So, color me pleasantly surprised. Know How To Carry A Whip is fabulous. This shows correction’s house go from “side project” status to a bona fide band that can stand on it’s own merits. There’s no point in comparing this to Eyehategod, Neurosis, Minsk, or Yakuza, because it sounds unlike any of those bands in any way or form.

Washed away is any remnant residue of the “sludge” genre tag that all of these musicians are generally labeled with, and really was the element that marred the initial Corrections House recordings for me. This isn’t a “doomy, experimental-industrial-ambient with sludgy-stoner-tribal-drone-influences” album. None of the usual buzzwords that these guys get hyped with are applicable here.

Corrections House bypass the methods of execution from their first album nearly entirely. A heavy metal element to the music simply isn’t there. Really, Know How To Carry A Whip is more a kin to 80’s deathrock and industrial. A lot of this stuff could have been off of The Cure‘s Pornography. Or Skinny Puppy’sRemission. Or an album that Ministry put out between Twitch and The Land of Rape and Honey.

Know How To Carry A Whip is just by far a more nuanced album than Last City Zero was. Its’ touch is softer, its’ pallet is more subtle midtones than just all black on red.

The guitar tones are thin and wiry; the drums are distorted and glitchy. The vocals croak and moan, a lot like Christian Death’s Rozz Williams at his vampy best. Very goth/death rock with the song structures. The keyboards just seep through the very fabric of these songs, staining them in purple hues that won’t ever come out.

Elements of dance music are subverted by the heavy elements of Know How To Carry A Whip, or maybe the heavy elements are subverted by the dance music elements. I think it’s probably more of the latter. In fact, I think that is what makes this album so good. I’d even go as far as saying that at it’s very core, Know How To Carry A Whip is a dance album. I think the majority of these songs would have had all the goth bitches shaking their big, black leather mini-skirt and spiderweb-stocking-clad asses out on the dance floor at some industrial club in the early 90s.

I guess the biggest evidence to support my argument is that one of the biggest improvements Corrections House made is the drum programming. Before, they rigidly followed the guitar patterns too closely, and were entirely too mechanical and abrasive. What’s funny is I like rigid, abrasive, and mechanical drum programming; in the right context. But now they glitch, pop, oscillate, and sputter sparks all over the place; creating a core in-the-pocket groove not unlike “trap” drums from a modern hip-hop production.

Know How To Carry A Whip shows pioneers of a genre (that has really become played out to these ears) successfully branching out and doing something truly different from anything they’ve done before. It’s brave in ways I wouldn’t have expected, even for a group of musicians that have already left legacies for being innovators. I cannot recommend this one enough.

The album opens with a moment of pure musical poetry. A three-piece format performs “In Your Wings” featuring guitar, pedal steel, and viola and a minimalist arrangement perfectly complementing Von Till’s vocal, but this complex account of someone struggling with their own nature and the price of pursuing one’s own path is an astonishing marriage of sound and language. Von Till opts for the same configuration on the title track and carries some of its same spirit, but there’s no sense of repetition. The pedal steel is more prominent than before, the choruses larger, and the lyrical content embraces nature as a metaphor even more than the opener. The title track, in key ways, is the album’s most hopeful song in an unexpected way. Once again, Von Till’s narrator lives in an emotional hinterland, alienated and battered, but takes stock of the associated costs that come with preserving the inviolable spirit within us all and judges it worth the scars.

“A Language of Blood” expands the sound appreciably with the addition of hurdy gurdy and light percussion. The viola and guitars continue anchoring the music but these subtle modulations in musical color are another clue revealing A Life unto Itself to be a studied and clearly envisioned musical work. Like the best songwriters, Von Till orders this album into a coherent, non-linear narrative instead of offering up a grab bag of assorted songs. The ominous heartbeat from producer Randall Dunn’s Korg MS-20 keyboard and light synth shading spin “Night of the Moon” in a different direction than earlier efforts. The lyrics are translated from German poet Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff’s poem “Mondnacht” and, without having the original available for comparison, it’s clear that the translator focused on accurately rendering Eichendorff’s imagery in a comprehensible and accessible way.

