DARK CASTLE Surrender To All Life Beyond Form

This thunderous duo emerged apparently all fully-formed with their amazing first album, 'Spirited Migration', and it seems that was just the first step. 'Surrender To All Life Beyond Form' is deeper, more complex and further into Dark Castle's very own style than its predecessor was, and judging by the band's terrifying live performances (last witnessed with YOB a couple of months ago around these parts) they intend on making sure no one misses the point, even if it has to be by force.

86. *SHELS Plains Of The Purple Buffalo

A constant breath of fresh air in post rock, *shels can be delicate, moving and just plain gorgeous, and maintain the balance with super-heavy parts and surprisingly abrasive moments that build up perfect dreamy constrasts. Of course, the high point are still Mehdi Safa's vocals, a world unto themselves full of emotion and graceful power.

85. BLACK COBRA Invernal / BLACK HAVEN Harmbringer / BLACK TUSK Set The Dial

See what I did there? The only common link between these bands, aside from the obvious, is their heaviness. It's so cool how it's possible to transmit the feeling of four elephants sitting on your head by such different means. Be it by two dudes pounding the shit out of their drumkit and guitar, churning out sludge-via-Slayer riffs like Black Cobra do, or by tearing it up Integrity-gone-punk-via-NWOSDM style like awesome Belgians Black Haven, or by dropping the best album of your career, full of bourbon-drenched fat grooves like Black Tusk do. It's all black, and it's all great.

84. THRALL Vermin To The Earth

You know what? Read my Terrorizer review of this album, it'll tell you everything you need to know about how good these Aussie black metallers are, and in a much more polished and professional language.

83. ANAAL NATHRAKH Passion

Minor deviations, but all in all it's yet another uncontrollably chaotic blast from the dynamic Hunt/Kenney duo, complete with a highlight sure to become another anthem of filth for Anaal Nathrakh, in the form of 'Drug-Fucking Abomination'. Charming stuff.

82. DRUGS OF FAITH Corroded

I don't think my fuss-wave really got going, but you should still check out Drugs Of Faith, one of the most underrated and unsung bands of the year. Just read that post to realize why they deserve your attention.

81. THISQUIETARMY Resurgence / Vessels

Here he is, just like I told you on the splits list, and with two releases on top of it. The mesmerizing aquatic force of the powerfully evocative 'Vessels' and the diverse, multi-faceted approaches of the drone/shoegaze/dreamlike atmosphereic tour-the-force that is the two-disc 'Resurgence' both show a vivid, inspirational mind at work.

80. IRON & WINE Kiss Each Other Clean

Where Sam Beam surrounds himself with a full band and tries to grow a little bit out of the more minimalist first records, where it was basically him and his guitar taking care of the achingly fragile songs. It's a bold step, a step that he's been building up to ever since the 'Woman King' EP, calmly and gradually, but one that people of considerable genius like Eric Bachmann with his Crooked Fingers on 'Forfeit/Fortune' or Ray LaMontagne with his latest record have failed at. But Sam pulls it off beautifully, and shows hints of being able to maintain and even improve. Especially on the first song, 'Walking Far From Home', a deliriously beautiful song that will create a thousand images in your mind and one that keeps tugging at your heart from all directions, both the literal and metaphorical meanings of the lyric hitting you a different way. It's probably the best song of the year, and even if nothing comes even close for the rest of the album, there's still enough spots of brilliance ('Tree By The River', 'Your Fake Name Is Good Enough For Me') for it to be worthy of Iron & Wine's amazing discography.

79. ÅRABROT Solar Anus

Here's a tip, if you have a band and no idea for a concept - read up on Georges Bataille. It's working fine for some of the weirdest but also most wonderful bands in the world, like L'Acephale first and now these Norwegian noise-mongers. That's right, 'Solar Anus' takes its name from the French writer's text 'The Solar Anus' and it's both noise and noise-rock, it's both minimalist and colossally huge, it's both hideously deformed and strangely appealing. It's like a glorious Viking sent from the Gods to rape you in a dark alleyway. Just listen to the damn thing already.

78. BOOK OF BLACK EARTH The Cold Testament

Leaner, meaner, sharper and entirely keyboard-less, this is where Book Of Black Earth finally mean business. A far cry from their all-over-the-place previous albums, this one is a black/death/thrash attack that goes straight for the throat, like that big fucking wolf-man-thing on the cover, and rips it open in one ferocious bite. You'll be hooked right from the opener 'Weight Of The World', you'll see.

77. GRAYCEON All We Destroy / SUBROSA No Help For The Mighty Ones

It would always be inevitable to pair these two up for me, even if it's rather hard to pinpoint an exact reason why. While there are some vague connections between the bands, like a decisive female presence in both (three of the five members in SubRosa and celloist/violinist Jackie Perez Gratz in the Grayceon trio) and the same record label (inevitably, Profound Lore), or even the fact that they're both finally hitting the jackpot on their third record, nothing else would hint at such a coupling. But the way they approach the little universes contained in their songs, the underlying melancholy (Grayceon's subtle use of the cello for this is staggering), the development of feelings through intricate and progressive songwriting, the way they seem to turn hard-hitting, downtuned sludge-rock into utter beauty, everything seems to me like it's coming from the same cavity of the heart somehow. And they both feature one special song, one of those so good you could die for it, 'Borrowed Time, Borrowed Eyes' for SubRosa and 'Shellmounds' for Grayceon, where Jackie sings, appropriately, the line "it breaks my heart in two". So, get them both and prepare for your mental journey.

76. MOMENTUM Whetting Occam's Razor

Another band featuring Alex from Fall Of Efrafa after Light Bearer, this one is much more direct and brutal. I made a post about them (and about the great Icelandic band of the same name) at The Living Doorway, so head over there to see why I loved this album.

2011 in review - splits

2011-12-04T21:58:00.003Z

Are you anxious for the top 100 list? Me too, but there's still one more step before we get to that. I could have tacked this one to the EP/demo list, but splits have become so important that I think they warrant a little category of their own. They allow bands to get extra creative and to join forces, be it on a strict split release or on a collaborative effort, and it's a format that usually brings out something that wasn't there before in the sound of the bands involved. Or it's just a place to dump tracks they wouldn't use otherwise, but hey. If it rocks, it rocks.

Here's the 15 splits I enjoyed the most this year, alphabetically ordered.

ABADDON INCARNATE / PHOBIA Split 7"

It's all over in less than 10 minutes, but sweet grindin' Jesus, what a blast. Abbadon Incarnate's five minutes impressed me so much I even did a band of the week post on them when I got this.

AIDAN BAKER / THISQUIETARMY Orange

It's a bit of a spoiler but not much of a surprise - Thisquietarmy's 'Resurgence' will be in my top 100, so Eric Quach manages the feat of getting on all three lists (he was on the EP list as well with Parallel Lines) of 2011. If only I had seen any of his bands live, he might have done the list poker. Yeah, I'll do a shows list as well. I don't sleep much. Anyway, he did it through a bit of time travel, since this disconcerting collaboration between him and the Nadja man dates from 2006. However, this reissue features a lot of new music from those sessions that didn't make it to the original EP, and even if it's understandable why it didn't, as it flows in a rather different direction, it's still wonderfully captivating and able to envelop you in thick, almost palpable atmospheres. There's an obvious chemistry at work between the two men, and the best compliment paid to this collaborative work is that you can't really tell who's doing what and who wrote what in most of the songs.

AUSSITÔT MORT / HEAVEN IN HER ARMS Split 10"

An obvious pairing, as the two bands have long maintained a partnership that has seen them tour together and everything. Stylistically, they complement each other well too, as the two shoegazing Envy-like tracks from Heaven In Her Arms find a more aggressive, post-hardcore counterpoint in the two Aussitôt Mort songs in the way as if they're two long lost lovers.

COILGUNS / KUNZ Split

Bit of an oddity, this one - both Coilguns and Kunz are side-projects from The Ocean members. Coilguns feature Louis, Luc and Jona, while Kunz consist of Louis (switching from bass to guitar) and Luc still drumming. The fact that there's a clear difference between the two speaks volumes about the musical creativity of these people. Coilguns offer three tracks of a chaotic brand of groovy mathcore and Kunz, the most exciting of the two, lay down four tracks of surprisingly raw and dirty riff-mangling heaviness. Edgy and boundlessly energetic music.

CLINGING TO THE TREES OF A FOREST FIRE / NESSERIA Split 12"

I'm a huge fan of CTTTOAFF, I've featured them as band of the week when their last full-length came out last year, so this seemed like a perfect excuse to get all brutalized by a few new songs from them, but then I saw Nesseria tearing it up live at the SWR festival and realized their side of the split would be just as great, and their The Secret-ish fury does not disappoint.

DESPISE YOU / AGORAPHOBIC NOSEBLEED On And On And On...

This is particularly exciting because it features the first recorded material from Despise You in over seven years, so it's great to be subjected to their much-missed face-melting powerviolence insanity once again. And as far as insanity goes, there's no one better than Agoraphobic Nosebleed for a fuck buddy (come on, this is grindcore after all, I'm allowed a little vulgarity). With songs in the vein of 'Agorapocalypse' (ie, longer than 20 seconds), they'll mash up any bones that were still left intact after Despise You's frenetic attack.

GNAW THEIR TONGUES / HALO OF THE SUN / THE ARM AND SWORD OF A BASTARD GOD / THE SLAUGHTERED LAMB In Hoc Signo Vinces

If you've read this blog before, you're probably aware of my unhealthy Gnaw Their Tongues obsession, so it's not hard to guess why I got into 'In Hoc Signo Vinces' in the first place. Hell, I have to confess, apart from Halo Of The Sun that I was aware was an Axis Of Perdition side-thing, I didn't even know who all these other people were. So it was with great joy (well, and with great dread and horror too) that I realized they more than held up their own alongside the two tracks of Gnaw Their Tongues' typically scary pieces of abject perversion. Halo Of The Sun deliver their own doomy dark ambient, but it's the putrid remnants of some sort of raped and killed version of death metal from The Arm And Sword Of A Bastard God and The Slaughtered Lamb that most impress here - the 6 minutes of 'GutterMotherCreator' from the former and what feels like three days of 'Hands And Head Not Found' from the latter will regularly show up in your worst nightmares for a long time.

HOODED MENACE / ILSA Split 12"

HOODED MENACE / ASPHYX Split 7"

Anything Hooded Menace releases will always have a place in my lists. Even if it's just Lasse Pyykkö strumming the same note with that tone, I'll be in doom heaven. Or hell, depending on perspective. So two splits released this year means two new great Hooded Menace songs, wonderfully titled 'Catacombs Of The Graceless' and 'Abode Of The Grotesque'. That American crusty doomsters Ilsa and legendary Dutch death metal giants Asphyx contribute to the horror of each release with fittingly grotesque complements is the icing on the rotten cake.

KAIJU / DRUID LORD Split

Powerful death/doomsters Druid Lord from Florida have put out a couple more splits this year (7" stuff with Skeletal Spectre and Wooden Stake), but this one with horror-obsessed Kaiju is clearly the most exciting. A two-disc affair that even sees Kaiju tackling Blue Öyster Cult's 'Godzilla' and Massacre's 'Dawn Of Eternity', it also features my favourite Druid Lord songs from their short career so far - wonderful monstrosities like 'Foul Smell From The Cemetery' and 'Burn In A Pagan Fire' push your face into the damp earth like a zombie wearing combat boots.

LIFEDECEIVER / UTOPIUM Split 7"

Cream of the Portuguese crap! Lifedeceiver, commiting to tape some songs from their incendiary live shows at last, are confrontational, heavy and don't care if you live or die. Utopium, as you've already seen on my EP list, are a prime example of how it's possible to grind it out, Southern Lord style, while still maintaining an edge and a distinct personality - just witness their Siege cover for definitive proof. The joining of the two is a guaranteed kick in the neck.

NADJA / PICASTRO Fool Redeemer

Soon, Nadja will run out of people in the world to collaborate with, but there's still fantastic combinations to be had, if this remarkable record is any indication. Apparently a mere split if you look at the tracklist, but the fact is that both entities had a significant contribution to each other's tracks. So we get Nadja's long piece of brooding droning dirge punctuated by occasional dabs of psych-folk, and Picastro's oddly moving songs being haunted by swashes of fuzzy darkness.

SUN DEVOURED EARTH / VERWÜSTUNG / LOLI VOMITS Split

It starts in America, with Verwüstung antagonizing everyone unlucky to play this foul three-way split with their abrasive black drone, erm, "song" called 'I Hate People'. It's true to its title, people. Then, there's a detour to Latvia as Sun Devoured Earth (whom you are very encouraged to discover the rest of their discography) offer a brief sickly respite with the malaise of their shoegaze hiss, and it's back to America for Loli Vomits to puke all over what's left of your good mood with two filthy funeral punk (yeah, you read that right) abnormalities, the final one being called 'I'm Miserable'. If you have 36 minutes to kill, kill them with extreme prejudice with this record. You'll never get them back.

AS WE DRAW / HEUGLENA / HEXIS Throatruiner 3-way Split

Another three-way split, but this one wouldn't make cemetery maggots sick like the previous one. They'd probably explode in a puddle of white goo with the sheer amount of raging intensity these three bands display. The hellish fury just grows and grows until the bleak, Celeste-ian Hexis reach absolute critical mass with two of the angriest songs you'll hear in 2011.

UNDERSMILE / CARETAKER Split

It's Undersmile, alright? It's getting embarrassing to keep praising them, you should all have purchased the EP 'A Sea Of Dead Snakes' I talked about on the last post and this EP too, as well as flooding their facebook, begging them to get the album done already. On top of it, Caretaker discordantly riff all over the place and make the whole thing even more indispensable.

WINO / SCOTT KELLY Split 7"

If you need a reason for the presence of these two great men playing a new acoustic song each on my list, you're clearly reading the wrong blog. You can listen to both of them here.

2011 in review - non-album releases

2011-12-02T17:26:00.001Z

So instead of just one band of the week, how about going the whole hog and doing the dozens of bands of the year? That's right, folks, it's that time of year again. If you're not of the nerdy list-making persuasion, this is where you bitch and moan for a month and probably mention that no good music has been done since 1973 anyway. If you are, this is where you bitch and moan for a month about how every single list of every single website, blog and magazine in the world is just wrong, apart from yours. It's a win-win situation, or something.

Anyway, as you know, I'm crazy enough to do a top 100 every year. It's not because I love everything that's released, as you'll bitterly witness when I roll out the disappointments of the year (and there have been a bunch in 2011!). I just listen to way too much stuff and my tastes are far too wide-ranging for my own good. So, to break you in gently before the big caboodle hits, here's a strictly alphabetically ordered and very non-exhaustive list of the demos/EPs/tapes/whatever-it-is-as-long-as-it's-not-a-full-length that I most enjoyed in 2011. Feel free to discuss and show yours.

ANGEL OF THE ABYSS Uncreation

No idea who these people are or where they're from. They used to have a facebook that now disappeared and no other info seems to be available, so the only thing I can offer you is a little link for this demo, I'm sure they won't mind. I don't even know if they're human, and I'm pretty sure cacodaemons from the seventh level of hell don't give a shit about mediafire. This is 11 songs in 10 minutes of pure chaos - a drum machine set on fuck-'em-all while guitars squeal and someone's throat is ripped to shreds. Can't imagine how they'll ever be able to do something longer than 10 minutes, but for now it's a perfect room-clearer.

ANTEDILUVIAN Revelations In Excrement
The final piece in the skullthrone of demos from this beastly Canadian bunch, and the title of this 3-track EP really says it all. It's a piece of fucking grim, mystickal black vortex death metal like they didn't do it anymore, and then they started doing again, and all these horrid little bubbles of fetid pus are starting to burst all over and it's awesome. Spoiler - the subsequent Antediluvian full-length will feature highly on my top 100 list.

