If there was has always been one element of predictability with respect to the group’s output, it was that their material tended to run either hot or cold on alternating releases. Any given album would focus either on restrained and ethereal sound and song-craft (the folk album, the “Singing” EPs, the soundtracks and their most recent release) or obtuse, bombastic everything but the kitchen sink megalomania (the black metal years, Blake, Perdition City & Blood Inside). The infectious energy of opener “February MMX” is thus a false flag, smoothly pumping up the crowd with some gloomy dance-floor flair before percussive delirium sets in, coolly claustrophobic and clearly indicative of the latter of the two categories proposed above. This momentum is promptly killed by “Norwegian Gothic”, never to return throughout the duration of the album. Rather the band continues variation on the themes presented therein – meandering tone poetry interspersed between swells of tentative ambience, accentuated by occasional flourishes of rich beauty. Each repetition of what is essentially the same song adds a little something more, whether it’s the mix of female vocals on “Providence” lending an air of late period In the Woods, or the slow motion anthemic qualities of “September IV”, the album’s shining moment, hearkening back to the best parts of Shadows of the Sun. Unfortunately the best moments fail to sustain, and can neither prop-up songs that are just not working nor compensate for extended stretches of mind-numbing navel-gazing atmosphere. Silence may have taught Rygg to sing but experience should be teaching him to broaden his range, or bring in more guests, to help further distinguish these songs from each other.

Just when the culmination of the best moments of the album, which sound even better when absorbed at the proper time of day (definitely an early morning or late night record), might have me feeling a tad repentant with regard for some of my harsher critiques of the album as a whole; closer “Stone Angels” almost perfectly justifies my frustration with this effort, interminably and portentously dragging on and on and dragging The Wars of the Roses back down from what meek heights it sporadically aspires to. For the first time in a long time, Ulver is basically maintaining a holding pattern over the stretch of two albums, but is either lacking the ideas or passion to produce a worthy companion to Shadows of the Sun. At best, one can take this first significant misstep as symptomatic, as referred to above, of the band’s experimental spirit, and its failure does, in stark contrast, serve to spotlight the group’s previous track-record of craft consistently triumphing over the ambivalence that the best experimental music should provoke in its audience. I will revisit this record now and again, because it is Ulver and even their dodgier moments have demanded and deserved reexamination from time to time, but at this point, after numerous listens over the past few weeks, the ambivalence, despite the craftsmanship, keeps slipping into indifference or worse, open hostility towards whatever it was they were trying to do here. Oh well.

Any such inclination is not immediately evident on album opener “Reject Existence”, a driving nihilist anthem whose chorus will have long-time fans sway-banging and goth-serving everything in sight; but things get a bit more interesting on the follow-up track, “Shutter”. Kicking off with a blackened variation of the “43% Burnt” riff, dreary sludge verses alternate with monolithic death metal choruses, building intensity. Then, out of nowhere, bassist Algol gets all stoney on us, goading the rest of the band into joining in a massive bong-hit bridge with Merchisio even singing some soulful 90’s styled doom refrain, complete with some Dorrian-like ad-libs on the fade out. Crazy stuff – not only does the tune maintain coherence despite these diversions, it still manages to sound like Forgotten Tomb all the while. “Downlift” subtly absorbs some of these new influences, while returning to the group’s comfort zone with Asher’s energetic and imaginative drumming being a particular highlight. A bit of a wrong turn, covering the only Stooges’s song that every metal bands apparently knows breaks the momentum, it may be “fun” live, but I am yawning hearing my 666th burning of this particular chestnut. Similarly, some lazy rote goth singing almost ruins “Joyless” right off the top, but Asher’s speed-bagging his double bass through the chorus combines with the exquisite lead work of Razor SK to somewhat redeem it, Merchisio even redeems himself with a bit more effort toward the song’s end.

Just when the album threatens to take a turn for the wrong kind of downer, the two-part title track takes center stage. Part 1 is vintage epic atmospheric black metal, driven once again by Asher’s performance, regarding which I could easily expend another hundred words about, but suffices it to say I’m a guitarist mentioning the drummer for the third time in a review so take it for what it is. Merchisio and Razor join forces on a brilliant twin-g harmony which blazes into Part 2 where Algol’s phased-out bass sets the distended undertone for a tangle of semi-classical guitar lines. Around the two minute turn-around the band achieves one of those transcendent moments of counter punctual synchronicity and when they finally stomp on their fuzz boxes to bring it all home, the delirious swirl is almost overwhelming. The closing numbers easily maintain the same mastery while striving to achieve the same majesty. Though both fail to do so, it’s an admirable failure, even a spectacular one, as the ending of “Spectres Over Venice” (and the album) comes dangerously close to matching the title tracks’ impact.

It is unusual for a band to be messing with their sound this much on album six, but for all that experimentation, I actually think most long-time fans will be as enthusiastic about hanging around to hear where this is going as I am. While most listeners will be sucked in by Merchisio’s greatly expanded vocabulary and Asher’s fourth-time-in-the-review-worth-mentioning drumming; Razor and Algol’s contributions can’t be ignored either, and FT might just have a definitive line-up here. On its own merits, Under Saturn Retrograde is a decent transitional album with quite a few great moments, alongside a couple of mis-steps as well, which is to be expected when a band is fucking with the formula. Provided they stick with what works here, we may be in for one of the more fascinating mid-career re-launches, and the next level awesome of what may be to come may prove this album to be one of their more important in retrospect.

