Vile Creature - A Steady Descent Into The Soil tape

When I first heard Ontario's Vile Creature I couldn't believe they'd only been playing together a couple of months, and that drummer Vic had never even pounded a kit until 6 months ago. That they've already recorded some awesome doom ditties, self-released 'em on tape, and are currently on a decent wee tour of their neighbouring environs (lurking in the grimm griminess of Brooklyn as I type) is pretty damn cool. I dig bands that throw themselves into what they do with gusto and DIY spirit.

When I then found out they describe themselves as 'Anti-Oppressive, Queer as Fuck Doom Metal', and had Adam Tucker master their recording just because they loved his outstanding work on Thou's Heathen (the greatest album of the past year), I was fully sold. I threw some cash at them immediately and got this cool stuff in return.

Opening their first recording with 16-minutes of atmospheric-yet-aggressive doom, 'I: A Constant Yearning To Leave' lets you know Vile Creature ain't fucking around here. The riffs are distended to breaking point, but never to the detriment of the track; there's enough dynamism in there to hold you rapt until the vocals kick in. Vocalist/guitarist KW's impressive bellow is underpinned by guitar playing that doesn't just stick to drawing out the space between notes, but employs a wide array of textures and tones to great effect.

The influence of Heathen is directly audible through much of A Steady Descent Into The Soil, with the more crushing doom sections tempered with extended passages of plaintive prettiness, the contrasting styles offsetting one another perfectly. This is especially apparent during the opening minutes of second track 'II: Motivated By Guilt' which utilises a similar style of repeating guitar motif. KW's feral howl of "I WILL FIND YOU!" when it finally arrives is nothing short of bone-chilling. Jeepers.

The title track begins with some unusual guitar work (well, within a doom metal context at least) before they bring the heavy once more with some ultraslow riffage and massive cymbal crashes. There's plenty of slow/little-less-slow, loud/little-less-loud dynamics throughout, with some wonderfully exploratory passages where it feels like they might not quite know where they're going, but it's going to be so worthwhile when they get there. The multi-tracked clean vox which arrive towards the end are downright unsettling, somewhat appropriate considering the discernible lyrics are "Take my organs / take my blood flow / strip the flesh / from my brittle broken bones".

As the tape fades into feedback, I once again shake my damn head that these guys have only been playing together for such a short time. If they keep at it, I'm pretty fucking excited to see where they go from here.

You can get A Steady Descent Into The Soil as a pay-what-ya-want download from their bandcamp, but I highly recommend springing for some goodies from their bigcartel. They have patches, posters, shirts, the whole shebang. For anyone who might be reading this from the US, you can grab copies with cheaper shipping from the ever-killer Broken Limbs.

You can also check out a pretty in-depth interview with the duo at Full Metal Hipster, where they talk about Bell Witch being great, say funny things to their cats, delve into their anti-oppressive stance, and generally come across as cool folks.

Vile Creature on Bandcamp | Facebook | Tumblr

Open Tomb - Dead Weight LP

And now for something completely disgusting.

Distortion drags you down into a cavernous maw of rotting meat and butcher hooks. You get caught, but it's far from catchy. Ritualistic pounding signals your imminent demise. No rhyme, no reason, no rhythm. You cower, you wait, and with each crash you flinch. You discern the cries of others, and know that you are not alone. This is no comfort. You have subjected yourself to this, and there is no turning back.

You know these sounds; you were once able to name these instruments of torture... Instruments, yes, that clangs a bell, somewhere in the doldrums of your psyche...

These frantic attempts at recollection gnaw at the fringes of your consciousness. Pieces of your sanity crumble away like the ever-quickening erosion of the planet. You are fucked. You know this now. You hear the calliphoridae swarm. They swarm for you. You welcome them, for they signal the end.

You suffer, doomed, in an open tomb.

Dead Weight is available now from Dry Cough Records for a paltry sum. Enjoy.

Open Tomb on Facebook | Bandcamp

Expiring Sun Cassettes

As wary as I am of the encroachment of technology, specifically the internet, on the world, one of the benefits is the opportunity to interact with people who share a similar worldview, make incredible artwork, and are just generally cool as fuck. One such humanoid I have encountered is Brandon Duncan, who puts out a host of awesome creative work under the banner of Expiring Sun.

Whether its with his illustration and graphic work, his own music, or most recently his foray into releasing a diverse roster of artists on cassette tape, everything he puts his name to combines to create a whole world. It's a world where horror movies are not 'rebooted', where the Terminator franchise ended in 1991, and where cyberpunks still trade tapes via snail mail.

When Brandon announced 3 new releases in one go, his enthusiasm for each was obvious. After a cursory blast of each, I could hear why. I had to wait for payday to roll around before forking over my cash, but receiving my package in the mail was so very worth the wait.

