Planning For Burial / Lonesummer - Split (Music Ruins Lives, 2010)

Planning For Burial - Sleeping In Separate Rooms


DUDES. Fuckin split of the year right here. Gloom & doom bliss from Planning For Burial and unbridled hatred courtesy of Lonesummer on the same motherfucking record. This is the real shit, guys. The best of the best.

PFB's 3 tracks are a bit different than what he put out on Leaving. A little more vocal oriented, maybe a bit poppier & shoegazier, but in the saddest way possible. This is the beautiful Icelandic epic shit you love thrown to the bottom of a well where it turned into a warped depressed beast of buzz, static, & drone. Plodding drums, mournful organs, blackened rumbled, all with a decidedly catchy twist. This dude knows how to mix the gorgeous celestial washes of euphoria with the basement hiding grim neurosis so perfectly. Unbelievably awesome. You will want to listen to this for fucking ever.

Strip all of PFB's happiness and you're left with Lonesummer's neverending brutality. His black noise metal is as harsh as it gets, with no hope for redemption. It's loud as FUCK, reigning blistering chaos. A wall of black metal so dense it becomes noise. The drums & cymbals blast into a homogeneous cacophony, the guitars shred, wail, & buzz, and the vocals are a tortured screeching, totally obscured in pain. But then there are songs like "I Wish I Could Delete Last Night" that are like a slow (black metal) pop song with a legit guitar solo that just might get caught in loop in your head. This guy is totally fucking into it. Bleak, depressing as shit, noisy, hateful, evil, and still utterly fucking beautiful. Anti-black metal that stands high above most other bedroom BM freaks.

There is no way you should let this slip under your radar. If you haven't heard of either of these guys yet (wtf is wrong with you?), they are making what is hands down some of the most amazing masochistic bliss out there. This split is cheap as hell ($6 preorder) and only 100 copies will be made. So get over to the newly minted Music Ruins Lives and grab yourself a copy before it's sold out and you have to go cry to your momma about how your trigger finger is getting sloppy.

Inhibitionists - Lithium Salt Mines (Tape Drift, 2010)

Inhibitionists - Midwinter Mass


Another gentle giant of a noise record from Tape Drift, this one from Danish dude Christian Kann recording as Inhibitionists, which has gone through numerous line-up and sound changes over the years. Used to make experimental pop, used to be an actual "band," used to have a "The" in front of the name, now it's just Kann making awesome noise. Something tells me we're better off with this current incarnation of Inhibitionists because Lithium Salt Mines is pretty fucking killer.

With a few exceptions, the noise found within isn't really loud or scary or harsh. It's actually pretty accessible for a noise record, even though it's still most definitely NOISE. A bit on the psych side of things, Kann creates super rich textures that keep you on your toes, making sure you're always hyper aware of what's going on, trying to distinguish one layer from the next as instruments & sounds melt into each other.

This is the sort of stuff that puts you in your place, glues you right to your seat, props your ears open with toothpicks, and goes to town. Dark, thick clouds of poison settle in, jittery tape warble hisses through electric bee teeth, creaking light fixtures burn magnesium in thunderous warehouses, crackle cellophane static echos with funereal nightmares... all that awesomeness bursting through your speakers, just waiting to jump your bones.

Lithium Salt Mines is perfect for those nights where you just need to lay naked on the floor with a sleeve of Chips Ahoy on either side, waiting for the hypnosis to kick in. It's also good for when you're not doing that, too. I guess. For $6, you can listen to it however you want.

David Russell - Architecture (Pilgrim Talk, 2010)

David Russell - Fiddler


One 7", 11 tracks, super short totally twisted loops. Architecture sounds like Eric Copeland made a Zomes record. They're drugged & noisy, frenetic & chaotic, making no sense and a huge racket usually in less than a minute each. There's air raid sirens echoing into the fog, reversed electronic squawks of heartache, malfunctioning time travel machines on coke, half second psych folk freakouts repeated forever, each little snippet stuck in a locked groove of fucked mechanics that is going to be the soundtrack to the most awesomely bizarre party ever.

Century Plants / Locrian - Dissolvers (Tape Drift, 2010)

Century Plants - Delirium (excerpt)


When you've got two like-minded bands as awesome as Locrian & Century Plants, and a label that churns out winner after winner like Tape Drift, you know it's only a matter of time before the two shack up and squeeze out a monster like Dissolvers.