“Don’t Stop Violence” lets you know the band means business, and almost immediately the album throws the listener for a loop sonically, in that the production and performance is of the higher standards of the more metallic end of the grindcore spectrum, while the riffs, vocal phrasing and basically everything else is of the hardcore variety. Beginning on the very next track “Grind Til You Die” and continuing through the rest of the album, the band starts opening up their tool-box with melodic punky passages reminiscent of something like Tragedy or even Kylesa at ludicrous speed, spliced with breakneck break-beat transitions worthy of my now fallen heroes in Japanische Kampfhörspiele. If they occasionally slow down to catch a breath, it’s only in order to go five times faster on the next riff, particularly on the ironically titled “Stand for Nihilism”. The album peaks with the back-to-back combo of “The Loud Underground” with its sneering duel vocal ranting and snappy two-step kick, and “Beyond All Lies” with its winding lead melody chorus snaking out of the punchy verses. It’s all brought to a quick halt from which they slowly slink back in with a dreary sludge riff emerging from a creepy whisper-roar, speeding up to hit the chorus again and spacing out on fuzzy leads till the end. Excellent stuff.

Coming down from this peak, the album plateaus until the penultimate “The Gallows Swing” totally lives up to its name before leading into an excellent cover of Deep Purple’s “Comin’ Home” which closes the album on a million high notes. The “Aesthetic Grind” here isn’t that Painful Defloration are some kind of snooty, bespectacled hipsters ironically playing extreme music, or Zorn-esque avant-garde innovators; rather it’s that by album number three, the band has mastered this misunderstood art in all its glory. Knowing that speed means nothing if the songs make no sense; the band execute their dynamic tempo shifts and catchy, memorable riffs with superb proficiency, lacing them with saccharine sweet melodies and keenly phrased vocals, infusing each of these one-minute-plus numbers with character, though never letting the songwriting get in the way of the brain-bashing or vice versa. Starting, for example, with their silly name, obscure location and blah album cover; I could probably come up with a million more excuses for sleeping on this band, but after listening to this record, all of those seem a bit lame. If you are fan of grind that is as cohesive as it is chaotic and melodic as it is manic, don’t make the same mistake.

Maruta lacks nothing in terms of the talent and intensity to pull this sound off credibly, and in spare moments incredibly. New drummer Danny Morris and bassist Mauro Cordoba seems to have no trouble keeping up and on top of the group’s furious and sometimes confoundingly counterintuitive transitions. Mitchell Luna is equally adept on the screeching highs and human cement mixer lows at any of the album’s many tempos. The riffing, while super tight and fleet-fingered is much more interesting from a rhythmic point of view than a melodic one and this more than anything is the crux of my complaint with this album.

While I have no doubt that fans of both band and label will find a lot to like on this album; Maruta still hasn’t quite developed, or at least revealed on this recording, a personality of their own to set them apart from the rest of the tech-death-grind hive, despite the fact that they clearly exceed most of their upstart peers from both a production and performance standpoint. Until Maruta’s albums remind me more of Maruta than their influences though, this is a case where the parts are more than the sum of the whole, and I just don’t see myself listening to the latter for the sake of the former.

This final album starts strong in the first half, but is maybe too consistent with their past work as the band runs their paces, once more spilling out the contents of their considerable toolbox and revisiting their past glories. The riffing is as irresistibly catchy, mega-heavy and ultra frantic as ever, with the breakdown on “Alter Tricks” being an early highlight, as the disharmonic unison vocals of Bony and Martin Freund splits off into a syncopated spoken word part nearly bordering on some Patton-esque whiteboy hip-hop. As good as it is though, and at times it is very good, the album does open on somewhat of an anticlimactic note, coming off more as a rote “thanks for listening” sign-off than as a definitive final statement of purpose.

About half-way through the program though, business picks up significantly, starting with the odd-ball melodic indie-grind spunk of “Was Wenn” and the super-sonically augmented death-mosh of “Homeentertainment”. “Status Panik” is the “everything but the kitchen sink” number, maintaining coherence for the first minute or so before flying off into several different directions, each intriguing in and of itself, but also revealing of one of the group’s few weaknesses, namely the tendency to get a little lost past the 3 minute mark when they occasionally venture that far. This solid run continues through the album’s close, with the death by Danzig riff of “Der Homo Sapiens” leading to “Bravohotelcrazyhorse”, an instrumental sampled over with the dialogue from the infamous Wikileaks Collateral Murder footage, and possibly one of the most innovative pieces of music the band has ever composed. Christof Kather’s improvisational drumming style provides a unique backdrop for the pedal-board explorations of guitarists Hauffe and Nicodem as the group progresses from sludgy ambience to hyper metallic madness to end the piece. JaKa’s traditional ambulance siren solo appears one last time on “Ein Blutiger Vormitag” followed by an arcade laser beam lead on “Naschen Aus Papier”, both of which also feature exquisite bass work by Marco Bachmann.

Even if the production is, if not bad, noticeably weaker than most of their recent output, I have no mixed feelings as to the overall quality of Kaputte Nackte Affen. The first half of the album reminds me of everything I’ve loved about this band for the last decade, while at the same time, in a sense, justifying their disbandment even as the second half presents a few final unconventional tweaks and intriguingly hints at the direction the ex-members of may take with their future endeavors. For the past decade, Japanische Kampfhörspiele have been fearlessly creative in their take on grindcore, with far too little notice in a genre that for all its explosive intensity has become surprisingly monotonous during the same time period. Having never shied away from catchy grooves, crushing breakdowns and other extra-genre excursions, their less than orthodox indulgence in these elements has helped restore a sense of unpredictability, danger and character to a style that as a result of its own uber-underground insularity had become too safe, tame and mundane. For the many that missed the boat, Jaka’s considerable discography will be quite a revelation for years to come, and while Kaputte Nackte Affen may not figure among the top releases of the group’s career it does wrap things up quite nicely, leaving this longtime listener alternately deeply satisfied and desperate for more.

This is not to say that bassist Joe Tapia or drummer Bryan Fajardo are sloppy by any means – they are in fact fairly fucking tight – and the former’s frantic pulse and the latter’s train-wreck fills seem to be the result of a well-calculated chaos. Six-stringers Dorian Rainwater and Thomas Romero give most of their grindcore peers a run for their money with some impossibly speedy yet concise riffs, as well, they break unison frequently with some disorienting lead harmonies, sharp pinch harmonics and even some occasionally big-riff breakdowns and metallic heroics. Vocalist Alex Lucero (with assists by Tapia and Rainwater) has both the “eee-ree-ree’s” and the “frah-yah-yah’s” down pat.