BAPTISTS Baptists
Blazing 4-song 7" released on Southern Lord, and while it sounds like just about every other of the last dozen Southern Lord signings (raw and blackened crust punk kindathing, you know), it's still awesome, and it sounds grittier and angrier than most of this new wave of bruising negativity.

BLOODY PANDA Summon: Invocation
I wasn't the biggest fan of 2009's 'Summon', the second Bloody Panda full-length. This NY band seems to gather everything I usually enjoy about an experimental heavy band, but somehow they never really clicked with me. I'm even less of a fan of remix albums, a horrid exercise that I find redundant, masturbatory and unnecessary 99% of the times. Well, 'Summon: Invocation' takes two biscuits in one go - it makes all those songs come to live and hit harder in all their head-caving sludgy glory and it reinstates my faith in remix albums. I guess handing your stuff over to people like Sanford Parker, Mick Barr, Portal, Stuart Dahlquist, Jarboe or Nadja and let them fiddle with it is a pretty good idea.

CORPSESSED The Dagger & The Chalice
It's a cross between the words corpse and possessed, okay? Whatevs, though. There's a guy from Wormphlegm here and this is the very first release from a band practising old-school gurgly and ugly death metal, the Finnish way. That's all that matters.

DESTROY JUDAS Wake

Here's the list of bands that the members of Destroy Judas have played in before: Mindrot, Phobia, Eyes Of Fire, Asunder, Lachrymose, Noctuary, Winterthrall, Deathevokation, Dystopia, Semtex Vest, Dead America, Crisis. Mindrot alone would be enough, but yeah. It's crusty fucking doom. Now go get it before they put out a full length, or be a wimp forever.

DRAINLAND And So Our Troubles Began

It's originally a 12" from 2010, but Southern Lord picked up this Irish band and reissued it in 2011, so it counts for me. It's a recent Southern Lord signing, yes, so do you want to take a guess at how it sounds? I don't know how it is that most of these bands still sound awesome, but they do. Probably the maximum limit of tolerance is close at hand, but we're not there yet.

DREDD Cursed Earth

Dredd are so cool that I made a whole post about them (well, and another dude) up at The Living Doorway, a lovely place I like to stink up every now and then, when I discovered this demo. Go forth and read.

EARTHTONE9 For Cause And Consequence

Earthtone9 are one of my favourite bands ever and one of the most underrated to ever come out of the bubbling furnace of randomness that was the 90s. So it's a tremendous pleasure to see them reuniting a full decade after their initial extinction. And if you're a reunion sceptic, screw you. This is the line-up that recorded 'arc'tan'gent', which makes them automatically valid in any circumstance. While these teasing 16 minutes aren't quite of the same timelessly brilliant level as that record, they do show that the guys are in full form to reach it again, and that's wonderful.

ENSORCELOR Crucifuge

I've gone on about Ensorcelor several times before, including on Terrorizer, so it's great to see them proving their worth with each release. I've actually recently read that 'Crucifuge' is a full-length release, but at 34 minutes and two songs, I assumed it was an EP when I got it and so it ends up here. Whatever it is, get it - it's more abstract that 'Urartica Begins' and not as immediately gripping, but it gets every bit as dark as its predecessor EP.

FUKPIG Batcave Full Of Bastards

A two track digital EP that flies by in a hurry with all the urgence of Fukpig's typically relentless necropunk fury. Therefore, indispensable.

GODSTOPPER Empty Crawlspace

I got all giddy and metaphorical about the band name when I got this tape of amazing doom/noise rock weirdness and did a band of the week post on them, so check that out for more on Godstopper.

GONE POSTAL Promo II

Gone Postal are a young death metal band I discovered during Eistnaflug Festival in Iceland this year, and they blew me away. This imaginatively titled demo is but a fraction of their blunt attack on stage, so be prepared for more coolness soon. In the meantime, download it here.

IMMOLATION Providence

Speaking of death metal, here's one of the best role models for all the young bands. Screw reviewspeak, it's Immolation, they released an EP and you got it because you have good taste (and because it was free, you cheap bastards), it's as simple as that.

LARK'S TONGUE Providence

Lark's Tongue features Chris from Minsk and I also posted on The Living Doorway about it, so go and see what I said about it then so I don't have to repeat myself all over again. It's a list of EPs, not a novel.

LLIHJE Encompassing Nothing

Ice-cold lo-fi black metal without a single thread of emotion or humanity. I loved imagining the extinction of humanity and the subsequent endless black void while listening to it, so I named this one-man monstrosity band of the week.

MAMMON Demiurge

This amazing 3-track EP is right here in front of me on my desk, I just brought it up from my car. I like imagining Satan rising up from beneath the road and torching every car in a blaze of devilish vindication while listening to it. That should give you a hint of how essential the thing is, and then go read my band of the week post I did on them for confirmation.

MY DYING BRIDE The Barghest O' Whitby

The importance of My Dying Bride in my musical upbringing is tremendous, but 'The Dreadful Hours' was the last album to really give me that emotional doom-kick in the gut from them. Not that there's anything spectacularly wrong with the three albums that have followed it, especially 'For Lies I Sire' which was actually quite good, but there was little material as deep as their magical back catalogue. This one song, half-hour EP is a good indication, however, that things might be about to change for the better again. Evocative, dark, poetic and doom-heavy as they haven't been for a long time, it hints at great things to come. Let us hope.

NEIGE MORTE Neige Morte

Oblique, disturbing black metal from Lyon that'll make you feel like taking a shower, except you won't, because you'll also start to feel that your bathroom might be haunted by hideous spectres from another dimension. Or something. They were my band of the week alongside the aforementioned Llihje, so check out that article for more gruesome details.

PARALLEL LINES 11:3:11

Proving that post rock is alive if you know how to do it, this live recording was totally improvised and unrehearsed, and it's still miles above most other bands that fiddle around in the studio with their build-ups and releases for weeks. Eric Quach from Thisquietarmy is part of the trio, so you wouldn't expect anything less than excellence, but it's still amazing how the whole thing works. Moving shoegaze atmospheres and monstrous surges, it's all there. If this is how you guys sound unrehearsed, I suggest you never try to! Oh, and it's free as a digital release.

PROCESS OF GUILT The Circle

It was released really, really early in 2011, but it's impossible to forget it. 'Erosion's last song remixed by Sanford Parker, Echoes Of Yul, DJ Mofo, Bosque and Sons of Bronson, all of them mangling it further and further on a downward spiral of Godfleshian darkness? Yes, please. And chalk up another point for remix albums in 2011.

THOU To The Chaos Wizard Youth

I always have mixed feelings with Thou. I hear potential for them to become one of my favourite bands, since they really have everything. The heaviness, the filth, the horror, the noise, the slowness. However, they keep spreading themselves paper-thin with a release every 10 minutes, never really achieving the monstrosity level they're clearly capable of. I have so much Thou shit, that in between demos, splits, EPs that they all start to pass me by. I'm almost not sure which of them are actually full length records anymore. Well, 'To The Chaos Wizard Youth' is the release that has captivated me the most from them in a long time, so hopefully they'll settle down and make a proper record full of disgusting ditties like 'The Witch Cunt'. That would be delightful.

UNDERSMILE A Sea Of Dead Snakes

One of the year's revelations for me. Discovered during the first edition of Seven Churches Festival, Undersmile quickly became one of the most promising young bands in Europe for me. The songs on the split with Caretaker were a confirmation that the forthcoming debut album will crush us mercilessly. They were band of the week back then as well. And I repeat what I said there - any band with a song called 'Instrumenstrual' rules by default. Fact.

UTOPIUM Conceptive Prescience

Explosive first release from one of the most exciting new Portuguese bands. Since it slays so much, and they do the same live, I did a little piece on them at Terrorizer which you can read here.

VOID MEDITATION CULT Sulfurous Prayers

Okay, so this is the last release on the list for alphabetical reasons, but it's very appropriate that it is the last thing you will remember from it. If you only listen to one demo this year, or this decade for that matter, make sure it's this one. The tape took its own sweet time being released, so I wore out the streaming page for it by playing it incessantly every single day, several times a day, until I got a hold of it. Just listen to it for yourself, no description is necessary when darkness this opaque and this revolting descends upon you. I haven't been so excited about a band since, I don't know, last week probably. But I really mean it this time. These people will destroy us soon. Just wait. And go get that fucking tape right now.

live shots: orthodox at amplifest

2011-11-28T00:53:00.000Z

Orthodox put on one of the finest shows of the first edition of Amplifest in Porto last month. Savage and intense, the most metal show I've seen from them in a long time. Here's a few shots from that great gig:

josé's band of the week: wold

2011-11-23T15:40:00.003Z

WOLD

from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

myspace - blog

As you might have noticed by now, I'm not really aiming to please a crowd here. The occasional three-week absences and constant selection of impenetrably harsh and horribly noisy bands as José's Band of the Week might have tipped you off, but just in case you weren't sure, I'll admit it outright. There's a reason this blog is ad-free, and there's a reason all my "promotion" of it consists of a measly facebook page half-arsedly built in five minutes. It's coherence. I get enough exposure and I get to talk to big enough bands in my day job. So, instead of doing the same over here, I like to keep the long way home. rather subterranean, giving some face time to smaller, younger and more adventurous bands, with the occasional exception for a few of my personal mainstream-ish fetishes. This is essentially where I come to dump my photos, to let you know of past articles that I feel might have been overlooked and to go on about that awesome dronecore (I just made that up) quartet I heard in a basement the other day. And the lists, yes. They'll come soon. But anyway, let's face it - most of the stuff I talk about here won't ever get past the little up-and-coming columns even on extreme music magazines, if they ever get there at all. Far-out-there shit like Vegas Martyrs or Circle Of Ouroborus will always be marginal, because they're way past "extremity" and they've emerged out on the other side of whatever it is they've crossed.

And then, beyond those, there's Wold. You might even have heard of this mysterious Canadian duo, comprised of grand noise master Fortress Crookedjaw and his cohort guitarist Obey, they're on the fashionable and brilliant (two things that rarely go hand in hand) Profound Lore label, so they don't live under a floorboard and put out tapes for two people to listen to, but they're more extreme, abject and cortex-destroying than any other band I can think of. Their discography is pretty long already, with a few highlights like 2008's astounding 'Stratification' and a few opaque blind spots that even I, who like to call myself a fan, struggle with to this day (last year's confusing 'Working Together For Our Privacy'), but every release is a fresh whiff of dank air. Right now, there's even two - a CD reissue of their 2004 demo 'Badb' out on Crucial Blast and most of all, a brand new album called 'Freermasonry' on Profound Lore.

And I don't know how to talk about it. It was expertly described to me by someone very important in the music business, and I believe he won't mind me stealing his bit, as the one Wold album that "is the most like an alien transmission," and that just about sums it up for me. Unlike 'Working Together For Our Privacy', Fortress Crookedjaw's vocals play a huge part in the album, but they don't make it any more human. Rather the opposite - his black metal-ish, impassioned, heavily processed harsh shriek makes you feel like something cold and viscous and with a lot of teeth is going to rip from inside the speakers/headphones (recommended) and take control of your brain, and the apparent mismatch between some of the weirdly tribal-electronic beats (seriously, what the fuck is going on in 'Working Tools For Praxis'?) and the cadence of the vocals will screw with your head to no end.

I'm the sort of guy who will put on Vomir's 'Proanomie' on for something resembling enjoyment now and then, but even so, the sheer confrontational and uncomfortably otherworldly nature of Wold makes it hard for me to sit through these 58 minutes without a pause. To make it worse/better, the thematic concept is complex and deep, I've seen it described as "Goethe/Plutarch/Mason-referencing" and until I get to talk to master Crookedjaw about it again, I'll leave it at that.

Investigate at your own risk, folks.

Rock-A-Rolla #34

2011-11-03T11:25:00.000Z

No band of the week yesterday, I'm way too busy writing for publications that people actually read instead of this little playground of mine, but here's a quick reminder before I have to dash off and write about doom or whatever it is: Rock-A-Rolla magazine's issue #34 has been out for a couple of weeks, and it features an unreasonable amount of my articles, including the cover article with the awesome Wolves In The Throne Room as well as The Atlas Moth, Rwake and Cathedral, so make sure you get it. Better yet, why not subscribe and get a magazine that actually talks about cool music every month without the need for physical movement?

josé's band of the week: wolvhammer

2011-10-26T15:49:00.000+01:00

WOLVHAMMER

from Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA (now based in Chicago)

facebook - myspace - twitter - merch

I first heard of Wolvhammer shortly before their previous album, their full-length debut 'Black Marketeers Of World War III', came out. It was, at the time, a recommendation from The Atlas Moth's frontman Stavros, and since he still had his epic moustache at the time, I took it very seriously and checked these guys out. In good time, too - you might remember I placed that album at a very respectable #38 on my best albums of 2010 list, its ferocious mix of all the right brands of darkness hitting a deep spot indeed. Now, barely a year later, here's an even darker and leaner beast to contend with, in the form of the band's second album, 'The Obsidian Plains'.

The promo arrived in the nick of time for this week's band of the week too, straight from their new über-cult, über-cool record label, Profound Lore. I was indecise with a couple of choices for this week's accolade, but once I took the sombre b&w disc out of the package I had the feeling my doubts were over, effortlessly confirmed by a few spins. It truly is the proverbial passing into the next level for the band, on all fronts. A stable line-up which now features Jeff Wilson (former Nachtmystium guitarist), a stellar, as usual, Sanford Parker production/recording job and an expanded sound that doesn't, however, abandon the filth of its primordial Celtic Frost/Darkthrone gene pool are all the right ingredients for a deep plunge into the grey. 'The Obsidian Plains' is the sort of album that pounds you into submission in very different ways, due to the perfectly aligned and engaging tracklist. Obscure ragers like the one-two punch of openers 'The Gleaming' and 'Writhe' will instantly and immediately turn on any room full of metalheads, while halfway through things take a turn for the worse, with the atmospheric malaise of 'Ghosts In The Water' and the dread-filled chanting in 'Shadowhorn'. At a certain point, it's almost like the songs and their different parts are all bleeding into each other, and no matter if it's a feedback-ridden piece of noise, a particularly hateful piercing scream or a full-on blackthrash attack part, you're completely lost in their acerbic whirlwind anyway.

And that name, man. You have to wonder how in decades of heavy metal, no one took that name. It neatly sums up basically everything we need on a metal record. Fuck yeah.

josé's band of the week: vegas martyrs

2011-10-19T17:23:00.000+01:00

VEGAS MARTYRS

from New York

You know what that is? That's a tape booklet, bitch. You probably got that right (the name-calling bit aside) if you're at all into noise, for which tape is still the quintessential format, and noise is pretty much the main category in which Vegas Martyrs fits. They haven't got any new releases out or anything, but after the malaise that has been brought upon me by entire days listening to Gnaw Their Tongues (on account of their scary new album) and Death In June (because of the unforgettable show last Saturday of which I will talk about in detail soon), I felt like an extra dose of sickness to be piled upon me. That's when I rediscovered this Dominick Fernow (aka Prurient) project, of which I had a couple of tapes lying around that I had listened a few times and gotten a horrid metal image of, and it was exactly what the doctor didn't order. In fact, if I did go to a musical doctor, he'd probably tell me to stay the hell away from this stuff.

