Meth Drinker - S/T LP

As I prepare to head out on another trip to the riff-filled land, Heavy Days In Doom Town in Copenhagen, I thought I'd give some lip-service to one of the bands I'm looking forward to seeing the most in the next week;

METH DRINKER.

A friend from that side of the planet (Meth Drinker hail from New Zealand) sent me the video for their track 'Combat Shock' and I was immediately on board.

Opening with a sample from the movie of the same name, when the music kicks in you'd swear you'd unearthed a lost classic from the nascent birth of sludge, that you'd just prised out a dusty mixtape from some scumbag's boombox that'd lain unused since 1993. The track ends with some warped, warbling, evil sounding Casio.

I fucking love when people know me well enough to send me shit like this.

Shortly after playing this track over and over on repeat, it was announced they'd be the support on Graves At Sea's first European tour and that they'd also be playing Doom Town, the fest I was spending my very last money to get to. Fuck yeah.

It wasn't 'til now that I managed to snare myself a copy of their full-length record, it's goddamn hard to track down since it's an edition of only 300. After seeing the words SOLD OUT on absolutely every distro I could find, I managed to snag the last copy from Mordgrimm.

Side A opens with 'Deprivation', all ominous fuzz and sampled screams. When everything comes together it sounds like New Zealand's answer to Noothgrush. It's impossible not to play Guess The Influence with this record, though the band themselves are open about their more blatant inspiration.

'Incurable Illness' begins with the pounding of drums, before Meth Drinker achieve what so few bands manage, and actually create a tune from the atonal. They wield feedback as a weapon, the discordance creating real discomfort, as opposed to all those Southern Lordcore bands who just throw it on top to disguise their lack of riffs and to make themselves sound like more than the hardcore bros with HM2s that they are.

Towards the end of the track the guitar cuts out long enough to let the bass prowl/growl menacingly.

'Ganja Mutt' is a mangy beast of a track, staggering on it's last legs, hoarsely barking it's last. About halfway through the guitar takes on a Dystopian tone before it drones into 'Combat Shock'.

Flip the side and you'll be confronted with the Iron Monkey-esque assault of 'Skull Smashing Concrete'. It's fucking good. In-depth reviewing skills, huh?

Next up they screech out a take of 'Dies Irae', the opening music from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Considering it's one of my favourite movies of all time, I am very fucking into this. The Melvins also did a cover of this on their 'Nude With Boots' album.

More droning, eerie versions of horror movie soundtracks please.

'Serrated Corridor' sounds just as rusty and jagged as its title, a few minutes of agonising creepy crawl. There is probably a deep-seated psychological reason I enjoy putting myself through this filth, but I'll happily remain untreated if it means I get to torture my eardrums with the Dystopia-worshipping second half of the track.

'Broken Down & Used Up' is how you're gonna feel by the time you reach this final track. I dread to think how I'll feel after seeing this band live in a few days. Probably being covered in filth and full of substances would be appropriate.

If you're at Doom Town and you see the guy with the death-doom denim who's barely clinging on to his sanity, buy him a beer because he'll be broke and broken.

You can check out their discography here:
http://methdrinker.bandcamp.com/

And you can keep up with their tour dates and shit here:
http://alwaysneverfunrecords.wordpress.com/

DRINK METH.

On Pain Of Death - Year Naught Doom

I started this blog with a view to only talking about music releases that I could hold in my hand, but when it came to the debut full-length recording from Ireland's On Pain Of Death, which as of this writing hasn't been committed to wax, tape or polycarbonate, I had to make an exception.

This album kills. I mean it literally sounds like it has the potential to warp listener's minds and inspire them to end lives. I'd like to play my part in furthering it's corruptive intent.

The title track begins with what is either the whistling of the wind, or a portent of something far more ominous. The sparse strum of a guitar enters the soundscape, an eerie, arrhythmic assault on the strings more than any sort of actual chord. It's not melody, it's an audio threat.

Nimble cymbal taps give the first hint that this may become anything even approaching a song before it all collides into a rusted, groaning riff. This is sludge distilled down to the bare essentials; guitars that don't so much swagger as stagger, vocals that are more like puking up booze than singing the blues.