This is Century Plants' first vinyl adventure. You should be as excited as they are about it because it means they put on their game face and made some of the best drifty jams ever. Their two tracks are a perfect fit for a Locrian split. They're dark and moody as fuck, blending noise, metal, doom, drone, and throwing in some psych to spice things up. The first track is a wandering mess of clatter, hiss, & reverb. Not doing much but creating a weird atmosphere and being a creeper until 6 minutes in when it gets into a real groove and they start banging out those chords, bordering on blissful, but it stays rooted in a brown rusted drone. Their second piece is more cosmic, wonky bloops mixed with solid celestial guitar tones, just drifting through space dust, waiting to get sucked into the inevitable black hole. The pleasing guitars turn into a more evil buzzing beast, more feedback & distortion added to a layer of deep bass drone & static noise while a buried muffled guitar solo works its way through echoing vocals and ever increasing volume. This is some top notch shit as only Century Plants could do it.

Flip it over and you're treated to Locrian's latest mastery of indescribable black ambient noise metal. They start things off with a piercing tone, already more harsh than anything CP did on their side. Let it settle in, though, and some beautifully sad guitars show up with lazer feedback in tow. They crank that shit up, getting super evil, throwing around more & more crash & burn like it ain't no thing. It's noisy and loud and totally fucking badass metal without so much as tapping on a drum. Their second track has that same looped electronic scale that I think also showed up in some form on Rain Of Ashes. Then comes in some delayed picking & shredding and a wash of wind style static. Super hypnotic, a semi-psych jam pulsing through Locrian guitars, heavy on the harsh buzzing drone.

Dissolvers is a dark twisted piece of noisy psych metal drone that couldn't be any better. These two duos are forever at the top of their game, and even though they're both so goddamn prolific, this split is essential.

Choi Joonyong - Burn Yoido Burn (Ghost & Son, 2010)

Choi Joonyong - 150-743


Choi Joonyong is a Seoul based noise dude who likes to fuck with open CD players. On Burn Yoido Burn, his weapon of choice is an mp3 player burning with feedback (plus a contact mic & some distortion pedals). Honestly, I'm pretty fucking floored with the sounds he can spew from such limited materials.

This is a mini 3" CD of harshness, similar to the last one Ghost & Son put out, Amplified WC by Hong Chulki, a frequent Choi collaborator. However, its shortness is matched in its brutality. This is some hardcore digital acid, squawks & static galore. Blown out glitch bubbling from the depths of binary hell. Joonyong has basically turned your iPod into a wall of ear destroying lightning.

Unless Joonyong has a greater message, maybe something to do with the shitty production quality of electronics or that everything we listen to on our mp3 players is really just different sides of the same noise coin, this is noise for noise sake and it's fucking great. A perfect 20 minute dose of electrocuted speakers and thunderous chaos. It'd be pretty sweet if Ghost & Son kept up this 3" noise CD thing, they're startin' to put themselves on a niche map of awesomeness.

Haiku Review: Hautain - Glass Desert (self released, 2010)

Hautain - 1


Glass Desert (download)
/windstorm sand nightmare/
/gritty blasts of feedback skree/
/scraped rusted machines/

Locrian - The Crystal World (Utech, 2010)

Locrian - At Night's End Link removed by request.
Locrian - Elevations And Depths (Excerpt)


These dudes just don't know when to stop. Which is definitely a good thing for us. The world could never have too much Locrian. Especially when they get exponentially better with each new release being even more amazingly badass and in a totally different way than the last. The Crystal World (with Steven Hess of Pan American, On, etc adding some percussion & electronics) takes the blackened ambient heart of Locrian's other albums and juices it up, dropping all the metal baggage, creating a dark as fuck stillbirth of a noise record.

As much as I love Locrian's heavy riffs, even without them this might be one of my favorites of theirs and is easily the best crafted. Lots of warped vocals, like the bleak tortured screaming on numerous tracks, or the shamanistic meditation oms & haunted angelic serenades on "At Night's End," which is the most killer fucking track there is. It's a slow candle burning walk through a moonlit church until halfway through the song, the riffs & drums come crashing in and the chanting blows up, filling the entire nave with the lost hope of redemption. Plus, up until that point on the record, it's all subdued meandering darkness, nothing too loud or epic. It totally catches you by surprise and is all the more crushing because of it.

That's about as heavy as it gets on The Crystal World, though. Sure there's doomy percussion and buzzing guitars, it wouldn't be Locrian otherwise. But the emphasis isn't on the devastation, it's on the textured desolation & hidden tragedy in every day life. Swirling pianos mix with mournful riffs creating a beautiful mess of faux sweet dreams. A thick crust of crunching feedback crumbles away into a slow motion avalanche of demon alarms and rupturing stone howls. Black as fuck nightmares caused by buried hatred, the distant scars of pain & anguish fade into a massive wall of endlessly beautiful gray static.