“Birch Bark Box” turns on the imagery of its title, but the listener’s journey to that conclusion is, at least in part, a quiet meditation on the need for putting the past behind us. One of this album’s basic strengths is that the songwriting isn’t facile and never flinches from grappling with complex themes. This is music far removed from the clenched-fist, storm the ramparts furies of youth, but no less vital because it reflects a sensibility fully engaged with life. It’s hard to escape the feeling that the “sick” Von Till talks about shaking in the album’s penultimate song, “Chasing Ghosts”, is another nod to the sickness of ego and pride that sends us down countless blind alleys. The elegiac and deceptively simple piano playing gives the song a dramatic musical thread tying everything together and keyboards once again provide vivid, brief swells of color.

The album’s final song, “Known But Not Named”, is an uneasy redemption. It comes for those willing to accept it, but it isn’t Sunday School redemption or some Hollywood turnaround. Instead, it has a hard-won recognition that no one regains what they lose and the blackly comic fact of most lives is that we know the way out of our sorrow, but seldom heed our better selves until we’re bleeding on the floor. A Life unto Itself traffics hard in the weathered, withering honesty that one expects from Von Till, but it drives deeper than his earlier solo efforts.

The music here almost seems to be in almost modal form. Definitely repetitive and hypnotic with minor changes and variation of tone.You can definitely hear the influence of Neurosis in that there seems to be some hints of almost industrial type noise on this record that sounds a little more prevalent than previous releases. They’ve always had the keyboards/synths to accent the murky heft that spews forth from demonic amplifiers but in songs like “Chaosecret” and “Daemons”, it seems as if they rediscovered their love for Godflesh and Ministry and in my older years, I don’t find that a bad thing. I never really got into industrial type stuff but the further along in age I get, the more I am becoming ok with it. The cohesion between that and the Hawkwind-like spaced out keyboards really makes for an interesting listen. The vocals seem to be a little less harsh than on earlier stuff too. Almost similar to how I described Jus’ vocals on the newest Electric Wizard, there seems to be a progression with age that aptly fits their style. I also love that the bass is very much there. You don’t have to search for it within the thickness of the music because it is very pronounced.

There doesn’t seem to be a song on this album that really stands out above the rest (then again, when has any Ufomammut album had a “single”?) but the album as a whole certainly plays out from start to finish in a satisfying fashion. Ear candy galore for those that have a good set of headphones. I imagine it’d sound amazing on vinyl too. The production is spot on which seems to be an underlying theme in the realm of Ufomammut. Thick, murky, and spacey; nothing is mixed higher than what their station entails. The vocals are not really front and center which is ok because it’s all about the spacey, noisy, doomy tempo more than anything.It’s almost cinematic in presentation. They’ll probably perform the whole thing at Roadburn some year while a sweet movie is played in unison. It’s not a very long album either; with 6 tracks and one of those being a segue of sorts between songs, it’s short and to the point.

If you dig spacey, horror-y, gloomy stoner doom and haven’t given this band a proper listen yet, you can’t go wrong with this album. It’s everything that is good about Ufomammut with just a few minor tweaks on the original recipe. It’s certainly a solid release in a line of solid releases from a band that, from my point of view, doesn’t get enough recognition.

Also, they are finally touring the States this summer! So go check them out if they are playing a show near you. I am going to see them in Denver with Usnea and In The Company of Serpents. It shouldn’t disappoint!