Much like the omnipresent in this blog Gnaw Their Tongues, Vegas Martyrs fuse hideous black metal screeching, subterranean broken riffing and musical corpses full of rough dungeon-like atmospheres. To stretch the doctor theme a little, they'd be the medical equivalent of a self-performed appendectomy, with an old pencil. This Prurient dude isn't exactly known by the beauty of his creations or endorsements, as any of you who have listened to Ash Pool or have ordered anything at all from his dlightfully abject Hospital Productions label will be fully aware of, but Vegas Martyrs seems to be the absolute bottom of the sickness pile. Of all the releases available, in tape or vinyl format, none are advisable as an entry point, but hey, try the ones whose covers I've lazily used to illustrate the article, as there seem to be no proper photos of the band. They're called 'Harlot Widow' and 'Vancouver Missing Women', and if you manage to keep down your lunch during 11 minute abnormalities such as 'Shadows Of Holocaust' and its sudden lurch into hell after the misleadingly quiet beginning, you might have discovered your new favourite self-mutilation soundtrack.

live shots: trap them in madrid, 2008

2011-10-18T15:30:00.000+01:00

As promised, a few older photos of Trap Them, this time from almost exactly three years ago (Nov. 20th 2008), a show at the Ritmo y Compás venue in Madrid with the equally awesome Grief and Moho. Ryan had a bit more hair and that last photo even ties in with my recent zombie theme.

quoting critters: how to prepare for the zombie apocalypse

2011-10-13T10:42:00.000+01:00

The quoting critters are concerned citizens. As they were listening to the awesome Bastard Priest, as recommended yesterday on this blog, they were at the same time worried about the safety of our community. What if the ghoul on the cover of the album would come to life and bring all his friends for a brains and beer party? Our brains?

The quoting critters are people of science too, so they know that eventuality is not as impossible as you think. Even the CDC itself has a series of measures on its website for when it happens. So, based on that article, they have made the following educational video.

Be responsible. Be prepared.

2011-10-12T16:56:00.001+01:00

BASTARD PRIEST

from Hiroshima Nagasaki Umeå Stockholm (their words, not mine!)

facebook - myspace - website

So last week there wasn't a band of the week. Just imagine I recommended you something awesome, and then stop thinking about it. In fact, stop thinking, altogether, for a while. It's great to challenge yourself with le avantgarde and shit, but in between eerie bouts of the new Gnaw Their Tongues, Crooked Necks and Bloody Panda albums, and some Death In June memory lane tripping ahead of a gig next Saturday, it's all-out mindless head-smashing fun that has been consuming me. My last band of the week The Fucking Wrath are still on my regular playlist, of course, as is stuff like Red Fang or, above all, Bastard Priest.

If you're a regular of this joint, first of all I hope your regular appointments with the psychiatrist are going well, but also you might remember me placing the first Bastard Priest album, 'Under The Hammer Of Destruction', at #63 on the best albums of 2010 list, colourfuly describing them at the time as "Fucking grim, hard and loose punkish death'n'roll, like the corpse of Entombed spitting out fat larvae all over a puddle of puke." Almost exactly a year after that cute debut, the duo formed by Matt Mendoza and Inventor have coughed up a follow-up that will not only undoubtedly be present in the 2011 list, but also fortunately be described the exact same way.

'Ghouls Of The Endless Night' is so far from the concept of evolution that it is essentially a regression - if anything is different from the debut, it's a punkier vibe, a coarser and even less refined lo-fi sound, uglier and more childish artwork and lyrics that are even more stupid, fun and exciting to scream as horribly as that Inventor dude does it. The last song is called 'Enormous Thunder Of The End', that alone should be enough to justify the price of purchase alone. If you still have any doubts, you're a pussy, and you should go remove them at Invisible Oranges, who are streaming the whole putrid thing.

live shots: trap them at roadburn 2011

2011-10-11T16:52:00.002+01:00

First time I ever saw a moshpit at Roadburn, and I guess that says it all about Trap Them's incendiary performance earlier this year at my yearly pilgrimage festival. I have shots from a show in Madrid a couple of years ago where Ryan had long hair, I'll post them soon to compare. That's the only difference though, he still looked all beaten up and like he'll bit your head off right after shouting something meaningful an inch from your face.

And here's hoping whoever it is that's sick in the band recovers quickly from the recently reported health troubles. We need you guys healthy and kicking ass.

2011-10-10T15:20:00.001+01:00

(click on the page to see the readable large version)

Subject: Neurosis / Daniel Higgs live in London

Published: Terrorizer #208, February 2011

Random facts:

- It was the devastating culmination of a weekend that included The Young Gods, Wolves In The Throne Room and Shrinebuilder. Phew.

- At one point during Daniel's amazingly deep performance, he asked to the audience of the packed KoKo if anyone had a bible on them. "Almost 2.000 people are gathered here and there isn't a single bible. This is significant." And it is.

- Steve Von Till watched most of Daniel's performance from the side of the stage. That is also significant.

- During 'Locust Star', I apparently pressed my head against one of the speakers (I was on the first row) and I thumped. Repeatedly. True fact.

- Here is the full Neurosis setlist, including the two new songs:
At the End of the Road
The Doorway
Killing Elk
Given to the Rising

The Web

Locust Star

Water Is Not Enough

Distill (Watching the Swarm)
Stones From the Sky
Through Silver in Blood

...and a video of that all-consuming closer.

2011-09-28T15:14:00.001+01:00

THE FUCKING WRATH

from Ventura, California

myspace - website

Some bands are just the pure fucking embodiement of what real metal is all about. I'm not one to champion the orthodox virtues of "true metal", but I do feel an endearing sense of pride when a band just speaks to me almost telepathically via this base connection we all have with the essentials of the music genre on which everything we love rests. A band like Lair Of The Minotaur do that for me, for instance, and so does The Fucking Wrath. It's not even a question of genre, as this bunch throw in their coarse mixture scraps of drunken, swaggering rock'n'roll, filthy sludge and even a bit of a loose punk vibe, but man, it's that feeling, the rudeness and the looseness with which every song is delivered. Hey, it's the fucking wrath. That bandname wasn't given by chance. I mean, just look at those dudes. How could they not kick ass? It's that fucking wrath that makes every song a blast.

Luckily, then, that just yesterday we got a whole new batch of them with the release of their new album, 'Valley Of The Serpent's Soul', a beast that some of us had been eagerly anticipating for quite a while. So now, adding to the many great tunes on the awesome 2007 debut 'Season Of Evil' and last year's stop-gap EP 'Terra Fire', there's the bluesy riffage of 'Swan Song Of A Mad Man', the fist-raising heaviness of 'Rebellious Axe' and slower, pounding numbers like 'The Neurodyssey' among the disc's many highlights. And don't these bands always have the coolest record covers?

They're on the perfect label, too. Tee Pee Records have given us a wonderfully balanced mix between ragers and rockers with bands like Quest For Fire, Elks, Earthless or Teeth Of The Hydra among many others, so this pack of rabid riffmeisters feels right at home. Be sure to pick up the new album on their website. This fucking wrathful video should remove any last lingering doubts you might have.

2011-09-27T16:16:00.001+01:00

It's not the first time I indulge in this sort of word-nerding (this and this are good examples), but as I thought about this example, encouraged by the kickass new Hot Graves album, I was surprised at the unreal amount of examples. Top 10 bands with the word "Grave" in their name, and Sepultura don't count:

01. Grave (duh)

02. Graves At Sea

03. Grave Miasma

04. Early Graves

05. Graveyard (the Swedish ones)

06. Grave Upheaval

07. Hot Graves

08. Gravetemple

09. Graveyard Dirt

10. Grave Digger

quoting critters: prayer of transformation

2011-09-23T17:04:00.000+01:00

New feature powered by the good people at Go!Animate. From time to time, my critters will get deeply inspired by song lyrics, quotations and other texts, and they shall recite them for your pleasure. Today, they've been listening to Wolves In The Throne Room.

2011-09-23T15:26:00.001+01:00

Yeah, yeah, everyone's a cynic and everyone's always suspicious of all the shady motivations behind most comebacks and reunions. But stop being a buzzkill just for a while. Some are really cool and besides, so what if it's for the money? As long as they kick ass while they're on stage and do great records, I don't give two shits if they need an extra buck to snort a little more coke from a whore's buttcrack or to put their kids through college or whatever. So, within the realm of possibility (we'd all like the Ramones to get back together, yes, but shut up), and since my very first top 10 here on the long way home. was related to reunions, here's the top 10 bands that should get back together:

01. In The Woods...

02. Kiss It Goodbye

03. December Wolves

04. Babylon Whores

05. His Hero Is Gone

06. Cop Shoot Cop

07. Cobra Noir

08. Floodgate

09. Cursed
10. Graves At Sea

2011-09-21T21:59:00.004+01:00

CLOAK OF ALTERING

from Drachten, Holland

facebook - myspace - human jigsaw records (buy it!)

So I'm a bit of a fanboy. There's no harm in that when you're a fanboy of someone who only does awesome stuff. I remain unbiased, I'll be the first to strike Mories down with the might of my, erm, keyboard whenever he does something that sucks. But the fact that Gnaw Their Tongues is one of my favourite projects/bands of the past decade, and that Aderlating and De Magia Veterum (there's a review on that link, check it out) follow close behind with their own individual personality oozing through as well, it's becoming clearer and clearer that the man is seemingly uncapable of suckage.

So now, as if there isn't enough abject horror spewing forth from his mind, Mories has decided to revive his ancient Ophiuchus demon, dormant since the late 90s (although the stuff was only released in 2009 and 2010), give it a new name and a fresh coat of torture paint. The result is Cloak Of Altering, of which he is as usual the sole member, and its debut album 'The Night Comes Illuminated With Death'. Look at the shiny cover.

Ain't it pretty? If you don't stare at it long enough to notice the skulls you might consider it so. However, beneath that deceptively colourful exterior, beats the heart of a malignant, merciless beast. Much has been made of the Arcturus or DHG comparisons, but this is far beyond that. Sure, the usage of synths is grandiose and a big part of the album is wash with orchestration and even warped electronic beats and sounds, but this grandiloquence only serves to accentuate the underlying horror. The frenzied, subterranean black metal guitars, with its feverish tremolo picking, the hideous surges just when you can pick up a hint of beauty shrapnel like on 'The Lustful Façade Of The Madrigals', and above all, the devastating shrieks and agonizing screams that bring down any hint of pleasantness you might have thought you've heard. Not even the early-Emperor tag does it justice, unless they get back together and re-record the demos with Ihsahn lashed to a breaking wheel. If anything, this is the corpse of Arcturus after the executioner, the rats, the cockroaches and finally the worms have gone through it, lying broken, dead and raped (in that order) on the floor of a filthy underground dungeon while Wagner's 'Der Ring des Nibelungen' resonates somewhere above the surface.

Having said that, this collection of razorblade epics is probably one of the best entry points you can have into the vast work of this remarkable musician and artist (yeah, did you know his artwork is amazing? Here, here, here and here is some evidence) - while harsh and unforgiving, there's at least hints, like pieces of flesh still hanging from a bone, of structure and musicality, unlike the formless white bone that is Gnaw Their Tongues. In any case, it's not for the squeamish. Let those listen to all the harmless crap that's out there.

2011-09-18T23:45:00.002+01:00

(click on the page to see the readable large version)

Subject: Lair Of The Minotaur

Published: Terrorizer #172, July 2008

Interviewee: Steven Rathbone (vocals/guitar)

Random facts:

- Last From The Vault I posted was also a feature taken from Terrorizer #172. Kickass issue!

- If my case for Lair Of The Minotaur as the most metal band in the world wasn't airtight enough at this time, the band made my arguing even easier with their follow-up to 'War Metal Battle Master', called 'Evil Power'. There's a song called 'Let's Kill These Motherfuckers' on that one.
- I have a mix CD in permanent residence in my car with my favourite Lair Of The Minotaur songs from all their albums. Not many bands achieve that status with me.
- Lair Of The Minotaur have one of the ultimate distinctions a metal band can have these days - their own burger at Kuma's Corner. It looks awesome.

analysing the long way home.

2011-09-17T18:03:00.003+01:00

Bless web analytics tools. While most people use them for serious business and as a basis for endless tech, marketing and communication meetings, I like to look for all the silly bits. Here are a few random pieces of data relating to this blog, during the period between January 1st and today, that I thought would be fun to share with you.

- The biggest day

July 13th was by far and away the day the long way home received more visits. It's such a peak that it looks like an erect penis on the page visit graph for the whole year, actually. Funnily enough, it was the day I published the recap of my unforgettable Iceland trip. I guess I need to go back soon, just to have another popular day.

- Search engine keywords that led to this blog

This is by far the best source of random awesomeness in these tools. What did people google for that led them to this place? In between a lot of records - the last Virus album in particular generated a shitload of desperate visits just because of a little post where I said I was going to listen to it, at a time when it hadn't come out yet - being looked for by the downloading mob, who must all hate me by now, there's a lot of funny, creepy or just downright puzzling stuff. Check it out:

extortion loose screws starkweather this sheltering night

"deathspell omega" stargazer ("great work of ages" or "scream that tore")

The first person has some seriously good taste. Not satisfied with looking for a kickass album, (s)he looked for two at the same time! I'm sure this is one of the only places where they have ever been mentioned within the same list, so I hope you stayed as a regular. As for the second searcher, great combined taste there too, although it's unclear why Deathspell Omega were shoved into the beginning of a StarGazer search.

horny milfs

painful anal surprise

3 layer climax

google skinny dipping

hot horny milfs getting fucked hard and painfully

These people, especially the first two searches, probably had to go through half the internet to get to my poor little blog. I expect some twenty-three million sites show up ahead of mine when it comes to horny milfs, don't you? That's some serious desperation there. As for a 3 layer climax, I don't know what it is, but it sounds like something I wouldn't mind trying. Also, who writes google as a keyword in a search that has nothing to do with it? Scary. Not as scary as the last one, though. Very specific tastes there. However, not as specific as...

hwat is the name of the book about the baltimore teenage girls who accidently killed the baby that they found

This also shows that there are people who talk to google as if it was a person sitting next to them. I'm surprised it doesn't start with a hey, how are you doing?.

how lng does dislocated ankel takes to get healed

Probably less than it would take for you to write correct English. And I have a feeling this one is your fault, Jaime.

extreme weiners

Hey, whatever floats your boat. I won't judge.

vomiting owl

As I said, if that's what works for you...

fuck me i'm portuguese
fuck on the way home

I wonder if this was the same guy on both, trying to get a different angle on the situation?

"metal flows in my veins"

Alright! \m/ This one makes me rather proud.

bruce dickinson and his wife
bruce dickinson children
bruce dickinson ex-wife
bruce dickinson funny
bruce dickinson house
bruce dickinson raar
bruce dickinson santiago
bruce dickinson wearing black
bruce dickinson young
jared leto bruce dickinson
who is bruce dickinson married to

This is what happens when you're a public figure. Think of that before you aim for rock stardom. All of this because I have a little pic and a mention of Bruce on the interview with my buddy Neil. Now that I actually wrote all this, I'll probably get a million hits a day. Speaking of Neil...

neil grant obituary tattoo drugs "neil grant"

This inspires a world of questions, mate.

who is the unhealthy guy in motley crue?

Good question! I'd rephrase it to Who isn't, though. Lord knows how that made him land here, too.

why does everyone like the scottish

You clearly never met a Scot.

www.crowbar.sever.the.wicked.hand.blogspot.com

This person needs to attend a few lessons on how to use the internet.

for a glory of all evil spirits

celtic frost ugh

Best google searches EVER.

black sheep and kissing cousins stone main pooint

Huh? (I'm aware it's a book, but I still wonder how it led here. Maybe the misspelling of point confused google)

hating+screeching+snarling+syntex

I think this person was in a bad mood. And a bad speller too.

bobb trimble female voice

I know, I know, I was confused too at first. But I figured it out, and now you did too, if you read the post.

slayer sauth of heaven album

I think I can see where the problem was.

- Around the world

Kinda like José's top 10s, here are the countries from where I get the most visits:

01. United States
02. Portugal
03. Brazil
04. United Kingdom
05. Iceland

06. Germany

07. Canada

08. Sweden

09. Australia

10. Greece

The presence of tiny Iceland there makes me very happy, especially with the number that it is, roughly around 8.000 visits. One day, I will have more visits than the total population of Iceland. Further down the list, there are visits from apparently unlikely places such as Pakistan, Trinidad and Tobago, Vietnam, Kenya or Cambodia. Whoever you people are, it's nice to have you! Well, unless one of you is...

