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Avalon Burning is the tenth album from Pumpkin Buzzard released through Jeshimoth Entertainment. To say it defies categorization would be vehemently true. Industrial, pop, psychedelic, hip hop, death metal and alternative rock are combined into a quirky and chaotic creation.
“Misanthropie ist der einzige Weg zur Reinheit” is an 2008 album from ambient, slightly experimental and quirky Ukraine based one man Black Metal project Moloch. This album has seen a few releases over the last few years- it original appeared in tape form on Mistress Dance Records in 2008 (which is the edition I’m reviewing), then it appeared on a ltd Moloch box set in 2008, then lastly it appeared in 2009 in cd format on Azermedoth Records (Mexico).
“Black Supremacy” offers up three C65 worth of sinister, drilling and hypnotic Harsh noise wall & static texturing which is mixed with creepy and unsettling field recordings. Vargrwulf is one of the projects of Louisiana based Joseph Gates (Slaughter-Fetus, R.S.P, Peiste and runner of Violent Revolution International ), and I can safely say “Black Supremacy” is the most consistent, rewarding and re-playable release that Gates has birthed thus far.
Mjr is a minimal, stripped or ambient HNW or static texturing project from the Indianapolis area of the USA. And “11-2010” is seemingly the first easily accessible and purchasable product by this project.
This split offers up two ghost/ horror themed slices of lengthy, heavy and brutal Harsh noise wall making. The split brings together Missouri USA based Mass Graves(which is all the work of one Jeff Landgraf whose also in the great HNW project Oblive) and Serbian based and highly prolific project Dead Body Collection.
Francisco López wouldn’t seem an obvious choice of artist to appear on a label dedicated to audiovisual works. His insistence on the vast majority of his releases bearing no description or illustration (rendering them as sequentially numbered ‘untitled’ works housed in the blankest of packaging) is borne of a purist ethos that allows the sounds to speak for themselves to a listener unadulterated by any contextual matter. So it is with some surprise that this latest release sees two of his works not only awarded names but accompanied by moving images.
This is the first solo album from Drakh of MZ.412 (a black industrial band from Sweden who are currently having a big reissue program on Cold Spring records).
"Merzbient" is a twelve disc box set which offers up a look at a mostly unknown and undiscovered side of Japans king of noise- his more quite, subtle and soundscape basedside. I hate to use the word ambient to describe what's on offer here, as this is often still quite noisy and industrial ribbed in it' s feeling, but it's certainly more stripped, musical and varied than the real noise based material that Merzbow is most know for.
This new release from one of Richard Ramirez's (of Black Leather Jesus, Last Rape, Vice Wears Black Hose, An Innocent Young Throat-Cutter and many other projects) most know and respected projects finds the Texan noise artists' and wall/static noise innovator celebrating the German horror/crime movies of the 1960’s which are jointly called "Krimi" and are seen as the German equivalent to Italian Giallo movies.
Pyramido, hailing from Sweden, play brutish, mid-paced sludgy/doom metal of an evenly structured but quite repetitious nature. Somewhat of a hybrid, their second album "Sand" boasts clean, thick production values and an At the Gates-esque shouting/howling vocal style, not as commonly found in the doom subgenre but extremely typical of Swedish metal in general.
Nebelkorona releases "Tannenhochforst" four years after their last album the rather lengly titled "Reminiszenzen An Das Morgenrot / Relikte Des Abendrotes". The seven tracks on offer here add up to 41 minutes of deeply emotional neo folk that ranges from romantic music to dramatic lamentations. Tannenhochforst is a perfect, dark and wintry album for the fans of nostalgic Neo folk music.
This nice little 3" mini album is the brainchild of Adrian Bertolone who produces his music under the enigmatic name "Ay". Inside this album you will find ten tracks that together last for just a little over sixteen minutes. Some parts of this album last less than sixty seconds while the longest track span for well over three minutes. Within these brief attacks, Bertolone smashes together samples, distorted beats and broken rhythms, resulting in an ill combination of IDM, Breakcore and noise.