“Lava” is the first track and it is ferocious. Mr. Doyle sounds so vicious with his vocal delivery and the song morphs in cadence to equal his ferocity. It’s as if a thrash metal song was being played by a hardcore band that decided to be a doomy grunge band for a day. It’s a weird conglomoration of all three styles while not comitting to any of them. “Empire of Dust” is straight doom. Almost funeral in execution. It’s an avalanche of molasses steeped in a muddy swamp of shit and filth and hell. The vocals are terribly undiscernable but that’s not a bad thing. It is pure hate. A chloroform cloth of sonic anguish wired through snareheads, amplifier tubes, and illbegotten strings of disgust.

“Unnamed” is borderline thrash metal but with a little less of a hardcore vibe and a little moreof a sludgy doom vibe filtered through some early Isis filters. The vocals take turns in the doom metal yelling style and some almost spoken black metal gurgles with some Yob-ish type wails towards the last ¾ of the song. It’s a multifaced beast that keeps a very solid rhythm backend. Very riff forward with a fantastic vocal performance that is sure to be awesome as fuck in a live setting. “La Mano Poderosa” harkens back to Tad’s previous work in Tad but with a little more heft and intensity. It teeters on the edge of post-metal territory at times but it never breaches the border.

“I Am” is another subdued affair in the vein of “Empire of Dust”. The vocal delivery on this track is another phenomenal affair. Part restrained whisper, doom metal yell, and black metal croak; they help vary the plodding nature of the song itself and provide variances in mood while the song creates the sonic equivalent of depression and sorrow. “The Immutable Path” is all rhythmic tom drumming with some omnious bass (I think). A little bit before the 3 minute mark, some deep end spoken word comes in and almost chants an incantation of quiet solace. “Outro” closes out the album with some misshapen piano playing. It’s an awkwardly perfect end to an absolutely awesome album.  The songs vary in length from 3 minutes to 11 minutes. With two filler tracks, it seems short on paper. With a full listen through, though, it fulfills incredibly.

If you are a fan of Tad’s previous work, certainly check this out. It will not disappoint in the slightest. It’s a fantastic album that seemlessly blends numerous aspects of rock & metal into a cohesive whole that can only be executed by Mr. Doyle and cohorts. Another quality release from Neurot.

Clearing the Path to Ascend has all the hallmarks of trademark YOB heaviness and songwriting flair, further illustrating the band’s desire to stretch out and expand their sound, even this far into their illustrious career. Consisting of four mammoth compositions across a run time that just breaks the hour barrier, Clearing the Path to Ascend is steeped in predictable YOB quality but also trumps its predecessor in nearly every aspect, resulting in an intensely emotional and dense listening experience that packs a powerful punch. Whatever Scheidt has been through in the three years since Atma dropped, his performance drips with raw heartfelt emotion, captured so brilliantly through his fiercely unique and versatile array of growls, shrieks and strange melodic croons. Scheidt’s expressive, bending guitar work is another highlight, whether he’s delving out huge waves of sound, dishing up weighty doom riffs or exploring a wider palette of moods and textures. Backed by the inventiveness of the muscular rhythm section of Travis Foster (drums) and Aaron Rieseberg (bass), Scheidt and co are at their typically accomplished and exploratory best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUxgXyOi220

The soft gentle chords of “In Our Blood” opens the album with deceptive restraint before those colossal, enveloping doom riffs and trademark YOB heft unfolds. It’s the kind of deeply moving, sluggish sprawl that traditionally closes out a YOB album, yet despite the ensuing endurance test, the expert songcraft on display results in a captivating song that’s a triumph from start to finish, further showcasing YOB’s masterful handle of subtlety and songwriting dynamics. Slow deliberate riffs leave crushing imprints as they rise and fall around Scheidt’s impassioned vocal performance before fading into a gentle atmospheric interlude featuring some spoken word samples. Eventually the song explodes again into a mammoth soul crushing riff that’s a powerful and satisfying climax.