Locrian keep outdoing themselves. I remember hearing them for the first time and thinking, "Holy shit there's no way they could get any better than this." And EVERY record is better. I couldn't have been more wrong. The Crystal World is Locrian at the top of their game but I'm not going to say they can't do better because they obviously can and will. I can't think of a single reason not to find this record as soon as it comes out and play it every day until your death.

P.S. This review is for the LP version. The 2xCD version has a second CD (duh) with an extra hour long track that Locrian didn't want to split up to make it fit on an LP.

Double Awake - Leaving Nowhere Forever (self released, 2010)

Double Awake - Drooling Tears


This dude kinda came outta nowhere in Boston. One night I went to a noise show where he was opening for Geoff Mullen & KFW which he totally owned, next thing I know he's also playing in the psych outfit Mind Yeti, booking shows as Slow Blood Music, playing live every chance he gets, and banging out screen printed CD-Rs like a motherfucker.

Leaving Nowhere Forever is Will Mayo's newest disc of synthy drone noise. Compared to his previous efforts like Infinite Classroom and Not Enough Noise In Vermont, this one's definitely my top pick. Real classy stuff, gritty & smooth, moody as fuck, waves of a static sea swirling all over each other. It's 4 tracks, 3 new "studio" pieces and a killer 28 minute live set from Problem House.

The best part of all this is he's finally got some web presence. He started up a Bandcamp page where you can download Leaving Nowhere Forever as a pay-what-you-want deal. There's only one other EP up at the moment, but the plan is to make the rest of his previous CD-R's available as well. Trust me, you want to get in on this.

Brandon Nickell - And If You Set This Mind Of Mine Afire Then On My Bloodstream I Yet Will Carry You (Isounderscore, 2010)

Brandon Nickell - And If You Set This Mind Of Mine Afire Then On My Bloodstream I Yet Will Carry You


Brandon Nickell is one bad motherfucker. The dude owns the incredible Isounderscore label, runs, like, 8 miles a day, puts together kickass shows, and makes ridiculously awesome noise. Also, he must never sleep.

His new poetically & cryptically tongue twisted album, And If You Set This Mind Of Mine Afire Then On My Bloodstream I Yet Will Carry You, has been in the making for years and it's finally seeing the light of day. I can 100% money back guarantee it was totally worthwhile to wait that long because this is a fucking beast of a record.

The 12 minute opener is a game changer. Album openers got a lot to live up to after this. Coupling high end tinnitus inducing bells with soothing somber organs equals uneasiness that knows no bounds. It's constantly vibrating, like a sea of electrons buzzing around a nucleus hell bent on explosion. Metal bowls, clanging chimes, a fury of burning metal that somehow manages to be highly enjoyable & pleasant.

The title track drops it down into the purest evil dronenoise I've ever heard. Maliciously relentless on your eardrums, panning and growling, screeching and crackling, this is honestly one of the best pieces this year. I'm damn near certain this is what it sounds like getting your head stuck in a hornet's nest that's being struck by lightning. Oh my fucking GOD it is so intense. The record could've just been this one track and people would still be praising him.

3 more tracks & over 20 minutes to go, you get yourself into some serious shit. Static poison blow darts knock you out so you can't run away and a pack of striped hyenas brutally assault you with cattle prods. Haunted minimalist house of glowing specters, creaking sparks, & piercing refractions. Swirling luminiferous aether, a scathing plasma seeping into your pores, taking over your body one cell at a time.

Nickell is clearly a supreme crafter of sound. And If You Set This Mind Of Mine Afire is easily one of the best noise records of 2010. The guy just totally fuckin nailed it with this record. If I have to wait another 5 years for Nickell to put out another record this insanely good, that's just 5 more years spent obsessing over this.

Fennesz, Burning Star Core, Noveller at The Middle East

Noveller: SWF old age ambient guitar loops, dusty tumbleweeds skipping across baked clay, hazy mirages, droplets in a well, muted sea glass shard kaleidoscope

Burning Star Core: solo rumpled silk violin drone, empty checkered floor kitchen freakout, Zorn farm animal smash, Patton porpoise whirlpool, high speed alien cartoon sputtering nonsense, Jupiter wind, scratchy atonal Burning Disco Core

Fennesz: it was fucking Fennesz, live, shiver inducing LOUD guitar drone perfection, a walking masterpiece, not enough words for that kind of beauty

More/bigger photos on Flickr.


