Archive for metal

Sunn O))) meets Nurse With Wound – The Iron Soul of Nothing (Ideologic Organ) 2011

Posted in nurse with wound, sunn O))) with tags , , , on November 3, 2014 by noisenoisenoise

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Hello blog people. Long time no write. I’ve decided to reactivate this little noise blog as a way of bringing records to your attention that Ingmar I don’t get around to covering on The Antidote Podcast. I suppose it also allows me to write about records from the past rather than the new release schedule that Ingmar and I try to stick to. So in honour of Sunn O)))’s recent collaborations with Scott Walker (I’m still putting off listening to that one) and Ulver (just ignore the last track) I thought I’d cover something I’ve been enjoying for a while.

I’ve got two copies of this. The first is a four track version I downloaded off NWW’s bandcamp page and the second copy is a three track version which appears as  the second disc in a two disc reissue of SunnO)))’s OO Void which was released in 2011. That release was a re-release of a re-release by Japanese label Daymare in 2008 which I remember my local indie record store trying to charge me $74.00 for. Out-fucking-rageous if you ask me. The original OO Void was actually recorded in 2000 and got released by Hydra Head records that year.

In 2007 some smarty decided it would be a good idea to send a nice clean digital copy of OO Void to the Nurse With Wound lads to see what they would come up with. So what did they come up with? Only the doomiest, bleakest, blackened version of Sunn O))) that you could possibly ever hope for. For the most part NWW take the doom-laden glacial metal of Sunn O))) and make it into a sinister, quite evil listen. This is less a metal monolith and more a terrifying aural journey into the heart of darkness. Absolutely wonderful. I have a great deal of affection for Sunn O))) particularly Flight of the Behemoth (featuring Merzbow yay!) and the terrific White albums. The wonderful thing about The Iron Soul of Nothing is experiencing the doom aesthetic from a non-metal source. This is less about being crushed and more about being mentally suffocated.

For the most part the collaboration (or is it a remix) is instrumental but on the wonderful Ash on The Trees (the third track) the vocals of Pete Stahl (from Washington DC hardcore band Scream) are somehow extracted form beneath the ugliness of the original record to provide a bleak prelude to a track of unrelenting fear – kind of like a black mass with power chords).

Get this from NWW’s bandcamp page for a quick fix. Essential.

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No Anchor – The Golden Bridge (Grindcore Karaoke) 2012

Posted in Australian underground, Music, No Anchor with tags , , on February 6, 2013 by noisenoisenoise

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Hello there. It’s been a while. Here at casa ducks battle satan I have immersed myself in a shit-ton of new records. So many in fact that I reckon I’ve only listened to about half of them.  Listening to all of these records has kept me away from this blog but that is all about to change. Shit has got me inspired.

So anyway, today I am working on some wonderful legal argument with Kevin Drumm’s excellent Arghhh! CDr keeping the procrastination at bay when I start having a bit of a scroll through the old ipod and find this. I completely forgot that I downloaded this from bandcamp at the end of last year which in retrospect is a disgusting oversight because No Anchor are kind of my favourite Australian band at the moment. Have been for a couple of years when I really think about it.  There is something really satisfying about their blend of metal and hardcore with a smattering of Albini-esque menace. Some of their past records have a much more stoner rock vibe to them but the thing I love about The Golden Bridge is the sheer relentlessness of the first five  tracks. To my ears it is like a mash-up between Fucked Up, early Girls Against Boys and Rapeman. That comparison doesn’t really do the rest of the record justice because shit does get a bit mellow from time to time  in a Melvinsy sort of way.

I have listened to this about four times today and I am loving the shit out of it. Type No Anchor into bandcamp and get yourself a copy – its freakin’ free. You have absolutely no excuse. The best album of 2012 you never knew existed.

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Locrian & Christoph Heemann – S/T (Handmade Birds) 2012

Posted in Christoph Heemann, Doom, Drone, Locrian, Music with tags , , , , on October 16, 2012 by noisenoisenoise

Here are two artists I don’t know a lot about. I knew about Heemann from his collaboration with Merzbow and work with Nurse With Wound and the Chicago duo Locrian have made a previous  appearance on this site with their Rain of Ashes record. Before listening to this record I kind of knew that Locrian mined a drone metal sort of sound palette. That sort of sound  feels very stale to me now. The  number of submissions I receive from bands who still play it have not instilled me with a great deal of confidence that there is anyone thinking freshly about metal in a drone  context. When this arrived I was in two minds whether I would listen to it but I did and I’m glad I did. This is a truly great record. It is also a pretty difficult sound to pin down.  There is a shit load going on on this records four lengthy tracks. The first track Hecatomb is one of my favourite pieces of music mright now. It’s roots are obviously firmly in a drone metal context yet it is the injection of Necks style piano and  a feeling of improvised abandon with the guitars which lend the music an open, expansive feel. The second track lifts its skirts to reveal its blackened metal soul whilst the third track Edgeless City is an excursion through ambient drone with a sinister edge that gradually becomes much more oppressive.The final track, The Drowned Forest sees the artists getting their inner druid on for some ritualistic vocal action which become more intense as it progresses. It’s strangely beautiful and overwhelming all at once.