Wisely the band follows-up this monstrous opener with the livelier pacing and hooky swagger of “Nothing to Win”. Both these songs represent prime examples of the different facets of YOB’s trademark sound, resonating deeply and setting the scene for the two boundary busting closers. “Unmask the Spectre” and “Marrow” both clock in over 15 minutes and explore exciting dimensions in YOB’s songwriting repertoire. The 18:49 minute “Marrow” is a particular marvel. YOB sound equal parts commanding and fragile throughout the mesmerizing track; expertly weaving haunting melancholic doom and heart-wrenching melody into a delicate shape shifting composition, underpinned by prog-like movements and spacey atmospherics. Once more, “Marrow” features some of the most emotionally affecting and addictive vocal melodies of Scheidt’s career, while the sheer length of the song never becomes a burden.

Following the divisive sonic change-ups on Atma, YOB has returned to a production style more in tune with the rest of their catalog. The extra dose of dirt and grit gave Atma a unique sound in comparison to the rest of the band’s albums, but I must admit it’s nice to hear YOB sonically returning to the heft and power of their roots, albeit in slightly muddier form.

Clearing the Path to Ascend is a deeply emotional, brilliantly conceived amalgam of beauty and heft, with YOB clearly refusing to rest on their laurels with their well-established formula. The innovative songwriting twists on the second half of the album in particular finds the band evolving into exciting new pastures, yielding fruitful dividends. It may not quite surpass career defining albums such as Catharsis or The Unreal Never Lived, but Clearing the Path to Ascend marks another brave and compelling new chapter in YOB’s already brilliant career.

The album starts with a hateful, straightforward sludge riff – clearly these guys are massive fans of the great music that came out of Louisiana in the 1990’s – Eyehategod, Acid Bath and Crowbar can be heard here, yet the band showcase more progressive influences as well. The twin guitar harmonies reminded me of Arkansas’s Rwake, and indeed the whole album shares a similar vibe to their phenomenal 2011 album, Rest. We have a fine example of this towards the end of “Caged Bird”, with some sinister tritone work at play. Punishing vocal tradeoffs are the order of the day, and jackhammer stop-start riffs pummel you but also contain a certain level of finesse.

My personal highlight of the album would be the exquisite clean guitar work in Pale New Eyes, and the utterly psychedelic buildup of the first half of the song.

The track “You Are The Worst” is one of the more unrefined and unspectacular moments of the album, but the seventeen-minute closer just about lays waste to everything before, during and after it. An excellent progressive-sludge release – it’s not easy listening, but great music frequently isn’t.

Upon examining the CD sleeve of Last City Zero these words stood out for me – “lyrical themes taken from and inspired by “Cancer as a Social Activity” by Mike Williams”. This collection of bizarre, caustic and bitter Bukowski/Burrows inspired ramblings was released in 2005 and is now out of print, fetching prices of over $100 a copy. I bought this book at the time of release and marvelled at its words, and the prospect of seeing them come to life in musical form excited me greatly. Indeed, the E.P. Hoax the System had already shown the great promise of the band. The auspicious combination of Williams’s prophet of doom sermons, Kelly’s trademark scything guitar work, and the unpredictable inventiveness of fellow audio abusers Parker and Lamont meant that the anticipation was at fever pitch when I pressed play for the first time.

The band set their stall out with the opener ‘Serve or Survive’, beginning with a typically simple but effective Scott Kelly riff and a softly sung passage. This explodes into a flurry of electronics courtesy of Parker and a vocal tradeoff between Lamont and Williams, the whole band in full flow. The riffage on the record isn’t exactly something you’ve heard before (and in the case of the title track, directly taken from ‘Figures’ on his 2008 solo album, The Wake), but still does a stellar job at piecing the music together. A great start to the record – and a fair indicator of what follows.

