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I'm always anxious when I get a new review, and, before listening, I fall in love with the band name. I've already pictured myself in their shirts, told friends about them, and framed one of their records. This happened again when Bagman made its way into my email. It's simple, effective, and the dirtiness of it definitely fits the grimy PE genre. Although Bagman has been around for a while, I've never had the pleasure of listening to any of his releases. Thanks to Crucial Blasts' re-release of 2009's In Their Blood and From the Gutter, I was able to remedy this problem. Bagman's dark, oppressive, filthy electronics are not only loud and entertaining, but they also fit his rad name very well.
Vagary imprint presents another massive HNW collection. This time we have a 5 x c40 cassette box set by Small Hours entitled Karen. For those unfamiliar, Small Hours is the project of James Killick based out of the U.K.. An indelible fixture in the HNW scene, Killick creates wall-noise under a variety of guises, but Small Hours (along with Love Katy) seem to be his most active projects. For those more acclimated to Killick’s work, knows that he has a penchant for producing wonderfully themed (mostly light-hearted) releases. In many ways shifting the HNW paradigm on it’s head, he strayed away from the doom and gloom often associated with the HNW scene and embraced pop culture for inspiration. On Karen, Killick’s source of affection is the late/great Karen Carpenter of the Carpenters fame.
Ulver has certainly had the most interesting musical evolution of the Norwegian second-wave bands. Emperor turned into Ihsahn’s lame solo project, Enslaved’s newer progressive rock meets black metal has had mixed results, Burzum is now a terrible folky ambient, Darkthrone’s newer material ain’t half bad, but it’s a far cry from A Blaze in the Northern Sky and Transylvanian Hunger. Other bands like Gorgoroth, Mayhem, Satyricon, and Immortal have stagnated. Ulver on the other hand, left metal’s realm entirely long ago and still manages to release interesting material.
Manilla Road is a band with a long past. Beginning in 1977 in Kansas the band has been releasing classic heavy metal/power metal consistently for the last 28 years. Out of the Abyss is a re-release of their thrash heavy 1988 album. Long under appreciated by fans and reviewers alike, it is probably one of Manilla Roads heaviest and darker releases.
Formed in 2013, Birminghams Khost bestow us with a new release in Copper Lock Hell on Cold Spring records. The project is manned by Andy Swan (of Iroha, Atrocity Exhibition and Final) joined by Damian Bennett on live outings (he of Carthage and Deathless). On Copper Lock Hell guests include cellist Jo Quail (SonVer), Eugene Robinson (Oxbow), remix by Kevin Laska (Novation) and Tunnels of Ah.
Visions of bleakness, the feeling of being overwhelmed by grief and the coldness of isolation; these are the things that describe the newest release by Grisatre. Grisatre was founded in France in 2006, the project of Rokkr (all instruments and vocals). After a few demos and eps Grisatre returns with the 3rd full length, Paroxystique.
A Lizard in a Woman's Skin is one of the less prolific projects of Texas based HNW legend Richard Ramirez- this mini CDR is only the 5th release from the project since it started in 2010. The project focuses in on giallo themed dense HNW/ boiling static texturing, and it takes it’s name from 1971 Italian giallo movie of the same name which was by directed by infamous gore director Lucio Fulci .
This four C20 box set from early 2013 offers up eighty mintues worth of (mainly) set ‘n’ searing extreme walled noise from the Serbia. The collection brings together two of the most prolific projects from the counties HNW/Harsh noise scene in the form of Dead Body Collection and Raven.
Swedish death metal. That term conjures up so many great acts and an instantly recognizable sound. Bands like Entombed and Dismember paved the way for their countrymen while becoming almost household names (y'know, somewhere, I guess...Sweden?). The HM-3 pedal that defined their sound was prevalent in many other acts, and was near inescapable when turning on the newest Swedish death. As enjoyable as that sound is, you can only hear it so much before it gets a bit tiresome. Thankfully, bands like Stench recognized this as well. This Swedish trio's second album, Venture, comes to us via Agonia Records. Combining the tempo and power of death metal with the atmosphere and notes of black metal, Stench put together a solid, entertaining metal album that'll get your head nodding.
Korm Plastics imprint presents Brombron 28: Faded Brown And Gray by Sindre Bjerga & Fabio Orsi. Available in CD format, this album represents another entry in the Brombron series. Brombron is a project where 2 or more musicians become artists in residence in Extrapool, an arts initiative in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, with a full recording studio at their disposal. On this entry we have the pairing of Fabio Orsi from Southern Italy and Sindre Bjerga, hailing from Norway.
Beyond The Darkness is an anthology compilation that brings together some of the lessen known soundtrack work of this celebrated Italian prog/electronic rock project. The single disc release takes in selections from ten soundtracks - moving from the late 1970’s, up to the early 2000’s. And simply put it’s a very consistent collection, which shows both the projects ability to create moody yet memorable themes, and also dart into a few different musical genres too.
