Internal Investigation #2: The Civil Dead - Bird Bones (album review)

The Civil Dead first came to my attention when I was writing for the now suddenly dearly departed Temple of Perdition blog.  I was given a choice of five or ten albums to review and I chose this one.  You can read the review right here.  I think something about the sprawling, cinematic and highly suggestive soundscapes of the album, combined with a structured sensibility toward songwriting brought out the best in me as a writer, or maybe it brought out the most pretentious in me, I don't know.  Anyway, The Civil Dead is a one-man band out of Vancouver, BC and that "one-man", Christopher Langer, volunteered to say a few words about the first album released under The Civil Dead moniker, 'Bird Bones', when I put out an open submission call for a(n almost certainly short-lived) series of articles labelled 'Internal Investigations'.  The concept behind the Internal Investigations idea was to have bands review their own records in earnest.  If nothing else I hoped that it would give Paranoid readers a glimpse into just how much thought, care, heart and passion these musicians put into their records.  I wanted this series to show another side of music, as not just art, but as pieces of human beings.  I hoped this series to implicitly say that music is not just product, not just commodity.  Christopher and Ian (from Internal Investigations # 1) have pretty much done just that.  When I got this article back from Christopher I was amazed.  Here was a thorough review, alright!  Hell, the damn thing even had end notes!  I'd like to thank Christopher (and Ian) for doing this.  Any other bands or musicians who are interested in doing an Internal Investigation, you can get in touch with me at me email address (lucaswilliamklaukien @ gmail . com) or leave a message on the PH facebook page.  Christopher Langer's review of The Civil Dead's 'Bird Bones' album begins now:

This is my third attempt to write a reflection on The Civil Dead’s Bird Bones for The Paranoid Music Blog. I keep trying to get the bones of the thing and, so far, I keep chewing on the gristle. So this time around I’ll try to skip rambling screeds, flowery language, and self-effacement and just get to the heart of the thing.

Bird Bones began in Toronto in 2010. After a decade of recording I’d just started playing the odd coffee house. I had been doing some duet covers (1) with a woman with a really nice voice (2) and decided to write some songs for her. I don’t think she was ever that interested in what I came up with, and everything was too rough to really make anything of it at the time. I’m interested in minutiae and marginal, forgotten narratives. And westerns. So I want to hear about the black cowboys (there were loads), the sex workers, the Chinese railway workers - all who live and die in the shadow of some blunt, simple hero of a horseman. Long story short, I don’t think she wanted to sing from the perspective of some whorehouse gal. Before long, I’d moved back home to the West Coast and nothing came of the band that I was hoping to call Bird Bones.

A few months later, I was unemployed, struggling to finish a degree (3) and hadn’t spent much time thinking about my project. I’d started up a proto-punk band (4), but I couldn’t get everyone to play as dirty as I wanted. Vancouver is a town filled with sugary pop bands and death metal with little in between. I just wanted to play NYC junkie punk like Johnny Thunders (5) or Television (6), figuring my voice suited that sound. But it stopped being fun pretty quick, and I was more about anger and pain and depression than fun anyways. More and More I wanted to play music like Earth (7), Boris (8), Monarch! (9), Asva (10), and Nadja (11). Bleak, slow, experimental god-damned rock music. Over the course of 2011, I tracked the instruments myself, with the exception of the flute part on the opening track. I’d hoped to find another female vocalist but, after some false starts and one successful recording session, figured that if I wanted to finish the Bird Bones album, I had to use my own voice. I hope it comes across more haunting and despaired than Kermit the Frog. My British wife says West Coast folks all sound like Muppets.

So, that being said, I’m putting Bird Bones on for the first time in a good long while and thought it might help me reflect as it plays (12). I never swore to love or protect my work like it was a child, and I imagine I fall into the category of musician who is harder on themselves than they need be. At times while recording I probably hated this album, truth be told. While I am happy that it exists, I think I am free to discuss its shortcomings as well as its strengths. So let’s get on with it.

1. The Wild Wind I (Death)
Low fidelity is this album’s cage. While the hazy western fuzz I aimed for doesn’t really need the dynamic mix of say, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors, I have to admit that everything is a bit more monochromatic and muddy than I wish it was. Despite this, I think I did a good job with the dynamics of “The Wild Wind I (Death)”. There are a good number of peaks and valleys that were intended to invoke some isolated death dream. While the song starts with a woman witnessing the murder of a man, it ends with her dissociative mid-coitus - “I felt your size inside of me … but all I heard was the wild wind…”. I think that, while writing this, I was beginning to think more and more on how women aren’t allowed to be actors in society - how they are still expected to exist behind various walls and cannot occupy those spaces claimed by men, even when occupying spaces of violence and sex. It’s interesting that, despite this, the song was read as a man’s account of events rather than a woman’s in one print review. Maybe the heaviness of the song distracts from the lyrics, or maybe the lyrics aren’t clear enough in the mix. Maybe the reviewer was lazy or not listening hard enough. Whatever the case, I think that this was the ideal track to start Bird Bones off on. It was the first conceived and starts with the most dramatic kick, influenced heavily by the Earth’s Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light and Neil Young’s work on the Dead Man soundtrack. Asva’s Futurists Against the Ocean (13) too, although it’s less apparent, and an amazing defunct band Mythical Beast (14). Slow burner stuff.