2012 has seen some excellent collaborations and split LP’s. Swanson and Shiflet, Dilloway and Lescalleet, Shiflet and Panzner, Blankenship and Reed have all produced amazing records this year. Add this too the pile.  This record has restored my faith in  bleak metal.

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Hypsiphrone – And The Void Shall Pierce Their Eyes (Black Plagve) 2011

Posted in Doom, Hypsiphrone, metal, Music with tags , , , on February 19, 2012 by noisenoisenoise

I haven’t listened to a Dark Ambient record or some time. But when this little ripper showed up from Malignant Records sub-label, Black Plagve I thought,just based on its title alone, it was worth a spin. One of the first mistakes I made was to read the press release which spoke of virgins bathing on their own blood and other such crap that I have absolutely no fucking interest in. Does anyone actually write this crap without giggling to themselves? The fact is that what is done here is excellent but creation of  a lame mythology detracts from the greatness of many of these tracks. I’m probably the wrong guy to review this because black metal imagery is always funny to me yet I like to wallow in some dark/black/death ambient/metal records from time to time. I’m no expert but if you like Sunn O)))’s Black One or anything by Lustmord then this will be right up your alley.

Hypsiphrone is a one  guy project from Greece and this record  is pretty consistently great. Lots of evil wails and hammer-horror neo gothic death metally goodness with wonderfully absurd  titles. It’s fun though probably not in the way Hypsiphrone meant. There is one dud track on this and that is a track which begins about half way through which cuts up media broadcasts about necrophilia. How fucking transgressive. Why it is actually on this is a bit of a mystery and kind of made me angry. It’s inclusion just felt that he was trying a bit too hard. But hey, Mamuthones made one of my favourite records in recent times and the initial track on that sucks. It happens and shouldn’t be fatal to you buying this.

You can pick this up from the excellent Malignant Records site.

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Jesu – Conquerer (Hydra Head) 2007

Posted in Jesu, metal, Music with tags , , on March 21, 2010 by noisenoisenoise

Ok, I know I said that Ducks Battle Satan would only be about records I liked but this release by Jesu has me fucked.

I’ve skirted around the edges of post-metal in an attempt to understand what the big fucking deal is. It’s all pleasant enough but I’m still waiting for that truly great post-metal album to grab me and engage me. I like the Isis and Pelican records I own but I was hoping that  Jesu were the real deal.  I was wrong.

Does anyone really think it is a great idea to create a new genre of shoegazing metal?  I lived the whole shoegazing thing. I had the Ride, Bleach, Slowdive and Chapterhouse records, I’m not proud of it but I did. Christ I even had those Lush EPs. I had the fringe that was somewhere south of my chin, I was skinny and had those pants that were a bit too big.

Now maybe I didn’t get the memo, but in 2007  was it time for some kind of revival? When I first played this I thought, “Ooh metal chords, a bit like Isis – great.”  But then those reed thin vocals started and it was like 1990 all over again. I don’t get it. What the fuck am I missing? Or is this post-metal stuff really just shoegazing for people with tattoos?

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Porn / Merzbow – … and the Devil makes Three (Truth Cult) 2009

Posted in Merzbow, Music, noise with tags , , , on November 29, 2009 by noisenoisenoise

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I’ve wanted this record for a while and it is only now, thanks to the resurgent Aussie dollar that I could  justify buying it.  Every Merzbow collaboration I’ve heard has been a cracker, particularly the great records he did with Boris and Sunn O))). … and the Devil makes Three might just be in the top three records I’ve heard this year .

Porn are a trio that pump out greasy slabs of the finest sludge metal this side of the Melvins which makes sense given that Porn is also the home  Dale Crover. Now until listening to  …and the Devil makes Three, I’d never heard Porn except on the youtube videos’s I’ve added below and you gotta admit that they certainly fucking rock. On this collaboration  it feels like Merzbow fills in all of the gaps in their sound to create just this big fucking behemoth of noise rock. Fuck it is good and hands down the best thing Merzbow has released this year (so far as I’ve heard anyway). If you ever heard Rock Dream (his live collaboration with Boris) then you might have an idea of just how well Merzbow’s scree and hiss works in the context of metal. I like Porn a bit better than Boris so for my money this is the one to go for.