When Corrections House hit the spot, they really, really hit it. ‘Dirt Poor and Mentally Ill’ is a pulvarising, to-the-throat post-industrial attack, with Williams most iconic of rants, and the album closer, ‘Drapes Hung by Jesus’ is about as apocalyptic and terrifying as metal gets. Beginning with a funeral sludge-trude lasting for a good few minutes which matches Godflesh for mechanical grimness, the song climaxes amazingly. We get to hear the first and only of Scott Kelly’s atavistic roars, backed by terrifying, transcendental sax and synth, and then Williams comes in and finishes the job off.

The weak point of the album is what could probably pass for a ballad, ‘Run Through the Night’. The vocals and guitar work fail to inspire, and it is telling of how great Williams’s contribution is that the one track where he doesn’t feature is also the most anonymous. Indeed, the Eyehategod frontman is probably the star of the show here. Alternating between spoken word and a cut-throat howl (actually intelligible, unlike his vocals with his main band), his words evoke ambiguous images of destruction and deprivation, being an ideal spearhead for the attack of the rest of the band.

Bruce Lamont is the least known of all musicians here, his band Yakuza being confined to lesser heights that his fellow musicians projects. His saxophone work in ‘Hallows of the Stream’ and ‘Drapes Hung by Jesus’ is excellent – subtle, atmospheric and devastatingly effective, moving beyond simple drone work at times, it really brings out another flavour to and is just another small  piece to the jigsaw that is the sound of Corrections House.

Surprisingly for me, given Sanford Parker’s amazing track record of producing and mixing albums (the best example surely being Run Thick in the Night by U.S. Christmas), Last City Zero sometimes sounds on the wrong side of claustrophobic. The programmed drums are mostly excellent, but at times, such as ‘Bullets and Graves’, the sound is underwhelming and disappointing.

The obvious question with so-called supergroups is whether the members can step out of the shadows of their main band and create their own collective identity. Despite the few ordinary moments that are on the album, there is no doubt that Corrections House manage to achieve this. Last City Zero is one of the most compelling releases of 2013, worth a listen for all fans of ambitious, aggressive and heavy music.

Mass V remains stylistically similar to Mass IIII (No, that’s not a typo). The four lengthy tracks plod along in a steady rhythmic gait, wrapped in slow, purposeful riffs and textures. Amenra are often lumped in with Neurosis, Cult of Luna, and Isis, but in reality they are simpler and not as musically busy as their more prominent peers. The riffs are more spacious and doomy, the shifts in tempo are slighter, and there’s less variation between the songs. Each track opens quietly before detonating into steady streams of riffs and shrieks, never progressing beyond a deliberate saunter, but each with moments of big sludgy riffs. The final track “Nowena 9.10” stands out in particular as it erupts from a quiet spoken intro to a shrill blast of blackened fury made all the more effective by the slow, trudging drums before it shifts quickly back to spacious notes and doom atmospheres.

Where Amenra nail it is in the oppressive atmosphere and the mountainous riffs. They keep the music spare where other bands seem intent on adding synth, piano, organ, and other instrumental detritus in the name of variety, or atmosphere, or possibly just plain old pretension. The straightforward approach has its downfalls, the songs are all rather similar and perhaps could use some more variation, but it’s also ultimately more satisfying. The riffs, highlighted by Billy Anderson’s production, get to shine and that’s what going to keep me coming back. Mass V provides a bludgeoning counterpoint to the ornate and progressive output of their highly lauded peers and a heavy handed reminder of the roots of the genre.

Opus Alter is all riffs and grooves, riffs and grooves… They got back on the riff train, relentlessly driving and jamming out riffs, adjusting rhythms through heavier repetition, altering speed and tone, and allow the songs to cascade, progress and unwind in a manner not unlike Opus Primum. Large portions of the songs are taken up by single riffs, as the synths lash about like the twisting arms of a spiral galaxy, and hyper distorted bass drags along. It’s more straightforward, less atmospheric and is an excellent companion to the open spaces of Opus Primum.