Four minutes in it becomes even more tortuous, the tempo slowing to a crawl, dual vocalists howling and retching words I don't dare try to look up. It's a draining listen. And I mean that as the highest of praise.

Feedback segues the first track into 'Tell Your God To Ready For Blood', which is a phrase taken from the much-lauded TV show Deadwood. This track has all the sparseness and menace of a brutal frontier town itself. The opening minutes of this thirteen minute exercise in audio terror are all discordance and the beating of drums. Not drumbeats, but beating. It's all downbeat and oppressive 'til about halfway through, when something approaching a groove kicks in. Well, it's a groove like the serrated rasp of a blade against vertebrae, but it's like fucking Grand Funk Railroad compared to the first half of the song. There's even a guitar solo at one point.

The track creeps, crawls, slithers to a close, and oh fuck I wish it was accompanied by the hiss and crackle of the needle of my record player protesting against what I'm forcing it to play. This would be the point where I'd need to give it five minutes and steel myself before flipping the record and bracing myself for the B-side

'It Came From The Bog' sounds like the suffocating dread you'd feel as the eponymous 'it' drags itself towards you, all water-bloated rot and crazed cataract stare.

Sporadic drums fill your skull, like the echoing of a tomb before they coalesce into something like a rhythm. Not like you'll be tapping your feet to it or anything, but it's slightly less of an agonising cacophony.

These are all complimentary phrases you understand, to me there is nothing better than being scared by music, and these four depraved motherfuckers have recorded something that definitely succeeds at that.

Between eight and nine minutes in the thing from the bog has devoured it's quarry, and the track shifts gear, almost becoming a melancholy funeral march, if the pallbearers were more interested in hacking through the casket and feasting on the remains.

With just a few minutes left before I can come up for air things morph once more into what sounds like the filthiest grindcore being played at about 6.66 revolutions per minute. The slow ache of a violin joins the fray to add an extra layer of for-fucks-sake-quit-creeping-me-out before what sounds like actual torture and anguish closes the track.

My mind is sufficiently warped. Hopefully I won't kill anyone as a result.

The depraved souls responsible for this fucking thing should seriously get a physical release sorted. This thing needs to be scraped into wax, with that horrifying Harry Clarke illustration blown up to 12" x 12" on matt black heavyweight card. Go tell them that:

https://www.facebook.com/onpainofdeath/

But until that happens, you can download this album for free, or donate some pennies towards it, from Handshake Inc, which ought to tide you over until they sort out a vinyl release:

http://handshakeinc.bandcamp.com/album/year-naught-doom-2

Hopefully at some point someone will realise that there should be some sort of package tour with these guys, Dragged Into Sunlight, and Coffinworm. The Depression Procession Tour, corrupting minds in a city near you!

Free razorblades and absinthe with every admission.

Serpentine Path LP

Death-doom has experienced something of a revival recently, what with Autopsy back together and churning out putrid new records left and right, Cathedral recording what Lee Dorrian calls "the album I've been waiting to do since 'Forest Of Equilibrium'", Derkéta finally getting to release their long-overdue full-length, and the likes of Southern Lord reissuing the genre-defining classic album from Winter.

An unexpected turn of events was Relapse really getting behind the trend (though I hate to use that word), releasing the latest decrepit offering from Hooded Menace, as well as snapping up the next recordings from Coffins and Wolvserpent.

They also put out the debut self-titled album from what could arguably be termed death-doom's first 'supergroup' Serpentine Path. Supergroup is a term I hate to use, but when ex-Ramesses/Electric Wizard man Tim Bagshaw teams up with the members of the semi-defunct Unearthly Trance, then adds Winter's Stephen Flam as a second guitarist, how can you NOT elevate the resultant band to a higher status?

I'm pretty sure that barely made sense, so I'll just get on with discussing the record.

First off, that artwork is fucking great. A Lovecraftian nightmarescape rendered in gaseous greens, you can just about choke on the stench of decay looking too deeply into the funeral fog beyond.

Also, excellent use of spot varnish on the packaging, giving the writhing Shoggothian monolith on the front a sick gleam and glisten when you really look at it.

More bands should make an effort to satisfy print-process nerds.

The visuals match the audio perfectly, opening track 'Arrows' beginning with a spoken sample from Revelation 13, adding even more to the 'ancient evil' vibe created by the artwork.

