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

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.

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

UPYR - Altars / Tunnels

As far as I am aware, Upyr are the first metal band from Bulgaria that I've ever listened to, and judging by the bleakness of their demo Altars / Tunnels it must be a fucking horrible place to live. Seriously, despite doom becoming the most prevalent genre of metal to arise in the past few years, very few new releases sound as genuinely miserable as this.

Opening with a spot of string-strangling feedback, 'Altars of Necrotic Karma' soon unveils its malicious intent when the skull-rattling drums and doomed-to-death riff kicks in. The mix unfortunately leaves the drums sounding a little too echo-y and out of sync with the rest of the band, but seeing as this is their first demo recording, it's a small fault that can be forgiven.

A fast-paced midsection allows the band to drag things out of doom territory for a short while before the tempo comes crashing back down again, making the slower sections seem all the more devastating. It's clear that the musicians in the band have a grasp of dynamic songwriting that is often all too lacking in the doom genre, whilst vocalist Brodnik has a great range, switching between death growls and blackened shrieks. If UPYR are able to develop the depth of ideas heard in this first track alone, their debut full-length is going to be something truly special.

Second track 'Into the Tunnels of My Sleep' begins with sparse, mournful guitar before unfurling into a monstrously bleak slab of funeral doom. Here Brodnik's vocals are akin to the almost drawled delivery of Scott Kelly, before he dredges up a truly harrowing bellow to accompany the crushing atmosphere of the music. As much as I hate to just endlessly focus on the vocals, there's another section in this track where you would swear that they managed to rope in Jeff Walker to lend his foul rasp, it's such an uncannily accurate piece of Carcass karaoke. The interplay between guitarists Spasm and Tymnokryw is excellent, especially towards the end of the track, when one of them takes the opportunity to rip out a solo that flows perfectly alongside the main riff. It's one of this chill-up-your-spine moments. So damn good.

'Hymn to Pan' opens with some pretty, plaintive guitar, a stark contrast to the oppressive heaviness of the previous track. It's a welcome variation, though you can't help but wonder how long this peace can last? It turns out that the majority of the track is in this vein, but the overall vibe is one of unease, constantly wondering when the calm will end and the storm will descend.

Final track 'Welcome to the Ritual' is exclusive to the cassette release, and is an early rehearsal recording. The blown-out drum sound of the earlier tracks is thankfully replaced by a much more organic sound here, while the music is a heady mix of hypnotic passages and lurching, stop-start riffage. It sounds completely different from the previous tracks, which rather than making the demo sounding messy or unfocused, is an excellent indicator that UPYR simply have more ideas than they know what to do with. If they continue to crank out such interesting, varied tracks on future releases, they could well become Bulgaria's premier exponents of all things heavy.

You can pick up a copy of this demo on cassette via Serpent Eve Records which I highly recommend you do as it's one of the best demos I've heard in a long time.

UPYR on Facebook | Bandcamp

Coltsblood / Crypt Lurker split tape

I don't know what it is about Liverpool at the moment, but between the bastard sludge of Iron Witch, Corrupt Moral Altar's strain of absolutely apoplectic grind, and the breakout success of caveman battle doomers Conan, there must be something foul polluting the Mersey. In addition to the aforementioned bands, Liverpool has recently spat forth two more of the nastiest groups currently going in UK Doom; Coltsblood and Crypt Lurker.

These two heathen clans have convened to record a limited-edition split cassette which was first available on their Winter MMXIII tour, and any remaining copies will be available from each band afterwards.

Coltsblood open their side with 'Consumption', a continuation on the ideas heard on their Beyond The Lake Of Madness demo. While the tracks on the demo had a tendency to wander aimlessly, if still threateningly, the (relatively) concise 9 minute running time of this track flays away any excess down to the bare bones. Opening with the discordant clanging of strings, soon joined by the cacophonous clatter of drums, they ensnare the listener in the murkiest of aural mires before proceeding to drown them in guitarist Jemma's painfully overdriven tones. When vocalist/bassist John Paul McNulty's subhuman rumble of a voice joins the fray, the feeling of total, inescapable despair is complete.