2. Wolfbed
I think this was the last track recorded. It’s pastiche, gluing a drone bit to a western doom riff to something much more Phil Elverum-ish. If you are listening to Bird Bones as a record that builds exclusively on popular music structures, it might come off as lazy, but doom fans can probably deal with a track with three movements. I wish I’d stretched the intro out longer and developed the organ part more. I hope that, as a quiet, droning bit, it draws the listener in so that the ensuing second part, which kicks in at 2:17, is a bit jarring. Along with the first track, this section continues to owe most things to Earth and Dead Man. I think it would have been great if this part of the song had a horn section. If anyone disputes the ‘heavy cred’ of this album, the messy indie rock sort of ending to “Wolfbed” is probably a good place to start. However, to me the heaviness of mood here and the way I used the guitars to punctuate and build around a constant feeble glockenspiel pulse - I feel that it’s more suitable to the oceans and mountains where I’m from than some far away Scandinavian forest (where all the trees wear corpsepaint and spiked arm guards or whatever). I actually thought about not including this song because of the lyrics. I wanted to stick with a strict narrative approach to songwriting, but this track ends up a bit more impressionistic - it’s vaguely about something inside yourself growing fangs, growing monstrous but also in some way better - but it’s sort of a bunch of nonsense. However, I’ve loved Phil Elvrum’s band Mt Eerie (15) (nee Microphones (16)) for years, and I think that this was more about trying to capturing the ramshackled emotional spirit of some haunting bands in the Anacortes Island artists. I hope that I did them justice.

3. Mountain Arms
When I think back on this album, “Mountain Arms” stands out. It’s feel is more upbeat than the rest of the collection and as ramshackled as it gets. Too many guitars piled on top of each other, too much fuzz, but at the same time, I think it’s a little break from the whole ‘dying alone in the woods’ vibe of the rest of the album. I like the the driving 4/4 stomp going on, and I hope people find the messiness endearing - if they don’t they probably haven’t gotten to this track anyways. I wonder if I would have, if I was just coming across this album on Bandcamp? I think I’d give it a few listens. I hope I would. Lyrically, this one goes back to stories about women, although this gal’s not walled off from society so much as she’s had enough for one lifetime and is ready to shoot the next man who gets in her way. I was originally hoping I would be re-recording this album with higher fidelity and planned on getting some stoner friends (17) from out East to contribute vocals. Next time. I still enjoy this one and can really hear the old school Flaming Lips and Dinosaur Jr influences coming through - more hits to my heavy cred, huh?

4. Bird Bones
This track owes much to Toronto/Berlin ‘doomgaze’ group Nadja. Their cover album When I See The Sun Always Shines On My TV shows how well their walls of drone can suit pop songs (caveat: ‘pop’ includes Slayer). Additionally, I was feeling the whole Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave school of songwriting. Because I was writing mainly about death and isolation I thought a bit of comedic scorn like Cohen does so well would work well alongside all the death. I hope it mitigates the sometimes melodramatic quality of my singing voice. So I suppose that’s what I’ve taken from Mr. Cohen. Throw the acid folky introduction into the mix and that’s Bird Bones, although one reviewer thought The Civil Dead sounded like Swans and I’ll happily accept that as a reference point as well. Towards the end of recording the album I revisited this track and added some gutteral backing vocals. While they’re buried in the mix and drenched in reverb, you can hear them if you listen. I was getting annoyed with hearing my voice over and over. I’ll admit that it isn’t the nicest voice. It’s a bit nasal and sometimes sounds like some NYC punk brat from the 70s (or worse, some Cali punk brat from the 90s). I felt that the male/female vocals on “The Wild Wind” added a strong dynamic, I thought I’d try out a clean/growled vocal dynamic. I think it adds a lot to this track. In the very least, I hope you don’t find them laughable. In some ways this is my favorite track of the bunch.

5. The Sister Singers In the Woods
When I finished Bird Bones it had four tracks, along with a good number of instrumentals that I had never recorded vocals onto for one reason or another. It felt fraudulent to call a collection of four songs an ‘album’ and I quite liked this instrumental. Originally, I was already thinking it would be a track on a second Civil Dead album but, as I tracked more and more on top of my original guitar recordings, I began to miss the starkness of recordings of just guitar. So I thought I’d preserve this as simply a guitar track. The Civil Dead is (in my mind) about guitar riffs first, narrative songwriting second, and heavy fuzz and drones third, so what better way to end and pay tribute to the album’s influences than a guitar composition. Sitting here right now in some sunny office (I’m a temp worker, don’t get too excited) I have to say that this is my favorite track. I always want to explore pain, depression, death - the dark stuff - but in the end I love the pretty, peaceful side of life. I think we all do - hell, I assume Varg Vikerness isn’t married with three children because parenthood is satanic or whatever - I bet he owns a kitten. Anyhow, I think the “The Sister Singers” is as tranquil as I could make something at the time. Maybe I’ll outdo it next time.

