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Technical death metal band Archspire have returned this year with their 3rd album, "Relentless Mutation", follow up to 2014's "Lucid Collective" (which I thoroughly enjoyed). The band has taken 3 years to perfect another satisfying collection of dense, precisely composed music.
Part glossy photo book & part memoir Misery Obscura is a fascinating & eye-opening look at (mainly) the three cult bands connected to punk horror/ Goth rock/ metal legend Glen Danzig- The Misfits, Samhain, & Danzig.
1977’s Body Love was both a bizarre & at the time popular addition to this German synth legends discography- it was the soundtrack for an Italian porn film of the same name, and as with many popular releases it got a sequel. With Body Love 2 appearing at the tail end of 1977- & here we have a 2016 CD reissue of the album on MIG records, and like the other Schulze reissues you get a nice shot of bonus material, pushing this reissues runtime up to just shy of eighty minutes.
Well, T × R × P needs absolutely no introduction for even the most cursory death industrial fan. Bursting onto the scene back in 2008 he has gone from strength to strength, releasing music on labels like Malignant, Cold Spring and Tesco. Now, Sweden-based Trepaneringsritualen (or T × R × P as it’s conveniently shortened to) unveils the latest album, Kainskult – a 9 track harrowing venture into ritualistic/death industrial madness.
If there's one thing that was probably never said, it was "we need a gore metal concept album." However, whether said or not, it was thought of and executed by California goremeisters, Exhumed. Set in late 1820's Edinburgh, Death Revenge tells tales of grave robbing and murder for the sake of selling body parts. While not on the level of Quadrophenia, Death Revenge is still a fun, fast, gory album.
Nylon Encasement is a three C60 box set bringing together a selection of often highly creative, layer detailed, and skilled walled noise/ textured noise compositions. This Swiss project has been since 2009- first releasing Harsh noise, but in recent years focusing in on mostly purely walled noise, and as this releases title suggests all of the projects work is themed around Nylon/feet/leg fetish.
Triac's last CD album, 2015's Days, was a refreshingly cool blast of affecting electro-acoustic drone, offset by a lingering, almost gothic sense of dread. They distil from their spartan trio of laptop, synth and fretless bass a surprisingly organic and dense miasma of sound, none of which can easily be reduced to its constituent parts. This new extended EP on the Canadian micro imprint Polar Seas is a single thirty minute exploration of the textures and moods which on Days were drawn out in more isolated fashion.
Ukraines First Human Ferro return with their latest offering, the eight track, Heterodox. This must be the outfits 10th proper album since it’s inception in 2008 and comes out as a split release on Gradual Hate and Old Captain Records.
Originally released in 1988 Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama is a cheeky & campy slice of 80’s cinema- mixing together sex comedy, fantasy, and light horror elements. Here we have a blu ray edition of the film- featuring a new scan of the movie, a new commentary, and a very lengthy documentary about the film & its production.
Here’s a recent DVD featuring a remastered print of one of Jess Franco’s sleazy women in prison flicks. From 1978 Women In Cellblock 9 is a fairly typical example of the genre, blending together soft-core with moments of torture in an exotic jungle setting. The film features Franco regular Howard Vernon in fine leering & depraved form, & a selection of sweaty nude females & corny-yet-crude dialogue. It certainly won’t convert you to either the women in prison genre or Jess Franco films- but if you enjoy highly sleazy & bad-taste euro exploitation from the 70’s you’ll get a kick out of what’s on offer here.
Its some ten years since US ambient legend Robert Rich, and German-born touch guitar master Markus Reuter last collaborated. Lift A Feather To The Flood is a collection of carefully crafted, starkly moody, & often darkly languid works. The eight tracks bring together Rich’s often fragile & harmonically elegant acoustic piano playing, Reuter’s subtle & subdued ambient guitar scaping, and the pair’s nuanced production- all to create an album that both soothes-yet-enchants.