Noveller



Burning Star Core



Fennesz

Lawrence English, Taylor Deupree, Xela at Art@12

Xela: black lazer echos in rusty warehouse, harmonic ghosts haunt drippy caves, tectonic plate shift, mouth of hell opens wide, crumbling apocalypse

Taylor Deupree: yellow leaf drone, gauzy uphill water, muffled papers shuffle, forest heartbeat, distant birds, suspended dust in a sunset lit attic

Lawrence English: eye of the tornado, glass bottles & cellar doors bash your skull, visceral static bliss, squawking puffins, waves crash, fucking loud as fuck

Xela


Taylor Deupree


Lawrence English

Linda Aubry Bullock - Ray Of Dark (Sedimental, 2010)

Linda Aubry Bullock (with MTB) - Line's Dead


The name Bullock gets tossed around here a lot. Michael T is a pretty cool dude, quite prolific. But his multi-talented wife, Linda Aubry Bullock, is an equally wondrous music maker and she's got a brand new disc on Sedimental of outstanding solo and collaborative works.

Ray Of Dark is 6 tracks totaling almost 50 minutes with 2 solo pieces, 2 with her husband (together as Rise Set Twilight), 1 with Eric Hardiman (of Rambutan/Tape Drift), and 1 with Ray Hare (of Fossils From The Sun). All 4 occasionally get together to play as Twilight Of The Century, and the first 4 tracks on Ray Of Dark are a direct reaction from one of their performances in Albany of '08. But even though this album is peppered with guests, their sound is never strong enough to dilute what is still thoroughly a Linda Aubry Bullock record.

The opener is the title track, one of the solo pieces, a perfect intro to Bullock's gritty post industrial mind. Tons of echoing & reverb, like a more chilling/less cheesy Jason Voorhees theme. People mumbling, chanting, yelling, and singing, the sounds of walking through an Arabian midnight market with electronic squawks, distant air raid sirens, creaking aluminum floorboards, & rusty buzz saws. I don't want to say that Bullock shows all her cards right in the beginning, but "Ray Of Dark" is crazy good and easily one of the best on the album. If you can get through that 11 minutes of awkward anxiety, you're a fucking champ and you'll make it to the end. Promise.

The rest of Ray is just a clusterfuck of cautious ambient doom. In every nook & cranny there's hidden terror & vertigo, each moment is paused in hesitation, waiting to raise your hackles, paranoid & filled with unnerving nausea. Of course, you're all alone while listening to this. In the dark of night, waiting for somebody to come home, clutch your cup of coffee and pull your knees closer to your chest. Crank it up, beware of "The Story Of Mike" and let the grinding engines permeate your walls & your bones.

Update: Apparently there was a little bit of confusion about the origin of some of the songs when I read the statement on Sedimental's site. Here's the factual shit straight from Mr. Bullock:

"...tracks 2, 3, and 4 were not composed by Linda, but they are all (like the title track) based on a live recording of Twilight of the Century, and they were all commissioned by Linda for this collection. So in addition to composing some of the music on the CD herself, she curated the rest of the album."

Also re: the title track: "Apparently the guy singing in the background is singing some famous French pop tune from the 70s" LOOOLL

Tortoise, Keith Fullerton Whitman & Greg Davis & Ben Vida at The Paradise

The Paradise: newly renovated, wayyy more open & spacious, no more giant pillar in front of the stage, might actually think about going to more shows there

Keith Fullerton Whitman, Greg Davis, & Ben Vida: Arcade Ambiance style fire swamp, Jupiter basement discotheque, trans-warp glitter noise, FTL drive mechanics, dubbed out white hole, stutter static glory, massive junk rumbling sun drone, chaos bliss supreme

Tortoise: aging like Benjamin Button, getting smoother & tighter as time goes on, a band with a variety of different sounding albums that coalesce into a stupefying live experience, house lights be damned we cheered them out for a second encore, see them already, then see them again

Bigger photos on Flickr.

Keith Fullerton Whitman, Greg Davis, & Ben Vida

BOIL Mix / QRO Mag Giveaway

Album art sourced from CC image Drinking Flamingo

My pals over at QRO Mag are turning 1000 soon (in Twitter followers) and they love you all so much that they're having a contest. There are a couple ways to enter but the easiest is to just go follow them on Twitter because all new followers between 950-1000 are automatically entered (they're at about 960 right now).