So that’s the album and a sort of director’s commentary of it. I’m happy it’s ‘alive,’ and I’m a little bit proud that (in my mind) it still holds up well. After another year of pestering blogs to plug Bird Bones, I barely coughed up a follow up EP at the beginning of 2013 and was done with the project for a while, but the Winter’s coming around again and there’s almost enough new material for a second album. The main thing holding it back right now is that I am getting sick of lo-fi bedroom recording. For album 2 I can’t avoid the horns where horns are needed and I need to get in touch with a cellist and some classier musicians for certain things I want to do. So it won’t be as easy as it was with Bird Bones. I know that, however Bird Bones worked, it won’t work that way again.

Thanks for listening.

End notes:
1. Soulsavers - Spiritual (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Yl8_is-gU)

2. Kira May - Never Broke A Bone (http://kiramay.bandcamp.com/)
3. I know, academia doesn’t have much doom cred. If it makes you feel better, these days I’m a temp at a university surrounded by radioactive material and rat droppings.
4. Murder Castle (http://murdercastle.bandcamp.com/)
5. Johnny Thunders - You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TknY89kECq0)
6. Television - Prove It (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OULLiXkwVck)
7. Earth - Old Black (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb-3eBlv_qE)
8. Boris - Feedbacker LP (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsKgltFHIEY)
9. Monarach! - Omens LP (http://musicfearsatan.bandcamp.com/album/monarch-omens-lp)
10. Some Asva LP (http://philippepetitamusicaltravel-agent.bandcamp.com/album/asva-philippe-petit)
11. Nadja - When I See… LP - (http://nadja.bandcamp.com/album/when-i-see-the-sun-always-shines-on-tv)
12. A note on the 3rd draft: At this point, I am listening to Yob instead of my album.
13. Asva - Kill the Dog … (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf3Sp3fFyJo)
14. Mythical Beasts - Black Walls (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=724zCDuQTG8)
15. Mt Eerie - My Heart is Not At Peace (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYnp5cby1XE)
16. Microphones - Moon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb2mAJbH5AU)
17. Tokyo Sex Whale (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNeg3bCXotQ)

Check out The Civil Dead on facebook
And listen to the album on the player below:

Nonsun - Sun Blind Me (album review)

Cover artwork by Tobias Holmbeck.

The first thing that jumps out at me is the musicality of it.  Nonsun appeared like a black cloud on the horizon late last year.  I reviewed their record 'Good Old Evil' and was surprised by how much I liked it.  You see, I'm not a big drone guy, not typically, but Nonsun really stood out to me.  I could delve into why or you can just read the review here.  Anyway, big black shapeless cloud lingering overhead.  Such was the mood of 'Good Old Evil' and it was great for what it was.  So, I guess there could be no more appropriate title for the follow-up effort than 'Sun Blind Me' because Nonsun seem to have parted those soggy clouds and let a little bit of sunshine into their music.  Just slivers.  Namely in the forms of melody, tempo and structure.  Sure, those things were always there, but now they are right up front, they're the first things you notice.

The big difference is, the four songs on 'Sun Blind Me' sound just like songs, as opposed to GOE's four tracks which sounded just like sound paintings.  Though three of the four selections here range past the 11 minute mark, there's no drag, but that's as to be expected.  Their first collection featured the excellent and colossal "Jesus' Age", which even at 18 minutes never wavered or failed to captivate.

Rays of sunshine are the children of riffs.  Synth and / or feedback shine that high end light, setting the tone for the big riffs which undulate effectively throughout opening track "Rain Have Mercy".  The word often used in this scenario is departure, well, to cop a cliche, this is one.  Isn't it?  It's practically encoded in the band's DNA, and it is literally written in their name.  This isn't meant to be sunny music.  And it's not, for the most part, it just seems that way by comparison to 'Good Old Evil'.  After all, the distorted clouds of fuzz remain overhead creating high pressure fronts of heaviness.

And then, a shift in perception.  You see, the first two tracks, "Rain Have Mercy" and "Forgotten Is What Never Was" were on 'Good Old Sun'.  Well, color me shocked.  Maybe, they aren't the band I thought they were.  Maybe drone is just a small part of what they do.  Maybe, just maybe, drone doesn't define or limit them in any way.

Then, Nonsun start painting with sound again.  The "Alphomega" suite, which comprises two tracks "Sunlit Darkness" and "Upward Blindness", is pure drone.  It's good horror music too.  The listener is plagued by constantly building tension and atmosphere.  If the conditions are just right, it sends a chill down the spine.  This is no easy task, Nonsun pulls it off with a droning chainsaw buzz and non-melodic open string plucking.