And then the music crashes in. Unholy shit, is it heavy. I mean obviously it was going to be, but I don't think I was quite prepared for the hideous lurch of the opening riff, and the heavy-hitting wardrum rhythm.

When Ryan Lipynsky's vocals come in, they're backed by one of the horrible, sour-note guitar lines that Tim Bagshaw perfected in Ramesses, and I see how this band came together. They're perfect together, much more than the sum of their rotten parts.

A few minutes in the tempo slows and... is that the faint sound of an organ in the background?

Total Winter-worship. Fucking brilliant.

Second track 'Crotalus Horridus Horridus', named for a highly venomous species of pit viper which can be found in the vicinity of New York City (a very clever allusion to the band itself), is just as deadly as its namesake.

The funeral march of the main riff is augmented by the groaning of strings in the background, as Lipynsky spews an ode to 'venomous horror'.

'Bats Amongst Heathens' has a fucking brilliant opening riff. I tried to find a clever way to phrase it, but it's just fucking brilliant. There's more of the distant decrepit guitar lurking just behind the growl of the main riff again, a technique I am more than okay with hearing so much when its done so horribly well. Darren Verni's drums on this track have that gigantic crash cymbal sound that was one of my favourite things about Mark Greening's playing in Ramesses, it's great to hear it backing Bagshaw's riffs here.

Side A closes with 'Beyond The Dawn Of Time', a seven minute dirge dedicated to dark entities of a presumably Lovecraftian nature. This is the most straightforward doom track on the record, and it's an uncomfortable, unsettling listen. Not one for the headphones in a dark room, I'll tell you that.

Side B opens with 'Obsoletion', all straining, howling, aching guitar torture and martial drums before the whole thing breaks down in a clatter of cymbals. The oppressive atmosphere of fear continues throughout.

'Aphelion' is the track that reminds me most of Ramesses. The drums are more ramshackle and rattling here, the little moments of guitar weirdness recalling Ramesses' occasional forays into darkly psychedelic territory.

Penultimate track 'Compendium Of Suffering' is all twisted feedback and howls, the lyrics slightly more abstract than on the rest of the album, seeming to allude to the everyday horror we all endure as we submit to a societal system that continuously betrays and exploits the many for the gain of the few.

I might be reading too much into words like

"Throes of savage reality

Fodder for the fools

Marching off the cliff

Programmed to submit"

But I don't know, to me it seems pretty clear that Lipynsky is voicing a barely suppressed hatred we all feel for the constructs we find ourselves unable to rail against effectively. As someone who does all I can to be as 'off the grid' as possible (participation in the voluntary Big Brother that is the internet aside), the knowledge that no matter what you do or where you go, you are monitored, kept in check by a system you want no part of, is frustrating in the extreme.

Anyway, the song is great, and speaks from a more human perspective than the rest of the growls of cosmic and toxic evils.

'Only A Monolith Remains' has to be heard while staring at the album cover, the rotting, reptilian coils of the eponymous monolith an ideal accompaniment to the filthy tone of the track.

It's for this reason that nothing will ever replace holding a physical copy of an album in my hand as I listen to it. Poring over artwork, endlessly re-reading lyrics, imposing your own thoughts and meanings upon the songs as the sounds fill your skull... all of it is worth hunting down beautifully-presented packages like this.

Serpentine Path are one of those bands who offer a complete encompassing experience when it comes to songs, tone, words, artwork. It's albums like this that remind me of just how it should be done.

More like this please, Relapse Records.

You can get this record, or CD if that's your bag, directly from Relapse here:
http://www.relapse.com/search_result.php?search_by=artist&q=Serpentine%20Path

And check out word on Serpentine Path direct from NYC's most venomous band here:
http://serpentinepath.blogspot.co.uk/

Ides Of Gemini - The Disruption Writ

You know when you hear music that you just can't wait to share with other people? Because it would be selfish to keep it to yourself, to deprive them the chance to hear their potential new favourite band? They need to hear and appreciate what you've found, you need them to hear it how you hear it, to really get it?

It was through one such conversation that I was turned on to Black Math Horseman's 'Wyllt' record.

Hearing the primal drums that open the album, the cinematic scope of the music, the way it seemed to fill the space in the room... I was instantly thankful that someone knew me well enough to recommend what has since become one of my favourite records.