The other track on their side is a cover of my favourite Celtic Frost track, 'Procreation (Of the Wicked)'. Thankfully they choose not to just record a note-for-note rendering, instead imbuing their take on the track with a bristling malevolence that Tom G Warrior himself might cower in fear of. The raw recording quality distorts everything to the point of being almost unlistenable; it's so loud that it's a wonder any of them were able to tell what the other was playing at all. Befitting a cover of the band who started this whole thing, it sounds appropriately primal, and more cavernous and terrifying than 99% of black metal bands.

Crypt Lurker's side also contains one original and one cover: their own 'Behold! A Black Pestilence Dwells Within This Cyclopean Tomb' and a cover of Beherit's 'The Gate Of Nanna'. Their own track follows on perfectly from their tourmates' side, another 10 minute solid slab of raw blackened doom that will drag you down further into the endless chasm that Coltsblood cracked open. Whichever of the Lurkers it is who abuses the microphone has the kind of feral roar that reverberates around your skull, an entirely unpleasant sound that nonetheless gets stuck in your head even more than the intracranial fragmentation of a hollowpoint bullet.

I'm not kvlt enough to have heard the original by Beherit, but Crypt Lurker deliver an absolutely scum-ridden recording of 'Gates Of Nanna', all ultra-distortion and clipped blastbeats. To those that know the track, it's probably marginally more recognisable than Coltsblood's Celtic Frost cover, but no less terrifying or crushing.

Coltsblood on Facebook | Bandcamp
Crypt Lurker on Facebook | Bandcamp

Malthusian - MMXIII

Anyone who is even vaguely aware of the writing of Thomas Robert Malthus will immediately recognise the significance of the monicker Ireland's Malthusian have bestowed upon themselves. In simple terms, the primary tenet of Malthusianism is the knowledge that the Earth's population growth far outstrips the increase in resources required to sustain it. As such, the population must be reduced by factors such as war, famine and disease; that suffering and death is necessary to sustain the human race at even a basic level of subsistence.

From this, it can be construed that these factors, known as Malthusian catastrophes, are the base inspiration for all those who espouse misanthropy and the stated desire for the infliction of suffering; pretty much most death/black/doom metal, in other words. The three tracks of skull-scraping racket contained on Malthusian's MMXIII perfectly embody these principles in horrifying aural form.

With a ghastly hiss, the ominous opening of 'Wraith//Plague Spore' seethes its way from the speakers. The keen, atonal edge of the guitar winding serpent-like through the cacophony of percussion, while the vile vocals escape like gas from a bloated corpse. The sepulchral atmosphere of this opening section soon becomes a shuddering death rattle, all blastbeats and churning guitar.

The unintelligible invocations barely audible over the thunderous din of the music, which writhes between black, death and doom metal with horrifying ease, are spewed forth by each member of the band, each throat possessing a different demonic timbre.

With MMXIII, Malthusian are a howl of rage against a sickening species in dire need of a cull.

Read my full review over at Echoes And Dust...

IRN - S/T tape

Self-proclaimed 'sewer doom' Toronto three-piece IRN have spewed forth one of the most disturbing and disjointed releases you're likely to hear this year. Taking their cue from their filthy forefathers in bands such as Grief, Dystopia and Corrupted, they meld these influences to create a bile-fuelled slab of uneasy listening that is unflinching in its aural assault.

The downright intimidating opener 'Adrift Between Burned Out Villages' is an almost 18 minute exercise in separating the wheat from the chaff; if you can survive this track, you can survive anything. Not content to stick to any traditional formula or structure, the track becomes a relentless trawl through every dark recess of heavy music, spanning everything from eerie atonal passages, chiming notes of post-rock prettiness, the clatter and clang of experimental noise, scrambled squeal of guitar torture and even the injection of some almost jazz-like percussive elements and rhythms, all the while maintaining a distinct undercurrent of menace.
Like I say, formulaic they are not.

If you fancy surrendering your mind to the twisted, decrepit sounds found within this album, pick up a tape from Breathe Plastic as soon as you dare.

Read my full review of this tape over at Echoes And Dust...

Pendulous - Mirrored Confessions tape

California isn't the first place that comes to mind when you think of funeral doom. The crushing laments of the genre are more traditionally associated with the perpetually grey skies of the north of England, and freezing winters in southern Finland.

