Sunken - New Zealand Eels (Emerald Cocoon, 2010)

Sunken - Eelman 003


Yall remember Sunken, right? I mean, not even just because their last CD Eye Electric Organ, Brain Electric Nerve was some of the best massive blissful organ drone out there, but because it's Stefan Neville (Pumice dude) & Anthony Milton (of The Nether Dawn). Little mini drone superduo, right?

New Zealand Eels is their third record, first on vinyl, and second release off of Emerald Cocoon. What all this is leading up to is an enormously depressing, bleak, drowning drone record. Sunken took the uplifting sounds from their previous records and fucking buried 'em at the bottom of the ocean.

I have no idea where the sounds on this record are coming from, except for the muffled cries for help that are almost certainly vocals, vocals that weigh heavy on your heart and empty your bowels. As far as I can tell, Eels is made with broken organs, tape decks, & electronics torn from a centuries old barnacle covered shipwreck. It's distorted, bloated from soaking in too much water, warped & claustrophobic, creaking planks, echoing in an empty submarine as it's going down. It's lo-fi as shit, everything blurs together in a noisy, droney whirlpool of depressing fucking gorgeousness.

This is sad music for sad people by sad people. You can't listen to New Zealand Eels and come out feeling ok. It has a haunting beauty, but that beauty can't make up for the utter doom & desolation permeating it. Sunken have created an incredibly stunning record that is probably going to win them some awards or something. Only 300 copies. Join them on their journey to the black ocean floor.

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.

Wilt - She Walks The Night (Husk, 2010)

Wilt - Haunting The Chapel


Oooh Wilt. Did you really think that starting your new 7" off with howling wolves was a good idea? AWESOME. Just making sure we're on the same page.

She Walks The Night is a new piece of mini vinyl, the first 100 of which came with a bonus cassette (which is actually twice as long as the 7"). And these tunes are some of the bleakest minimal black metal noise to ever grace my turntable. Murky, desolate, and totally fucking pitiful, the type of sounds you hear wandering through a forgotten zombie infested graveyard in the middle of the night while fog rolls across the moon.

The tape has an extra 4 tracks, one of which is a reprise of the title track opening the vinyl, and it's more of the same. Which is a good thing, obviously. Creepy black ambience, Undead shuffling through empty mausoleums, the leathery flapping of bat wings, earth rumbling thunder, church bells ringing in the distance, the sound of utter hopelessness and grim filth.

Not sure if this is still available with the companion tape but it should be because it hasn't been out very long. Either way though, She Walks The Night is fucking essential for your collection of necrotic ambient 7 inches. Husk totally rules for putting this out (side note: and for putting out that origami style Mudboy LP)

Noise Nomads / Urthquake Split (Spooky Tree, 2009)

Urthquake - Intra Muros


A nice slice of dirty weirdness from the latest batch of 7" splits on Spooky Tree. This one's got Western Mass' self descriptive Noise Nomads backed with Jersey's ambient black metal dude Urthquake. And put together they make for something that's maliciously enjoyable.

Noise Nomad's "Soaked Blanket" is an electronic squawk fest, with a non-stop FXed to oblivion guitar jam shredding over a bed of scratchy synths. Tons of grit and bloop, like the guy's equipment fell into some hidden quicksand and is going all HAL-9000.

Urthquake's piece "Intra Muros" is pure fucking evil. There's a sedated Goblin-esque synth track looped through the entire song that sounds like the bedraggled anti-heroes walking through wastelands on their way to inevitable doom. Buzzing guitars & crashing cymbals in the background, more & more layers of threateningly sinister synths, and no hope in sight.

MP3: Robe. - Vacant (Crucial Blast, 2010)

Robe. - Vacant


Crucial Blast just put out this fucking killer 10 year anniversary, 54 track digital comp called Blastwave X with tons of shit you probably don't have. A lot of it is previously released material but there are a couple of exclusive tracks, such as "Vacant" by Robe.

A sprawling 12 and a half minute doom ride through the murky fog, this beast is fucking heavy. Turn your headphones up loud enough and your head starts vibrating. Beautiful gray ambient rumbling that just keeps diving downward into the abyss until you can't see or hear a goddamn thing except the total blackness of the lowest trench of the deepest ocean.

Totally. Fucking. AWESOME.

Here's hoping the next 10 years for Crucial Blast are as badass as the first.

Locrian - Territories (At War With False Noise / Basses Frequences / Bloodlust! / Small Doses, 2010)

Locrian - Procession Of Ancestral Brutalism


Where the fuck do you start with a record like this? I guess the first thing I should mention (in case you didn't notice) is that Territories is too much of a monolithic beast to be contained by individual labels or continents. It took FOUR labels to put this thing out. That right there should clue you in as to how fucking massive this record is.