- The creepy stalker

This isn't a particularly spellbinding place. Not many have it in them to nerd out about weird music on a daily basis like I do, and much less read other people doing it. So I never thought I'd attract obsessive followers. But it says here that someone has accessed this blog 887 times since January 1st (seriously), always from the same place, almost every day, almost always at the same time, using one of those bypass services (acessototal.net, this one) that people use to access blocked sites at schools and offices and stuff.

So, are you just someone who happens to have the long way home. on your daily bookmarks and for some reason it's blocked by your office's IT department (reason enough to fire the lot, I'd say) when you log on it every fucking day during your coffee break, or will you start mailing me pictures of my underwear drying on the clothesline anytime soon?

2011-09-16T20:20:00.002+01:00

If you don't know it already, let a bit of shame creep over you and then go check out the previous two volumes of the .Falling Down compilation (and check the webzine while you're at it). If at the very least half of those bands don't tingle your hearing buds just the right way, then you seriously need to revise your record collection.

Let's face it, compilations were always a bit of a lame concept, at least as a commercial product, even all those years ago when we had to go through the delightfully rewarding but cumbersome and time-consuming process of putting together a mixtape. Which were usually either meant for long road trips or as a gift to an attractive member of the opposite sex anyway. I made thematic mixtapes for myself too, but I'm a huge reclusive nerd. Anyway, in the age of .mp3 portability, a compilation makes even less sense, on paper, unless you do it like Yann and Thibaut have done it. By picking fucking amazing, cutting edge underground bands, the list of which sometimes reads like a possible Roadburn line-up, and getting mostly unreleased tracks from them to feature on the compilation, they've single-handedly made the compilation cool again. Or cool tout court, actually.

The third volume, .Falling Down IIV, will hit us in 2012, with a line-up that is so far absolutely dreamy, and it features 100% unreleased tracks. Keep your eyes peeled, and let Y. and T., a true yin/yang pair of dudes, guide you through everything you need to know about .Falling Down.

1. Before Volume I, how did the idea first arise of doing a compilation like this?

Y: This idea came to me in late 2007. My former editor in chief had released several BM tape compilations, and since we had begun to establish some great contacts in the scene, we thought it would be cool also to release a compilation. The idea was full of modesty: the objective was to bring together a dozen bands, if possible have one or two unpublished songs, and release it on a single CD. Obviously, we had no experience in this shit, but it allowed us to spice up our dull and boring daily lives. This project was supposed to last a matter of weeks... but no, finally, we decided to transgress the limits. There is no business in there. We don't want to establish contracts: we trust our bands, and the guys trust us. We are still young - we are students, we began this project when we were 19 years old - and it's a totally independent work, done by passionates for passionates. We invest our own money for the pressing, the rights, the promotion, and everything else. I love the proximity with the artists, it's just an amazing pleasure to know, personally, the guys that I admire the most in the world. Many musicians have become our friends, and just for that, these compilations are really one of the biggest successes of our lives.

2. Since most of the compilation consists of unreleased material, has it been hard to get it from bands, or is everyone always eager to chip in?

Y: Yeah, most of the time, it's really hard. Particularly on the first and second volumes. We were young, nobody knew us, no experience, we were not (and we are not) bilingual and, last but not least, we're poor. We basically sent out emails to our favourite bands saying like "Hey there, we love you! We're two totally unknown Frenchies and we would like that you send us an unreleased track for our comp, do you agree? No? But WHY?! Come on!", haha.

But there are a lot of possibilities: if the band already has an unreleased track recorded (like it has happened with Kylesa, Time To Burn, Year Of No Light, Gnaw Their Tongues, Kongh and others), it's easier for us. If the track is already composed, but not recorded, it's more complicated with the costs of the studio and mixing/mastering, but fortunately not impossible (it was like that with Knut, Cortez, Kehlvin, Amenra and some others). And if the band has to write and record especially for us, well, we must be really.. clever? Fortunate?! This situation is really the hardest. But we had the chance to collaborate with amazing people, very passionate, and it was a huge honour to have their trust and their interest to our modest project, people like Ufomammut, The Ocean, Jucifer, Omega Massif, The Poisoned Glass (a fucking great new project with the legends Stuart Dahlquist and Edgy59) and a few others.

On this third volume, things seem tp have been easier: our comps are beginning to be more known and we've currently a biggest experience. This is why we decided to have a new challenge: only unreleased tracks. No compromise.

T.: It's so HARD in most cases... but we can't thank enough those who have/will record a track especially for .Falling Down. Interest, confidence and passion, shared through this project... it's a great honour, rare but deeply felt.

3. The line-ups are invariably amazing, it’s almost too much awesome for one single compilation, every time. When you start thinking of a new volume, how do you guys choose? Do you all have a meeting and start throwing names of bands you love?

Y: Thanks man for your kind words! And yeah, we regularly have meetings, in our moutains in Savoie, lost in our woods. But we're also regularly (always?) so stoned that we have to have a web discussion the next day.

[my kinda people.]

Thibaut is my best friend: I know his tastes and he knows my tastes. Globally, we love the same bands, and this is really important: we have the same connection, the same approach to the music. I think that we are open-minded enough so that if he wants to get in touch with a band that I don't like particularly, there are no worries... and vice versa.

T.: I have a thing for heartfelt, deep emotions. I want to get high thinking. We agree in the same way, to the highest levels at the dark bowels of the earth, and even if some details differ, this also increases our potential depth of mind. It's always without any fuss. We come out with an ideal, which is then submitted to the various problems and possibilities.

4. Come on, promotion time – what’s great about IIV, and why should everyone get it?

Y: Like I said, this IIV volume is a new step for us: only unpublished tracks. We don't want to be "pretentious" or whatever.. but, honestly, this compilation is starting to get more and more crazy: Karma To Burn, Rosetta, Julie Christmas, Mouth Of The Architect and a special collaboration between Year Of No Light/Mars Red Sky and Terra Tenebrosa (who feature members of Breach!) have given rise to awesome feedback so far. And, on the other hand, we have some a-ma-zing bands, less notorious but really talented: Ahkmed, Hopewell, Black Sun, Ayahuasca Dark Trip, Rorcal, Ocoai (for the third time!) and others...

We're working on the next and final announcement: if we manage to fulfil all that we want to, I'll be the happiest man in the universe. You won't be disappointed, believe me! I can't say much more for the moment but a special collector's version will be also available, only on pre-order. We want to thank all the people who support our project since the beginning. Stay tuned, as it will be very limited, and it won't be repressed.

T.: We don't like to sell ourselves, we aren't whores, we diffuse our project at best, an entity that we like personally. And I think that .Falling Down IIV will be, it must be, a satisfaction, an ecstasy, like walking on air. We let the business whores in this sad world, not in our hearts/minds. I can only say we already have some tracks, and damn... amazing ! I want to say thank you, awesome, I dive in!

5. I particularly like how there’s always a few layers – from the widely known bands to some bands that are still beginning or very underground. Especially in these last ones, do you feel you’ve helped some of them to get their music to a wider audience they wouldn’t have otherwise?

Y: It's difficult to say... we can just hope so. All these bands give me a lot of energy and help me daily. I travel with their sound, so, if we can help them to promote their music, our project will be a huge success. I can't selfishly consume their work, I need to interact with them. I buy an LP or a shirt, I go to their shows, I do an interview or write a review... or I produce a compilation. But in every cases, I need to help them... they are so important in my life. So yeah, when we have some feedback by people who thank us for a discovery, or if they want to have a contact for writing a review, or just a great comment on a facebook page with an allusion to .Falling Down, this is a fucking pleasure.

T.: I don't think that will change the feelings of this world. This is indeed unfortunate...

as Yann said, we can just hope. For a few isolated individuals, for some underground bands from here and elsewhere, showing their beautiful feelings, the darkest and most delicious, in seamless and endless melancholy.

6. Is there a band you’d dream of having on the compilation that you haven’t yet?

Y: We have already the limitless pleasure to work with many of our favorite bands... a lot, but not all. I'll able to answer your question when the final tracklist will be announced, until then, we'll do our best.

T.: Maybe Jus Oborn will pass through here... for now, his cloud seems too far from ours to get along. The wind may blow...

7. You’ve mentioned to me that you like to push the limits as far as you can – so all the way through this third volume, do you think you’ve branched out as far as you can in terms of music genres? Or can you still go further in future volumes?

Y: I don't know... all our choices are, when it comes down to it, really natural. It does seem that our project is becoming more and more "eclectic". Like I said, we were extremely young when we were starting to get in touch with the first bands and our musical culture was... limited. There is no accounting for taste, they say. Okay. But, as far as I'm concerned, I think that tastes must change. I can't understand that some people listen the same 5 bands for 15 years. The sentiments are endless... and I'm convinced that about each sentiment, each moment of your life, there is a track, a perfect track, perfectly adequate. When the music corresponds with reality, you can presume to be in osmosis.

So far, I've been satisfied only with the extreme music. All my sentiments are extreme. Extreme music for extreme people, I assume. But I'm changing, absolutely, so... yeah, perhaps one day, .Falling Down will work with some jazz artists or in the world of the classical music, this is not impossible. Perhaps one day my definition of "extreme music" will also change. Time will tell...

T.: Basically, this isn't merely about the music itself but also about the feelings and interpretations from the universe of bands and sounds. An alliance of what emerges, what is perceived, according to our thoughts, expectations, philosophies... .Falling Down unites the escape and reality, music and spirit, the real musing, reflection, which is beyond compliance decreed. Push ever further, in every way. From a purely musical point, the limits should be bound only to what individuals can radiate, carry through in this world.

8. Speaking of future volumes… do you have a long/medium term limit for how many you are going to do?

Y: It's difficult for me to plan my projects on a long/medium term... my main problem is that I hate the new technologies more and more, particularly the internet. This shit is our new drug, our new dependance and I don't like that... this absence of freedom. I'm convinced that, in the future, many people will reject this virtual world: it's destroying our critical mind, our amical relations, our memory, the notion of effort, our patience, our curiosity, and so on. I'm convinced that many people who listen to these music genres are really smarter than the average, more critic, and they are going to understand that this shit is destroying one of our biggest passions: the music. I'm convinced that the future of this scene will be more marginal, more underground, more secret, almost private. I fucking love this idea! If it does, I gotta see this and I will contribute to it. If people continue to want to share their music, their discoveries, their tastes to all the people around the world, there won't be other compilations. I don't want to be part to this nightmare... I prefer that my projects be appreciated and respected by 200 guys than to be downloaded by 10000 unknown dudes. To properly judge progress, we must also take account of what it deprives us of.

T.: It's already extremely hard to plan this next compilation, so... I'll have to stay alive until then, too.

It's so seedy and pitiful here below. See the sleepwalkers of the orderliness, of the machinery, see these squalid souls... I feel like a void of horror, really, I don't know, if the pure desire persists and that evil doesn't burn down too, doesn't stain too. Anything is possible.

[remember Yann said they're regularly stoned.]

9. Wouldn’t it be cool to organize a little festival with at least a few of the bands on the compilation?

Y: Yeah, absolutely! Since the beginning, we have wanted to organize a festival. A special festival, not a boring night in a club with 5 bands. A special event, a mix between the Roadburn Festival and the Dunajam... something in the mountains, into the wild, something private, a psychedelic experience with a lot of substances, a vacuum, in another world, immune from what is already happening and what is yet to come in the big cities. We have a lot of ideas: we have to concretize them now.

T.: We imagine perfectly... The realization, however, isn't still entirely clear, probably a lot (too many?) of practical problems, for the moment.

10. Last question is list question: list five bands that you like, personally, that would never fit on the .Falling Down compilation.

Y: If we like them, we contact them. By the way, I have to get in touch with Clint Mansell!

Thanks man for your interest and your support! We really appreciate it! We need it... and it's always a fucking pleasure to meet some new passionates like you. I would like also to send out special thanks to our friend Julius Kleipool: he made our trailers... he's really talented, no doubt! If someone is interested in his work or if a band wants to collaborate with him, don't hesitate! Get in touch directly or drop us a message, you won't be disappointed.

[Yann still apologized for his English, but that was just him being all modest. I wish all English-speaking bands could speak and/or write as correctly as he did.]

T.: As with all detailed responses, I think that the moment in space-time has a significant role.

As there are no limits to contact according to our desires, tastes... I can quote Wipers, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Loop, the classics artists like Chopin, Nirvana, particularly live.

And thanks for understanding our voice.

2011-09-14T11:07:00.001+01:00

MAMMON

from Canberra, Australia

~~facebook~~ - ~~website~~ - ~~myspace~~

(internet presence is for pussies - contact the band if you want the music)

Religion diverts us from the causes of evils, and from the remedies which nature prescribes, far from curing, it only aggravates, multiplies, and perpetuates them.

-- Baron D'Holback

CD-R is the new tape. Now that tapes have become all cute and quirky and collector's item-y, a format on which it's cool to own stuff again, nothing says demo like a memorex CD-R with a number written with blue felt pen, which is how I got 'Demiurge', Mammon's first demo. Mine is #136, because this Australian bunch saw it fit to send me their very first release, and I'm glad they did. They obviously know what pushes my buttons, and those other 135 guys are people of fine taste indeed.

'Demiurge' is a three track affair that lasts 20 minutes, but the raw weight and the underlying complexity of the three songs, 'I', 'II' and 'III', is such that it feels like much longer. I'm happily spinning this daily and it's just like a full album, which is very promising for a band just starting off. Raw and complex sound like two terms that would start to slap each other if left together on the same sentence, but not in this case. A bit like The Ghost Dance Movement, with whom I hope Mammon won't share the let's-record-four-of-the-coolest-songs-ever-and-never-do-anything-else-afterwards syndrome, throat-destroying screams and quasi-crusty aggression happily cohabit with intricate, almost post-rock-ish guitarwork often, a fragile balance of beauty and beastdom that is frequently shattered by a massively overweight riff that enters when you least expect it. There's a lot more still buried in this unholy tryptich of songs, like the blazing black metal in the beginning of 'II' or the shoegazy bit that anticipates one of the decisive lines at the end of 'III', where the vocalist (I will assume it's David, he'll surely email me and tell me he's not if I'm wrong) spits forth "Look not to the stars, / Our lives are here, / We need not this serpentine cult to guide us".

That's the most appealing and promising thing about this band. The concept is very well thought through and presented, and it seems to be deeply tied within the essence of the band itself. I'm sure you all know what the terms Mammon and Demiurge mean, at least after a bit of Wikipediaing you do, and that serpent enveloping the burning church of the cover isn't your average childish SATAN DESCENDS UPON THE EARTH! kind of depiction. Not only was it made by a proper artist, Jacob O. Rolfe, but its meaning is perfectly described throughout the lyrics, which declare a vehement, intelligent and nearly poetic opposition to any kind of religion. So before you rush off and google for the album title, do drop the guys in the band a line to get a proper version of the demo with the lyrics included. It's important. Any album that starts with a sample off There Will Be Blood is.

2011-09-13T15:24:00.002+01:00

30 day song challenge - day 14 - a song no one would expect you to love

2011-09-10T00:36:00.002+01:00

Day 14 - A song no one would expect you to love

Travis - The Cage

I skipped two daysof this thing because they were dumb. Day 12 was a song from a band I hate, but I've already done something similar on day 02 and I really, really don't feel like polluting the blog with stuff I don't like, again. Day 13 was a song that is a guilty pleasure, and that is a concept I don't have - if I like something I'll admit it loudly, happily and guiltlessly, regardless of the opinion of the rest of the world. I do realize the interest in that question, yes, but that's perfectly covered by this next day of the list. If I had any guilty pleasures, they would be something no one would expect me to love, right? So here you go, Travis. I guess that fits the bill nicely, but you'll have to confirm that yourselves. Would you expect me to like Travis?