Album opener “Oroborous” winds out a single riff over the course of its first 5 minutes that eventually devours itself like the symbolic self-consuming namesake. “Luxon” contuinues by nodding to Opus Primum and tracking earthen doom straight to album centerpiece “Sulphurdew”.  It’s a track that unfurls slowly, opening with some rocky chop and steady snapping snare before pouring it on with ultra distorted bass and synth and punctuating the rhythmic lilt with pounding drum and cymbal crashes. Tumbling, rolling drums give way to a closing riff that slows down and down as it fades in to “Sublime”. The closing duo of “Sublime” and “Deityrant”, two essentially one riff tracks, perfectly convey the Italian trio’s mastery of subtlety, texture, and rhythm.

Between Primum and Alter, Ufomammut have delivered two truly stellar offerings. Oro is also the Italian trio’s crowning musical achievement, melding approaches both old and new. Combined they represent 95 minutes of the most mind-frying, psychosis-inducing music of the year. There aren’t many bands out there that can compare to their consistently excellent output or their uniquely dense and psychedelic style and Oro is further proof of their doomed out dominance.

Since 1985 this matchless force has surpassed the boundaries of any genre, never ceasing to mutate and progress their songwriting and sonic delivery, and never failing to mesmerize audiences both in the studio and onstage. And as the anticipation from their diehard fanbase reaches a boiling point, this week NEUROSIS unveil the title of their eleventh full-length studio creation, which will manifest itself as Honor Found In Decay.

The follow-up to their acclaimed 2007-released Given To The Rising album, the music on Honor Found In Decay is both torturous and transcendent. It is the ongoing exposition of a vast internal dialogue that seems to carry the weight of eons. With the right kind of ears and eyes, it can seem like the trials and tribulations of mankind are being channeled through five individuals: Steve Von Till, Scott Kelly, Noah Landis, Jason Roeder and Dave Edwardson. And yet? They will be the first ones to tell you that they are just regular people trying to make sense of the world around them. Aided by Josh Graham, their resident visual guru, they transmit their interpretations through multiple sensory planes. The degree to which Neurosis allows them to step out of their everyday lives is the distance between one and zero, the distance between thinking and doing, the distance between this minute and the one that may or may not follow. Which is to say: NEUROSIS takes them outside of themselves and brings them closer to themselves. Simultaneously.

This next chapter in the evolution of NEUROSIS will see worldwide release through the band’s own Neurot Recordings this Autumn, in Germany October 26th, in the UK October 29th, and in North America on October 30th.

Further details on Honor Found In Decay will be made available over the coming weeks.

NEUROSIS:

Scott Kelly – vocals/guitars

Steve Von Till – vocals/guitars

Dave Edwardson – bass

Jason Roeder – drums

Noah Landis – keyboards

Josh Graham – visual effects, art

For all press inquiries on NEUROSIS and Neurot Recordings:

In North/South America and Australia contact Earsplit PR [earsplitpr@aol.com]

In Germany contact Community Promotions [ansgar@community-promotion.com]

And in the rest of Europe contact Rarely Unable [rarelyunable@yahoo.co.uk]

http://www.neurosis.com

http://www.facebook.com/officialneurosis

http://www.neurotrecordings.com

http://www.facebook.com/neurotrecordings

Oro: Opus Primum is the first part of the band’s most ambitious project yet; a two-part album spread across two discs. While the second half won’t arrive until September, the first half is out and it is an unbelievably crushing ocean of cosmic doom. It’s as hypnotic and expansive as doom gets, with an atmosphere dense as dark matter. The monstrous riffs flow like waves from a supernova lapping at the universe, melding with swirling synths and indecipherable vocals into a mind-frying psychedelic alloy. “Empireum” introduces the musical theme using spritely keys and tumbling drums, building to the nasty grooves of “Aureum” and waves of twisting crush of “Infearnatural”. The theme from “Empireum” returns in “Magickon”, the keys this time building to a full blown riff before melting into closer “Mindomine”.

