Lazarus Blackstar / Black Shape Of Nexus split

I've been a fan of Bradford's bleakest, Lazarus Blackstar, ever since stumbling upon their debut album Revelations many years back. Their maniacal fusion of sludge and noise on that release absolutely sickened me, since at the time I hadn't even heard Eyehategod or Unsane yet, and I guess you could say that Lazarus Blackstar were one of my gateways into the uglier side of heavy music.

It's been with great interest that I've followed them from their earlier material with Paul Catten's demented howl, through to last year's excellent Hymns For The Cursed with new vocalist Mik Hell's fearsome growls.

When they released a split 12" with Glasgow's Headless Kross earlier this year, featuring guest vocals from none other than Alicia Morgan (of NYC legends 13), they really established themselves as one of Britain's foulest exponents of gut-churning doom.

This latest slab of filth, a split 12" with Mannheim's Black Shape Of Nexus via Alerta Antifascista Records, will hopefully turn more people on to both of these excellent bands, and have the current crop of weak UK 'doom' bands cowering behind their Dopesmoker reissues. I'm looking at you, Black Bong Goat Witch Whateverthefuck.

Black Shape Of Nexus begin their side with the monumental 'Honor Found In Delay', a not-so-subtle nod to Neurosis, who are obviously a big influence here. The slow build of the riff is soon joined by vocalist Malte Seidel's hoarse bellow, which coincidentally reminds me in some places of former Blackstar vocalist Paul Catten. Around the halfway point of the track, things switch up to a ominous, bass-heavy rumble, strains of feedback weaving throughout. There's not much in the way of variation, but the sheer propulsive power of the track is perhaps their sole intention. Who needs variety when you've got sheer driving force?

Their second contribution, 'Always And Only', is another sterling example of bass-led riffage, Stefan Kuhn's prowling groove locking the whole thing down. For a band with 6 members, they all sound remarkably focused on creating a solid, unified rhythm, instead of veering off indulging each member's individual whims. Though I've never made it to Mannheim, I have spent a lot of time in industrial Germany, and B•Son really do produce a fitting soundtrack to the endless sprawl of purely practical architecture, miles and miles of red brick and steelworks... their sound is as lean and effective as German engineering itself.

Lazarus Blackstar open with 'Command And Control', the guitars of Lee Baines and Izak Gloom possessing a slightly more mournful edge than usual, and Mik Hell's growl even lower and more demented than ever. This track is probably the most out-and-out 'doom' thing they've recorded so far, it has that perfect degree of despair set to a sound heavier than the weight of 6ft of gravedirt on a casket lid.

Closing out their side with 'Whispering Through Broken Teeth', a track just as nasty and unpleasant as it's title, which doesn't so much have riffs as it has audio maelstroms, sucking you down into the murky depths below. Again they eschew the sludgier, more noise-oriented material of their beginnings, in favour of a tar-black strain of doom, even incorporating the sound of a mellotron, and chanted, semi-clean vocals. If this stylistic shift is more than just idle experimentation, and further material in this vein is handled as excellently as it is here, I'm so goddamn excited to hear more from them in the coming year. Here's to hopelessness.

Black Shape Of Nexus on Facebook | Bandcamp
Lazarus Blackstar on Facebook | Reverbnation

This review originally appeared at The Sleeping Shaman.

Ramesses - Misanthropic Alchemy DLP

When Ramesses announced their split in January this year, I was pretty gutted, but not especially surprised. Guitarist Tim Bagshaw had moved to New York, and was playing in Serpentine Path with the guys from Unearthly Trance (with whom Ramesses released a split in 2009), and there were rumours going around that drummer Mark Greening was back behind the kit with Electric Wizard. The split was inevitable.

Criminally underrated during their decayed decade together, Ramesses were one of my all-time favourite bands, as well as simply one of the best heavy British bands, and it's only fitting that their horrifying legacy be preserved. The label started by the band, Ritual Productions, have reissued the band's debut album Misanthropic Alchemy as a kind of epitaph, and after trying to get hold of a vinyl copy for ages now, I snapped one up as soon as they were available.