Maybe it's the fact they're from Glasgow and I seem to have a tendency to like everything that comes from there (Glasvegas as well, anyone?), but I've always found this band to be miles ahead of any other mushy britpop band you can compare them to. Good melodies, a certain cynical/heartbroken outlook and lyrics that actually seem to have some thought and some feeling behind them. I have a huge love especially for the 'The Man Who' and the 'The Invisible Band' albums, and this one, here on beautiful live rendition in their hometown, is from the latter of those. I like the quieter, pained ones better, so 'Dear Diary', 'Afterglow', 'The Humpty Dumpty Love Song', 'The Fear' or 'Driftwood' could easily be here as well.

live shots: sólstafir

2011-09-08T21:38:00.000+01:00

I've heavily addicted to Sólstafir's fabulous new double-album 'Svartir Sandar', but instead of bragging about a record that's not even out yet, I'll just signal my current obsession with a few shots from both occasions - Music Box in Lisboa and as a part of Eistnaflug in Neskaupstaður - where I've been lucky enough to witness the Icelandic dudes in stage action, where they kick as much ass as they do on disc. In the meanwhile, while you wait for 'Svartir Sandar' to screw with your head as much as it has done with mine, spin 'Í Blóði og Anda', 'Masterpiece Of Bitterness' and 'Köld' a few times, I've recently revisited them all in one long full-discography session and they're still awesome.

Lisboa, December 14th 2010

Neskaupstaður, July 7th 2011

2011-09-07T15:55:00.003+01:00

RETOX

from San Diego, probably

website - facebook - google the rest

Today I feel like writing as much as the dudes in Retox probably feel like pleasing you. Look, my last post was a band of the week too and it had three in them, go read that again if you feel like words. This doesn't need a damn essay written about it either. I don't care how many stupid hipster fans who think they like this shit Justin Pearson and Gabe Serbian brought with them from The Locust or how over-intellectualized a 13 minute long powerviolence album called 'Ugly Animals' will be in the forthcoming months. This is like The Locust reduced to their barebones core, grinding, screeching and spazzing its way until it's over and you go do whatever it is you do when you're not pretending to be cool, like listening to Dream Theater or something. If you feel like proper info go to their website if it's not just a black page, which it probably is. Whatever.

josé's band(s) of the week: sarabante / balaclava / bacchus

2011-08-31T22:30:00.001+01:00

It's tough to pinpoint exactly what sets off a trend, or a musical movement, to put a less negative spin on it. There's usually a fairly clear catalyst (Municipal Waste -> new thrash wave, kindathing), but the twisted and unpredictable motions of bands, artists, genres and record labels are never quite clear. Which is great. Not all sudden avalanches of more or less similar bands are a band thing. Sure, personally I feel maybe we didn't need nu-metal in general as much as a scrotum rash, but an army of cap-wearing youths with opinions as valid as mine would surely disagree with me. Right now, I'm a fucking bandwagon-jumper myself and I unashamedly ride on almost every one the underground has to offer. I find it great that tons of bands are doing creepy 70s style occult rock, that tons of others are finally bringing the Incantation filth back into death metal, and that Southern Lord are signing everyone who at last realized Trap Them are one of the most awesome bands ever.

It's this last bit that is of most interest this week. I've done two bands of the week before, but having three is a first for me, which just goes to show how strong this movement is. We might not be sure what to call it yet - browsing last.fm tags for these bands offers "dark hardcore" or "neocrust" (as long as it's not just crust, because it isn't, okay?) are sort of in the ballpark, while "angry ass people", "entombedcore" or "omfg so heavy" are much cooler but probably wouldn't fly as terms to use in serious magazines. Screw it, the long way home is neither serious or a magazine, so. It's at times like these I regret metalcore was turned into a dirty word, because it would really suit what these people are doing. And by these people, I mean not only these three bands, but also Trap Them, of course, whom I see as the main catalyst for all this, Unkind, Okkultokrati, Nails, Black Breath, The Secret, All Pigs Must Die, Young And In The Way, Oathbreaker, Early Graves, Summon The Crows and a lot more. Hell, Victims, even, even if they veer more into the NWOSDM/d-beat mixture. Before we get into these three bands properly, two notes: a) count how many of those are or have been in Southern Lord's roster and b) notice how they're not only all fucking amazing bands, but also relatively small bands who operate a lot within a DIY spirit. That's the most wonderful thing about this little trend so far. I'm sure we'll all get sick of this stuff in a couple of years, but so far it has offered nothing but great music played by great people, straight from their guts.

SARABANTE

from Athens, Greece

myspace - blogspot - bandcamp

Sarabante are the first on the table, further illustrating not only the Southern Lord influence, with whom they signed recently, but also how far-reaching this black cloud is getting, as these five dudes hail from Greece. There's little Mediterranean about them or their debut 'Remnants', where they storm their way through eleven angst-ridden short blasts, the result a darkened tornado full of delightful debris like d-beat rhythms, Tragedy-like urgency and pitch-black gloom. There's even some hummable melody, which you will enjoy for a couple of seconds before a relentless beat washes it all away, like on the beginning of the title track. The last song is called 'Do You Feel Safe', and you won't, not for a second, while Sarabante drop their colossal dose of darkness upon you.

BALACLAVA

from Richmond, VA

facebook - myspace - bigcartel (buy stuff!)

Guess what label Balaclava are on? That's right, those people again. More of a brute force sort of bunch than Sarabante, with less d-beatisms going on and with the face-peeling vocals in particular closer to the more traditional hardcore approach, they nevertheless achieve more or less the same objective as their Greek label-mates do, which is to smash your skull in with a relentless chug along of brutality. It's tough-guy music, but it's not dumb-guy music. Although most of the songs in their new 'Crimes Of Faith' album do feel simple, a few repeated listens will easily show how calculated a lot of the punches are. Balaclava might be the musical equivalent of a fucking scary huge boxer, but he's also a seasoned and philosophical-in-his-angst one. On their facebook, their influences section reads "Neurosis, His Hero Is Gone, etc...", which shows the spectrum of good taste that is behind this. They also specify there that they're named "after the ski mask preferred by guerrilla militias, not pastries," which is nice to know.

Oh, and while digging around for a bit of info on the band I came across this, on the Was Ist Das website, which is cooler than anything I might have written. Now I wish I would have started a handwritten blog.

BACCHUS

from Galway, Ireland

facebook - tumblr - bandcamp - myspace

Because there's life outside Southern Lord, but also already outside the more conventional acts of the angry ass people genre, Bacchus needed to be mentioned as well. Hell, one look at those t-shirts and that stack of Orange amps would be enough to know they're people of good taste, but still. They're probably the least known act of these three for now, but their potential is huge, even as a band who will outgrow any genre tags. Offering a similar ferocity as the above mentioned on their self-titled debut LP, they also make justice to that delightuflly creepy album cover by going unpleasant on us with streaks of mean-ass sludge and nightmarish, psychedelic atmospheres gone all wrong. The opening song is called 'Devoted To Shit', which should give you an idea of how far from a party record this is. A glance at their facebook reveals a UK/Euro tour to come in January 2012, so keep your eyes peeled for that. Don't miss this mudslide of putrid aggression if they're in town.

30 day song challenge - day 11 - a song from your favourite band

2011-08-27T13:32:00.001+01:00

Day 11 - A song from your favourite band

Neurosis - Through Silver In Blood

Remember the 30 day song challenge? I didn't, but I just realized I still have 20 days to go, so here we are again. This one is relatively straightforward, or would be if I had one single, well-defined favourite band. Swans could easily be here as well, but this song is my favourite song off my favourite album ever, and on top of it I was there when this video was filmed. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the soundtrack to the final judgement.

(taken from the coolest YouTube channel ever)

2011-08-26T16:45:00.002+01:00

We might not have seen it coming, we might have not have thought of it for a second on our wildly incomplete 2011 predictions, at least those of us who indulged into that sort of geekery. We might have even thought "yeah, another lame black metal band. Weren't there some rather corny Swedes with this name too?" when they got the promo, before a)reading the press release to see who the musicians involved were, b)listening to it and c)noticing it's not Wisdom, it's VVisdom. Okay, that was just me, probably, and I will suffer 1.000 days of sodom for that (see below). But regardless of our ignorance, Ancient VVisdom's debut, 'A Godlike Inferno', will surely feature among many a best of 2011 list. Mostly acoustic, dark, and very, very serious, it's one of the most surprisingly affecting albums of the year and you will book your first class ticket to hell just by looking at it. I've been so impressed with it that I've stalked the great Nathan Opposition until he got into the 10 rounds with me. Be afraid.

1. When you founded Ancient VVisdom you were still in Integrity, have the band’s aims and objectives changed much since you and Michael left Integrity and it became your only musical focus?

Same objective: creating to destroy, destroying to create.

2. Has the foundation of the band’s sound always been the acoustic instrumentation?

The acoustic instrumentation has been with us from the beginning. It adds depth to the nature of our songs.

3. I’m sure a lot of people will spell the band’s name with a W, just like that old Swedish black metal band. So, what’s the deal with the double V, and what punishment do you suggest for those who misspell it?

Instant intense corrective rehabilitation for those who spell our name with a "W", a penalty of 1.000 days of sodom. The name is pronounced Lncient VVisdom. VVe are a product of a pre-christian pagan culture.

4. Unlike many noisy bands, with AVV it’s clear to everyone what you’re singing, so do you take extra care with the quality of your lyric writing because of that?

My lyrics are well thought out hymns, ever word is selected for a specific reason.

5. The lyrics on the song The Opposition, in particular, seem very personal, especially considering you have taken Opposition as your last name. Do you actually sing praises to Lucifer, and do they take away your suffering?

Every "Live Ritual" vve sing praises to Lucifer. The Opposition is everything I am. Every generation needs a catalyst for change. I am willing to say what they won't say, and do what they won't do.

[one of those live rituals below. Be very afraid.]

6. Machete percussion is probably the coolest instrumentation a band has ever used. Will you keep innovating in terms of instrumentation for future releases?

I want to introduce a new percussive sound on each new album, certain songs have specific percussive sounds. I have been throwing some ideas around for the next one that will top that!

7. How prolific a songwriter are you? Do you think the forthcoming AVV albums will follow roughly the same direction as this one?

Next AVV album is already in the works! VVe have a lot of interesting songs and titles that vve will be introducing when the time is right, with the same AVV vibe and then some. New sounds, new psalms of praise to the war of hell in every human mind. It will follow accordingly to our first full length 'A Godlike Inferno' since vve have plans on taking it to the same studio, The Bubble, in Austin.

8. AVV seem really tight on a live setting and the songs are faithfully reproduced. You seem pretty fired up too. Have people reacted well to your performances?

First of all thank you very very much. Our shows thus far have been great! One of my favorite live rituals that vve have done was recently with Dax Riggs. VVe have played a lot of great shows, or as I call them Live Rituals. Pentagram, Eyehategod, two great fuckin' bands for SXSW. VVe did a show with Scott VVino and Scott Kelly when they did an acoustic tour, two great fuckin' musicians as well.

[All hail.]

9. Dude, an EP with Charles Manson. What's your take on Manson, do you think it’s unfair that his songs will never be looked upon for what they are, outside the context of his life?

There will be a few people who understand the circumstances of his very complicated life and that can see past the media's vision of who Charles Manson is. I see him as a misunderstood public figure of sorts. I also see him as a musician/artist who has a right to have a voice just like anyone else.

10. Last question is list question - if you had to choose the five bands/artists most important in the shaping of Ancient VVisdom’s sound, what would they be?

Ohhh! Tough one!

Danzig

Death in June

David Bowie

Bathory

Roky Erickson

Hail all these artists now.

[Again, all hail.]

josé's band of the week: ash borer

2011-08-24T15:49:00.003+01:00

ASH BORER

from Arcata, California, USA.

myspace - blogspot - facebook (fan page only)

Ash Borer first got into my radar when I picked up their imaginatively titled tape demo from 2009, '2009 Demo', which contained just a pair of tracks but managed to get past the limitations of the format and the non-existence of a deeply evocative concept and get into my daily rotation for quite a while back there. Could well be called 'Fart Candy' or 'Sewage Elephant' for all I care, when a song like the fourteen minute long 'Drukne' is enough to kidnap my consciousness from whatever crap it's occupied with and launch it into deep, dark, fathmoless space for the duration. On top of it I was bummed out with Wolves In The Throne Room's less than stellar 'Black Cascade' (which has since grown on me a little bit more, though) and I needed me some atmospheric mystical black metal from the West Coast to fill my life. You should all know by now how much of a sucker for this kind of thing I am - which doesn't mean I'm not picky. That's why I kept Ash Borer as a very vivid spot on that radar of mine.

Thing is, my radar gets distracted sometimes. So I kept up with Ash Borer as they put out a split with Fell Voices shortly after, but somehow failed to notice that they released a proper album (self-titled) earlier this year. It was only, ironically enough, when I saw a mention of it on a review of the fantastic new Wolves In The Throne Room album, that I was aware of it. Having duly acquired the precious item, its mere three songs, small in number but near infinite in length (40 minutes, okay? But it feels like 40000, and in a good way), have been in constant demand by my ears, frantically trying to make up for lost time. By the way, do you know what an ash borer is?

Says here it's "an invasive species, highly destructive to ash trees," and that "since its accidental introduction into the United States and Canada in the 1990s (...) it has killed at least 50 - 100 million ash trees so far and threatens to kill most of the 7.5 billion ash trees throughout North America." So yes, it's a nasty motherfucker. Now then, imagine that it came from deep space, where a curse of old has caused the time-space continuum to rip apart and allowed this monstrosity to squeeze through whatever distorted dimension it was living in, picture it ten times its size, and replace "ash trees" with "human beings" in that description, and you kinda have an idea of what Ash Borer, the band, sound like.

Sure, there's tons of dark atmospheres and creepy ambient parts throughout the slowly but surely expanding universes that are their songs, but within the turmoil of several shades of black metal crashing against ugly doom and head-spinning psychedelia there is always an aura of malice and discomfort that will keep you gripped to your seat, or bed, or bathtub, or wherever it is you listen to weird mindfuck music like this. Forget that there's a 20 minute song, or that people will use the word "cascadian" to describe it or that even I managed to drop Wolves In The Throne Room a bunch of times into this post (when they actually remind me much more of the equally awesome Ensorcelor). Ash Borer are way above any silly preconceptions or comparisons, crossing genres and limitations at will with deep, lasting effect, so I suggest you pay them some attention. Start by purchasing delightful items.

2011-08-20T11:22:00.002+01:00

I'm most likely forgetting a whole bunch of nutcases, but you'll surely remind me. Top 10 wonderfully disturbing voices:

01. Alan Dubin (OLD / Khanate / Gnaw)

02. Nathan Misterek (Graves At Sea / Laudanum)

03. Diamanda Galás

04. Attila Csihar (Mayhem / Sunn O))) / Tormentor / etc)

05. Rainer Landfermann (Bethlehem)

06. Blixa Bargeld (Einstürzende Neubauten)

07. Tim Singer (Kiss It Goodbye / Deadguy / Family Man)

08. Lord Worm (Cryptopsy)

09. Johnny Morrow (Iron Monkey)

10. Steve Austin (Today Is The Day)

to forever hold your peace.

2011-08-19T00:04:00.004+01:00

I'm 33 years old. Not too young, not too old. A fair bit of experience, especially in what I consider to be my areas of expertise. Or, the things in which I suck less. Anyway, I've started going to shows roughly 20 years ago, and it's an addiction that has just gotten worse, and turned more or less into a job halfway through. I've seen hundreds of different bands and artists performing live. From quiet singer/songwriters to classical pianists to brutal death metal quintets. From crowds of 3 to crowds of 100.000, in more than 15 different countries. During concerts, I've been sober, drunk, I've stagedived, moshed, stood quietly at the back, taken thousands of photos, occasionally even took the mic myself. I've written about a large percentage of those bands, I've met another large percentage of those musicians, I've hung around in backstages as big as my house and as small as my cupboard. So, do forgive the presumption, but I think I'm in a position to give some good advice to musicians just embarking on the great adventure that is performing their music up on a stage for other people. I was just thinking about this today, if I had to summarize everything I've learned into the most important and simple piece of advice, what would it be? It's easy:

STOP TALKING.