Make no mistake though, that despite some of their creative excursions, Noisear keep the accelerator floored throughout the proceedings, so if you are on the look-out for the more experimental moments, don’t blink or you may miss’em. At their “slowest”, they sound like a runaway rollercoaster and at their fastest its pure blur, baby. 29 of the 30 songs here are under the 2 minute mark, and most don’t even make it half that far, and as such I am not going to even attempt to pick out any particular stand-out tracks, though the band is consistent and hardly redundant throughout the recording, which is always noteworthy in this genre. Track 30 is a 20 minute noise track that is far from unlistenable, but seems like a needless tag-on and is nothing to write home about – although the idea of writing home about a noise track does tickle my funny bone (Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda, Here I Am At… Camp Masonna*).

All in all, if not mind-blowing, Subvert the Dominant Paradigm is as satisfying a grindcore release as I have heard in recent years, particularly from a U.S. band (I’m a bit of a snob – sue me). Fans of actually interesting, good guitar-work in this genre know how few and far between such examples can be, and would be well-advised to check this out, as would fans of Antigama who were particularly enthralled with that band’s spectacular run from Discomfort through Resonance. As someone who’s days of uber-grind enthusiasm are somewhat behind him, I can’t say I’ll be spinning this album constantly, but this has whet my appetite for their upcoming Maryland Deathfest appearance, and Noisear is, if not an upper echelon grind act quite yet, certainly head-and-shoulders above most of their genre brethren, and well worth checking out.

The ongoing surge of instru-metal bands have seemingly divided themselves into three recognizable camps: you’ve got the slow and sludgy groups like Capricorns, Pelican and Switchblade, the proggy shred metal heroics of Animals as Leaders and Canvas Solaris, and the skronky off-kilter technicality of Dysrhythmia and Behold…the Arctopus. 19 A.D.D. seems to be attempting to be all things to all people on their debut, and seem possessed of the grit, the chops, and the lack of sanity required to pull off all three facets convincingly. Two other influences which seem to play a big role in these 15 pieces is the funk-fusion of Primus and Frank Zappa and the ‘traditional’ progressive metal of Atheist and Cynic and what you end up with is music that toes the line between spazzy kookiness and competent coherence: straight-forward and catchy enough to keep them listening, but experimental and adventurous enough to keep them guessing. 

Being comprised of three talented musicians helps the group avoid a lot of debut album mis-steps, and those that are worth mentioning, such as the obligatory layered sampling intros, interludes and outros that don’t really add much, and the fragmented, confusing nature of how the actual songs fit the tracklisting (apparently my favorite song is three different tracks?), do not detract terribly from the overall listening experience. What is most surprising is that within individual songs and over the course of the album, the band shifts gears between the influences referred to above frequently, but only rarely do these unorthodox transitions come off as anything less than seamless. Rather, 19 A.D.D. is quite adept at finding missing links between gooey sludgy riffs and hyper-shred arpeggios, plucky funk and cosmic cacophony. New bands can innovate by doing new things or by doing old things in new ways, but any such innovations are all for naught if the group doesn’t have the talent and vision to create something worth listening to. 19 A.D.D. is endlessly, sometimes miraculously, clever in blending their influences into a cohesive schizophrenia which results in an exciting and fun album which should have equal appeal to all schools of instru-metal fans. It would seem improbable, if not downright impossible to ask them to rein in some of their more experimental excesses without restraining the aggressive creative spirit that permeates this release, so take Dead River for what it is, and enjoy one of the more energetic and unpredictable debuts of 2009.

“Hunter Seeker”, the second song on this album, is a case in point, starting with a sharp but elaborate lick enraptured by varied cold fusion accentuations, before plummeting into a deep ambient abyss, evoking a mix of contemplation and anticipation as spare notes and chords, augmented by multiple layers of effects, are plucked and sustained in a heady vortex, a sonic playground of the senses. Once the group lulls you into a false sense of serenity, rest assured they will come back to pound and stomp you with a nice heavy riff, as they do to close the proceedings on this twelve-plus minute track. Likewise, another favored “Sub-Space” trick is to engage the listener in a catchy groove or a multi-layered melody or best of all, both at the same time before trailing off in a technicolor swirling confusion of dust and debris to settle back into that aforementioned ambiance (“Haruspex”). It is in the shifts between these two phases that the group reveals their charm the most, as they are quite adept in either niche, unlike some heavy instrumental rock groups where the ambient parts seem like a cue to stop paying attention, or on the other side, experimental groups where the rock parts sound forced and faked. Subarachnoid Space are not just competent in both niches, but comfortable and even more so, compelling, able to keep the listener’s rapt attention throughout lengthy patches of very abstract sound and make the transition back and forth to deliriously heavy rock moments seem seamless, logical and natural.
The sum result of this skill is that the band makes complex music that demands careful attention which at the same time is way too easy to get lost in. Music that simultaneously seems the product of Jackson’s conscientious composition and the rest of the band’s stream-of-consciousness improvisation and exploration. While upping the volume and raging just a bit harder than they used to allows the band to draw the attention of more listeners, those listeners may still have their work cut out for them wrapping their heads around this sound. However, just as on their earlier releases, once the ears are properly attuned, and the stars properly aligned, such hard work will be rewarded by the discovery-slash-revelation of an excellent and unique band with a discography full of equally enchanting material to absorb or even better, to be absorbed by.