I've only recently been delving into electronic music, with the hugely popular Crystal Castles being one of my initial entry points. Described by Brandon himself as being akin to CC except 'more raw and pissed off', that's definitely an apt comparison for Melbourne's Asylum Sisters.


Warped loops, glitches, eerie whispers, martial rhythms and distorted screams; unholy fuck this tape has it all in spades.

Saint Petersburg's N616 are probably the closest to Brandon's own music with his most recent project Sterilizer. Both recordings combine industrial metal with noise, glitches and electronic elements. [ex-Planet Earth] was recorded over a decade ago by now, but this type of music never really ages; to my ears it all invokes barren nuclear wastelands, humans erased, and the cold winds of a desolate earth. So this is a real fun listen!


Stick this on while you hook up your Megadrive to have another go at this old gem.

The nightmare soundscapes of Chris Dunn were the first thing I heard of these 3 releases, and I was so taken with his dark, unsettling score to a horror film that doesn't yet exist, that I decided not to sleep the night I first heard In Black. Which I might be correct in thinking was the intent behind these sounds.


Jagged shards of guitar, ambient creepiness, nerve-peeling strings, chilling piano stabs... and that's just the title track! I cannot recommend this release enough, it's by far my favourite of the 3.

With more releases in the pipeline, Expiring Sun Cassettes is poised to become more than just a passion project, but a source of diverse yet cohesive releases worth keeping an ear out for.

Provided they haven't yet sold out, pick up each of these tapes here: Expiring Sun Cassettes.

Delve into the world of Expiring Sun through the following portals:
ExpiringSun.com | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp

Interview: Thou

I had the opportunity to interview my favourite band of internet motherfuckers for Echoes & Dust.
We all got to use a lot of big words while discussing politics, boundary-pushing heavy music, Aubrey Beardsley, feminism, Dungeons And Dragons, systems of class-based oppression, playing Roadburn festival, and that long-awaited Fiona Apple tribute record.

I'm extremely proud to present my interview with Thou.

(((o))): Lyrically this album marks a progression in a theme that Bryan has mentioned in interviews before; examining the class system, the oppression of the many by the few, and those willing to break free, to escape that same oppression. Heathen is the first album to offer an actual alternative perspective on a way to live life: a focus on the sensual, the personal experience, and abandoning dense population centres in favour of a return to nature.

This is obviously a little more in the way of ‘food for thought’ than your typical doom release, are you okay with the perception of Thou as… maybe not a political band per se, but one with strong opinions about the world we live in? Are discussions and meditations on these topics something you hope to inspire in your listeners?

Andy: You’d likely get five different answers if we were all to answer that question. I think of us as a political band. I mean, we have some pretty blatantly political songs even if those songs don’t represent the totality of our politics. Really, in my opinion every band is political whether they are willing to acknowledge it or not. Life is political; we’re all caught up in the problems of this world. Every choice we make affects someone else.

Bryan: Yeah, “the personal is the political” and all that. I think if anything, getting folks to be critical of themselves, the world around them, and their place in it is a core theme throughout our music. That’s a big part of why so much our output—in the content of the songs and records, or the ephemera we release for tours—can oftentimes be so contradictory (anti-civilization/-technology slogans then pro-technology, utopian revisionist daydreams in the next breath) or self-deprecating. We’re five guys who butt heads a lot of times on our own politics, so musically, we love playing with different points of view, as opposed to proselytizing a set of commandments.

I mean, I’m glad that people tend to think of us as a “smarter” or more conscientious band or whatever—but we can also be total dingdongs just like everyone else. It’s not like we’re just sitting around reading Stirner and Blavatsky and not spending just as much time laying around playing Chrono Trigger or watching Netflix.



That's just a small snippet of what turned into one of the most extensive, illuminating interviews I've ever read with the band. You can read the full article over at Echoes & Dust...

Sterilizer - Sterilizer tape

Sterilizer is the soundtrack to the dystopian present the cyberpunks warned us was coming.

Sterilizer is the sound of Tetsuo's Metal Fetishist hacking a Model 101 Terminator into pieces for scrap parts.

Sterilizer is the sound of a desolate industrial planet populated entirely by mindless drones, who have long since abandoned communication for the numbing glow of the parlor walls.

In reality, Sterilizer is the latest musical outlet for Kansas City-based artist Brandon Duncan, who has been exploring both the audio and visuals of sci-fi and horror for a while now under the banner of Expiring Sun. This latest recording marries martial programmed rhythms to jagged shards of distortion, while stripping each song of anything that might identify them as recorded by an actual human being.