Allow me to explain. There are of course a few notable exceptions to this rule. But unless you're Mikael Åkerfeldt (hi Mikael, thanks for reading!) with your genuinely funny between-song chit-chat or Pete Steele (hi Pete, so you did fake it and move to Hungary?) with your brilliant bone-dry deadpan humour or a couple of other illuminati, you do not need to keep talking to your audience every time a song ends. Of course, you can be polite, say good night, thank the crowd after your performance is over, make an appropriate comment or two. If you must. But there's no mandatory need. Let's examine all the situations to effectively prove this. I hope this is useful to your future career.

- You're not as funny as you think you are.

You're not with your mates, even if a few of them are in the audience. You're in front of a bunch of people who, at best, have seen your face on the back of a CD. Or, if you're not headlining, probably not even that. Even people who do comedy professionally sometimes have trouble with audiences who are there expecting a laugh, so your chances of success aren't huge. If you're a very well known musician, and if you're really as funny as you think you are, people still came here to hear you play, not do stand-up. I'd go see Lewis Black if I wanted that, not you. The occasional quip is of course okay, but don't feel like you have to over-entertain.

- No English at all is better than broken English.

If you're playing abroad, don't feel forced to speak in a language that you're not good at. Especially within the world of extreme music, where the atmosphere of a concert takes an importance that isn't usual in other musical universes. We, the audience, most of it anyway, don't take ourselves so seriously as to want to feel like we're the evilest bunch in the world when listening to a black metal band, for instance, but there is a suspension of disbelief during the performance that a band of that sort should know how to balance. And nothing ruins it more than a poorly placed "zat vaas broooo-tahl, moo-tha-fockrz!". Another nasty effect of your poor command of the language is that it will eventually lead to...

- The easy way out: swearing.

Yes, saying "fuck" a lot will pump up all the 14-year-olds in the audience, both in age and in mentality, who actually enjoy being called "motherfuckers", but is that really how you want to dumb down your performance? The very worst example of this I've witnessed has been during a Fleshgod Apocalypse show. If you don't know them, check them out - they're an amazingly brutal death metal band from Italy, who write kickass songs despite their dazzling technical skill, deftly avoiding fretboard masturbation syndrome. They also add an extra dose of grandiosity by adding a few bombastic classical music interludes in between songs (they claim their music is heavily influenced by classical). When I first saw them live, they fortunately had those interludes playing in between the songs. However, the vocalist decided to ruin it by shouting "come on, motherfuckers!" and other such thick-accented banalities. All over Beethoven's 6th.

- We know who you are, where you're from and where the merch stall is. Thank you.

We've all seen the posters for the show, that's why we purchased a ticket and showed up. There's probably a banner with the name of your band behind you. Even if we don't know, if we think you're show was amazing, we'll find out quickly. And while it is no doubt way cool to be from Malta, or Peru, or Tennessee, it's probably not incredibly relevant to the songs you're about to play. Worst of all, we've been to shows before. We know how they work. Bands have things up for sale. T-shirts, records, patches, thongs for our girlfriends to look extra sexy with some indecipherable logo on it. The stall is back there. We've passed it on our way in. You'd like to sell stuff, yes, that's understandable. But we've purchased things before, we also know how to do it. We'll do it if we think your super cool. You don't need to remind us every two songs. Also - we're having a good time. Thanks for caring. But every time you ask if we are so that we can eloquently reply "yeaaaaaaah" in unison, it becomes a bit less good.

- You don't need to thank us after every single song.

"Thank you!" isn't part of the original lyrics of the song, so you can stop saying it right before the last notes are played. It's okay if you thank us in the end, we'll get that you mean the whole show.

- If you must tell us the name of the song, make it understandable. And think hard before explaining its meaning.

If you're Jello Biafra (hi Jello, thanks for reading!), you're allowed to go on about the socio-political ramifications of what you're about to sing. If you're not, and if you really have to, please keep the explanation under 20 seconds, okay? And death and black metal people: when you tell us the name of this next song (again, if you feel you really have to), please, please, please do not cookie-monster-growl it or evil-demon-shriek it. It's ridiculous, it's silly and it defeats the entire purpose of doing it if 'Hellspawn Of The Burning Pentagram' becomes 'HOOOORGH OOOH EEH POOOHGROOOH'.

- We will get to the front if your music is awesome enough for us to bother.

So stop asking us. Stop asking us to jump, or to scream, or to do stuff we don't really feel like. We would be doing it if your music inspired and encouraged us to do it. Sure, organize a wall of death or whatever if the audience has been showing excitement (and not if two guys have been digging it so far, in which case your wall of death will consist of two people bumping into each other), but stop forcing us to pretend we're enjoying something to an extent that we're not.

- Be honest. We know you're not the best crowd of your life, and we also know you made fun of us when you were playing in our rival country.

We can tell, okay? And even if we can't, there's YouTube now. We'll watch you tomorrow, on your next date, in the country/state next to ours, telling them how they've been the greatest crowd you've ever seen, and how they're so much louder than us pussies, just like you're doing now with your previous date. So don't. Honesty also applies to how you talk about other bands. Don't say the local support band that has been with you for four shows now is great if you won't be able to recognize their album if it's played to you. I've seen Nergal thank their "great friends, Suffocation!" who played just before, when it had been Decapitated. Avoid that.

- Neurosis.

This band, one of the most important and influential in the history of extreme music, has provided me with the most intense, mesmerizing and downright life-changing concerts I have ever attended. I have never heard a single word being spoken to the audience by any of their six members. Take a hint.

2011-08-17T08:15:00.001+01:00

SOBRE A MÁQUINA

from São Paulo, Brazil

~~website~~ - facebook - myspace - bandcamp

Remember when a Brazilian post-metal band called Black Sea was band of the week? Back then I said "I've even got a couple of widely unknown bands from there of that ilk on the pipeline for future features," and one of those were actually Sobre A Máquina. The label on which Black Sea released their EP is called sinewave and it's pretty cool, they make available on their website, for free, a lot of releases from up and coming experimental bands mostly, and it's really worth it to take a look around, as you'll surely find something very interesting.

The band that most stood out for me at that time was this trio. Not only their artwork is of wonderfully good taste, but their first record called 'Decompor' was described as featuring "influences of bands tagged as: Drone Doom, Early Industrial, Post-Industrial, Dark Ambient and Post-Rock," so I naturally had to take a peek. Of course that's a bit exaggerated, and fortunately so - for a band to incorporate all that in full force, it'd have to be a fuckin' incomprehensible wall of sound. The vibe I got from Sobre A Máquina was mostly one of chill out. You know, not what is usually understood as chill out when it comes to music. No lounge chairs, people by the pool or elevator music where meaningless beats and dumbed down harmless easy-jazz pass as entertainment while people sip on drinks with umbrellas in them. Chill out as in music that really loosens your thoughts after all those sessions of mindfuck black metal weirdness or hideously deformed nihilistic sludge. The main difference between this and other kinds of chill out music is that I actually enjoyed this one.

You see, there's an important difference of chill outs, and it resides in that Sobre A Máquina don't do easy or simple music. It's relaxing but it's also challenging and forward-thinking and interesting. I waited until now to feature them because I needed confirmation that that first release wasn't just a fluke, not just some electronics beginner that hit the nail by chance, so now with a new record called 'Areia' (it means "sand", in case you're wondering) they've gone and totally proved their worth, dispelling any doubts I might have had.

Don't get all hung up on the fact that I find this relaxing, okay? You might not, and this is not easy-listening in any case. Their trippy use of electronics is actually pretty dynamic and varied. There's brush strokes of early industrial (just like that description said, see?) such as SPK and Throbbing Gristle on the harsher parts, a fat-ass bassline on the first song 'Língua Negra' ("black tongue" - that doesn't sound relaxing, does it?), brightly shoegazy Jesu-ish atmospheres at odds with the jarring noises that go on at the same time, some chanting buried among the beats on 'Foz' as the only non-totally instrumental segment, and a genuinely unsettling mood that rears its head on the last song 'Garça'. The mazey sound structures recall jazz above all genres, cut-up, electronically processed, 22nd century jazz, but jazz nonetheless. As much as I liked 'Decompor', I'm glad I waited a while. It's so much easier to recommend Sobre A Máquina with a huge upgrade like 'Areia'. They're both available for free, so there's no excuse to not check these guys out. While you're at it, check out the rest of sinewave too, and report back to me with your best findings. Get on with it.

Free coolness:

Sobre A Máquina - 'Decompor' (2010)

Sobre A Máquina - 'Areia' (2011)

caïna - hands that pluck

2011-08-16T16:36:00.001+01:00

Caïna

Hands That Pluck

2011 / Profound Lore

No, not road therapy, just a regular bit of writing about an album I've been spinning quite a bit recently. I've had it in my car when I first received it, but it's just not appropriate. Too immersing, too jarring too, for a continued listening while driving. Had I not decided to listen to it elsewhere, you might have read in the news about a dramatic pile up in the Lisboa area caused by a driver who suddenly forgot he was in the middle of traffic due to the black abyss of dying stars he hallucinated during his journey, or a car that veered off the bridge onto the sea, too consumed by the cosmic infinity in his mind's eye to keep a straight line.

Be forewarned - 'Hands That Pluck' demands a few things, so make sure you check all the boxes before you dive in. Headphones. Patience. A few late nights. Mental disposition for music that doesn't sit still and that won't fit any of your established notions about any genre that it touches, and that's a whole bunch. That sort of thing. The music of Andy Curtis-Brignell through the Caïna entity has never been easy, so it's not a huge surprise this album is complex to tackle. If you listen to the full-lengths in succession, 2006's embryonic 'Some People Fall', 2007's breakthrough, funereal 'Mourner' and 2008's kaleidoscopic 'Temporary Antennae', it does feel like the genetically altered caterpillar turning into a beautifully grotesque butterfly, such is the widening of scope and breadth that occurs from album to album. But this is the biggest leap so far. Maybe because it is, tragically, the very last release of Caïna, maybe also encouraged by the fact that, as Andy revealed to me a few months ago on a little interview for Terrorizer magazine, a technical problem cost him all the lyrics and music he already had written for this album at the time, but the result is staggeringly opaque.

The first listen of this album feels like someone put in a mixtape by mistake. Although vaguely rooted within black metal, as usual, it's still a genre rollercoaster that seems to zoom off to randomly distant parts of the extreme music universe at will, a feeling augmented by the presence of several illustrious guests - the unique talents of N. Imperial of Krieg, Chris Ross of Revenge and Rennie Resmini of Starkweather all chip in to ensure the passage of Caïna to the afterlife of awesome bands is one to remember. And it is. After those traumatic first listens, the initially ever-expanding 'Hands That Pluck' universe seems to contract (especially if you didn't forget your headphones), and the missing dots magically appear one by one for you to connect. It still is wildly diverse, but the seven songs and two creepy interludes turn into stars of the same constellation - millions of miles away from each other, yet irrevocably connected.

Just as the subject matter is more abstract than usual, Andy's habitual Crowleyism, Satanism and critique of theistic religion getting more ethereal in lyrics that are extremely evoking and warrant a read even without the music playing, the music itself is not easy to describe either, not without a lame track-by-track sort of thing, and even so that doesn't do it any justice. But what the hell, here goes:

It starts out pretty roughly, slapping you around with the Darkthrone-ish (circa 'The Cult Is Alive', on top of it) 'Profane Inheritors' and the ten minutes of the N. Imperial-led lo-fi black metal that turns into abstract stargazing halfway of 'Murrain'. A perfect opening pair to scare off eventual hipsters looking for the next metal band to appropriate. Yet, it does contain a glimpse of what's to come, as 'Murrain' does morph into an etheral stargazing session halfway through, punctuated by N. Imperial's gruff growls, like an alien chewing through your intestines while you stare at the Earth from space in eternal tranquillity. Or something. After the eerie speech of the title-track interlude, it's straight into 'The Sea Of Grief Has No Shores', a title that's the perfect representation of Curtis-Brignell's poetic lyricism that's been present throughout his Caïna career, and most touchingly so during this album, and a track that exhales a ghostly, skeletal post-rock ambiance, as if all members Mono had been possessed by Satan right before the recording of 'One More Step And You Die'. Just when it's lullabying you into oblivion, it's up to Rennie Resmini to shake you from your slumber with a typically disconcerting performance on 'Callus And Cicatrix'. The man has one of the most distinctive, versatile and downright soul-wrenching voices in the entire history of extreme music, and he elevates the labyrinthine necro-prog song into a haunting, poignant piece that serves as the record's pivotal point - from then on, it seems like 'Hands That Pluck' initiates a jagged build-up that lasts until the final climax. 'Somnium Ignis' fuses Andy's deep and animalistic roar and harsh atmosphere with surprisingly luminous guitar leads, while 'I Know Thee Of Old' employs Revenge's Chris Ross in an unimaginable context, a fuzzy rockout that builds and builds after a dreamy start. It's like letting loose an enraged bull in your little sister's room, except here it works against all notions of common sense. The last song, 'Ninety-Three', might just be the best thing Caïna has ever done, closing out a relatively short but incredibly creative career with a quiet explosion of trippy rock, 70s leads and psyched out moods, like opening a window after years of darkness.

The album comes with a bonus CD called 'Old Songs New Chords', featuring reworkings of old Caïna songs and a frankly spectacular cover of Nico's 'Roses In The Snow', but you don't need me to go into that. You'll do it yourself, as a sort of wake, after you have exhausted 'Hands That Pluck' and yourself, taken a very deep and very long breath, and realized that there will be no more light from where that now-dead star is. The last time I used a dead star as a metaphor was on my Terrorizer review of Horseback's equally transcendental 'The Invisible Mountain', so you know I save those for special occasions.

Do return to us eventually, Andy.

live shots: seven churches festival

2011-08-15T17:10:00.000+01:00

A few shots from last June's first edition of the Seven Churches Festival, in London. The review was published on Terrorizer #212, and you can find the Undersmile photos from it on this past edition of Live Shots.

Dopefight

Rise Of The Simians

Bong

Winterfylleth

Black Sun

road therapy / ghost

2011-08-12T10:02:00.000+01:00

Ghost

Opus Eponymous

2010 / Rise Above

Not much road therapy lately, not because I haven't been driving, but because it's been mostly new, unreleased or just-released stuff bringing the noise to my car, like Today Is The Day, Ancient VVisdom, Wolves In The Throne Room or William Elliott Whitmore, and that's not much fun discussing here. Not only most of you are still unfamiliar with those records, but I've reviewed them for several magazines, so I feel like I've said my piece about them for now.

Anyway, Ghost. This one you'll all be familiar with, whether you like it nor not. Overhyped by many, subsequently detested by others, the impact it has had since its release is undeniable. My first reaction when I got the promo was to stay away from it, the instant impression I got was of a gimmicky bunch trying to get on the occult rock bandwagon by aping Mercyful Fate and suchlike. But I listened to it, eventually. I had to grudgingly admit I found a couple of songs quite fun. So I listened to it again. And that's how it gets you. You really can't help but feel its charm once the hooks comfortably sink into your brain. It's 'Ritual' and 'Elizabeth' that first get to you, but soon you start discovering all the delightful little touches in all the others and that's it, you're irretrievably lost to the Ghost cause.

Eventually, it gets too much, of course. It's only eight songs, and when you've listened to them eight million times each, you need a break, and I eventually left 'Opus Eponymous' aside for a few months. The definitive confirmation that it's indeed a great record, even with the benefit of hindsight, has come this year, in three parts. First, it was seeing them live at Roadburn and realizing they're an incredibly tight and powerful live band, always one of the best measures of credibility in my books. Then, upon arriving in Iceland, my buddy Gisli had the album playing in his car (some Icelandic road therapy there!) and I enjoyed it tremendously after not having listened to it for ages, Roadburn aside, and was surprised at how much I felt like listening to it again once I got home. And now, the final confirmation, bringing it to my car nearly a year later, After all the hype, all the magazine covers, after all the crazy guessing of who is in the band (everyone knows by now who the vocalist is, at least), it's the perfect time to re-evaluate it, and it still holds up remarkably well. Especially as a driving album - the best ones are usually the ones you can sing along to, and there's not better singalong album than this one, so it's been spinning tons again. Until I get sick of falsettoing hear our Satan praaaayer all over again, at least.