The music was a revelation, but it was the haunting, otherworldly voice of Sera Timms that truly won me over.

The only problem I had with the album was that there wasn't enough of it. Six tracks were not enough, and I fiended for more of their unique, ethereal odes to atavism.

That's when I found Ides Of Gemini.

Admittedly I didn't discover them until relatively recently, but eager to make up for lost time, I forked out for their debut EP 'The Disruption Writ' within minutes of learning of the bands existence.

I also cursed my rotten luck that I'd missed their European tour by a matter of days through a combination of not knowing the band existed, and no longer living on mainland Europe.

Until they cross the Atlantic once again and I can witness their live show, I have this tape to wear out.

The first side begins with 'Martyrium Of The Hippolyt' and it grabs me just as the first time I heard Black Math Horseman, but the reasons are different.

The stark guitar and stripped-down drums are a world away from the primal rhythms and warm tone of 'Wyllt', but this is no criticism. It gives me the impression of a regal procession, the instruments serving as but an introduction for the majesty of Sera Timms' voice.

A couple of minutes in and J Bennett's guitar unfurls a harsh, abrasive tremolo break before receding back into the background, allowing the vocals to come to the fore again. Much like in her other band, Sera's vocals are just the other side of distinguishable, heightening the mysterious, mythic aura around her words.

'Slain In Spirit' has very much the same vibe, the drums no more than a marching band rat-a-tat, the focus on the snarling, black metal-ish guitar and the enigmatic voice.

In a recent interview with The Quietus, the band states that the minimal instrumental compositions and stark production values are very much intentional, "we want the music to be good, but its mainly a platform for her voice".

The other side of the tape opens with 'The Vessel & The Stake', squalls of tremolo and an almost drum machine-esque sound that soon give way to eerie vocal harmonies. The last few seconds hint at a guitar solo, but it doesn't materialise.

Closing track 'Resurrectionists' begins with a great little choppy riff that repeats throughout the song, and features the most distinguishable phrase of the whole recording, a regretful-sounding refrain of

"How will I rise? This body was once mine..."

An abrupt end to the song, to the tape, and I'm once again left craving more.

Thankfully their debut full-length 'Constantinople' is out now via Neurot:
http://www.neurotrecordings.com/artists/idesofgemini/idesofgemini.php

You can pick up your own copy of this EP on either tape or CD here:
http://idesofgemini.bandcamp.com/
(each format comes exquisitely packaged, it was a real struggle for me to not buy both)

Jucifer - Nadir

Jucifer are one of the most inspiring bands I've ever come across, their nomadic lifestyle convincing me to pack up all my records, stuff a backpack with denim and doom shirts, and drop out of life in pursuit of riff-filled lands. It was during this time I got to see Saint Vitus, Pentagram, The Obsessed (twice), Sleep, Electric Wizard, Eyehategod, Ramesses, Orange Goblin, Noothgrush (twice), Thou (twice) and also Jucifer themselves. Twice.

I caught their set at Roadburn, in the tiny, packed, blisteringly hot room at the very top floor of the 013. It was after two hours of Sleep, so my ears were already ringing by the time Amber and Edgar hit the stage at midnight and proceeded to redefine what I thought I knew about volume.

Loud does not adequately describe what they do. It's an enveloping feeling, waves of sound washing over you, destruction by decibels.

By the time I staggered out into the cold Netherlands night I felt pulverized, in the best way possible.

I went to see them a week later, playing my favourite venue in Germany, the AZ Mülheim. It was another tiny room who's walls could barely contain (an unfortunately greatly reduced version of) Amber's Amp Mountain, but they still managed to create sheer sonic mass.

I was so captivated I missed the tram back to the couch I was crashing on, and had to walk for three hours through the heart of industrial Germany in the pitch back night. But it was so very worth it.

I'd had a digital copy of Nadir for a while by that point, put out by the very excellent Grindcore Karaoke, J Randall's not-for-profit outlet for the weird and wonderful sounds being made worldwide. Remastered by Scott Hull, it sounded great, but without something I can see spinning, I never really feel any great attachment to an album.