For that reason, despite being a fan of Zeni Geva, the experimental hardcore band for whom Mr. Null plays guitar, sings and composes, I have had no interest in his solo releases and felt considerable apprehension when this release hit my review pile. However, to my considerable surprise and even delight, I find myself absolutely enjoying Oxygen Flash on a few different levels. First, I am relieved at what the album is not, as in, it is not an endless loop of metal grating on metal pitched to varying frequencies, which is what most of this genre sounds like to me. Secondly, this leads to the realization that this release is not Noise as a pure genre, rather Null takes noises and actually mixes them with bonafide notes and tones in something that oftentimes resembles real albeit abstract composition. His pieces move, they have dynamics and he uses his multifarious knobs, pedals, buttons and faders to create actual textures, yes sometimes harsh, but often inviting, frequently intriguing, and they are – here’s where the surprise and delight come in – actually a lot of fun to listen to.

The fun is of a futurist nostalgic sort, the selection and placements of sounds on the album play as a soundtrack to a very young, immature but imaginative science fiction fantasy – something that brings me back to the time, a long time ago, in a galaxy 20 exits up the highway; when my parent’s couch was an intergalactic cruiser, the living room – the universe, and I had mentally immersed myself in a world of lasers, accelerators, malfunctioning robots, distress signals, photon torpedos and the like. It is in this sense that my connection with this material becomes personal, as if you had stuck eight-year-old me in front of Mr. Null’s pile of electronics, the same sounds might have come out, or have wanted to come out. Of course, they wouldn’t have, and thirty-one year old me can appreciate the aptitude and creativity with which the artist harnesses these varied sonic elements to create atmosphere and narrative, something that is as jarring and disorienting as it is curiously attractive and even, dare I say it, catchy. Having little to no context in this genre or in KK Null’s discography, I of course have no idea whether my reaction to this album is what he was going for, or what I was supposed to feel listening to it, but fuck it – for a little while, and for the first time in decades, I strapped on my jet-pack, my arms became laser cannons, liquid metal flowed through my veins and I engaged in total interstellar cosmic warfare with my often boringly adult existence, and for that reason alone, I found tremendous value in this particular listening experience.

Graham’s previous musical excursions are in fact the best reference point for A Storm of Light in terms of placing them in a general context; that is the listener will be confronted with monolithic metal, spiritually forged in a folkish aesthete, a formula which is no doubt familiar to fans of Neurosis and Red Sparowes. This said, Forgive Us Our Trespasses is simultaneously more intensely orchestrated and organically personable than either, giving it it’s own unique charm within the niche, if not radically expanding on the style. There are two additional areas in which A Storm of Light sets themselves apart from the current wave of slow ‘n’ steady, epic sludge, first being the amazing vocal harmonies, which are a prominent part of every song with virtually every performer, band-members and guests alike, participating in various combinations. While many bands, across many genres, have begun to attempt more ambitious ideas as to the role of vocals in heavy music, the quality of both the conception of execution of such ideas on this album is something truly awesome to behold.

To complement the whole of the vocal performance is to take nothing away from it’s prime mover, that being Mr. Graham’s excellent lead vocal and expert phrasing, which provides for a consistently compelling narrative through these fantastic songs, the composition of which is the second area of brilliance which truly sets this album apart. The struggle, for Mr. Graham and others playing in similar fields, has been to sustain the epic ambiance of the style while seeking to attain a more cohesive compositional framework, more attractive to those who may become easily alienated by such ambitious music. As stated above and elsewhere, such attempts have often ended in failure caused by castrating the base heaviness of the sound, resulting in music that is more accessible, but less interesting. Here that is firmly corrected, as the band not only creates instantly memorable songs which can stand on their individual merits, they further manage to enhance these already excellent songs with the guest contributions, rather than distract from them, a feat more impressive in light of the total of eleven artists playing fourteen different instruments, each contributing vocals as previously mentioned.

Within any one listen and certainly upon repeated listens, the varied achievements mentioned above seem of an even more triumphant nature in light of the fact that I could likely go on for days or pages about this record and still leave a lot out. Off the top of my head, I neglected to mention the evocative, poetically apocalyptic lyricism and artwork, the excellent performance of the primary (bass, drums, guitars) band, not too mention the interesting use of additional instrumentation (including banjo, cello, Wurlitzer, etc…) and the brilliant production/ engineering by Josh Hamilton. If it’s too cliché to state that this album works on ‘so many levels’ and the listener ‘will discover new things on each listen’; I fear I can find no way of avoiding such platitudes. After spending most of 2009 listening to decent-to-good-bordering-on-pretty-great albums, desperately awaiting something undeniably transcendent to cross my path, my prayers have been answered, loudly, by this ceaselessly creative, ultimately heavy and poignantly, almost overwhelmingly emotional release, an essential release in every sense of the word.

Whether judging a band’s future direction on the basis of one, albeit substantial, song is fair or not, it is immediately notable that the group has, for the purpose of this experiment, eschewn much of the melodic character of their previous releases in favor of a musky, cavernous doom ‘n’ deathmarch approach. Now former vocalist Xavier Therat wrote all the lyrics, and while his deep growls, moans and roars are reliably and remarkably delivered with a recognizably human (and noticeably French) accent in both tone and phrasing, he frequently takes a back seat to bassist/vocalist Marion who when not engaged in dingy rumbling upon her four strings, alternatively intones hypnotically and screams hysterically over the din. The remaining members, stripped of previous melodic and structural considerations are entrusted with creating a spooky, harrowing soundscape over which the two vocalists expel their demons. Benjamin’s drumming might as well have been performed on timpanis rather than a standard rock kit, his low-key and minimalistic, methodical thumping blends perfectly with deliriously droned out guitar work by Antoinne and Pierrick to evoke a harrowing post-apocalyptic horror show. Tiphaine’s synth and electronic manipulation adds an extra layer of dirt, disease and distress signals throughout the fray, making for music which, though composed of metal/hardcore elements, more often evokes an unsettling ambiance.