2011-08-10T16:04:00.003+01:00

CIRCLE OF OUROBORUS

from Tampere, Finland

~~website~~ - facebook - myspace (unofficial fan page)

I'm a bit fat. Once upon a time, I was a proto-athlete, I competed in high-jump and long-jump events, but a few too many beers and steaks have taken their toll in the past decade and a half, and while I can probably still outjump you, I've been trying to get some exercise routine back. I'm too cheap to join a gym, so that means running, and fortunately I have a cool place to run a minute away from me, so I can do it in the middle of the grass and trees instead of that depressing car-dodging downtown city folk have to do if they want to go out for a jog. Being me, I run with headphones all the time, and I'm actually pretty straightforward about it, I don't need something with a beat to pump me up or whatever. I can pretty much run with Loss, Anaal Nathrakh or Ray LaMontagne and keep the same pace.

Today, however, Circle Of Ouroborus totally ruined my exercise. Thanks to the privilege that is having friends in spiritually high places, I had already heard the Finnish band's new album, 'Eleven Fingers', out now on Handmade Birds on vinyl format, a few times via streaming. I have a strange issue with streaming stuff though, despite being a computer person, there's a distance there that I can't seem to bridge between me and the music, whenever I listen to something that way. Last night, however, I was able to get my grubby mits on a digital version of the record, so I naturally saved it for my morning woods (ahem) run. Goddamn it. I kept stopping and having to sit down as the beast sunk in, blow after mortal blow on my ill-conceived notion of how extreme music should sound.

It's that drastic. I have naturally kept up with Circle Of Ouroborus' output throughout the last few years, first coming into contact with them after that split with Urfaust which preceded their debut, and they have never been a predictable band, very far from it. A few ups and downs with their proper albums released so far ('Shores', 'Tree Of Knowledge' and 'Unituli' are really the ones I keep listening to regularly) had them more tagged in my head as a sort of oddity. An oddity with a huge amount of potential, granted, but still. After this disturbing listen to 'Eleven Fingers', however, it's as if everything they've done has been wiped away, as mere stepping stones on the way up to the monument. I'm on my third paragraph without even trying to describe what it sounds like, and there's a reason. I really can't. Not while it's fucking with my head so deeply as it is now.

If you thought the post-something categories we've had to come up with in the last few years because we've ran out of names to call music were hard to stomach, then these people have just made everything worse by one extra degree of post. They've done post-punk and post-black metal and even post-shoegaze or post-neofolk before, and this is what comes after that. After the post. Is it going back to the beginning? Is it the Ouroborus of life itself eating the tail of music categorization? See what I mean about it fucking with my head?

Atonal guitars that sound little like what we expect a guitar to sound like at all, vocals that sound like they were recorded without ever listening to the music but which fit it with an eerie perfection, aggressive melody at war with mellow violence, I don't know. It's as much beaten and drugged Urfaust hanging by their balls as it is the exhumed corpse of Joy Division playing atmospheric Bone Awl covers in reverse with an undead priest howling the vocals from another room. The only clear picture I get from this is the face of all the kids who will eventually download this from some Russian website thinking it's yet another black metal album to file under everyday crap with all the others, and whose brain will melt after five minutes alone with it. Just like mine is, too.

josé's top 10s - motörhead albums

2011-08-08T16:31:00.000+01:00

There was a discussion with a few of my fellow music writers this morning about the best Motörhead album of the last two decades (the majority of opinions converged towards '1916' and 'Inferno', and I heartily agree), so I mentally put together my top 10 Motörhead albums, ever. It's funny to note that, despite the fact that they have penned some of the best tunes in the history of mankind, that their live show is still today a fucking blast and that Lemmy is, obviously, the coolest person in the world, Motörhead have very rarely put together a 100% consistent album, devoid of any filler. Oh, and 'No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith' counts because it's the best live album ever, because it's the Motörhead album that I still spin the most and because it's my blog and I want it to, so there. Anyway, your list is surely different, so discuss, elaborate, insult and praise mine at will.

01. No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith (1981)

02. Ace Of Spades (1980)

03. Overkill (1979)

04. Inferno (2004)

05. Bomber (1979)

06. 1916 (1991)

07. On Parole (1979, sort of)

08. Sacrifice (1995)

09. Iron Fist (1982)

10. Overnight Sensation (1996)

2011-08-04T22:55:00.003+01:00

Not that I bragged about it or anything, but I went to Iceland last month and the aftershock still resonates in me quite strongly, not only caused by the amazing scenery or the kickass bands I discovered, but also because of the unlikely amount of great new friends I've made there. No better excuse, then, to start showing them how annoying I can really be and subject one of them to the 10 rounds treatment. Gisli was the best host I could ever dream of during my stay in Neskaupstaður - he provided me with a very nice place to stay, free internet, drove me around to the sound of Ghost (and a few seconds of wimp-period Enslaved, quickly corrected), put up with my drunken ramblings to the wee hours of the morning, and topped it all off with an ear-splitting performance fronting his band, Beneath. If you don't know them, shame on you - they've played the ever-brutal Neurotic Deathfest for example, and they slay. Their debut full-length is about to come up, so keep your ears pricked for that one. Gisli was also a member of Sororicide, and if you don't know them, you can leave the hall.

1. You know how Decibel have an article called Justify Your Shitty Taste? Here’s your chance to justify yours – feel free to get off your chest everything that you really, really love about Morbid Angel’s new album. And what made you get the t-shirt on top of it.

Haha bastard! Alright, here goes. First of all I'm a huge fan of Morbid Angel with David Vincent so having him back was always going to be a big plus for me. And I have to say that his voice is great on the new album. So that's probably what I like most about it. Admittedly there are songs on the album that I would have preferred they released on an EP or something, but overall I would say it's a good album, if not great, and vastly superior to Heretic. As for the t-shirt, I saw them again at Hellfest this year and they were so good that I was compelled to buy a t-shirt. Also, I look great in a Morbid Angel t-shirt!

[That's reasonable. Here's an idea - any other freaks out there who like that album, do email me and I'll compile the best justifications on a future post. Neil, I might publish what you've told me about it, beware!]

2. As I have mentioned to my readers before, my mnemonic for remembering your name involved thinking of Gimli, just for the resemblance of the name. But if you had to be one Lord Of The Rings character, which one would you be?

Since Gimli is hands down the coolest character in the Lord Of The Rings and the one that I most resemble (short hairy dude!) I would pick him without any hesitation!

3. Alright, enough stupid questions. Introduce all these nice people reading to your current kickass band, Beneath, so that no one is left in painful ignorance.

I'm the vocalist in the Icelandic death metal band Beneath. We're a fairly new band, formed during the winter 2007/2008 and we currently have one release out, an EP called 'Hollow Empty Void' that was released by Mordbrann Musikk in 2010. [which he was kind enough to give to me, and it kills. Get it.] We play fast death metal that has been described as both technical and brutal, although I feel that neither tag fits us completely. We have our debut full length, 'Enslaved By Fear', coming out later this year on Unique Leader Records.

4. One of your guitar players actually bled all over his guitar onstage during Eistnaflug (evidence), which is very appropriate. Are you thinking of turning that into a habit?

That's an idea, it could be our gimmick! Although I'm not sure that Jóhann (our bleeding guitarist) would like the it very much.

5. You’ve told me recently only the artwork needed completion before Beneath unleash tha long awaited full length debut – what’s the feeling of finally having a proper album out, and how do you think it improves on the EP?

It's difficult to describe it. We've been waiting for the release for quite some time now, so it's a mixture of excitement and relief that the wait is almost over. And for me, the album is an improvement in all areas when compared to the EP. I think it's fair to say that it's broadening our sound a bit without changing the fact that we play fast death metal. And there is a slow song on it which is quite new for us as well. We play better on it and I feel that we've improved our songwriting. Sound wise it doesn't hurt at all that it's mixed by Daniel Bergstrand so it sounds better as well.

6. You’re not exactly a newcomer, and you’re an important musician in the Icelandic metal scene, so your expectations for Beneath’s future are probably very realistic – so, what are they? Do you think the band could turn into a well known entity in Europe, with regular touring, for example? The potential is surely there.

Well, we are keeping our expectations modest right now, of course we could like to be able to support ourselves and our families by playing death metal, but realistically it's not something that we can count on. But we're definitely aiming to do some touring and playing festivals, then we just have to see what options we have. Worst case scenario, we keep our day jobs and keep writing and releasing music that we like. I could think of worse things.

7. Speaking of former bands, dude, Sororicide. I remember having a Sororicide tape back in the day, and I just realized you played for them after I left Iceland. I suppose yet another reunion with that band is out of the question?

I used to say that Sororicide would never play another gig again and I was proven wrong. Granted, it took us 15 years from when we called it quits until we played those four gigs in 2009 and 2010, but I don't think it's very likely. Maybe in another 15 years, who knows.

8. Yet another of your former bands, Drep, had a release, and a song on that release, called 'Plunger'. It is necessary that you share the complex concept behind this title with us now.

To be absolutely honest, to this day I have absolutely no idea what that song is about. I did some backing vocals in the chorus, but that was only the word plunger repeated over and over again. It was a good song though.

[any song called 'Plunger' would be, honestly.]

9. Managed to get that Ghost CD out of your car stereo yet? If so, what’s been spinning there lately?

No, the Ghost CD is still stuck there, but now it's because it's our six year old's new favourite band! I'm not complaining mind you, but now and then I can sneak in something more extreme such as Belphegor, 1349 or Behemoth, or when we're looking for something more laid back Enslaved or The Devil's Blood for instance. But Ghost rules supreme in my car stereo these days.

[I want a six year old like that.]

10. Last question is list question – list ten albums that had the most importance to you while you were growing up, musically speaking at least. Basically, the albums that made you a metalhead, and made you want to be a musician.

Now, this is probably the toughest question. Just 10? Ok, here goes, not in any particular order though. I'm probably forgetting some albums, but these are the ones that stick out in my memory at least.

Iron Maiden - Somewhere in Time

Slayer - Reign In Blood

Motörhead - Rock 'n' Roll

Metallica - Master Of Puppets

Megadeth - Peace Sells... But Who's Buying?

Judas Priest - Priest Live

Kreator - Extreme Aggression

Death - Leprosy

Morbid Angel - Altars Of Madness

Sepultura - Beneath The Remains

2011-08-03T10:18:00.004+01:00

WILLIAM ELLIOTT WHITMORE

from Lee County, Iowa

website - facebook - myspace

The first time I ever heard of the name William Elliott Whitmore was while doing one of my favourite activities, which is wandering aimlessly through a record store, idly looking around until something catches my attention. There was a small listening station sort of hidden behind one of the shelves with a new record that had just came out up for listening. The carefully arranged and rather creepy animal skeleton and skull on the cover and the fact that it was called 'Hymns For The Hopeless' intrigued me. I'm not one usually to slap on store headphones and listen to something, but this was 2003 and although that age had started already, we still weren't quite able to download every song in existence off our phones or whatever, so I did it, piqued by the curiosity about this strangely dark-looking album. As soon as William's voice came out of those headphones, singing 'Cold And Dead' (and those titles!) entirely a capella, I wasn't in the record store anymore. I was transported out of the city, out of 2003, very nearly out of myself by this old man with the deep voice. Who was he? Why hadn't I heard of him before? I skipped to the second song, 'Sometimes Our Dreams Float Like Anchors', just to check if all the album was a capella, and as the banjo cut through my heart, I just put the headphones down, grabbed a copy of the record from the shelf, went to the counter with it and rushed home. There was something special here, something that didn't deserve being listened to in a store.

So that was eight years ago. Those songs have since become such an integral part of me that I can be, I don't know, reading a book and listening to them and singing them to myself at the same time without even noticing it. 'Burn My Body', as I've mentioned before, is the song I'd like people who liked me to sing when I die, preferably while doing the exact same thing the song suggests. William, though I've never met him, is the sort of artist that has become a part of my daily life too. With my friends and family, who have all been ordered to discover him, of course, he's mentioned as if he's some guy I know down the pub. You might imagine my surprise when I eventually found out, a couple of days after buying that first album, and no thanks to its wonderfully minimalist black booklet, that William was actually a tattoed, bearded dude, active member of the DIY punk/hardcore community, and also that he was born on the same year as me, despite that hundred-year-old voice. An honest voice. It's the voice of an old soul, a gravely, tired yet hopeful voice, the voice of a hard working man who nevertheless recognizes the poetry of daily life. The sort of man who, to promote a new album, goes for a chat with his grandma about the farm where his family has lived, and where he lives now too. Those songs on 'Hymns For The Hopeless' turned out to not be entirely hopeless. Bleak, yes, fully aware of the constant presence of death in our lives, yes. But not hopeless. Even the raw gospel-like closer 'Our Paths Will Cross Again' (Will has a knack for the particularly touching last song - 'Porchlight', 'A Good Day To Die', 'Not Feeling Any Pain'), where everyone is dead - father, mother, lover - is strangely uplifting, almost hopeful that death isn't really the final end to all this.

His career has been a wonder to follow as well. He has been productive, with a few bits and pieces always being done besides the albums, like a couple of Daytrotter sessions, a Latitudes session, a collaboration album with Jenny Hoyston of Erase Errata, even a song for the Red Dead Redemption soundtrack. 'Field Songs', the new album which motivated this post, maintains the healthy, uncluttered, simple approach to songs William has kept during the other four albums. Where other artists vaguely within this ballpark like Eric Bachmann with Crooked Fingers or even Sam Beam with Iron & Wine, tend to feel the need to start expanding their instrumentation and their arrangements, moving gradually away from the rawer and very frequently more fascinating beginnings, William has kept it mostly to voice, banjo and guitar, with the occasional friend helping out with a discreet appearance of a required instrument, but mostly keeping to just writing great songs with what the means he's always had. Even on the album that might have been his "maturing" effort, 2008's 'Animals In The Dark', while it does stray a little bit thematically from his norm, showing a more global world view and political comment (through the eyes of the man of the country still, however), musically it's not that big of a stretch. The evolution throughout the albums has been kept to songs just getting better and better. When you can pen a tune like the deeply, harrowingly touching 'Everything Gets Gone' from the new album, that's all you really need. "But I'm just here for a little while," he sings on that song. We all are, in a way, but let's hope we all hang on for a little more still. There's still more fields to be plowed, stories to be told, and songs to be sung.

live shots: undersmile.

2011-07-27T14:30:00.000+01:00

A few shots of Undersmile at Seven Churches festival, to complement the band of the week post.

2011-07-27T13:56:00.001+01:00

UNDERSMILE

from Witney, UK.

website - facebook - myspace

Taz Corona-Brown: Vocals and lead guitars;

Hel Sterne: Vocals and guitars;

Olly Corona-Brown: Bass;

Tom McKibbin: Drums.

Sometimes, ignorance is not bliss. I had never heard of Undersmile before the dynamic duo of Matt Hopkins and Josh Retallick invited them to play the first edition of their amazing Seven Churches festival, replacing Jucifer who had their tour cancelled. That felt like a bummer at first, as I am a fan of Jucifer, but that was just my ignorance talking. On the morning of the Seven Churches day, Matt decided to show me who these people were, so he took out a lovely digipak with creepy cartoony drawings, called 'A Sea Of Dead Snakes'. Before he even put it on, I was convinced. A band whose first song on their first EP is called 'Instrumenstrual' has just got to kick ass. That first listen was merely a confirmation, one which was reinforced quite strongly a few hours after with the band's performance at the festival.