I'd heard rumours that there'd be a cassette release to coincide with the European tour I was seeing them on, but it never really materialised. Months passed, my nomadic existence ended (temporarily), and I found myself with access to a record player again.

Which was just as well, as I got the news that the dude behind Handshake Inc would be releasing a vinyl version of the Nadir album, remastered for vinyl by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege, who also remastered the holy grail of low and slow; Sleep's Dopesmoker. Sweet!

I was so excited, when it was finally released I managed to snag the first copy. Now to finally hear it as it was intended; LOUD.

Opening with 'Prime', feedback oozes, before the riff lurches and staggers from my speakers. You can already hear the telepathic level of tightness of Amber and Edgar's playing. I've never seen a band so able to switch between droning guitar/drum atmospherics and shrieking blastbeat fury in time with each other without exchanging so much as a glance.

'Hachimantaro' alternates between the clanging discordance of the intro and a solid, crunching stomp. Amber's ethereal vocals not quite synching up with the harshness of the instruments, her voice contrasting it nicely, something they'd explore a lot on their later releases. It's an eerie effect.

Third song 'Withering' is an exercise in tension and release. The drums ratcheting, the feedback building, before they bring it back down again. The vocals once again have that unsettling, airy lilt, as opposed to the variety of the later releases, which feature Amber growling, barking, singing softly, screaming her head off, even singing in a variety of different languages.

You can hear that this is the origin of their sound, that they're already exploring contrast and volume.

 

The second side starts off with 'Glamourpuss', descibed as "kind of a revenge fantasy [about] girls who pretend to care, will compliment you to your face, then betray you at the first opportunity" in the liner notes, its initial gigantic rumble giving way to a fretboard-spanning weird riff, the vocals coo-ed honey sweet over the top. You can almost hear the malicious grin in Amber's voice as she calls out her betrayers.

They re-recorded this track for their debut album Calling All Cars On The Vegas Strip, which sounds a lot more confident in it's performance, but it's cool to hear the prototype version here.

'Crossless', with its croaked, creaking witchy vocals, all-encompassing guitar tone and heavy-hitting drums closes out a short-but-sweet glimpse into the origins of a band who would pioneer the sludge metal two-piece so prevalent today.

They were staking out unknown territory all the way back in 1994, no-one was playing anything like this (but if you've heard bands that were, please, send me recommendations of other female-fronted weirdo sludge bands!).

There's still no-one quite like Jucifer.

You can download this (and hundreds of other weird awesome shit) for FREE from Grindcore Karaoke here:

http://grindcorekaraoke.com/album/nadir

But I recommend splashing some cash on the vinyl from Mutants Of The Monster:

http://shop.mutantsofthemonster.com/Jucifer-Nadir-LP-MOTM-LP1.htm

Catch Jucifer on tour constantly, and worship at Thee White Wall Of Doom!

Dopefight / Gurt split

I had the great luck to catch one of Dopefight's last shows on a bill that included EyeHateGod, Ramesses, and Conan. Even among illustrious company like that, Dopefight stood out as playing some of the grooviest, most fuzzed-out stoner rock I've heard. When they decided to call it quits a short time after that show, I was gutted.

When they announced their split, they also had a bit of a fire sale in their merch store, offering everything for ridiculously discounted prices. Since I already had their demo tape and a vinyl copy of the Buds LP, I snagged this split for a pound. Thats £1. No fucking way was I going to pass that up!

Stole this picture from Dopefight's bandcamp.

Enough backstory, here's why you should've supported this band while they were still a going concern.

Their side of this heavy little slab opens with Stonk, all buzzing amps and splashing cymbals before the drums crash in with a properly doomy riff. It's heavier than what I was expecting given their high-energy live show, but thats fine by me, I like my riffs downtuned and downtrodden.

A couple of minutes in however, the doomed stomp gives way to a groove as gargantuan as the grand canyon. The vocals are an indecipherable yell, but that's not what I listen to stoner rock for; the riff is king.

Second track 'Green Solace' starts with some filthy bass before the downright dirty guitar joins the fray. The tempo drops about halfway through, the guitar swaggering and snarling towards the end of the track.

The drums build and build, the vocals roar into... the end of the song. Huh. Kinda thought that was gonna lead to the most baddest-ass riff of all time.