I never managed to snag a copy of the original vinyl release so I don't have much basis for comparison, but it can't have been as perfectly packaged as this repress. The intricate print on silver mirror board is glorious, though this being a double LP it struck me as odd they wouldn't go for a gatefold sleeve, but its still a thing of twisted beauty.

'Ramesses Part 1' opens the record at an uncharacteristically fast tempo, the clatter and clang of Mark Greening's poor abused drumkit driving the whole corroded cacophony along at deathly speed. Adam Richardson's serrated rasp of a voice spits only the necromantic call "Arise legions... Destroy Enemy..." before the summoning is complete and the tempo drops you into 'Ramesses Part 3'.

Slowly uncoiling riffs emerge from the suffocating murk, unfurling themselves insidiously from the speakers. Cries of "Holding out to die" are sung in a startlingly clear voice, contrasting with the usual vocal style employed that erupts forth like molten hate. Around two thirds of the way through the track it switches down a gear, taking on an elegiac, sombre tone. The lamenting wails sound like some damned maddening choir. The music burns out and smoulders in warm feedback before the needle scrapes its last. Damn it's great to finally hear this album on vinyl.

Side B opens with the dirge-like 'Lords Misrule', a draining, dragging track that picks up pace as it progresses. Ramesses lay bare their mission statement in this track, with a putrid growl of "doomed to death". When this album was released, very few bands were forging together the various metals found in Misanthropic Alchemy. With the recent resurgence in death-doom, and almost every subgenre seeming to merit the prefix 'blackened', maybe people have forgotten just how much Ramesses were digging the graves of Winter and Autopsy at a time when very few were. Of course now both of those bands have been resurrected, but even as recently as 2007, there weren't many ploughing the same corpse-bloated furrow as Ramesses.

I'm getting a little off topic, but I can't state enough just how vital this band were to me personally. They opened whole new (creaking tomb) doors along my musical path.

'Coat Of Arms' has an almost postpunk chiming guitar intro before it erupts into the familiar sludge, the distorted mix courtesy of Billy Anderson is so foul and thick you could almost choke on it.

When the vocals eventually appear halfway through the track, it's another case of contrasting the tortured moans of "souls so lost and old" with a more acidic delivery courtesy of "bludgeoned minds". The last minute of the track is a furious flurry of blackened blasts, a maelstrom of sounds to close out side B.

'Terrordactyl' is the precursor to the musically similar 'Terrasaw' from 2010's Take The Curse, opening with the same ramshackle drum fill, before the beast morphs through various incarnations before settling on an unsettling alternating mix of shuddering, churning horror and a sort of drugged funeral march.

Towards the end there's the perpetual threat that the whole thing will explode into blastbeats, before a demented guitar solo that sounds sped-up or backwards masked, somehow unnatural brings things to a head, and the song ends with the harshness of a slap, heard literally in the final sample.

The cacophonic rattle that opens 'Before The Jackals' introduces a plodding doomed procession, conducted by the wretched death rattle emitted by Adam Richardson's ruined larynx. It circles deeper and deeper until the hypnotic effect becomes overpowering, where thankfully it ends before you lose your mind. The plaintive fingerpicking that comprises 'Earth Must Die', the last track of the original album, seems like an ominous portent of horrors to come... but they never do, the track just endlessly racks up the tension.

As I thought when I first heard it, it's still a really odd way to end an album, it seems like a pointless build up to a release that never comes. It's still a great track, it just suffers from being misplaced within the running order.

The two live tracks that follow the end of the album, recordings of 'Lords Misrule' and 'Ramesses Part 3' remind me of just how alternately bludgeoning and hypnotic the band were in the live setting.

I managed to make it to one of their last ever shows before they ceased touring, supporting Eyehategod no less, and was totally blown away by how well they recreated the malevolence of their recorded work, and that effect is captured perfectly on these recordings.

Misanthropic Alchemy is the sound of Ramesses still hashing out ideas, taking the first steps down a darker path than they ever had in their years in Electric Wizard, a conjuring of sounds more atavistic, more primal; old doom from a dark age. Their development would eventually culminate in the refined blackened doom of Take The Curse a few years later, but these recordings mark the beginning of their descent into the darker recesses of doom.