Undersmile are unusual, you see. The two frontwomen, Hel and Taz appear on stage with babydoll dresses looking like they've just come up from a serial killer basement in the 50s, and then they proceed to drop their morose vocal harmonies on you as if they're not even caring. Or even there at all. They basically stare blankly at the ceiling, a totally emotionless performance that fits the remorseless heaviness of the music perfectly. While you're staring at the girls, Olly and Tom are doing all the dirty grunt-work in the shadows, a monster rhythm section where the strange greyness of the girls' performance rests.

Ever since I first heard them I've been trying to come up with a comfortable way to explain what they sound like and I'm still coming up empty. On the review of the festival for Terrorizer magazine, I described 'Cutters Choice', the coolest song on that EP, as something along the lines of "a lost grunge classic being gang-raped by Electric Wizard and Swans," which, though colourful and somewhat close if you can actually imagine it, doesn't really cut it. It's the best I can do though, so you'll have to go and listen to that EP, and while you're at it pre-order their new split with Caretaker here, not only is Caretaker yet another band you should be aware of, but the two huge (12 minutes each) Undersmile songs there, 'Big Wow' and 'Anchor', hit you harder and lower even than anything on 'Sea Of Dead Snakes', a remarkable progression for the young band. I swear I don't get commission, but do get a t-shirt while you're there too. The design reminds me of 'Through Silver In Blood', which can only be a good omen.

Oh and if you're wondering about the band name...

beach vikings.

2011-07-22T21:26:00.000+01:00

I'm sure it's a temperature record for Skálmöld merchandise.

thought of the day.

2011-07-13T09:39:00.000+01:00

Eistnaflug 2011, or how to feel home 3000km away from home.

2011-07-12T14:20:00.008+01:00

So you know why this joint, and some of the other places I babble on (who actually seem to miss me - sorry Jaime, I'll make it up, especially as you called out for me on a post with two of my biggest widely unknown band fetishes, Crowpath and Kill The Client!), have been as busy as the meetings for fans of the last Morbid Angel album? I've been away. And man, I do mean away. Sleeping in my own bed last night was like coming across your best friend you haven't seen in two decades. Ever since Roadburn, essentially, it has been hard being home for over a few days, and it all culminated this past week in Neskaupstaður. You can probably guess where that is by that squiggly letter that everyone pronounces as a "d", but do google that baby so you're aware of how far away from all of you I've been lately. It wasn't like the desert, and I did have fucking broadband where I stayed, but who can think of posting when you look out the window and you see this?

That's right, no one. Also, I'm at my most productive at night, and until I landed in Lisbon a few hours ago, I hadn't seen the nightly sky in a week. That photo could have been taken at 4pm or 4am, those people don't do night at this time of year. So I had plenty of valid excuses. I didn't go there just for the scenery, however. I went there to attend the mighty Eistnaflug festival, and I have to tell you your life isn't complete until you do so yourself. Roadburn aside, I can't think of a three day festival where people, both regular festival-goers and everyone in the organization and bands, are nice, polite, spectacularly dedicated to the bands and just generally a great bunch to be with. Forget all preconceptions you might have about Icelandic people being cold or distant or isolated or any other shit we tend to think about countries we don't know - they're warm, they're friendly, they're hospitable, they come up to you to chat if you're alone, they hug you, they're impressively knowledgeable about music, and they're also a wild bunch when bands are playing. I mean, look:

Most of them also seem fiercely proud of their country and culture. I committed the faux-pas of mentioning, in the presence of an older gentleman, that I had lived in Finland, just to establish the parallel that my incomprehension of the Finnish language while I was there was similar to what I was feeling now, to which he instantly replied, jokingly but still meaning it, that "we're not like them at all, we're vikings and we're better!".

Even drunks are funny. A guy came up to me and a fellow journalist and, after failing to come up with any interesting topics of conversation about our respective origins ("Portugal. Scotland. Okay. I can't say anything about those countries."), he informed us he was aware of how stupid he was sounding, but he couldn't control it, so he'd just accept and embrace it. He concluded this little chat by revealing he and his girlfriend, "the most beautiful woman in the world", would soon produce an army of bass-playing babies.

Neskaupstaður is an awesome place. It has one general store, one liquor store with apparently random opening times - "from 2 to 2.30!", "from 4 to 6!", "a really short amount of time!" were some of the suggestions, I admit I never really understood which of these checked out - one gas station, a lovely cafe, a couple of bars, an abandoned steel factory with art exhibitions where bands played during the festival, and the actual venue. That's it, and that's all you need. It does take a while to get there - I took a plane to Gatwick, an airport with an uncanny knack for delaying every single one of my flights a minimum of three hours, another one to Reykjavik and then another one to Egilsstaðir, where a bus lay waiting for an hour drive through imposing snow-covered (!) mountains and lakes.

All the way through this, and through the whole trip actually, when I didn't have a companion to put up with my stellar conversational talent, I must say I couldn't listen to basically anything else besides the new Ancient VVisdom album, 'A Godlike Inferno'. There was the usual daily fix of Today Is The Day's 'Pain Is A Warning', but besides that it was that magic half hour all over again, those songs are imprinted in my mind forever. I've come home to find the new William Elliott Whitmore waiting for me, so hopefully I'll be able to, like, listen to other records and stuff now.

As for Eistnaflug itself, I'm afraid you'll have to wait for the Terrorizer review of it to get all the details, but suffice to say the overall standard of Icelandic bands was mightily impressive. They all seemed pretty keen to offer me, Krekk and Villl (to employ the pronounciation of one very nice and very Icelandic airport lady), the, ahem, cream of the crap of European metal journalism who were present, all manner of CDs and shirts, for which I am eternally grateful, since I would have gladly bought them anyway. The presence of these three music geeks who happen to write for British magazines seemed to be so appreciated that at one point it was almost embarrassing. Head honcho Stefán seemd physically unable to go by us without a raise of the eyebrow and an inexhaustible offering - "beer?", he'd say not so much as a question but almost as a surprised realization we weren't yet holding one at the time, a crime which he proceeded to fix instantly. Dude, you'll be forever known as "the beer guy", and that's just one of the many reasons why we love you. A lot of people also just came to say hi, usually beginning the conversation with "are you the journalists?". My buddy Olivier who covered the festival last year was mentioned in reverential tones, as an ancient god whose presence was still felt. I was almost afraid to pick my nose sometimes just for fear someone would come up and recognize me. Just to keep our rock star delusions in check, however, there was a meet'n'greet encounter on the second day to which the three of us showed up and, well, kinda had to meet and greet each other as no one else bothered, which amused us greatly. We had a beer instead. Another one.

Sleeping some solid twelve hours last night made me realize how little sleep I had been getting. There's something to be said about getting home from a festival day at 4am while outside it looks like it's 4pm. The above picture, for example, was taken in the middle of the night, believe it or not. You might feel tired, but you won't feel sleepy, so we usually just hung around with our lovely host Gisli Sigmundsson (whose one single fault of character resides in his appreciation of the new Morbid Angel) and geeked out about various subjects until someone decided it might be wise to actually sleep for an hour or so. It's also very nice to just hang around outside in between every band and always looking like it's the middle of the afternoon of some refreshingly cool autumn day. I'd trade that for these hellish 40º days I get in a second.

In the middle of all this, there was still time for Aðalbjörn and Guðmundur, two fine gentlemen who happen to respectively sing and drum for my favourite Icelandic band, Sólstafir, to show me their new album. You will also have to wait a bit and buy magazines to read all about that, but let me tell you this - IT WILL KICK YOUR ASS. Guys, that vocal/guitar melody in "the ballad" is still playing over and over in my head, resisting all those Ancient VVisdom attacks to expel everything else from my musical subconscious.

The timing of flights meant that we were able to go back and be all tourist-y in Reykjavik and engage in the purchase of small viking statuettes, polar bears, chocolates and unwise amounts of beer, as well as cute sightseeing all over the very welcoming capital, as this half-arsed collection of snaps proves. Speaking of flights, however, it was quite an experience riding that local Keflavik-Egilsstaðir flight. For once I flew just like they do in the movies. I went to the counter, I got my ticket, a small piece of paper that looked just like a bus ticket, waited for a bit in the room just beside, and when the small Fokker propeller plane arrived we just went outside and got on it. It landed, we got our bag and left. No bullshit, no getting there three hours earlier, no metal detectors, no grumpy security people who bitch about your nail-clipper, no hand-me-your-phone-so-I-can-see-if-your-hands-have-been-in-contact-with-explosives, nothing. And I haven't heard of hordes of supposed terrorists driving planes into all those huge three-story Reykjavik skyscrapers.

It would be cool to show off my language skills and pretend I've picked up on tons of Icelandic during my stay, but that would just be stupid. Truth is, I even had trouble with people's names. As I've told him after a few too many drinks, I remembered Gisli's name because it reminded me of Gimli from Lord Of The Rings, I hope he wasn't mad at that. In my world, it's a huge compliment. I promise to make an effort to learn how those squiggly letters are pronounced and to pick up a few words so I'll feel less stupid next time (next year? Yes? Please?).

So instead of a cute just-googled "thank you Iceland" in the native tongue or some other fake shit, I'll just share a little game my colleague Greg hooked me on, which provided us with endless bouts of nerdy amusement - listening to the language as if it was English, and trying to pick up phrases. Some of the more unforgettable highlights of misheard foreignspeak include "I've had about eight drugs last night!", "Och! A falafel, is it?" (both Greg's), and my own "Last time I did good here, maybe the parrot went away!" and "He's not from Newcastle!". Considering there's a street called Burgerjoint in Reykjavik, this might not be so off the mark of what they were actually saying.

As if all this and everything else I've forgotten to mention or still will in magazine articles wasn't enough, there was one final treat in store on the last leg of the journey. Guess which airplane transported me from Keflavik into Shithole (aka Gatwick)? Come on, as metalheads, unless there's an aviation freak among you, only one plane is instantly recognizable and desirable to us. That's right. Ed Force One was at the service of Iceland Express and I rode that baby for three hours. Eat your heart out.

The final I'm-here-and-you're-not shit-eating grin, photo courtesy of Greg:

obviously pre-ordered.

2011-07-03T16:30:00.000+01:00

2011-06-09T16:00:00.001+01:00

That's right, top 10 songs to be played at my funeral. And I mean it. Most music-minded people with a touch of morbidity have typically thought about this, but whereas they almost all want a song, I need a fuckin' playlist. In order:

01. William Elliott Whitmore - 'Burn My Body'
02. Tom Waits - 'Long Way Home'
03. Sentenced - 'With Bitterness And Joy'
04. Iron & Wine - 'Each Coming Night'
05. Diamanda Galás - 'Si La Muerte'
06. Jim Croce - 'Time In A Bottle'
07. Neurosis - 'I Can See You'
08. Scott Kelly - 'Remember Me'
09. Monty Python - 'Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life'
10. Gnaw - 'Vacant'

happy birthday, jaime.

2011-05-31T12:47:00.000+01:00

How can you possible ever top something like this? Especially when the man's birthday happens to be two days after mine, I don't work well under pressure! So, you can't. But you can at least do something with a different (and harder to give orders to, I should point out) species.

Read that to the tune of 'Happy Birthday Lisa' and have a great day, bro.

And that's enough mushy cuteness, y'all go back to celebrating the macrocosmick manifestation of Satan by listening to Inquisition now, run along.

josé's band of the week - meth drinker

2011-05-27T00:55:00.001+01:00

In case you missed it, what the fuck? What else do you have that's better to do on a goddamn Wednesday? Anyway, my band of the week is a little bunch of people on the other side of the world playing ugly and unpleasant music that you will either hate or not or whatever. Who cares. Here's an unpleasant video, too.

30 day song challenge - day 10 - a song that makes you fall asleep

2011-05-24T00:20:00.001+01:00

Day 10 - A song that makes you fall asleep

Ulver - EOS

There's two ways to look at this one, the most obvious is probably the negative one. When a song or an album are described as soporific, it's usually not a good thing. It's usually an exaggeration too, used as an amplified synonym for boring. Then, you can look at it another way, that it's not necessarily a bad thing that a song makes you sleepy. Take this, the opener from Ulver's amazing 2007 album 'Shadows Of The Sun'. It's obvious by listening to it why it's perceived as such a nocturnal, soothing piece, but for me its sleep effect is even deeper.

I was going through some heavy shit around the time this album came out (yes, boys and girls, I am not always this bouncing ball of sanity and health that you know and unconditionally love), and I had just acquired a habit many people have that I never really indulged in - leaving music on when you go to sleep. I listen to music during very nearly my every waking moment, but once I'm off to sleep, I turn it off. I don't mind if it's on, I can sleep anyway and I take the same 10 seconds I usually do to nod off and sleep as deeply as a dead man even if the building is collapsing around me, but around that screwed up time I felt that music to accompany my nights had become a bit of a necessity.

Me being me, I obviously compiled sleepytime playlists that I would put on before bed either randomly or picking stuff from there if I was feeling in the mood for something particular, and very naturally 'Shadows Of The Sun' started taking control of my choices for that moment. So, while I don't drop to the ground like a fainting goat whenever I listen to the first song of the album (usually the only one I listened to while still awake), it has left a slight Pavlovian residue in me and I can always feel the inner peace of impending sleep start to take over.

So, good night.

(this isn't an official video for the song or anything, but I like what this person has done with these images)

2011-05-21T12:41:00.001+01:00

Not exactly a top, but still a 10-list - the first 10 albums I ever bought, in (what I think is) the original order. I'm positive of the first five, from then on it's a bit hazy, but still. Could have been worse, don't you think? Where did you start?

01. Manowar - 'Kings Of Metal'

02. Iron Maiden - 'Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son'

03. Metallica - 'Ride The Lightning'

04. Def Leppard - 'Hysteria'

05. Metallica - 'Master Of Puppets'

06. Slayer - 'Hell Awaits'

07. Iron Maiden - 'The Number Of The Beast'

08. The Sisters Of Mercy - 'First And Last And Always'

09. Bathory - 'Under The Sign Of The Black Mark'

10. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - 'Your Funeral... My Trial'

josé's band of the week: the sun through a telescope

2011-05-19T16:56:00.000+01:00

Unpleasant yet strangely fascinating one-man drone act The Sun Through A Telescope are unleashed upon your sorry ears. Be afraid.

road therapy - the man-eating tree

2011-05-13T22:41:00.001+01:00

The Man-Eating Tree

Vine

2010 / Century Media

So I'm easing myself back into the metal in my road trips, and this is a perfect transition. Yeah, yeah, I'm a sucker for anything that's dark, melodic and preferably Finnish, Sentenced and Fall Of The Leafe are my two all-time favourites in that department, and the debut by this new band features Sentenced's drummer Vesa and Fall Of The Leafe's amazing vocalist Tuomas, so of course I embraced it with all my heart when it came out last year. No use going through big descriptions or praise again, I placed them on the top half of my 2010 top 100 list and I did a much deserved band of the week on Terrorizer about them, AND an interview on issue #203 of the same mag, so if you haven't fallen in love with 'Vine', it's all your fault, not mine.

Don't beat yourself up if you haven't, though. My wife hasn't either, and that's kinda the point of this post. I got a funny moment with her in the car today. As the majority of us male metalheads have to contend with compromise mixes and sort-of-soft-metal albums to play when in the company of our better halves, me, when I drove off this afternoon with her and 'Vine' started playing, I got a vocal complaint of "god, not this sappy stuff again! Can't we have someone shouting?". That's right. Turns out she had spent the best part of the day listening to Orchid (the American screamo pioneers), Pulling Teeth and His Hero Is Gone, and her tolerance for deep feelings, especially the ones displayed on the outrageously gorgeous 'Of Birth For Passing' ballad which I insist on singing out loud with my hand on my heart, is an absolute zero. She's across the room with headphones on right now, probably listening to Celeste or Cobra Noir or some other noisy shit. Just to avoid the quiet Jenny Hoyston/William Elliott Whitmore country noir emanating from my speakers.

I'm such a wuss.