Then there's the fact that this isn't just André & Terrence playing, like most Locrian releases. Nope, they've recruited, like, every awesome metal dude around. Mark Solotroff (of Bloodyminded) on vocals and synths, Blake Judd (of Nachtmystium) on guitar, Bruce Lamont (of Yakuza) on sax and vocals, and Andrew Scherer (of Velnias) on drums. DUDES. We get it. You're trying to make to most badass record ever. No need to go overboard (just kidding, always go overboard please).

What Locrian usually go for is black. You know, black metal, blackened ambience, black doom, black noise, all the black one record can handle. But combine their entire discography's blackness and you still can't muster even a half hearted fight against the epic black hole that's Territories.

This record is fucking incredible. It opens with a super textured lurching hunchback of a song, with piercing squelches of feedback over a gurgling swamp of vocals and noise. The next song chills out a bit with some not-too-scary low end drone played by a mourning sax and commiserating synths, accentuated by spurts of crashing cymbals. But the third song is where they fucking kick it into gear. All out black metal fury that totally fucking annihilates in the most gorgeous way possible. I don't think I've heard them delve this far into the BM yet, and it's so. fucking. good. It's not especially fucked or twisted that way I normally like my black metal, but it's not too straightforward either. They balance the blast beats and wall of buzz with droning static and plodding thunder in a way that makes me think "Why don't they always do this? It's unbelievable." But then I listen to the rest of the record and remember why.

Territories finishes with 3 more songs that really get into some true terror, blackened rumbling, traipsing thrumming, soaring static, and more of that torturous feedback. Clouds roll in and shit gets dark, heavy, and scary as fuck. Helicopters flying in launching tear gas rockets to stop the rioting masses, decrepit malfunctioning machines topple, rusted tetanus infections, doomsday alarms, the demise of our society. And it all culminates with a black metal march of triumph over the decay, proof that even in the Future American Dystopia, no matter how debased and degenerated we have become, it's still going to be fucking beautiful.

Haiku Review: Josef Nadek - [zak] (TVK, 2009)

Josef Nadek - [zak]


Josef Nadek
[zak] (download)
/heaving rancid pus/
/masochist's empty workshop/
/ears leak yellow brain/

Ricardo Donoso - Zerovinteum (Semata, 2009)

Ricardo Donoso - Zerovinteum


Donoso is the head honcho of Semata, one of the best things Boston has going for it right now. He puts out records from amazing local noise/drone acts and he organizes/hosts some of the best noise shows in town. He also happens to make some noise himself, and Zerovinteum is his latest foray into dark ambient soundscapes.

The title track is a frightening affair, with giant sheets of metal gliding along, seeping long resonant tones through the atmosphere. Super awesome. The B side, "Plate Fourteen," starts out with a deep earth rumble, goes through a long stint of beautifully minimal bowed cymbal doom, and ends in a locked groove of hissing seismic aftershocks.

Highly recommended and totally fucking great. A limited edition 7" that's wholly worth your $7.

Locrian - Rain Of Ashes (Fan Death, 2009)

Locrian - Rain Of Ashes


Back in April, I discovered the wonder duo of Locrian with their debut full length Drenched Lands. It was an epic metal masterpiece that left my jaw on the floor. Grab your slicker and gas mask because here comes a tape equally epic by the name of Rain Of Ashes.

Locrian are brilliant masters of atmosphere. These guys walk the edge of every line out there, dipping their toes in funeral doom, metal, black ambient, drone, sludge, and thick noise. Without ever getting stuck in a single genre, they're able to create some of the most mind blowing darkness ever recorded.

Rain Of Ashes runs for an hour with two side long monoliths. But there's something special about the B side. If you look at the physical tape, all of the printed info is the same as the A side, except in reverse. Like, where it reads "Rain of Ashes" on the A side, it says "sehsA fo niaR" on the other side. See where they're going with this?

The audio on the B side is the same as the A side, only reversed. Now you might be thinking, "That's the lamest bullshit excuse for a B side I've ever heard." But don't you be so quick to judge. Because I assure you it's fucking awesome.

"Rain Of Ashes" is rife with bleak shrieks and crumbling decay, sounds that conjure images of Michigan in the dead of nuclear winter. Barren abandoned cities with giant yeti running around scavenging off of rotting human corpses. So you'd think that if you play something like that backward, you'd get puppies frolicking in the field with sunshine and rainbows. Or at the very least, the decaying sounds would blossom and become full of growth. Hardly. Somehow Locrian managed to create something equally decrepit forward and backward and not have "sehsA fo niaR" sound dumb.

I have to admit I never would have imagined putting out a two song tape and making the second song just your first one in reverse would be a good idea. I don't think there's too many bands out there that could accomplish that with such grace and brutality as Locrian have. But bravo dudes. And good job putting this on tape. It wouldn't make a lick of sense on CD.