Ufomammut have developed a mastery of dynamics, rivaled perhaps only by Corrupted and Ocean. Riffs play off each other, build to peaks and crumble to valleys, maximizing their impact and making sure they don’t hang around too long. The last point is perhaps the most important because you’re left wanting more, because let’s face it, there’s nothing worse than a perfectly good riff getting run into the ground through repetition. The lyrics are unintelligible, the vocals bleeding out in a cyclopean warble, and are used like a second layer of synth to accent particular passages, working brilliantly to solidify the mind-warping atmosphere.

Ufomammut have again pushed their craft beyond the outer realms of doom. Rich with atmosphere and packed with riffs, Opus Primum is one of the best doom records released this year. Given headphones, a dark room, and a massive bag of heady psychedelics, this is the kind of shit that will have you traveling the cosmic planes searching for the link that binds you to the One at the center of the universe. See you in space, brothers.

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.

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.

Now imagine being that young man, watching those lifeless, uncaring lights as your life fades away. Even as your heart pumps its last, alien psychedelics course through your bloodstream and flood your senses. And as the yawning black rushes in at you from all sides – exploding with fractals of diamond-edged color – it conjures awe instead of fear.

Ok, so Eat the Low Dogs is not a concept album, but it might as well be – it creates one of the most striking and bleakly transcendent moods I’ve heard in a long time. Mixing dreary alt-country, pumping stoner rock and whirling cosmic drone, this album comes off like an inspired mix of early Pink Floyd and 16 Horsepower. And while there’s nothing in the lyrics that suggests the moment I detailed above – that’s just my own imagination set afire by the experience – you should expect to paint your own moments as well.

Most of the album takes the form of a midtempo psychedelic dirge, shot through with whistling theremin and rippling waves of guitar. Earthy strumming carries the load on slower laments like “Silent Tongue” or “Say Sister,” but occasionally the album leaps into hyperspace, as on “The Scalphunters.” That track comes off like the grandson of Meddle opener “One of These Days,” and although its hurtling climb never pays off in a climactic riff, it’s a dizzying ride all the same. Some may get tired of the theremin, which warps and undulates through every track on the album, but I loved it, as it’s a unifying element that ties the whole experience together into one bad trip.

The other standout here is vocalist Nate Hall, whose gravelly vocals never cease to captivate, whether dropped to a low croon or stretched into a tortured yowl. The guy comes off like a cross between Bob Dylan and AA Nemtheanga (Primordial), and he’s now officially one of my favorite stoner/doom vocalists.

Eventually, Eat the Low Dogs does drag on for too long, with too many songs past the album’s halfway point seeming to trudge through the same muck. I love the overall sound that US Christmas has created here, but if they’d moved past drone and incorporated some of stoner rock’s more muscular riffs and aggressive stance, this might have been one of my favorite genre albums ever.

Regardless, this was a great find, and something that’s been sharing a lot of playtime with Earth‘s The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull and last year’s excellent self-titled effort from This Will Destroy You. Fans of those two records should go check this out immediately, and fans of Neurosis/Isis/Cult of Luna-like sludge will also find a lot to get lost in as well.

Very long compositions define Guapo’s sonic aesthetic, and three of the six tracks on Elixirs clock in at over ten minutes. The thirteen-minute opener “Jeweled Turtle” resembles a doom dirge played by a modern, interpretive strings ensemble. The song has several peaks, creeping along like Mandible Chatter covering early Pink Floyd. Violin, viola, vintage synths, and quiet percussion give the track subtle, Middle Eastern undertones. The ten-minute “Arthur, Elise and Frances” begins with proggish noise similar to Yes’ “Sound Chaser” then expands into metered passages of Larks Tongues-era King Crimson-like chugging with tasteful, Skeleton Key-inspired percussion.