Ambiance would be the key word here, not to be automatically associated with the relaxing, new age-y tones one usually presumes with that description, rather on Born Again, atmosphere comes first and the listener must first grow comfortable within that context before exploring and enjoying the musical elements of the composition. While that can be easier said than done due to the slumbering pace yet unrelentingly excruciating sonic nature of the epic, the astute audience will find that while this new release from Overmars is certainly not for everyone, it is not for everyone in all the right ways. Within the muck and mire that these Frenchmen (and woman) unmercifully shovel into your aural cavity, there is a singular radiant song that ebbs, flows, develops, decays and resonates beneath the remains of your eardrums, and on the frayed ends of sanity, you will find yourself mysteriously humming along.

The result is an album which is interesting, as a view into a celebrated artist’s other sonic dimensions, but rewarding only in pockets due to a lack of the creative discipline of self-editing necessary to really capitalize on the spooky, yet inviting atmosphere Von Till is so skilled in creating, yet somewhat sloppy in maintaining. The sequence of the first four tracks draw the listener into the dark woods with a mixture of warm tonality and stark instrumentation, with the third piece, “Birch-Wood Bower” stripped down to volume swells and owl sounds to set the stage to the methodically delirious creep of “By Wind & Sun”. The sensation is akin to wandering the forest, possibly in a hallucinogenic daze, wondering where those damned drums are coming from, until you almost stumble upon a bizarre yet seductive ritualistic clearing and the weird souls that inhabit it – see Josh Graham’s awesome album art, quickly finding yourself mouthing their mantric chant.

Immediately following from that cathartic moment, Von Till continues to experiment, unfortunately to the detriment of the stage he had so expertly set previously. “Music of the Dark Torrent”, a collaboration with Alex Hall of Grails and the oddly titled John Martyn cover “Eibhli Ghail Chiuin Ni Chearbhail” break the spell, the first with it’s eastern influence and the latter indulging in new age country & western nostalgia. That he then returns to the regularly scheduled program is sadly not enough to draw this by-now suspicious listener back in. With respect to both Hall, whose work I am a fan of and the recently deceased Martyn, a songwriter who collaborated with everyone from Nick Drake and David Gilmour to Phil Collins and Eric Clapton; I can say that each piece individually is at the least interesting, but neither works all that well in the context, or concept of the album and project.

With much respect to Von Till, who I am a long-time admirer of, this sophomore effort is a difficult call to make. There are a lot of interesting things going on here, instrumentally and atmospherically and as previously mentioned, in spare pockets a tantalizingly deep atmosphere is offered for the listener to immerse themselves in, creating at times a soundtrack that it is well-worth closing one’s eyes and imagining the cinematic implications thereof. Von Till is an expert at creating tension and building momentum with the variety of instruments, effects and talents at his disposal, a great example on the latter part of the album being “The Hawk of Achill”. Ultimately, the project falls short in that the careful diligence applied to the construction of the parts seems missing from the composition of the whole, though if that can be considered a failing, it is hard to deny that this is possibly one of the more intriguing failures to behold, if that makes any sense. Which it probably doesn’t, but neither does this album, particularly due to the alientating feeling that Von Till may be using this project as a testing/dumping ground for a bunch of good ideas he hasn’t found a place for elsewhere. Still, the man’s skill and genius is enough to convince me that with a bit more restraint and focus, Harvestman could, overall, offer a more nourishing feast, rather than the satisfying, organic snacks contained in this attractive packaging.

Where they diverge from both their forefathers and current brothers is present in spare moments of Controverso, nowhere more so than the tendency to slow down to off-kilter sludge on the appropriately back to back tracks, “Science” and “Magic” for example, the latter which wonderfully shifts into some electronics-infused Bond-themed bass and drum, before coming back to the chaos, moves that remind me of their fellow-countrymen in Ephel Duath at their most aggressively demented. Like their primary influences mentioned above, and unlike many of those band’s disciples, ICO never forget that the roots of their experimentation are planted in hardcore and it’s when these roots show that make for some of the albums more enjoyable moments. Like the moments of clarity in the midst of an anime induced epileptic fit, the group will suddenly jump-cut from moments of zany staccato picking and scatter shot blasting to flourishes of relatively direct fist-pumping, circle-pitting modern hardcore.

Individually, Samuele Storai’s has an impressive vocal range that ambitiously aspires to Patton and even comes scarily close at times (“There”), Filippo Baldi has mastered this style’s basic percussion approach, methodically ascending the roller-coaster tracks before throwing himself down a flight of stairs with an armload of pots and pans. Tucci and Tocci are more than proficient in all matters of zany riffology and nerdy noodling, with the latter having a great sense for when to lay on the synths and when to lay off. Bassist Alessio Corsini shines in the aforementioned slower moments, creating a tense rhythmic pulse from which his band mates anxiously prepare for the next blast-off. The production is clean enough to for the listener to discern all the myriad aspects of the band’s sound, while also being raw enough to deliver the whole with a sense of urgency and ferocity. Controverso is definitely a grower; while initial listens lend themselves to picking apart their influences, subsequent spins impress upon the audience the strange and exciting new places they take them. As the 2009 academic years begins, Incoming Cerebral Overdrive have clearly gone from geeky freshman to solid sophomore, even advanced placement, and quite likely on their way to the head of the class.

Take notice.

The results of such a collaboration could never have produced any of the variety of sounds which many who anticipated their initial releases might have no doubt imagined would be forthcoming. Instead, with a nod to their predecessors, BBTS put their collective heads down and produced a rumbling monolith of steamrolling metalcore, tutoring the muscular meathead metal of that bygone basketball jersey wearing era and dressing it to impress those more enamoured with the ambitious technical aspects of their contemporaries in The Dillinger Escape Plan, Botch and Candiria. Somewhat akin to Coalesce, in that they attempted to split the difference between the visceral and the intellectual, the group created music that had both a base heaviness and an appeal for a more mature and discriminating audience.  