The best part is the prizes are fucking sweet. There's a couple of label packages, one being from the interminably awesome Breakfast Of Champs including shit from Quilt, COP MAGNET, Total Slacker, and WITCH MTN. Hell yes! There's also a Burning Mill prize pack with releases from DOM, Golden Girls, Ape Debris, Golden Holy, and one surprise.

But then there's the mixtape part of the giveaway and that's where I come in. QRO Mag asked me and a few fellow bloggers (Cream Team, Knox Road, & No Modest Bear) to each create a mixtape for the giveaway. At first the idea was that the mix would be exclusive to the contest (at least until it was over), but they loosened up and are allowing us to post our own mixes on our blogs. So a hearty thank you & congrats to QRO Mag and all the other cool people involved with this. Way to fucking go. Now I present to you, BOIL.

You should recognize at least half of the stuff in this mix because it's culled from past reviews. The others are probably high profile enough that you'll know 'em anyway. And in case you couldn't tell, this is one hardcore noise/drone mix. It's sorta brutal. And it's sorta awesome. And it's my first attempt at a mix put together in Garage Band so I could smooth out the wrinkles & normalize it and shit, making it a single mp3. Let me know what you think.

BOIL
1. Lonesummer - "We've Lost a Day"
2. Halflings - "Burning Ambition"
3. The Vomit Arsonist - "Choke"
4. Kanin Krusete - "Veteran Plates"
5. Russell Haswell - "High Force From Above"
6. Millipede - "Surf"
7. The Conet Project - "5 Note Version ‘Czech Lady'"
8. Ultra Bonbon - "Resplendent City"
9. Wilt - "SVF"
10. Gerritt Wittmer - "Untitled 2"
11. Marinos Koutsomichalis - "Untitled 6"
12. Kouhei Matsunaga - "291107"

Angharad Davies & Axel Dörner - A.D. (Another Timbre, 2010)

Angharad Davies & Axel Dörner - Stück Un


I was sent 3 out of 4 new discs in the Brass Series on Another Timbre and I was super pumped to hear 'em all. But holy fuck have I had them for wayyyy too long without reviewing them. There's a perfect explanation, of course, and that has to do with the nature of these records. These albums are restrained, delicate, subtle, and most of all, quiet. They absolutely need 100% of your attention, not just to understand what's going on, but simply to even remember that you put on a record in the first place. I finally just said fuck it, tossed everything else aside, and sat down with 'em. This one being the first because the album art is so slick.

Angharad Davies & Axel Dörner take on a violin & trumpet, respectively, in ways that seriously test the limits of your imagination. Mentally compile an aural list of all the sounds you think could come from a violin & trumpet. Cube that number and you're in the realm of A.D.

So here you have two people weaving brass & string in the most organic of ways. Most of the time, if you're paying attention, you'll be able to differentiate between which instrument is which. But occasionally the two are so twisted & abnormal they become one haunted hissing sound.

I'm sure many people will feel many different things upon listening to these two go at it, but my approach is strangely scientific. In A.D., I hear this subdued havoc and my first reaction is to analyze the sounds, to figure out how the fuck they're being made, and it's usually by process of elimination. Demonic growling? Well, I'm also hearing some shrieking strings so it must be the trumpet. Stuttering dog whistle electronics? Can't be the brass because that's off doing it's own scratchy circular droning.

Davies & Dörner have a supreme dynamic; they clearly work really well with one another. Something tells me they also had a fucking blast making this record. The motorboat mouth bubbles, unnerving immanent disaster, the shoe shining brush, the percussive blats, swirling needles, it just sounds like they threw an old fashioned dinner party, retired to the drawing room when they were finished, and made minimal crazy avant noise. If that's not a recipe for awesome I don't know what is.

OOPs: Cannibal Frequencies - Untitled (Gods Of Tundra, 2008)

Ok, so this one is technically not out of print, but it's so damn close it shouldn't matter. Mike Shiflet (aka Cannibal Frequencies) said 3 months ago that he was down to his last copy or two of this tape. It's $6 postage paid (fuckin deal and a half) and you can grab the LAST ONE, assuming there is one, here (preferably along with some other cool shit he's selling). There were only 50 of these made and I'm not seeing them for sale anywhere else.

Now that that's out of the way... this tape is a wall of static noise. A half hour of unwavering, relentless, beautiful, sweet sweet brutal static. That's all you really need to know. Head over to my original review back in January '09 if you're feeling extra curious / want to listen to a sound sample, or just download this beast already. Totally worth your time. Guaranteed.