As you can see, 'Sun Blind Me' is a journey from the radiantly musical all the way down to the point where music breaks down and instrumental sound becomes ambiance.  Nonsun do it all in 4 tracks and 42 minutes.  It's a trip from the sunlit mouth of a cave into its darkest depths where water drips and spelunkers rot.  Cassettes are available via Breathe Plastic and digital copies are at drowning.cc.  All the relevant links are accessible by clicking through on the player below.

Highlights include: "Rain Have Mercy" and "Alphomega I: Sunlit Darkness"

Rating: 4/5


Total Run Time: 42:37

Alpha - drums.
Goatooth - guitars, bass, vocals.

From: Lviv, Ukraine

Genre: Drone, Doom, Sludge

Reminds me of: The Descent (film), Paradise Lost

Release Date: September 6, 2013

Nonsun on facebook

INTERVIEW WITH SHALLOW GRAVE

THE BUILD-UP:
One of the better things going in the world of doom right now is New Zealand's Shallow Grave.  Their self-released full-length debut is an incredibly dark and suffocating affair with ambient drone passages whereby the listener becomes momentarily lost in an eerie fog.  But this band isn't just about the drone, 'Shallow Grave' is fully loaded with six excellent and fully fleshed out songs of equal quality.  The music is slow from a death metal perspective but is actually pretty busy from a doom drone perspective.  It's tough as nails and I suggest checking it out in a big hurry.  Of course, as always, the requisite links will all be posted at the end of the interview, including the media player so you don't have to take my inadequate word for it, you can check it out for yourself.  I've been listening to this a lot lately but do take my word for it when I say that the album becomes a dark addiction.  For now, let's get right to my conversation with the band.  My questions are in blue, their responses are in white ...

THE INTERVIEW:

BIO

I’ve been digging your album a lot recently, from the cover art on down, it’s a complete package of doom drenched darkness.  How important do you guys think an effective album cover is in an oversaturated market where potential listeners may only have an album cover and the briefest of descriptions to go on to make a decision to give a listen?

Aesthetic is extremely important to any band that’s worth giving a shit about. For the cover we turned to a friend who goes by the name of Mark Tumaru (works at Sacred Tattoo in Auckland) as he is the master of doom and gloom when it comes to artwork. He knows exactly what we’re about so we left him to his own devices and it definitely payed off as far as we’re concerned.

Cover art and aesthetic is just as important as its always been, no more, no less. The only difference is thirty years ago you'd be flipping through LP's in a record store, these days it's images on a screen, but that's no reason to make concessions. The best cover art is always going to be that which captures the music better than the others - case in point, the first Black Sabbath record, or Motorhead. Those covers look exactly how the albums' sound, that's when it becomes iconic. 

I think atmosphere is the key to this album.  Was there some special technique you used to establish the atmosphere during the planning or recording of the album?  Or is what I’m hearing a natural result of what happens when you guys get together and flick on the amps?

We planned it out pretty meticulously. When we formed the band we decided we would spare people the customary release or two of 'figuring out what the band is all about' and make a more confident initial statement. So we were laying the groundwork for a good 2 or 3 years of trial-and-error style experimentation previous to recording the album. Focussing on a horrific atmosphere was always the primary mission, so it's just a matter of refining it over the years.

Having said that, there's always a few happy accidents when your recording and writing tunes, and they usually end up being the most genuine contributors to the overall atmosphere. So, we've been making an effort to keep the songwriting loose enough for those elements to occur naturally, while steering well clear of jam-band territory. The songs end up sounding a bit more 'lived in' and when we nail it there is a pretty awesome feeling in the room. Most of 'Nameless Chants' from the album was written this way.

One of the major components of the band’s sound, and talking about the atmosphere again, are the droney passages that permeate the album.  For example, at the end of opening track “Devil’s Harvest” leading into the opening minutes of “Chemical Fog”.  It’s hypnotic and sets the listener up like a jab for the devastating crunch that’s about to come.  Are these conscious decisions that are being made by the band or is it something more mysterious like an inborn feeling coming out?

That section was a drone thing we were playing live at the time as a bridge between songs in the set. We liked it and it worked well live so we decided to put it to tape and let it do a similar thing on the record. The live version is a lot more distortion-drenched and face-melting, but as you say, the studio one works because it has this mysterious spine-chilling thing going on which sets the listener up well for the subsequent punch to the gut.

We're all pretty big fans of albums that consume you, where it all fits together and has this big overall effect on you. It's definitely a conscious decision to try and get that. We take a lot of care with the arrangements of the songs to ensure they always seem to be going somewhere, and there's no reason why the same principle should not be applied to the album as a whole, or to a live set as a whole. It's trying to get that sense of there being a hidden narrative buried under all the filth and chaos.

How involved are you guys on the national scene.  I know New Zealand’s not the largest country in the world but there are some fairly large distances involved traveling around.  Do you get to see all the bands you want to see?  There are a ton of great folks on the North Island in bands and involved in the local music scene like Craig Hayes and the guys from Arc of Ascent and Beastwars.  Is it a community spirit there?