So we find ourselves inside Heart of Darkness, within which these four intrepid souls basically reunite after six years hiatus. While as somewhat of a former insider, I can’t help but to skeptically pick up the whiff of some element of third album contract fulfillment going on here, within literally the first second gut-punch of “Inner Station”, any such scent is brutally overpowered with the oderous force of a fat, sweaty man-beast somewhere in the pits of a New Jersey mosh. Oleander’s now multi-layered vocals are an immediate highlight, the time-off has obviously done him some good and he is rhythmically and tonally on top of his game, particularly on “F-Unit”. The same song reveals that he has lost none if his incisive critical lyricism in the age of Obama, even if such critiques are mostly inherited from the last administration, as befits any band who’s entire existence was carried out within the confines of Dick Cheney’s America. Track after track, Adubato’s rubberband riffing ramps up the intensity of Witte’s seamlessly meticulous battering ram as Patterson swiftly shifts back and forth in support of each. Like “You Will Move” on their debut EP, “There Will Be Blood” is more a sadly unfulfilled prophecy of never witnessing this material live rather than simply a film reference with its furious momentum and simply monstrous breakdowns. 

The balance of the material is equally kick-ass, with fellow Jersey boy, Dim Mak’s Scott Ruth guest-harmonizing (?!) on “Rust – Future Primitive”, and with the songs leading up to and including the grand finale “The Wolves Are Running” approximating the unrelenting brutality of Misery Index, the band that for all intents and purposes effectively replaced BBTS on the Relapse roster. In the end there is one last epic breakdown, yet there are no regrets, nothing left unsaid. All that is left is the legacy of four incredibly talented musicians who came, saw, conquered and moved on, veterans of a bygone era for whom their music shall serves as their monument. In the words of the almighty Bolt Thrower, “We will remember them”. 

“We will remember them”.

As your faithful reviewer only possesses 8% of these releases (8 Nadja, 2 solo), I do fear I am somewhat underqualified to review Nadja’s latest collaboration, their second with New Zealand’s Black Boned Angel. I can maintain, based on my paltry experience with the band that this collaboration bears all the marks of excellence that charactarize the small sampling of material I am familiar with, featuring hypnotic, droning, ambient doom songs of vast breadth and length, music that combines radiantly distorted guitar, booming percussion, and oftentimes harsh manipulation of electronics into a whole that is often as soothing as it is crushing. What I can’t tell you in terms of this collaboration is where Nadja ends and Black Boned Angel begins, other than to say perhaps this is slightly noisier than other releases I have spent time with , though even that proclamation is made within the shadow of a doubt, as Nadja are no slouches in the noise department either.  

Equally, it is difficult to explain why this release is any better than any other of the 32 releases, suffice it to say that it is of equal quality and provides equal satisfaction as to anything else I have heard from the duo, and as such is as worthy of a recommendation for fans of both more ambient, epic doom (such as Tyranny and Until Death Overtakes Me) in terms of pacing and composition as well as the spacier end of the post-hardcore spectrum (Isis, Rosetta et al) in terms of atmosphere and sonic exploration. The best I can say with some confidence is that there is no doubt that this will end up in my top ten (Nadja) releases of 2009, though where it finally ranks will have to wait til I catch up with the other 7 releases issued so far this year and I’m sure 2 or 3 more to be named later.

But then this summer it hit me, staring at the pre-order page at the Relapse website, where Psychic Maps, the fourth album in what has been a promising and eclectic discography was sharing real estate with the final album of a similarly eclectic band, the final work of a similarly eclectic lead guitarist and songwriter, and that is when I had my “Luke, I am your Father” musical moment for 2009. Luke in this case is Dysrhthmia’s guitarist and driving creative force, the confoundingly fleet fingered Kevin Hufnagel, and, his father, trapped in a strange world between and beyond technology and humanity is Denis “Piggy” D’Amour, recently deceased guitarist for the legendary Voivod.  

Shocking, right? What a twist. Where it is Piggy’s former bandmates who have honored his legacy by arranging and releasing his final works, it is Hufnagel’s trio that carries on, that takes the unique, esoteric, and off-kilter style of metal which D’Amour alone created and perpetuated and exponentially expands it, hell explodes it, from the crazed musical musings of one maestro to the height of being it’s own movement, it’s own discipline, it’s own plateau and for Dysrhythmia’s purposes, an interstellar engine for further and deeper exploration. 

That Hufnagel is again joined by another serious Voivod devotee, particularly in the hairstyle department, in Behold…. The Arctopus’s Colin Marston on bass, only lends more weight to my theory. On Psychic Maps, the pair along with drummer Jeff Eber stare deep into the Korgull skull and Rrröööaaarrr like true chaos-mongers, and despite the lack of coherent compositional narrative, and occasional indulgences in ultra-shred (“Lifted by Skin”) or angular post-prog excursions (“Room of Vertigo”), it is clear that these young jedis know the power of the dark side, and stopping somewhere on his amazing cosmic voyage, Piggy is smiling, saying the force is strong with these three. I won’t presume to suggest anything about the status of student and master beyond that, it would be disrespectful and silly, but suffice to say, that those who reside on the Outer Limits might emerge from their mourning, when they’re ready, throw on Psychic Maps and let the healing begin.

The similarities end there however as Wilkinson’s heavily resonated bass lines and Judd’s battery acid distortion tilt the proceedings in a more stoner-ish direction, more Fleshpress than Bongzilla mind you, but either way some dense and dank shit right here. Misterek takes the low road on the majority of the vocal duties, as Becky pipes in some sickening highs as she alternates between plodding along and rumbling away in the background. Taken as a whole, the sound is methodically wretched, dreary and droning and if you listen close enough, you catch a lot of clever interplay between the electronic and instrumental elements, particularly on “The Last Sleep” where the sampler seems to harmonize with the guitars as Nathan mumbles and moans his way into full throated growls beneath which Becky’s ugly screams emerge.