If there's one thing Dopefight did in their all-too-brief tenure, it was leave you wanting more.

Gurt's side of the split is pretty fucking awesome too, 'Soapfeast' alternating between southern swagger with great whiskey-soaked rapsing vocals in the slower passages, and an uptempo blast that reminds me of the late great Raging Speedhorn. Good stuff.

'Dudes With Beards With Cats' might sound like a some hipster's tumblr, but is actually a mean motherfucker of a song that reminds me of Scissorfight at their most belligerent.

Yeah, so I'm making lazy comparisons, but if a band can remind me of two of the bands that were my gateway to the world of low n' slow riffage, that is no bad thing in my book.

If Gurt ever play North of the border, and there's plenty of whisky behind the bar, I'm there!

You can download pretty much Dopefight's entire discography for free here:
http://dopefight666.bandcamp.com/

And get your hands on their tapes, 7"s and CDs here:
http://dopefight.bigcartel.com/

Check Gurt out here:
http://gurt.bandcamp.com/

Heresy - 1985-87

I picked this up in Lisbon from the amazing Carbono record store which had a whole load of awesome vinyl encompassing the whole range of the heavy music spectrum. There were some real gems in there, I could have spent hours trawling their racks and brought home a hundred records, but I settled on some vintage Napalm Death as well as this little beauty.

The design and packaging is what you expect from an Eighties demo compilation, all black and white, cut and paste layout, and some great live shots on the sleeve. It also has one of my favourite album covers ever, I even have a patch of it helping hold my jeans together.

The first side opens with 'Never Healed', all ramshackle drums, buzzing guitar and incomprehensible yelling. Brilliant.
'Deprived' pulls no punches with it's immediate grinding three-chord progression, the drums and vocals racing to keep up. 'Mentally Conned' is all bouncing bassline until the drums and feedback cut in. This is one of the longest songs on the record, and is a bit more varied than the rest, the guitar alternating between between chugging along and a loose, squalling punk riff. It's fucking great.
'Blinded By Power' sounds like every other song until about 30 seconds in when the blastbeats hit, showing just how good these guys were at swinging between punk and proto-grind.

A fast blast of an instrumental gives way to 'Cries Of Wind' which has the first 'guitar solo' of the album, a strangled cry from the wrung neck of the fretboard. 'Disfigured World' opens with an almost nice intro, all tasteful hi-hat work and chiming guitar, which only serves to make the second part of the track seem so much harsher when it bursts into full-blown cacophony.

Another recording of 'Never Healed' opens up the second demo, which continues with 'Despair' and 'Deathbiter'. Deathbiter is another of those deceptive tracks which starts out calm enough (well, by comparison) before erupting into chaos. About halfway through they go into this groovy little section that actually gives you time to breathe before they sprint to the end ofthe first side.

The B side opens with 'Anguish of War' from the same session as the last couple of track, but it's 'More Blood Is Shed' from this demo that really stands out. It's the longest song on the whole record, much slower paced, with an almost thrash vibe to it. The playing on this track is much tighter now that they're not all racing against one another, it sounds great, though about a third of the way through it completely switches gears back up to hyperspeed, before closing out with a Metallica-esque riff. Yeah, you read that right.
'Dead' is the last track with this line-up of the band, before things go downhill in my opinion.

The next line-up features a different vocalist and guitarist, and I'm just not that into these tracks, specifically the vocals and lyrical content. They sound just like the countless knucklehead hardcore bands of this era, the apoplectic screech and apocalyptic words of Reevesy scrapped in favour of a 'less metal' approach according to the liner notes. Yeah, not into that idea at all.

I absolutely love the really early stuff on this compilation, but with the line-up change on conscientious about-turn in style towards the end, I lose interest. I haven't checked out any of the later recordings, as to me they just wouldn't measure up to the first incarnation of this band.

It turns out that Boss Tuneage records sells pretty much everything Heresy ever put out, you can snag this compilation from them here:
http://bosstuneage.bigcartel.com/artist/heresy

Iron Witch - Single Malt tape

I originally bought this tape back in March of this year, then kind of disappeared to Europe for a few months, arriving back to find this little parcel of filth waiting for me. No fucking around, time to give it a whirl...