Baker, Goff and Harris are long time friends and collaborators on one another’s projects, however this is the first time they have come together in this way as a trio. They trio are all seasoned professionals Baker having played with Nadja and others, Goff as a member of Molecular and Bee and Flower, and Harris, a member of industrial legends Swans and various other projects. The album was recorded in Berlin at Redrum studios on May 7th, 2017, in an improvised session lasting no more than a few hours.
Friday the 13th, 2017 saw the release of the first installment of Cadabra Records Presents: Halloween. With passionate readings by Anthony D.P. Mann and scores by Slasher Film Festival Strategy, Cadabra's newest is a decidedly lighthearted take on their spooky, spoken word releases. Limited to 500 copies, Cadabra completists will definitely want to pick this one up.
Body Stress is project of Martin Schacke from Copenhagen in Denmark. Waterpower is a short release, taking in three tracks worth of noise matter spread over a twenty minute runtime.
Thirty-six years before David Fincher’s masterful told & critical acclaimed Zodiac, there was The Zodiac Killer- the original film to be based on one of the great unsolved crimes in US history. For those unfamiliar with the case the Zodiac is a still unidentified and uncaught serial murderer who killed at least five, but maybe as many as thirty people, in the America bay area between the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Here we have a new double DVD/ Blu Ray reissue of The Zodiac Killer- featuring a new 4k scan of the film, a selection of extras, and a bonus film Another Son Of Sam, another rare serial killer film from the 70’s.
Wild Red Yellow offers up three examples of often shifting, sonically varied, and creative improv. The release comes in the form of a CD on French label Rogue Art. This comes in the labels house style fold-out digipak; which features basic red, black & white color scheme, with a two-page write-up about the release within.
New York City-based experimental/noise metal outfit Gnaw presents their third album, Cutting Pieces. This a seven track death-like crawl through drains and underground plumbing of an album and closes a four-year gap since their acclaimed Horrible Chamber LP.
Two years after the split release with 1000Schoen and two previous releases Ab Intra return with Henosis I-V. A five track album that attempt to reflect the transformation process expressed through colour, intensity and frequency.
When one thinks of dance floor or club music from the nineteen-seventies, you normally think of the 'love-or-hate it' disco genre. This three-disc set celebrates the time before & during the explosion of disco in the Uk (between 1968 & 1975). And as its subtitle suggests we get a host of ‘dance floor prog, Brit Jazz, and funky folk’, but I'd add into this list groovy rock, jiving pop-rock, and jazz-rock crossbreeds. And on the whole, it’s an enjoyable, at times surprising, and varied collection- and as we’ve come to expect from one of the family of Cherry Red linked labels, we get a nice, informative, & classy looking set.
Black Necro Cabaret is a three-way wall-noise spilt with sexual fetishism themes running though it. The C60/ digital download brings together Swiss project Le Bambole Di Velluto, Swedish project Gamiani, and Brazilian project Human Toilet Vendors.
Self-consumption is a single slice of battering, belligerent, and boorish HNW from this long-running Russian project. It comes in the form of a pro-pressed & labeled CDR, which takes in the single wall, and this appeared in late March of this year
Perpetual Endtimes is a C40/ digital download featuring two slices of searing, terminally bleak, yet at times quite progressive walled noise from this respected British noisemaker. And I’m reviewing the cassette version of the release.
The Slow Creep Of Convenience is a single lengthy submersion in dreary, bleakly simmering, building- yet often entrancing drone composition for pipe organ & electric violin. The release in March of this year on Immediata, and came in the form of either a digital download or CD- I'm reviewing a digital promo of the release.
Australian one man gang, JG Thirlwell (Foetus), comes to Editions Mego with his newest project, Xordox. Synth filled and fun, this release comes at a time when everyone is dusting off their keyboards and riding the nostalgia wave. While it's true that synthesizers never disappeared, their dramatic reappearance over the past couple of years makes one look at each release skeptically. "Is this genuine? Is this a cash-in?" Sometimes, it's not always easy to tell.