Los Angeles natives Pendulous' debut release Mirrored Confessions proves that people can be utterly miserable no matter how sunny their environment may be.

When the opening notes of 'Reflections' wind their way out of the tape, they are a mere harbinger of the calamitous cacophony created by the full band [...] When the track culminates in plaintive guitar and deep, rich piano, it has what a surprising number of bands of this ilk lack; it actually sounds truly mournful. This exceptional quality is what puts them firmly in the upper echelons of the genre, alongside their contemporaries in Loss and Bell Witch.

Pick up a copy from Dry Cough Records in the UK, Breathe Plastic in Europe, and Broken Limbs in the US.

Read my full review of this tape over at Summoning Spirits...

Hipoxia / Gangrened split tape

Despite having my ear to the ground for all things disgusting, horrifying, slow, fast and everything inbetween, occasionally a release will come along out of nowhere and completely blow me away. Okay, when I say nowhere, this one came from both Finland and Spain respectively.

A tape release between Finland's Gangrened and Madrid's Hipoxia, released through no fewer than nine, fucking nine, labels, it landed in my inbox through unknown channels. Out of curiosity as to the contents of this mysterious email I cued up the stream via bandcamp, and had my mind completely melted by what I heard.

Hipoxia's track 'Gangrened Reality' is 16 minutes of corruptive brutality, comprised of droning organs, gigantic cymbal crashes and howled vocals. It's interminably torturous, and anyone who enjoys ambient noise, drone doom, and total fucking misery will feel right at home within it's suffocating confines.

On the other side, Gangrened expel two tracks of black doom that will have fans of Cough, Tombstones and Electric Wizard putting down their bong long enough to pick up a copy of this tape.

Their track 'The One That Leads The Way' exemplifies this perfectly, as well as featuring vocals that at times have an almost Unsane-like abrasiveness. Fucking lovely.

 

If writing this blog is encouraging bands from all over the world to send me their latest filthy output, I'm more than happy about it if everything sent my way is as excellent as this tape! If you make the sort of racket that encourages people to ingest hallucinogens and leave the house with a clawhammer just to see what happens, please get in touch!

The Hipoxia/Gangrened split tape is available from the following EU labels:
Boue Records | Filthy Rat | Strange Records | Discos Macarras | Féretro Records | The Bloody Dirty Sanchéz | Twin Souls | Laserblast Records | Desfiladero Records

Gangrened on Facebook | Hipoxia on Facebook 

Open Tomb - Servants Of Slow tape

I don't know what's going on in New Zealand right now, whether they're all just fucking sick of Hobbits, gap year students, or whatever it is, but between Hamilton's Open Tomb and Wellington's Meth Drinker, the far side of the planet is churning out misanthropic doom with alarming regularity. Keep it comin', Kiwis!

Open Tomb have been given the discography treatment by the excellent Dry Cough Records, who are currently 3-for-3 after a similar release for Massachusetts' Plague Survivors and finally committing Ireland's On Pain Of Death to tape. The label is already building the kind of pedigree that will guarantee I'll pick up whatever they put out, so when Servants Of Slow was put up for pre-order, I forked over that week's food budget to hear it.

Oh, it wasn't expensive, I'm just poor.

Opening this little black plastic tomb is the hefty 'Despair', 15 minutes of dirge-like drudgery that will instantly begin the process of weeding out. Like a 45 played at 33... actually, more like 3.3, the notes stretch out endlessly, producing a warped distortion that'll make you wonder whether your tape is about to snap. The agonisingly downtempo doom may even make you wish for it. Not me, I can't get e-fucking-nough of this type of aural punishment.

The track marches on interminably, at one point the guitar exhibiting a Dave Chandler-esque woozy tremolo.

Actually there's your headline: "Open Tomb sound like the post-nuclear apocalypse zombified corpses of Saint Vitus".

When they eventually get around to second track 'Life Fucker', a somewhat minimalist composition even by doom standards, the narcotic narcoleptic nod of the rhythm varying ever so slightly as the track progresses, until about two-thirds of the way through when an "UGH!" urges the pace to pick up to a puke-inducing sway, as the vocals vomit out the track's title repeatedly. Beautiful.