It hisses to life with 'A .45 To Pay The Rent' which, as just about anyone else who has heard this band also mentions, is pure EyeHateGod worship. By no means a bad thing, obviously, since there's been a drought of EHG releases for over a decade now. Anyway, that's what they do, and they do it damn well. Though the titular gun reference is a bit daft for a band from North-east England, and not the Southern swamps.

The EP's title track 'Single Malt' is a much catchier affair, while retaining the tortured Mike IX-esque wails. The main riff is downright boogie-able though, and shows they might let their other influences come to the fore sometime in the future.

Third track 'Booze Blues' is endless feedback with a song buried in there somewhere. When they eventually get going, it's great, but even NOLA's finest don't use that much feedback! This track is a tortured dirge of a thing. Fucking horrible. In a good way.

'Jailhouse' is another decent groovy one, but it's final track 'The Cruelty of Mankind' that does it for me.
I like my sludge of the truly trudging variety, and this track's extended intro is just that. Lovely stuff.
About halfway through they kick up the tempo, but it soon crashes back down again to a crawl.
Filthy feedback ends the tape as it began.

These guys might not be the most original band going, but if you like your sludge dirty, howling and feral, get into 'em. If I get the chance I'll be attending their Sheffield show in December with fellow up-n-coming UK doom hordes Conan, Slabdragger and Moloch.

You can get this on cassette from Opaqus here:
http://opaqusrecords.storenvy.com/products/289638-iron-witch-single-malt
Check out that distros other releases, loads of obscure shit, some of it pretty damn good.

If you're a prick that doesn't pay for music, you can download it for free from the Iron Witch bandcamp:
http://ironwitch.bandcamp.com/
Though they have a 'pay-what-you-like' option too, so any eccentric millionaires reading this, make them rich enough to fund their whiskey habits.

Noothgrush / Suppression split 5"

Noothgrush were the band of my summer. I'd quit my job, packed up all my possessions, and dropped out of life to go bum around Europe for the summer and finally catch all the European tours and fests I was sick of missing out on. I got to see some of my favourite bands that I never thought I'd get a chance to see, some of them even twice. Sleep, Thou, Jucifer, Discharge, The Obsessed, Nasum, Pentagram... but Noothgrush were one of the biggest deals.

I got to see their first ever European show at Heavy Days In Doom Town fest in Copenhagen, as well as a tiny club show at the Hafenklang in Hamburg. They totally blew me away both times, yet both times I stood at the merch table foaming at the mouth with frustration because I couldn't buy any of their records due to
A: lack of money to spare. If I got an LP I couldn't get dinner.
And B: no space in the backpack I would be lugging around for months for records to go undamaged.
Which was frustrating since they had pretty much every release they've put out on vinyl, stacks of self-titled LPs, a box of Failing Early Failing Oftens... it broke my heart. They also had a neat little 5" split that came with it's own jigsaw puzzle which I wanted for sheer novelty value. But I refrained, saved my money, and regretted not buying anything the whole time I was away.

So first call when my money had almost run out and I had to come back 'home' was to buy the records I'd been unable to get on my trip. Top of my list was the weird Noothgrush puzzle. Turns out including jigsaws more than double the price of a record, so I settled on just the split.

Noothgrush contribute one track 'Flee From Hunger And Disease', which also appears on the Erode The Person compilation. It's two minutes of the creepiest, crawling sludge, an utterly hopeless ode to mankind's fear and hatred of itself. So y'know, classic Noothgrush.

Suppression's side is one track of fucking bizarre noise -'Cyanide (Iceman)'- before leading into a more straightforward grind track - 'Amputated Brain Stem'. The grind track is mixed all in the red and sounds pissed as fuck. It ends with the NWA sample "Daaaamn that shit was dope!"
Not much more to say!

This split was meant to be released in 1998 but hasn't seen the light of day until now, and I'm glad it finally came out. It's short but most definitely sweet, in it's own twisted way. Highly recommended.

UK/EU folks can get a copy (with or without puzzle) from Blow The Reactors:
http://blowthereactors.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/noothgrush-suppression-split-5-out-now.html
http://blowthereactors.bigcartel.com/product/noothgrush-suppression-split-5-puzzle

USA/Canada dudes and dudesses can get theirs (and the self-titled LP) from Fuck Yoga:
http://hellmilitia.com/