Make no mistake however, that despite their thick guitar sounds and out there experimentations, Laudanum deals in head-nod, not headbang or head-scratch, and creates the type of sluggish sludge that appeals just as often to black metal fans as to doom fans in it’s cryptic, creepy rigor-mortis pacing and bleak, unrelenting atmosphere. That said, if the soundtrack to your misanthropy is often a bubbling bong, grab a loved one and give this a spin (20 Buck or otherwise), because remember, misery loves company.

Fitting somewhat logically into what has surprisingly become a fairly high-profile New York doom scene with now defunct underground phenomenon Khanate and black metal stoners Unearthly Trance; Bloody Panda similarly put an emphasis on the harrowing drone, pacing the dismal catacombs lit only by the oncoming trains. Osaka based frontwoman Yoshiko Ohara even recalls a certain New Yorker, Karyn Crisis in her range of beautiful to ugly voices and despite my previous reservations, I confirm is nowhere near as annoying as the unfair, and mostly unfounded, Yoko Ono comparisons would suggest. That said it would be equally disingenuous to deny that her vocalizations are the centerpiece here as while the remaining band members do much to create the atmosphere, it is an atmosphere created for the purpose of showcasing her experimental stylings.

Opener “Gold” features some of the best and worst the group has to offer, progressing through about seven minutes of grueling and rather directionless atmosphere building, that seems to randomly stop and restart for no apparent reason, before finally bursting into quite a nice guitar and vocal hook to close out, a rather cathartic effect though it doesn’t make the first half of the song any more enjoyable or even listenable. This pattern repeats itself through-out the album, the band can create memorable riffs and intriguing atmosphere, they did on their first record and do it better here, but these moments are few and far between extended expanses of nothing much, mindless droning and jamming which wears at the listener’s patience and resolve. Nowhere is that more obvious than on 21 minute centerpiece “Misere” a pittance of interesting moments struggling against a morass of meaninglessness. I’ll take my own advice and choose not to labor the point further, Bloody Panda sounds like the weird band playing in the weird club our hero wanders through in some David Lynch type movie, so if that is what they are going for, great. Effective for spare moments, but frustrating overall even for this fairly open-minded listener in their inability to take the good things they have going for them and put it together in a truly enrapturing way.

It is with that background, that I shamefully admit that I only became aware of their sophomore offering several months after it’s February release, the title of which I guess might be a reference to both band and label’s marketing strategy as neither the band’s or label’s websites are frequently updated, and I stumbled upon the release in my bloggy wanderings to the exclusion of having heard about it through any other metal media outlets. Better late than never, however, as The Quietude Plains finds the Finnish foursome continuing on their epic path and provides a bounty of majestic riffs, textured harmonies and Mike Ikonen’s impassioned, powerful growls that easily matches their impressive debut. While still reaffirming, rather than redefining, the niche subgenre in which their music comfortably resides, it is the quality of the songwriting that elevates Ablaze In Hatred to the top of the pack. The mix, courtesy of Kari Nieminen compliments the composition, allowing for a ton of breathing room which is so essential to this kind of music working most effectively. Rather than straining to grasp at the subtleties, the listener is presented with the entire palette, and whether it’s Miska Lehtivuori’s bass, Antti Hakkala’s precision organic dynamics behind the drum kit, or guitarists Ikonen or Juhani Sanna’s intricate underlying melodies on the strings or the keyboards they each handle, each element is presented with clarity and emphasis, yet never sacrificing a richly heavy atmosphere and strident momentum which characterizes the band’s sound.

Note that I do not offer up for consideration any one or two stand-out tracks. Where other bands, some admittedly more innovative or experimental than Ablaze My Hatred, will throw 8-12 tracks on an album and hope that the 2 or 3 that stick will generate positive feedback, these four Fins have clearly made consistency their watchword. In my younger days, I valued most hearing the new or next sound and while I still consider myself an adventurous listener, as my tastes have matured, I now have equal appreciation for groups that passionately dedicate themselves to producing great performances within established forms. I provide this brief biography to explain why albums like The Quietude Plains so ingeniously strike the proverbial chord. There are bands that are great because they push and stretch at the boundaries of sound, style and performance, but there are bands that are equally great as through expressing their love of a classic sound, they continually strengthen the foundation, providing a more solid springboard for future explorations. As such, I can not recommend this band or album highly enough for fans of epic, atmospheric and impassioned doom metal.

As such, City of Ships’ debut album falls neatly into this chaos, shiftily toe-ing that aforementioned line, with rumbling, pulsating tempos and abstract harmonic sensibility performed with an ear for catchiness and that heartfelt earnestness that charactarizes many modern bands on both ends of the spectrum. Just when an especially heavy moment has you doubting the group will have that much mainstream appeal, an especially gentle part will have you picturing disaffected girls and girlish looking boys swaying along with their consistent and somber flow. Recalling at times some of the groups mentioned earlier, as well as Floor/Torche, Aereogramme, Planes Mistaken for Stars and even Porcupine Tree, the Floridian three-piece certainly ply their trade with an emphasis on building momentum while leaving room for some cosmic melodic ruminations, focusing on winding up for the big moment, the bombastic chorus and soul-searing release thereafter, and in terms of their modus operandi, the group can certainly be said to achieve the sound they are after, particularly hitting their stride mid-album with the combo of “March of the Slaves” and “Welcome to Earth”.

However excellent the performance and production of Look What God Did to Us is, though, I still can’t say City of Ships are really grabbing me, either in the sense of touching the heart with their more emotive moments, or banging my head with their heavier riffs. While being a big fan of many of the bands I’ve compared them with, the strength of the songwriting is just not quite there yet, though the potential certainly exists for it to get there with time. Maybe in this case it is a totally subjective complaint, as I can’t find many objective complaints specifically in composition or execution even after 7-8 listens where I was actively trying to find it. In fear of feeling like a failure as a reviewer by not being able to tell you to love it or leave it, I’m afraid my best direction to the reader is to indulge in another post-millenial music industry cliché, take the bands I mentioned above, put their names on a sticker preceded by the phrase ‘recommended for fans of” and give it a shot. For me personally, the band, if not this album particularly, is worthy of revisiting in the future.