'Monday Leviathan' is just as miserable as it's title, the insurmountable task of getting through yet another week of underwhelming existence soundtracked perfectly by colossal kickdrum and barely-there riffs. The lethargy of the guitar and bass seems to increase with every repetition of the riff until about halfway through when they summon up the energy to fire out a few more of those patented Chandler trembling tremolos.

When the track comes together into something resembling a structured song, you'll just about piss yourself with surprise. These guys probably think 'Dopesmoker' is too energetic.

After sitting in a sludge-addled stupor after Side A hisses its last, I flip it over only to be confronted with more of the same slowly eroding distortion and 10 bpm drums on 'Damned To Forgive'. Oh great, I'm glad I wasn't planning on feeling anything above abject misery today.

The next couple of tracks are from their split with Meth Drinker, which I have as yet failed to get around to hearing, which is just laziness on my part. Though not as lazy as the hazy fog of feedback that opens 'Off With His Head', before exploring the lower depths of ear-splitting sounds and atonal warblings.

The other track from the split, 'Hostile Womb', is just as great as its title suggests, all interminable fuzz and massive, splashy cymbals. The raw-throated vocal exchanges on this track are barely fucking human. Play this next time you want to convince your neighbours you're holding ten simultaneous exorcisms in your living room.

After the sonic depravity heard on those two tracks, I'm gonna get right on hearing Meth Drinker's side of that slab of filth just as soon as final track 'Blood And Flies' is over. By this point I'm running out of interesting ways to say "sloooooooooow" so just fucking listen for yourself, and don't blame me when you're driven to insanity by the tectonic tempos like the poor woman heard sobbing throughout this track.

Quite a lot of that sounded quite negative, eh? WELL THAT WAS THE FUCKING POINT.

What, you want sludge to soundtrack feelings of joy, kittens and candy floss? Then you're doing it wrong. Sludge is for the deepest depths of despair, for sheer loathing, for walking down the street barely restraining yourself from shoving someone under a bus; it should be fucking hard to listen to.

If you need a soundtrack to these feelings, then go pick up a copy of this tape from Dry Cough:

http://drycoughrecords.bigcartel.com/product/open-tomb-servants-of-slow-pre-order

Then go pester Open Tomb about flying very very far to permanently ruin your hearing in a shitty basement venue somewhere that's not NZ.

Coltsblood - Beyond The Lake Of Madness demo tape

I was lucky enough to catch Liverpool's Coltsblood live a few weeks ago, and was utterly blown away by their crushingly miserable strain of doom. Their demo was available for just three pieces of gold, so in lieu of continuing my alcohol intake, I decided to reward them for intoxicating my mind with maddening heaviness instead. Worth every filthy penny.

The lo-fi hiss that permeates the cyclical, hypnotic riff that opens 'Abyss Of Aching Insanity' gives you a good idea of what Coltsblood do; creeping, crawling doom with all the malevolence of black metal. Lovely.

When the vocals kick in... wait, 'kick in' sounds a little too energetic for how the vocals arrive... okay, I've got it: when the vocals are wrenched, howling and clawing from their prison within the cassette, the guttural, anguished quality of the voice, combined with the clatter of drums and distortion make it sound like powerviolence played at a hundredth of the intended speed.

The intensity of the delivery is something I can attest to, having witnessed the raw rumbling fury that bassist/vocalist John manages to strangle out of both his throat and the neck of his bass.

The loose structure of the track allows for plenty of space; for squalls of feedback from guitarist Jem to stab out at you from the speakers inbetween the torture she inflicts on her strings, for the cacophonous battery of the rhythm to sound like drummer Steve should be convicted of cruelty towards his kit. It also allows for a bit of elasticity, so when the wail of the guitar solo escapes the tape around the halfway mark, it feels interminable, like they could go on abusing your ears with this black noise forever, were it not for the time constraints of physical media.

The endless excruciation reflects the title of the track, truly feeling like an endless abyss of audio terror designed to destroy your mind. So really fucking good, basically.

The flipside of this little black horror is a catchy little ditty entitled 'Beneath Black Skies', which announces itself with a crash. At first it seems like just more of the same, but it coalesces into an almost catchy track.

Well, relatively catchy.