Bands who live in Europe or the States have it pretty lucky. If you’re from the arsehole of the world you gotta save up a fair amount of cash to even travel overseas, not to mention all the logistical problems of playing over there, but it can be done. Wellington's Meth Drinker are over in Europe at the moment sludging up a storm and the Ulcerate and Witchrist maniacs have had a lot of overseas success. In terms of bands coming over here, we've been lucky enough to share a stage with Kylesa, High on Fire and Dead Meadow here in Auckland and seeing Sabbath a few months back was incredible.

There's always been way more great bands than there should be coming from NZ (given our population is a blip on the world scale) and something about our country seems to produce bands that operate at the most extreme end of the musical spectrum, it's ingrained in the culture. Craig from Arc of Ascent released the CD of our self-titled record on his Astral Projection label and we've got allies in most big cities around the country so there usually a place for us to crash and good bands to play with. Witchrist, Crawler, Meth Drinker, Electric Mayhem, Numbskull, Stone Angels, Boltcutter, Creeping and Somme to name a few...

Okay, so with thoughts of home in mind, let’s go back to the origins of the band. How did the band start and how did you guys come around to playing this style of heavy music?

Half the band had been playing in death metal bands for a good number of years so the idea of starting a band with the tempo slowed right down and having all this extra space to work with was a revelation creatively. It became an exercise in ruthlessly trimming the fat and trying to do the maximum amount of work with the least number of notes. This approach lent itself well to getting a more 'sonic' thing happening with the string attack. When we started getting the results we were after the songwriting process seemed to happen pretty naturally and quickly, and most importantly left open a lot of possibilities we could go down in the future.

We still worship at the alter of Morbid Angel as well as many other heavy bands, but we figured if we could get a similar atmosphere but use radically different methods and influences to get there we could tap into some new territory. Loud amps, psychedelics and Yog Sothoth would sum it all up.

‘Shallow Grave’ has been getting some cherry reviews from the best sites about heavy music around like Sludgelord, Temple of Perdition, Six Noises and The Obelisk.  The band is getting its name out there.  What’s next?  How do you plan on following up?

We are actually in the middle of making an EP at the moment, with the main tracking having been completed in the last few days. I say EP, in reality it will be 40+ minutes long, but it feels structurally more like an EP release for us. Plus it gives us an excuse to try out some things we've been wanting to do for a while. We're trying to entrench some of the more atmospheric parts of the first record a bit deeper into the songs. It's not going to be pretty. So the next step is finishing the follow-up and trying to secure a vinyl release for that. Then it’s onto building some setlists for a batch of shows we have in July. 

Thanks for taking the time to chat with me.  Any final words or announcements you’d like to make?

Thanks for the interview, Lucas.
666 - Get fucked up in Hell.

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Here's those links I was promising earlier:

Shallow Grave on facebook

Some reviews to chew on:
Six Noises
The Obelisk
Temple of Perdition
The Sludgelord

Nibiru - Caosgon (album review)

Artwork and graphics by Siatris (drums)

Every now and then a band comes along and blows your head apart.  It's an even rarer breed of band that takes a multi-media approach to the task, using captivating imagery (boobs) to craft such memorable, haunting and mesmerizing videos that the two (audio and visual) are forever linked in the mind and can no longer be separated.  What was once seen cannot be unseen, and what is later heard without the visuals cannot be sampled without glimpsing the visuals in the mind's eye (in the case of "Invokation I": good [boobs!], for "Smashanam": not so good [take my word for it but go ahead and look if you're really that curious, and don't say I didn't warn you!!]).  Most importantly, for the purposes of our study, is how the head blowing apart effect of this band is achieved.  Just follow me down this here rabbit hole and away we go ...

First off, Nibiru utilizes vocals of the Enochian chant variety, the language of the angels.  That's pretty trippy right off the bat, innit?  The title of this album, 'Caosgon', translates from Enochian to English as "to the earth", with the suffix -n being the case ending of the root word "caosgo" or "of earth".  The fact that the word sounds like a totally accurate description of Earth, "chaos gun" is pretty trippy in and of itself, too.  But none of these little factoids are what blow the head apart.

Nibiru is also a jam band, writing their songs around live unstructured improvisations, then recording them live with minimal overdubs, a choice and style that almost by definition breeds interesting structures and song elements.  Here we are coming closer to what makes Nibiru such a mind-blowing act, but we're not quite there yet.  To get there, we're going to have to take a much closer look at the music itself.

Songs rise and bloom like flowers from a simple drone with various elements added one by one, piece by piece, layer by layer.  Does this album have cowbell?  It sure does though not as a rhythmic element, but cowbell used as originally intended, dangling away in a stereoscopic circle to begin the album (and close it) as the first sounds you hear on opening track "Invokation I: The Acid Skull" (see video below) and the last sounds you hear on closing track "Umbra Venefica".  What this band is capable of achieving is an alpha state in the listener, then throwing said victim into a churning pit of hell.  It doesn't matter that it's not a real place and that it's all in the mind or is a state of being or whatever.  They throw you in that pit of torture and despair regardless.  You don't see it coming, and it happens suddenly, like a quick death followed by an eternal moment of agony.  Of course, the effect is subtle, like the feeling of presence beside the bed at night.  This is where the acid skull takes the listener, and a better, more descriptive name to pin on a bad trip I've not heard.