Even after such a lengthy hiatus, Triumphant Return… isn’t subject to any change you will notice, though it does not quite feel like a long awaited follow-up, more a stylistic survey, revisiting tones and themes of their previous work, while never actually repeating themselves. Definitely as heavy on the vocals as the band has ever been, again, that’s not saying much, but certainly Dallison and Smith have become a bit more verbose in their old age, particularly on songs like “THC for One” and “Kirby Worm”. Throughout the entire album, the band is doing what they do best, toeing the line between spastic and catchy, confirming their place as the most spastically catchy band on earth.

For those new to Keelhaul, my best explanation is to take the sludgy technicality and phenomenal drumming of earlier Mastodon, pair it with the dorky dexterity and skronky anxiety of Dysrhythmia or Don Caballero, and then best recognize that this comparison embraces both style and quality. For those who might be hesitant to return the love to these guys who left you all those years ago, leaving you feeling heartbroken and empty inside, the best I can tell you is that last year I was surprised that two reunion albums, Cynic’s Traced in Air and Dystopia’s self-titled, ended up high on my year-end top list. Being as brilliantly complex as the former and as gritty and grimey as the latter, I will be shocked if any other album surpasses Triumphant Return to Obscurity this year.

The tone, or monotone, of Moss is such that the listener might be surprised that there hasn’t been a bass player in this group since 2001, but wouldn’t be surprised if that was because Dominic Finbow stole his strings and put them on his guitar. Olly Pearson’s incantations are of a uniquely harrowing high-end gurgle and drummer Chris Chantler might have one of the easiest jobs in metal, barely dragging the band along while helping to supply some of the low-end. As much as I find this sonically satisfying, the actual songwriting does suffer a bit as a consequence of the atmosphere they can in fact be said to succeed in creating. Similar to my ambivalence bordering on disinterest or even disdain regarding groups like Xasthur and Nortt, it is very cool and metal to contemplate sitting in a dank, dim dungeon, covered in filth and rattling one’s chains, but y’know, it kind of gets boring after a half hour without an occasional ray of light to follow along the floor or field trip to the torture chamber to pass the time.

Apparently, on this outing, the band realize this too, as the CD version I review also includes their cover of Discharge’s “Maimed and Slaughtered”, originally slated for their split with Thee Plague of Gentleman, which if not breaking the monotony, at least livens it up a bit.

Within the first of the nearly thirteen minutes which comprise “Burning the Alter”, I can already say to my own, and hopefully to your, satisfaction, that this new album will not disappoint the expectations of the band’s cultish fanbase. As “The Lie That Is Sin” drags the listener further into the murky muck, it is clear (actually it’s pretty bleary) that the band is hearkening back to the sound of their first album, the excellent Elaborations of Carbon. This is, of course, a pretty damn good thing, except when Scheidt attempts some of the guitar heroics which were more prevalent on later albums; as such efforts often get a bit buried under Sanford Parker’s thick as shit production. It is also apparent that working with Parker also influenced them by osmosis as the emphasis on an alternately ritualistic, tribal, and even martial ambience which pervades the album is at times quite reminiscent of the producer’s band, Minsk. Towards the end of “Silence of Heaven”, this atmosphere turns downright disconcerting with Scheidt apparently performing a duet with himself, sustaining deep growls over a wretched tantrum of dry heaving howls, similar in approach and effectiveness to similarly freaky shit you might have heard on Swarrrm or early Bethlehem albums.

Having thus expelled those demons, “Breathing From the Shallows” allows drummer Travis Foster out to play a little more, a relatively more traditional doom song here, with some heavy as balls riffs bouncing off his heart thumping beats. I can’t find much to comment on regarding newbie Aaron Reiseberg’s bass playing, ironically, because this is one of the most bass heavy productions I have ever heard, and it is only on the final twenty minute title track’s intro that his instrument becomes individually distinguishable. Like the song which preceded it, the album closer is more akin to the material on the band’s second, and in my opinion best, effort, 2003’s Catharsis. Epic, flanged out traditional 70’s style classic hard rock balladry struggling under the weight of viscous slabs of slow motion sludge, a soulful sense of futility, a neverending story of sinking in the swamp of sorrows. Utterly epic and crushing in a way that gives those overused adjectives new meaning, the song and album title The Great Cessation here possibly referring to the simultaneous burning of instruments by any and all pretenders to the throne of the slow and low. A definite contender for best metal album of the year, as for doom metal specifically, four years later there are no contenders in sight.

Taken as a whole, this self-titled debut begins with an easy flow in spite of it’s experimental attitude and unorthodox production. As the momentum consistently builds towards the album’s heavier moments, such as the excellent “The Price of Everything and The Value of Nothing” or “CAFO”; even the most metallic moments of the album are frequently tempered by, or interspersed with, layers of acoustic or clean guitar tracking and synths. If anything the atmosphere throughout the first half of the album reminds me more of a slightly more hyped up and electronica-infused version of Marty Friedman’s or Sean Malone’s new-agey solo works before progressing to more angular and abrupt fare reminiscent of the music of Don Caballero, Canvas Solaris, Behold…the Arctopus or Meshuggah’s Fredrik Thordendal. The dividing line in this dynamic progression could thus be measured by the point where one’s girlfriend goes “now this is nice” to when she asks you to turn down that racket.

Having not been all that familiar with Reflux, I have to say that whether one considers this a solo project or a band, Tosin Abasi is a very impressive musician and the structure of the record lends itself to sneakily influencing the listener to come in chin-strokingly impressed and leave cock-strokingly orgasmic over this man’s talent in both his performance on bass and guitar, as well as his compositional skill. And if you think that sounds gay, well let me just tell you, where I once described Dragonforce as ‘all wank and no jizz’, this debut album by Animals as Leaders is truly an orgasmic experience for fans of brilliant instrumental metal.