Another of Jem's expansive, skulldrilling guitar tangents threatens to further warp the mind, but thankfully the full band lock into an actual rhythm again, and about a minute later there's a section I remember hazily headbanging to at the gig.

As I recall, it's a misleading couple of bars, because soon they're back to stretching out the time between notes with more feedback. I'd like them to stick to it when they lock into these great rhythms, by abandoning traditional song structures it tends to feel a little unfocused, too 'jammy', to really hold my attention.

I hate typing stuff that sounds negative, but sometimes I just yearn for a band to realise when they're on to a good thing, and just fuckin' riff on it, y'know? But the rest of the track passes by sans-riff, so I guess I'll hold out hope for their next recording.

Coltsblood are one of the finest new bands I've had the pleasure of seeing play, and hearing in their formative stage. I'm really excited to see where they'll take their disgusting concoction of tar-black sludge, and you should be too. Ignore this band at your peril.

The tapes are sold out now so sucks for you if you didn't get one. Don't cry, you can still listen to the demo over at the Coltsblood bandcamp and pick up one of their awesome t-shirts while you're there.

Also, just announced at the time of writing is that Ulthar Records will be releasing a remastered version of this demo on vinyl. So get that, and go watch them play mountain-crumblingly heavy riffs live next chance you get!

Plague Survivors - compilation tape

Part of the reason I started writing about the music I love was in the hope people would read it, and recommend me more bands I'd be into. Though I've been doing it for a while now, only a few people have sent me stuff, but nothing that's had quite the impact of Massachusetts' Plague Survivors.

Andrew at Dry Cough Records sent me this tape after having read my review of his next release, On Pain Of Death's Year Naught Doom. If he keeps putting out releases of this calibre, Dry Cough will be one of the labels to watch in the coming months.

Opening track 'Grim Note' is all thick fuzz and torturous feedback, with occasional lapses into something like a song. I'm so glad people get what I dig about bands like this; the filthy, sour tones, the contempt in the vocals, the sort of lurching rhythm that's perfect to spill beer to... As the last sounds die out, I'm immediately sold on this band.

'Foul Voice' begins with a lumbering, crashing stomp, and with a scream the tempo is ramped up to a chugging rhythm the meanest hardcore band could only dream of. The speed picks up again before the track collapses back to the start, the whole nasty cycle repeated before it comes crashing to a halt.

A distorted, warbled voice sounds like the sort of sample heard at the start of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, before the building feedback erupts into the agonising crawl of 'Low Places'. You couldn't even describe this is a song so much as it sounds like the death throes of a depressive set to woozy, swaying bursts of distortion, following the tradition of Grief's 'Lifeless'. About halfway through the thickening feedback and agonised vocals coalesce into a rabid, raving beast of a track.

'Funeral Pyre' closes out side A with the eerie atonal tolling of guitar strings being played with a rusty hacksaw. Dirty drones and the scrape of fingernails on a casket lid build and build, the tension unbearable, the suffocating sensation seems neverending... Until the whole thing burns itself out in the dying howls of distortion.

Disgusting. Perfect.

Side B opens with 'Witch Crusher', a mangled, angular nightmare, with vocalist Matthew Willwerth spewing furious bile over the whole mess. Halfway through there's a truly fucking weird midsection, discordant plinking on piano, backwards-masked invocations and creepy crawling bass. The rest of the track that follows decays further and further away to nothing.

'Ditch Digger' slithers from the speakers, vague whispers like snakes, before the hissing gives way to a sound not unlike the equivalent of having your head slammed against the floor. The bludgeoning subsides, replaced by a Dystopian crawl towards the merciful end.

The tape closes out with a pretty faithful cover of Sabbath's 'Electric Funeral', the usual vocal style abandoned in favour of a more traditional singing style that reminds me of the departure of Olly's vocals on the latest Moss record. You already know what this song sounds like, and if you don't then you've no business reading this blog.

Apparently they have more Sabbath covers recorded, and I really can't wait to hear them, as well as the next release of their own material that they put out.

If you like your sludge on the creepy, hateful side (the way it fucking should be), get into Plague Survivors.

You can pick this tape up from Dry Cough Records here:
http://drycoughrecords.bigcartel.com/

And download the various releases that make up this compilation here:
http://plaguesurvivors.bandcamp.com/

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)

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.