DOWNLOAD

P.S. Mike, if this offends you and you want me to take it down because you still have a copy(ies) for sale or for any other reason, just let me know. And you have my apologies.

Weird Stalk, Too at Temple

Weird Stalk, Too. It was weird. Thanks Whitehaus. Here's hoping for Wired Stalk Tree.

More (and bigger) photos on Flickr. Especially Cave Bears because their set was utter insanity.


Forbes Graham


Double Awake


Kid Romance


Cave Bears



Many Mansions


Grey Skull


Ashcan Orchestra


Blevin Blectum


Preggy Peggy & The Lazy Babymakers

Aun - VII (Important, 2010)

Aun - Blackhole


Aun was one of those bands/dudes I'd always heard of and sounded really awesome but never actually heard. Then he contacted me out of the blue, wanting me to review his new record on the infallible Important so I kinda creamed my pants a little because that's just too. fucking. cool.

To be honest, Aun sounds kinda like what I expected after hearing about him. But WHOA. You could've told me he sounded like angels in ecstasy and I still would have my expectations blown away. VII is just fucking incredible.

Here is some intensely blissful doomatic psych noise perfection. Massive stone walls of crumbling distortion that no sound system could ever do justice to. This is so fucking dense & white hot, the kind of rock found emanating from the inner core of the earth. Chaotic static rumbling through the veins of deep space, black holes burning pure energy, staving off starvation in the middle of infinite deserts, every universe collapsing into the singularity, and through it all a sense of underlying beauty. Not just the "beauty in the brutal" (though there's a shitton of that) but there are actually sweet sounds being whipped off like solar prominences. Harmonic euphoria pushing all the right buttons. So you got your heavy as fuck rock and your heavenly bliss all in one, making VII utterly unstoppable.

Voivod's Away takes on the drums for many of the songs, reminding me of when Nadja added live percussion on Desire In Uneasiness. Which really brings to mind one term, and if you're a regular here, you'll know it's one I rarely use. EPIC. There are times when that word is wholly necessary and this is one of them. VII is just fucking epic. There's no denying it. And I can't think of a single person who doesn't love some seriously epic riffage, so do yourself a favor and grab a copy of this already.

7 Hours, 53 Minutes Of Vacuum Cleaner Sounds

SO MANY QUESTIONS. Did someone actually record 7 hours and 53 minutes of vacuum cleaner sounds? Did they go deaf? Did they just set up a mic and walk away? How much money was wasted on electricity? Has anyone listened to the entire thing? If somebody made these sounds in a different way (not using vacuum cleaners) and set it up as a sound installation and maybe even released it on a fat slab-o-wax, would you respect it any more than you do now?

via Immanent Discursivity / Noise For Airports

Sleep In - Carnival (Enemies List, 2010)

Sleep In - The Woods


I generally try to stay away from reviewing records like Carnival. The ones where each song is different from the next and it's really hard to peg the album. I feel like I inevitably talk about the record on a song-by-song basis, and that makes me it seem like I don't "understand" the album. If I can't talk about the mood or overall sound, then it feels like I'm not doing my job right.

Sleep In's newest release from the inininfinitely unstoppable Enemies List is one of those records. He dropped it in my inbox over 2 months ago and I've been listening to it ever since, hoping to get a grasp on what kind of shit was going through this guy's mind. No luck. The only thing I've taken from my numerous Carnival listens is that 1: it's totally fucking rad and 2: it doesn't fucking matter if I can't pigeonhole this beast.

I could take the route and say Carnival is like a carnival, you get all sorts of weird shit and random experiences. But I'm not gonna do that. Promise.

So what does this record sound like? First off, it's pretty different from anything Enemies List has done before. It's not some twisted black metal Nahvalr, epic doom pop like Planning For Burial, or the industrial metalgaze of Have A Nice Life. Carnival isn't very metal at all. It gets heavy at times, but more like a psych noise freakout kinda heavy. There's backwoods swamp folk, electro-acoustic doom, warped guitar ambience, sprawling drone, feedbacked squalls, and plenty more that's just weird as fuck.

This is where I say, "But despite all these disparate sub-genres, Carnival still works because it keeps the thread of BLANK going through the whole thing." But I can't do that. I don't know what that thread is.

Despite not being able to decipher the overarching theme, I can still tell you Carnival doesn't seem haphazard or disjointed in any way. It works great as a record, everything flows and sounds perfect together. It's an album that's actually an album instead of simply a collection of songs. It's refreshing and original and 100% awesome.