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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
“Limited with Coffee” (it’s ltd to 15 copies, and it’s stained with coffee... so hence the odd title) finds Hour of the Wolf offering up just over thirty minutes of dense, locked and storm bond noise of the highest and most brutally quality. The project is the one of walled noise projects of highly prolific and creative Norwegian noise head Andreas Brandal’s (Flesh Coffin, Drevne Bolesti, Avmakt, Museums of Sleep), and this is certainly one of my favourite release thus far by Hour of the Wolf.
“Gletscher Cassette 60” is a c60 tape that offers up two sides of cold, dense and brutal HNW from this Sarajevo based project that’s all the work of Neven Misaljevich- one of the minds behind the great Zvukovina label and in other HNW projects like Drevne Bolesti(with Andreas Brandal) and Ïîòåðÿííàÿ Ãîðëà( with Alexander Kibanov)
Archaic Visions is Dark Tribes’ 2010 release from Black Hate Productions. Formed in 1997, this is the bands third full length release. Dark Tribe, who are manned by Asordis and Paranoth accordingly, has been previously (and still) labeled under the Black Metal (or in their own words “insane black metal”) moniker, but on Archaic Visions we find a depressive bent too.
A neat little pro-printed and pro-duplicated package, with very elegant photography, on Alethiometer Records. (Isn’t an alethiometer that device from Phillip Pullman’s "His Dark Materials" trilogy..? I think it is.) The cd has four tracks, all about six to eight minutes long; bar the third, which is a wee two minutes.
Sometimes, when something is presented to me in beautiful packaging, I hesitate to actually listen to it. What if its shit? It changes from a thing of beauty, into a thing of beauty with a nasty surprise inside. So, somehow, All Shadows And Deliverance have jacked straight into my brain and produced a mini-cdr, in a clear mini-dvd case, with a nicely drawn inlay (black metal style), printed in black on clear, frosted plastic. Beautiful. So my eyes are charmed, but what about my ears?
Adam Kalmbach, a young music student from Missouri, has been self-releasing recordings under the arcane name of Jute Gyte for a few years now, indicating a precocious cross-genre dabbling that takes in industrial, melancholic electronica and black metal stylings. ‘Broken Door’ though is a pure digital noise workout on a 3” CDr lasting just over twenty minutes.
I’m Nothing” is the thirty first release from this extreme, brutal and highly prolific Serbian based HNW project. It also one of the most suffocating, nasty and bleak releases from the project thus far- think the sonic equivalent of looking into a searing and blackly roasting abyss for just under twenty minutes, and you get a idea of what to expect here.
“Ascolta Con Dolore” (meaning “listen with pain” in english) is a four way split between four Italian based HNW projects. And as the release title suggest each track here is an very violent, very nasty yet often quite creative take on the walled noise genre.
This three inch CDR finds this Danish HNW project offering up two slices of seared and brutal improv guitar texturing mixed with grating lo-fi walls of noise textures. It brings to mind the kind of thing Merzbow does when he’s in his more manic guitar shredding form.
Hauschka is one Viktor Bertelmann, a classically trained contemporary German artist known primarily his work on the prepared piano. "Foreign Landscapes", however, is an album of traditionally orchestral chamber music, which features the prepared piano on only a couple of occasions. It consists of 12 pieces which are quite short by traditional classical standards.
Falkenstein’s third offering ‘Kraftort’ takes a melodic neofolk approach to making traditional sounding music with a psychedelic twist.
GR & The Full Blown Expansion is the solo work of Gunslinger’s own Gregory Raimo. It erupts as a spazztic rock and roll album raging with chaotic rhythms and psychedelic free jazz elements. There is a very eccentric feel to this record and comes out a little offbeat with strange Captian Beefheart-esque vocals, freak out drumming, psychedelic organs and some reverb heavy guitar work.
Jazkamer’s Peanuts is an experimental field recording album and part of a series of cd releases the group did in 2010 where a cd of the groups varying styles was released each month.
This is going to be a difficult review for me, as I really don't like what is called "alternative rock". It may surprise some on this site, but I nearly gave up on music when the overrated band Nirvana became extremely popular.