Opener 'Vasectomy's hyper-distorted chugging riff blasts out of the speakers with near decapitory power, interspersed with cymbal taps that clatter and clank like spent shell casings, while the glitches, whirrs and pneumatic hisses throughout the track further highlight the industrial edge to the material. It soon becomes obvious that the songs were written with plenty of space for vocal lines, however Duncan has declined to include the vocals in the finished mix. While I'd be very interested to hear that version of the album, the lack of vocals actually serves to heighten the inhuman, mechanised nature of the tracks.

There are no great deviations from this template throughout the rest of the recording, yet each song has its own identity and standout moment, such as the riff shutting down at the tail-end of 'Depopulator', the frantic, scrambling fretwork of '[Dis]content', and the ominous yet danceable processed beats on 'Domination'.

Everything about Sterilizer, from the songs, to their titles, to the visual identity, feels like a singularly dehumanised vision perfectly realised.

In the year 2014 AD... get yourself Sterilized!

Sterilizer on Bandcamp | Tumblr 

This review initially appeared at Echoes & Dust.

Bädr Vogu - Agglomeration MMXIV tape

Oakland's Bädr Vogu continue the grand tradition of Bay Area sludge begun by their filthy forebears in the likes of Noothgrush and Dystopia, while dragging the genre down to new depths of depravity. This summer saw the release of their Agglomeration MMXIV tour tape via Transylvania Tapes, compiling their split with Seattle's Wilt, and two new filth-encrusted tracks.

The first of the new tracks, 'Traitor', kicks off with the wailing of sirens and the howling of feedback, before the drums crash in, soon followed by vocalist Sean's putrid screams. This track has heavy Grief vibes, the main riff allowing the twin guitars to weave in and out of one another to hypnotic effect.

They follow this with 'Anathema Of Time', a truly anguished slab of sludge, the bass growling menacingly beneath the steady chug of guitars and cavernous vocals, which call to mind Thorr's Hammer here. They switch things up a few times throughout the track, incorporating skull-rattling blastbeats and ripping guitar solos into their fetid murk, with neither element feeling out of place. It's a direction they would do well to explore further on future releases.

The few tracks from the Wilt split are as vicious as ever, with 'Gospel Of Greed' is a phrase familiar to anyone sickened by the sort of white-collar criminals glorified in the movie Wall Street, which is itself sampled in the track's intro. The stuttering stop-start rhythm of the track backs lyrics like "Slaving our lives away, the world bled dry for others gain. The many exist in poverty, while the few prosper in luxury". Dystopia themselves couldn't have said it better. Tumbling drums and lurching guitars lead into a downright groovy riff as Sean's scorched-earth vocals implore the listener to bite the hand that feeds. The vehemence heard in this track alone puts Bädr Vogu miles ahead of many other bands plowing similar furrows.

They take things down a notch on 'Apparitions', beginning with sombre guitar and the eerie strains of a lone violin, before a sample I recognise as one of my favourite pieces of dialogue from the show Six Feet Under. It's an unremittingly bleak intro, befitting the track's subject matter of loss and loneliness. The bulk of the song itself is a agonising crawl through the darkest depths of doom, before an almost folkish interlude leads into closing track 'Born Into This'.

The flurry of drums and ripping riffs that comprise the opening minute are far from indicative of the majority of the track, as it quickly shifts down a gear to a driving Brainoil-esque chug, and eventually slows all the way down to a sickening sway before dying in the throes of distortion and feedback. Lovely stuff.

While the tape itself is almost sold out, you can still grab the tracks as a pay-what-you-like download from Transylvania Tapes HERE.

Bädr Vogu on Bandcamp | Facebook

This review originally appeared over at The Sleeping Shaman.

Fange - Poisse tape

Fange describe themselves as a 'dirty, massive & loud sludge experience', but this is nowhere near as many adjectives to do their music justice. I'd go with 'utterly putrified gargantuan ear-destroying sludge trauma'. Nope, that still doesn't quite cover it.

Formed by members of France's psychedelic fuzz-worshippers Brain Pyramid and Huata, Fange are a far nastier proposition than either. The sound on debut EP Poisse is what you can imagine would happen if Eyehategod pawned all their gear for, well, gear, and had to borrow Entombed's pedals, and were really fucking pissed off about the whole situation.

While the music was obviously what grabbed my attention, it was the presentation of the release that demanded a purchase. With some demented artwork courtesy of guitarist Benjamin Moreau (check out more of his work here), given the space such intricate lines deserve on a VHS-style cassette box, I couldn't wait to snap one up. It took a bit of distro trawling, but I managed to snag one via Throatruiner. So fucking worth it.

The CDs are just as well presented, and still readily available, but personally I'm a tape man.