The two-part “Twisted Stems” suite is unique, and not only because of the added vocals: “The Heliotrope” is an amalgamation of Trial of the Bow-like percussion, Bee and Flower arrangements, and If I Could Only Remember My Name-era David Crosby guitar pickings and echoing, male vocal harmonies. “The Selenotrope,” by contrast, features the decidedly female vocals of the Swans’ Jarboe and resembles a sultry ballad (played in a bar for the undead) that’s punctuated throughout by a snare march and clanking cymbal crashes. “The Planks,” an oddity at only three minutes, changes the mellow atmosphere immediately with frenzied dervishes and Klezmer-esque progressions.

The fifteen-minute closer, “King Lindorm,” is a looser but no less dense cut that progresses through several phases of mood swings. It’s most closely connected to the disjointed experimentation of Starless and Bible Black-era Crimson, fastened by a repeating keyboard chord progression and augmented by noodly yet fluid guitars and jazzy drum beats. It also shares a common vibe with 2004’s Five Suns on Cuneiform Records but minus that album’s noisy bombast. Elixirs shows Guapo embracing a vibrant, free-form jazz slant for fans of Magma, Can, and Amon Düül II with plenty of unexpected instrumentation for the experi-metal crowd.

The Neurosis comparison shouldn’t come as a surprise – that band’s visual director, Josh Graham, provides the roaring vocals here, with a loose narrative/concept piece about the sea and the secrets buried below. Notes on the label’s bandpage links to a National Geographic article about “bog bodies” – preserved Stone Age corpses found suspended in peat bogs, and in an odd bit of synchronicity, that image of dead men suspended in the murk had already come to me when I was listening to the first song, “Vast and Endless.” Weird.

Harrowing and bleak, “Vast and Endless” has the listener treading water for most of its 7-minute length, and then, in the track’s final, roiling throes, you look down and realize that the depths below conceal a kelp-forest of fishwhite limbs and swaying torsos. And it’s those dead men’s voices that then chant the ominous, groaning sea-shanty of the following track, “Black Ocean.”

The remainder of the album is both cinematic and colossal, as A Storm of Light pounds the listener with wave after wave of oceanic dirges. What’s most notable is how they work a succession of tranquil respites into tracks like “Leaden Tide,” as if it’s safer and quieter below the crashing waves than it is on the churning surface. It’s like the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan, where the camera keeps dipping below the waves to reveal a refuge that seems temptingly safe but is most likely permanent.

If it’s A Storm of Light‘s goal to drown you in atmosphere and conjure up visions of a suffocating, fading-light demise, they’ve done a damn fine job of it. You’re not going to want to listen to this during daylight hours, or even with the lights on – it’s meant to be taken as a full experience, to be consumed by and swallowed up in.

The title track begins with some off-kilter Coalesce/Dillinger skronk then goes quiet with Null’s spoken-word delivery, which builds up pressure for a lengthy Neurosis-like pattern of hurricane-force assaults. Starting with some swarming guitar pickings like on Anthrax’s cover of S.O.D.’s “Chromatic Death,” “Implosion” spreads tar over the landscape in fine form; suddenly, right in the middle of the song, erupts dissonant chords like that sloppy orchestra covering Handel’s “Messiah” on Neil Young’s 1972 forgotten Journey Through The Past soundtrack. The jazzier instrumentals “Last Nanosecond” and “Interzona 2” (the first version graces 1995’s Freedom Bondage) sport solid fills by new drummer Masataka Fujikake (who replaces longtime skinsman Eito Noro), and “Tyrannycide” recalls the hardcore-heavy thrash of 1993’s Desire For Agony. “Blastsphere” resembles a cacophonous King Crimson with its loud/soft proggish foundations, reprised in “Hazchem” but with distinctive Mellotron-styled tones a la Crimson’s “Epitaph.”

Engineered by constant advocate Steve Albini, 10,000 Light Years picks where the group’s Alternative Tentacles catalog left off but with more freeform prog excursions, which ultimately leads to a more fluid and enjoyable listening experience.