By the time "Smashanam, The Crematorium Ground Of Kaly" whirly dervishes its way across the speakers, you're almost glad that the subtle pressure of nocturnal visitation is over and the actual beating begins.  From there on the album becomes a cycle of ritual abuse followed by a moment of respite and so on.  This is not the feelgood soundtrack to a stolen summer night, unless that night involves tripping on bad acid while locked inside a mausoleum stuffed with hungry and curiously probing animated corpses.

The overall effect 'Caosgon' has on the listener is impressive, an experience that must become totally overwhelming at a live show.  This became one of those albums that literally changed the way I heard everything else for days afterwards.  Not that everything else paled in comparison, it wasn't really a comparative thing, it's just that the band leaves its mark, the way they used to warn that acid changed a person forever after taking it.  Not to make too big a deal about it, but this album blew my head open.  I hope I've explained a little bit about how they achieved this effect and that the reader can keep this in mind, now the only thing left is for the reader to dabble in Nibiru's sonic drug and perform the ritual experiment the ancient Enochian speaking angels used to call, "listening" on his or her own.  That means you!  But be patient, because this isn't the kind of thing that will reveal itself on a quick preview, it's got to be listened to without distraction from cowbell to cowbell.  You've got to buy this album dinner and get to know it first.

Highlights include: "Invokation IV: Heru-Khentan-Maati" and "Smashanam, The Crematorium Ground Of Kaly"

Rating: 4.5/5

Total Run Time: 51:28

RI - bass and liturgic organ
Ardath - guitar & voice
Siatris - drums, percussions & Virus

From: Turin, Italy

Genre: Drone, Psychedelic, Sludge

Reminds me of: Saturnalia Temple, Spectral Haze

Release Date: February 27, 2013

Suggested listening activity for fellow non-stoners: You're falling into a deep trance ... your eyes are getting heavier ... and heavier ... good, he's asleep now, let's torch the fucker! ...

Better Review:
Sludgelord
Temple of Perdition
Too Late To Pray
Welcome to the Void in Greek

Sludgelord interview

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The Alchemical Mixture - Bridges To Dreams, The Pod, Oxtongue (album reviews)

DRONE FROM DREAMS TO NIGHTMARE

Bridges To Dream - Victims

Highlights include: "Interieur du Delta" and "I Called Her

Storm".  From: Montreal, Quebec.  Rating: 3.5/5

Bridges To Dreams are aptly named, not that they put the listener to sleep, but because the music they create serves as a vehicle to the dream state.  Music can be an interdimensional gateway to unglimpsed worlds and 'Victims' provides the listener with rich fuel.  This is a clever band, who have been at the vanguard of the Montreal underground scene for years, a band who have mastered their craft: hypnotic drone with just enough constantly evolving background elements to start the rusty augur of imagination to churning.

They are an instrumental band that use a combination of live instruments and keyboard laden effects to paint clockwork worlds.

The album is bookended by classic rants by Charles Manson.  His interviews were always popular with certain of my crazy buddies because of the truths he articulated, which one imagines is how he accumulated such followers as he had.  The problem with 'Charlie', shown clearly in the clip used here by Bridges To Dream, the thing which separates the philosophers from the raving lunatics is his penchant for going too far down the rabbit hole, saying what's better left unsaid.  'Victims' on the other hand doesn't go too far down the rabbit hole while communicating only in unspoken messages.  Instrumental music that is like a time-lapse film.  A static, unflinching foreground image with a dynamic ever-changing background.

Normally, sampled, looped and otherwise digitally synthesized music doesn't go down too well with me, there are certainly exceptions and I don't like to be dismissive of someone's art just because I don't 'get it'.  So it took a couple listens for this album to sink in, but in the end, it did.  Actually, the way each small background element moves independently of the larger droney frame is quite artfully done, like wheels within wheels and truly does facilitate thinking and creativity.  Without knowing for certain I'm almost positive that Bridges To Dreams are not the first band to utilize this technique but the effect was stunning when I noticed it working on me.  The 'wheels within wheels' framework actually kicked this bucket of bolts that I call a brain into motion and I almost had to laugh when I realized what the music was doing to me.  It was truly impressive.

The Pod - Assassins In The Mirrored Hall

Highlights include: "The Analeptic Ritual" and "Citadel of

Mirages".  From: Chapel Hill, NC.  Rating: 4/5

The Pod is something else entirely.  More straightforward.  No sly dynamics.  Purity in slow motion.

Yes, that's the phrase, slow motion.  "The Analeptic Ritual" sounds as though it's actually a slowed down recording and who knows whether it is or isn't, but that's the feeling one gets from it.  Everything is fluid and flows in otherwise regular patterns, it just happens to be at a speed that isn't quite up to the speed of waking life, that isn't quite natural.  This technique has an effect on the listener.