Had the Mayan Apocalypse "prophecy" come true, the world would've suffered devastating cataclysms resulting in the death of mankind. While definitely a bummer, this destruction would've saved me thousands of dollars on hookers and, more importantly, it would've saved me from having to hear Mayan Apocalypse - Disconnect. I know what you're thinking, "Really? Thousands?" Yeah, probably, but lets focus on the review at hand. Mayan Apocalypse comprises the cats behind Voidmind and Black Beast of Arrrghhh. Having never heard either act, I went into Disconnect with an open mind. As open as a mind can get, though, it's nearly impossible to escape all the dislikes that have helped to shape that mind over the years.
Factotum Tapes presents another split tape of raging cut-up madness by Developer, this time teaming up with Japan’s Facialmess. Matthew Reis’s Developer project has had quite a busy year, releasing a number of solo, split and collaborative releases (many on his own Factotum imprint), including with the likes of: PCRV, Scant, Custodian, Hostage Pageant, Ahlzagailzeguh, and now with long-running noise act Facialmess. The split is available on a c40 cassette and digitally through the Factotum Tapes bandcamp site.
Kuilu is a live album from two piece Finish dark/ritual ambient project I.corax. The album originally appeared back in 2004 on Blue Sector- this 2014 CD reissue appears on Aural Hypnox, and comes in a edition of 500 copies.
The Swift is a single 65 minute track that blends together layers of drone matter, subtle textured noise repetition, and field recordings to create a fairly entrancing long form work.
To Be Kind is the thirteenth album from Swans, and their third album since they resurrected in 2010. Following on from 2012’s The Seer this is another lengthy double disc CD set, and it sees the band continuing on with their often taut, tensioned & repetitious sound, which here moves from: noise rock, slurred blues, edgy dark funk, apocalyptic rock, & post-rock, with some side roads into more noise-bound & expermentail based sounds.
As I so rarely dip my toe into the waters of symphonic black metal, Eldritch is my first experience with Belgium’s Saille. Released in November by Code666, this is the band’s third studio album. The reason I generally avoid symphonic black metal is the emphasis on the synths and keys, while the guitars take a back seat on the safe and inoffensive album. Saille avoids this common pitfall for the most part and has actually made a fairly solid, surprisingly aggressive release with Eldritch.
Heavy Metal Vomit Party take classic 1980’s hair/glam metal fare, and convert it into a dense, searing, truly overloaded & intense walled noise. For this CDR release, on Minneapolis based Altar of Waste, the project utilizes a tape copy of US glam metal band Cinderella’s 1988 album Long Cold Winter, to create four slices of densely roast & slightly psychedelically seared walled noise.
This split CDR release brings together two euro walled noise acts, and they come in the form of Germany’s Ataraxy, and UK Southampton based Clive Henry. Both parties offer up a thirty minute track- the Ataraxy track is a dense ‘n’ brutal wall-craft, while Mr Henry’s is an equally intense yet more progressive take on wall-making.
Black Meat is an atmospheric yet brutal walled noise project, that brings together two French noise-makers: Julien Skrobek(of Butch Bag, Static Park, Sadistic Fall, Ghost, The Sandman Wears A Mask, ect) & Joseph Szymkowiak( of Black Matter Phantasm & Uv Ursa Spr). L'Homme Ecorché, is seemingly the projects first release, and it comes in a c40 cassette edition of 20 copies, and a digital download from the labels site. I’m reviewing the cassette version of the release.
Beyond Creation are part of a crop of classically informed technical death metal bands that I've noticed emerging in the last few years, sounding most similar perhaps to Obscura (the band, not the Gorguts album). The emphasis of their music is on tasteful and musical use of technicality, allowing intelligent theory based passages and melodic jazz fusion style guitar playing to blend comfortably with more typical tremolo and pinch harmonic dominated death metal riffing styles. This is their second album, "Earthborn Evolution".
T.E.R.'s "Fingerprints" is a back-to-basics album of electronic ambient/downtempo, similar in style and mood to the output of the Fax label in the early 90's, or to the ever popular Biosphere. The songs are minimalist constructions of interlocking melodic loops, softly understated beats and circling murmurs of synth. According to discogs, it's the group's first release.
This cd, from Gruenrekorder, is presented to their usual smart standards; with a full colour digipak and booklet. The album contains thirteen tracks, recorded in Cameroon by Kubisch and Guther; all of which are field recordings, unprocessed but sometimes collaged.
The Dokura imprint presents Brayton Point by long-running noise artist Howard Stelzer. Available on CD from the label or digitally (through Stelzer direct), Brayton Point represents Stelzer’s first solo album since 2008. Despite being active since the mid-90’s, my experience with Stelzer’s output is minut at best. He’s one of those artists I’ve had on a list to check out for some time, but I’ve never quite got around to listening to his recordings in earnest. So when I saw this album in my review queue, I was quite eager to give it a spin.