Better Undead Than Alive 2 is Code666 10 year anniversary compilation. While that in itself may be a turn off (how many good compilation cds do you really listen too?) here we have the exception. Don’t think of it as a compilation, but more of a concept. Davide Tiso, who is featured throughout the cd, helped compile and edit each track (interspersing them with his own instrumental pieces). Using this idea all the songs feel united despite their differences.
“Sweets From a stranger” is the second in the series of fourteen seven inch vinyl releases celebrating the many projects of highly prolific and influential Texas noise artists Richard Ramirez.
Now here are two things I bet you’d never imagine seeing together… US Pop singer Katy Perry and brutal Harsh Noise Wall, but here on “Firewall” there both joined together in sweet ‘n’ brutal (mis)harmony.
Ehnahre are a 'metal ' band from Boston (which seems to be more known for hardcore-punk than metal), and this thier sophomore full-length album is totally unlike anything I've heard in the genre since maybe Abruptum . One look at their official site and they include a quote from Arnold Schoenberg about dissonance in music. You just know this band has to be special.
Kyle Bobby Dunn's "Rural Route No. 2" is a deep, nautical dive which begins distanced from the pace of our daily lives and only drifts further away during its 20 minute running time. The deeply romantic richness and potency of Dunn's music is perfectly effortless. It is a scintillating and complex flow of impressions, consistent in pacing but timbrally pulsating, always on the brink of metamorphosis.
When Maniac (of pioneering Norwegian Black Metallers Mayhem), started to find some of his written work didn’t fit into his current, darker, doomier band, Skitliv, he decided to form a side project, originally to be called ‘Nova Express’, with Skitliv guitarist Ingvar Magnusson, and fiancé (now wife) Vivian Slaughter (from the Japanese, all-girl crust metal band, Gallhammer). The aim was to find a way of accompanying this perhaps more cerebral work by knocking back the tried and trusted metallic manoeuvres and incorporating more esoteric elements culled from field recordings and electronics. Appropriately enough, Andrew Liles (Nurse With Wound, Current 93) was later officially inducted into the project (now bearing the more emotive name of Sehnsucht), while on mixing and mastering duties for Skitliv’s 2009 ‘Skandinavisk Misantropi’ album.
This untitled CDR is the second release from the very prolific and promising new French HNW label Slow Death Records- so far this year the label has put out seven releases, and many of the releases have the mysterious owner and HNW artist Ghost connected to them. This releases is the first full length album from a project called The Sandman Wears A Mask which brings together Ghost and Alois Richter(who I presume is French too, though I could 'nt find anything about him on the net)
This self titled/untitled 3inch cdr offers up two ten minute shots of nasty,chugging and industrial machine like HNW from this Italian based project that’s all the work of Alessio Mininel of stripped and often futuristic HNW project TFT, and HNW labels TTM Incisioni Musicali & Mediterranea .
Thor are a wonderfully clichéd and OTT heavy metal band from Vancouver Canada, who have ex body builder and former Mr. Canada and Mr. USA Jon Mikl Thor as their front man. The band have being on and off since the late 70’s, and have built up quite a cult following, one of theses followers is Circle’s (the wonderful mixed genre and rocking finish band) bass player and Ektro label owner Jussi Lehtisalo who has reissued a few Thor albums over the last few years. “Only The Strong” was original released back in 1985, and it's prime muscle bound 80’s metal- think Manowar but even more OTT and extremely cheesy too.
Ah, this was a let-down. From the first couple of tracks, I really thought this was going to be a nice electro-pop-whatever album to soundtrack my summer; but alas, nay.
"Pytania O…..” is a three track mini-cdr, presented in one of my beloved mini-dvd cases, with strikingly simple artwork.
“Stations Of The Crass” is the second album by revolutionary British Anarcho-punk/experimental collective Crass- the album original appeared in 1979, and it sounds as fresh, bleak, edgy and at times tuneful/ ramshackly groovy as it did when it original appeared over 30 years ago. This is also the second in the series of reissues of the bands back catalogue in a definitive and collectable form which features: a fully remastered album, a 64 page booklet featuring essays by key members, artwork and lyrics...and much more