As each of the six tracks on the album play out one wonders where they are going and that makes them strangely compelling, but that is surely the wrong mindset.  This is less about 'physical' travel, more about achieving an alpha state and the work must be done by the listener alone.  It's astral travel music along the lines of Chad Davis' current project of focus Romannis Mötte.

Like Romannis Mötte, The Pod is the work of one man, Scott Endres, guitarist of the punishing post-sludge band MAKE.  This album takes the band's long post-metal ambient passages and spins them into an hour long record.  This is actually The Pod's third full-length and fifth release in total.  'Assassins in the Mirrored Hall' finds Endres giving his mad scientist compositions more room to breathe, there's a feeling of completeness, of the compositions having been allowed to run their full logical course.  There are fewer tracks, but they are more fully realized finding fuller expression.

There is progression here, it comes agonizingly slowly but the listener's saint-like patience will be rewarded although this record cannot be recommended for those with ADD.  As previously stated, this isn't the kind of record one puts on looking to "get somewhere".  Once again this album is like a gateway of its own, darker perhaps in tone or 'flavor' than 'Victims', more distorted with less solid ground to stand on, less for the listener to dig in and find firm footing.

Oxtongue - Where The Light Is Mute

Highlights include: "Humanity: Born In The Way Of Eternal Grief" and
"Anguish: Abide With Suffering".  From: Canada.  Rating: 4/5

But whatever footing one finds with The Pod quickly cracks and splits at the hands of the next band in our lineup, Oxtongue who plunge the llistener into darkened icy depths.  Oxtongue are the dirtiest, filthiest band ever featured on this blog, hands down.

Of the three albums featured here, Oxtongue's three song 31 minute offering most resembles a straight-forward collection of songs.  The listener will find long drone passages and moving song structure in equal measure.  Oxtongue's blackened drone sludge is a harsh slog through the frozen tundra handcuffed to a corpse, foot caught in a bear-trap.  Heartbreaking riffs and soul devouring drums pave the way for waves of filthy yet often mournful vocals like ghosts dressed in smoke.

Oxtongue's ear raping is brutal and merciless and not for the faint of heart.  Those suffering from depression should either steer clear or come running depending on temperament.  Those with megalomaniacal tendencies and the insane are advised to turn back at this point as well because this EP is likely to tip one over the edge.

Where the band really makes the most noise is in the wind-swept open spaces where drone reigns as king.  This is where the listener enters the realm of nightmare.  Oxtongue's brand of drone is deafening and pitiless as a stalker in the woods.  At the frayed ends of these droney passages one is likely to witness the agony-crazed lashing of a dying animal, as comes toward the end of "Cessastion: The Shade Rapes Nativity".

So we come to the end of the line having been stalked by smokey ghosts across a frozen tundra to find oneself on a frozen lake hidden by snow only to hear the ice snap and echo across the plains.  The listener plunges in and it's at that moment the world moves into slow motion and astral travel is achieved.  The horror of reality too painful to endure.  At the bottom of the lake all life ceases in a clockwork environment, a life suspended in time lapse to ponder endlessly, wheels within wheels.

Genre: Drone, Sludge, Ambient

Release Date: December 1, 2012 (Bridges To Dreams); March 1, 2013 (The Pod); January 15, 2013 (Oxtongue)

Suggested listening activity for fellow non-stoners: Press play at the moment that dream becomes reality and all your hidden fears come true.

Better Reviews:
Temple of Perdition Bridges To Dreams review
Sludgelord The Pod review
Heavy Planet The Pod review
Ech(((o)))es and Dust The Pod review
Sludgelord Oxtongue review
Sludgelord Oxtongue interview

Oxtongue official website







Special thanks to Steve Howe for recommending Oxtongue.

The Alchemical Mixture - Chains, Nonsun & Slow Heart (album review)

CHAINS - 'Of Death'

Highlights include: "Anticosmic Void" and "Necromantic 

Force".  From: Slovenia.  Rating: 4.5/5

"Chains was born under the black mark in the Samhain night of anno MMXI. The goal of this project is to make a Hypnotic Ritualistic Music in order to spread the verb of our master Satan.

The making of this kind of ritual is a kind of transcendent hypnosis trance who is channeling all the spiritual essence of the black flame into music form. Chains is strongly linked to 3 senses; vision, hearing and smell; because the experience must be accompanied by hearing music with the visions of all the conceptual artworks and spiced with incense and so all the chants are a mixture of lyrics mixed with a phonetically language transformed in mantras." - From Chains' official blog, Chains Hypnotic Ritual Music.

It's not often that a band invokes the sense of smell but the genre of drone sludge might be the most appropriate venue for one to do so.  All three of these bands emit their own olfactory effulgence in their own inimitable ways.  The ritualistic incense of Chains is offset by Nønsun's animal musk and the rotten decay of the body in the trash bin heard on Slow Heart's debut effort 'Dead Friends and Angry Lovers', a title that could easily refer to my year from mid 2010 to mid 2011 and believe me, it was an awful, awful stretch.