Opening with 'Grêle Molle', the massive overblown guitar tone is immediately recognisable as the band's weapon of choice, the Boss HM2, which lends their riffs the kind of snarl often heard within the slower end of the heavy spectrum. The everything-in-the-red mix makes you work to pick out discernable details, but the immediate effect is so simultaneously crushing and catchy that you'll have no problem with flipping the tape over and over to pick 'em out.

'Cloches Fendues' rattles along with a ragged groove like a never-quite-healed scar, while 'Ammoniac' takes a more dynamic approach, switching tempo between a punked-up stomp and a sludgy crawl. There's no way to appropriately describe just how fucking hard these tracks hit, you really need to just hit play, stick your head between your speakers and prepare to bang it.

The sludge staples of feedback and samples that eventually become 'Suaire' give no indication of the true horror to be found in the track proper. If when things really begin to swing you're not thoroughly creeped out, then you probably had the sort of childhood that would make Francis Dolarhyde weep. After the mental-asylum-in-the-bowels-of-hell build-up to final track 'Lucifour', you'd be forgiven for fearing one last unlistenable noise assault designed to leave you truly traumatised, but the multitude of Wizard-worshipping riffs ensure Poisse ends on neck-wreckingly groovy high.

While there seems to be a new sludge band cropping up every day, very few of them possess the true spirit of the genre quite like Fange. Encrusted in filth, awash in feedback, full of hatred; this is music to seethe to.

Fange on Facebook | Bandcamp

Old Skin - :consume:

I've written before about Manchester's Old Skin, back when they had their two-track demo going around about a year ago. When they followed that up with a more rounded, experimental sound on the Mære 7" soon after, I remarked that the UK's hardcore scene was witnessing the birth of something special.

With the release of :consume:, another two-track teaser CD, they continue to build upon that early promise.

First off, the band have chosen an unusual method of releasing this latest concise burst of vehemence, choosing to make it available as both a digital download and extremely limited CD for just one week. At midnight GMT on 1/6/14 it will be taken down, and completely unavailable save for being shared among those lucky enough to have been paying attention.

While the whole 'mysterious limited release' thing has been around for a while, it's been mainly due to deliberately small pressings or complete lack of promotion. By contrast, :consume: has garnered quite a bit of attention, and rightfully so.

Stripping away the overly-experimental flourishes of their last release, we are left with two bare bones tracks that tear past in a mere 6 minutes. 'Swordcharmer' alternates between high-register off-kilter riffage and muscular chugging passages, with some frantic rhythms courtesy of drummer Dan Watson, while 'Snakeswallower' doesn't fuck with that formula too much, but with some seriously unhinged fleet-fingered fretwork from guitarist Joe Clayton. Guaranteed to have heads either spinning or banging, you'll be hitting the replay button either way.

You have 6 hours left from the time of publication of this post to snag these tracks, and I can't recommend that you do highly enough. The band themselves note "This release ends a period of time we are extremely proud of and grateful for, and has given us the momentum to write our first LP, to be recorded in December 2014."
If they continue to mine the same furious vein as they have thus far, the full-length is sure to be absolutely incredible. Don't sleep; consume.

Old Skin on Facebook | Bandcamp

Of Spire & Throne - Toll Of The Wound

Edinburgh's masters of misery Of Spire & Throne satisfy my craving for tectonic heaviness in a way few other bands can. Their devastating dirges have had me swaying perilously close to collapse the couple of times I've caught them live, and their latest release Toll Of The Wound captures their particularly intense strain of doom perfectly.

The disjointed martial rhythm of the opening track can scarcely prepare you for what's to come, as 'Legacy' erupts in a bludgeoning riff, soon joined by guitarist/vocalist Ali Lauder's subterranean, subhuman roar. The cumulative effect is genuinely disturbing, sending a shiver up your spine before crumbling it into dust, as the band alternate between short sharp shocks and guitar-strangling sludgier sections.

There's not a moment of relief to be found, and even the introductory percussive atmospherics of following track 'Tower Of Glass' will set you on edge, dreading what could be coming next with every cymbal tap. This sense of unease continues throughout, as the band never quite bring the track to any kind of conclusion, with Lauder and bassist Matt Davies seeming more content to meander malevolently around Graham Stewart's brilliantly restrained drumming. The looser structure of this track is no bad thing, but a comfortable listen it is not.

Sure to be one of the few releases this year truly worthy of the word crushing, this release is currently available on both CD and tape via the US-based Broken Limbs Records, with a vinyl release to follow soon. For UK folks, the band themselves have copies available via their bandcamp.

Check out my full unedited review of this release at Echoes & Dust...

Of Spire & Throne on Facebook | Bandcamp