You can pick up this limited double LP from Ritual Productions here:
http://www.ritualproductions.net/rites/rite014/

Or opt for the CD version which also includes a bonus disc containing the EPs We Will Lead You To Glorious Times and The Tomb:
http://www.ritualproductions.net/rites/rite015/

Ilsa - Intoxicantations LP

It took me forever to get around to finally buying a copy of this record due to my current impoverishment. I had to do awful, awful things to afford this album. It was worth it.

The album cover, drawn the band's drummer Joshy, is a truly fucking creepy collage of scuttling insects, animal bones and substance abuse. The juvenile scrawl on the back cover, depicting vomiting and bleeding witches presiding over a cauldron of narcotics, reminds me of the childish obscenity drawn by Mike Diana that graces the cover of Iron Monkey's Our Problem. This is the sort of design that's worth getting the gatefold sleeve for, so you can pore over every revolting detail in the artwork.

The music is just as depraved as the sleeve, and also should be heard as intended; hissing malevolently out of record player speakers. A harrowing catalogue of drug abuse, screams and feedback provides the intro to 'Foreign Lander', the bands brutish take on the folk song. It crashes along at a relentless pace, the shredded throat of Orion imbuing the words with a venomous vehemence before a twisting, writhing solo closes out the track.

The record's title track drags itself out of the speakers, the decrepit drudge of the rhythm overlaid by a howled Intoxicantation, a repulsive recipe for "unholy hallucinations". The tempo is as interminable as the endless agony of fingernails splintering along your spinal column. Fucking lovely.

Eventually it ends and they launch into 'Deadbeat's Ballad', a tale of a Faustian pact, what the Germans call moritaten, or murder ballad. The track careens along at a neck-abusing tempo until midway through when the band lapse into another funeral march, accompanying the horrifying infanticidal lyrics.

The last act of the story, those tortured cries of guilt set to foulest, catchiest sludge makes this my favourite track on the album.

'Man Made Monsters' sounds to me like being stretched to bonebreaking point on the rack, that sick discordant twist of the guitar and the ratcheting of the double kick drumming.

This track reminds me of something Tim Bagshaw would write, that underlying menace in the guitar tone definitely sounds like Ramesses/Serpentine Path to my ears.

The second side of the record opens with 'Say You Love Satan', a foot-stomping, fist-throwing anthem to antichristianity. Ilsa have this ability to make even this harshest of music seem catchy, they've got hooks that dig in like the cover of Severed Survival. I really hope I get the chance to catch them live sometime, so if they ever make it to the UK, there's a floor and a lot of whiskey waiting for them.

'The Scream' is another exorcise in torturous tempo and the strangling of strings. The everyday horror of the lyrics makes it a more disturbing proposition than all that 'anal goat blasphemy' shit kids on tumblr think is evil. The apathy of modern society is far more terrifying than any fictional demon.

The pounding of skins that opens 'Fluid Bound' drives a vertebrae-flexing rhythm, though this track doesn't really vary enough to hold my attention.

'Martyrs', inspired by the disturbing-as-fuck French movie of the same name, is a breakneck bludgeoning that leaves you reeling just as much as the film it takes it's name from. If this track alone doesn't convince you to pick up this record, you're a fucking lost cause.

The album closes out with 'Skin and Bone', which on first impression reminds me of Cursed when they dropped the tempo, the waves of distortion emanating from the speakers hitting with a heaviness I can feel in my gut. An almost melodic guitar solo signals the start of the slow disintegration of the track, the whole structure decaying and dismantling itself til there's nothing left but the scratch of static noise and the wail of air-raid sirens. I almost expect there to be a bonus cover of 'War Pigs' after that, but the sirens die out, the needle scrapes it's last groove and lifts.

I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of this revolting slab from A389 Records
http://shop.a389records.com/products/ilsa-intoxicantations-12

And someone book this band to tour the EU/UK with Coffinworm or Brainoil or something.

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/

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!