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Black Boned Angel – Verdun (Riot Season) 2009

Posted in Birchville Cat Motel, Black Boned Angel, Doom, Music, New Zealand Bands with tags , , , , , on July 21, 2009 by noisenoisenoise

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As some of you may know, Campbell Kneale, Mr Birchville Cat Motel himself hung up his feline moniker at the end of last year to focus on his new project Our Love will Destroy The World. The good news is that his side project Black Boned Angel continues to go on strongly. I was a huge fan of his BCM project yet had never dabbled with  Campbell’s drone-metal project, Black Boned Angel, a trio of Wellington musicians which includes James Kirk and Jules Desmond.. Fuck knows why really because I absolutely loved BCM’s Bird Sister Blasphemy. This, the band’s latest release on the awesome Riot Season, is an absolute gem. In fact it may be one of the finest doom records I have ever heard. The album itself lists three tracks but they are pressed as one continuous track. The titles references the battle of Verdun during World War One which claimed 250 000 lives. The thing I find interesting about the title is how tragic, military misadventures are a huge feature of schooling in the Antipodes and battles such as Gallipoli are etched into the psyche of most Australians and New Zealanders. Our understanding of  war is sober, without glory and critical of the folly of war.  In listening to Verdun it makes sense that the conflict is scored through crunching Sunn O))) riffs and futile drones. What lifts this above your average drone record is the addition of an operatic chorus belting out Wagnerian funereal hymns underneath the wall of crushing guitars. The effect is magic and somehow a natural fit for the horror that was Verdun. This record comes across a lot like Gorecki’s Misere on steroids. Riot Season are only releasing 1000 copies of this and you’d be smart to get one before they sell out.  One of the best albums of 2009 so far.

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Wolves in the Throne Room – Black Cascade (Southern Lord) 2009

Posted in metal, Music, wolves in the throne room with tags , , on June 27, 2009 by noisenoisenoise

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I don’t get Black Metal. Never have. Yet I really like this. I’m just not sure whether I’m supposed to laugh or paint my face white and fuck a corpse. I mean it’s just so fucking camp, singing in those demon guttural howls about norse gods and such nonsense. Laugh? I nearly wet myself. But I love this record, probably for all the wrong reasons but it pushes all my buttons.  It’s chock full off ooga-booga, screamy vocals over a soundtrack of gothic post-rock metal. Can’t get enough of this at the moment. I mean I just can’t compare it to other black metal because its a genre I don’t really listen to. I’ve got a crap load of Sunn O))) records but some of those are generally frightening and I think doom kinda took over from this melody friendly black metal. Maybe a better term would be post metal. Then we can throw in Pelican and Isis in with this bunch to describe a frightening intelligent and melodic form of -rock heaviness. Fun.

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Earth – Earth 2 (Sub Pop) 1993

Posted in Drone, Earth, Music, Sunn with tags , , , , on August 4, 2007 by noisenoisenoise

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Every genre has a defining album. The sort of record that every band that followed owed allegience to. Earth 2 in the doom/sludge world is not merely worshipped but holds the malevolent DNA spliced by SunnO)))), Melvins and Boris. Post- Punk had Pink Flag, Shoegazing had Nowhere, New Wave had Parrallel Lines and Doom has Earth 2. I listened to Melvins, SunnO)))) and Boris before I had ever heard Earth 2 and perhaps I did things in the wrong order because Earth 2, to me, just sounds ……. well ……. OK. I mean kudos and all that to Earth for defining a genre but Earth 2 is a bit like early Throbbing Gristle, ground breaking in it’s day but it just hasn’t aged very well. My principal complaint is the production. It’s fucking awful.

For those of you who don’t know, Doom is a genre of metal, which to rip off another review, is “Black Sabbath played very slowly”. Oh and without vocals or drums or any resemblance to their head banging brethren. The huge guitar riffs that define Doom are monstrous. They obliterate all before them before being consumed themselves by the next riff. Its a big sludgy, claustrophobic noise where the idea of “song” is neither present nor relevant. Earth 2 does all of these things really well and listening to this record casts records by SunnO)))) in a totally new light. But to really get the full effect of the Doom sound the production has to be right and on this it is simply not. The recording feels furry and the effect, as a result, blunted. It misses the shear, unrelenting power of those that came after but as the seed that starts one of my favourite genres, Earth 2 is an interesting listen.

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