Why review three albums together? When I'm not at work or doing music reviews I write supernatural horror. This is my fuel. There are different moods for different scenes, but when I need to really feel the desolate despairs and desperate terrors of my creations I throw on these albums to set my mind right. The quote above is quite accurate in that, this is all-encompassing music. Sounds that have a physical presence, or at least a physical manifestation of electrification and hairs standing on end.  Each of these albums brings out their own specific mood, for Chains it's the presence of evil just behind you, for Nønsun it's the sense of lurking danger and for Slow Heart, it's the bleakness of hopeless self-defeating thoughts.

But the way in which these three diverse albums achieve these effects is by the same method, the heavy drone. Heavy sludge drone that, again, has a physical presence, a sheer weight, that makes the summer heat heavier, it makes the winter chill colder and makes positive action impossible.

NONSUN - 'Good Old Evil'

Highlights include: "Jesus' Age" and "Forgotten Is What
Never Was".  From: Lviv, Ukraine.  Rating: 4/5

Nønsun's 4-track demo EP 'Good Old Evil', creates the sludge metal equivalent of the clinical yet insect and parasite infested worlds of early Ridley Scott or James Cameron films.  They allow the listener a running headstart on "Jesus' Age", capture him on "Rain Have Mercy" strip the listener of all hope and human dignity on the straight drone of "Message Of Nihil Carried By The Waves Of The Big Bang" and ultimately leave the  listener tied naked to a chair with a shotgun in his face on organ-driven closer "Forgotten Is What Never Was".  A lonely refrigerator hum closes the album out, and the listener knows their tormentor won't be coming back, they'll be left that way, til the end.  Hopeless.

The overall vibe of Nønsun is to crush down all hope.  There are 'hopeful' passages in "Jesus' Age" that are trampled almost as soon as they appear from the rubble, hopeful weeds pushing their way, improbably from the hard pavement only the be crushed down for their tremendous efforts.

There is a sheer light at the end of the tunnel of "Rain Have Mercy", with a bright riff and uptempo beat but it leads directly into the nearly seven minute static drone of "Message Of Nihil Carried By The Waves Of The Big Bang".  The victim escapes the killer's shack in the woods, looks over a shoulder momentarily ... and wakes up half-conscious back in the shack under tighter bonds.

'Good Old Evil''s merciless vibe and filth-spewing sludge tone are crushing and brutal, an unflattering tattoo, a slow drive past a car wrapped around a pole before emergency crews arrive.  The haunting image that cuts past the unaffected and the urbane facade and leaves the inner self gutted.

SLOW HEART - 'Dead Friends & Angry Lovers'

Highlights include: "We Want The Night" and "Never 

Trust a Woman (Dressed in Black)".  From: Boston, Mass.
Rating: 3/5

The feeling carries over into the music of Slow Heart, only this band does it differently.  Where Nønsun's Bohdan Goatooth's vocals are deep, raw and guttural, Ron's from Slow Heart are vastly subdued.  It appears to be a giant effort just to sing at all through the overwhelming dark mood.  There is a heavy tone here in the instruments, but the lasting impression is the mood of the album.  Dredging the depths of darkness and despair, the title of the album describes the music well, but doesn't say it all.  The lyrical content and the subdued tone of voice go a long way towards weaving that mood and interlocks with the relentless drone of the instruments.  Everyday's the same and it always rains, mercilessly.

The most 'uplifting' moment is the anthemic opening track "We Want The Night".  Featuring a shambling corpse like tempo and frustratingly obscured pinpoints of light via guitar, it isn't exactly 'Singin' in the Rain'.  As 'God Old Evil' is a shimmering black album 'Dead Friends and Angry Lovers' is a matte gray album.  The perfect musical equivalent of a dense fog.  If Chains' music is set in a black draped, skull-decorated, candle-lit parlor, Slow Heart play the national anthems of Limbo.  Underpinning the entire project is a monomaniacal vision of futility and again hopelessness, achieved by the relentless repetition of musical phrases and tempos that rarely change.  Even the length of the compositions is consistent with four of the five tracks over five minutes and under six.

Slow Heart is the musical step-child of David Lynch babysat by Nick Cave.  Chains is the sound of static given form and substance.  It's the white noise in your ears in the silent room as you try to sleep, amplified.  One finds oneself on a sparse rocky landscape with a hazy yellow and unbreathable atmosphere.  Everything is spare save the choking sludgy drone, as a whole bottle of ketchup drowns a small serving of mac and cheese.  Drums pound low in the mix like the death throes of some giant Lovecraftian millipede far off in the distance.  Disembodied voices pierce the veil and moan dark nothings.  The occasional melodic element grows out of the void like a plant in timelapse photography and is quickly choked off and left to wither.

Chains' music is like a reset button for the mind, it's the perfect soundtrack to dark mental meanderings.  It puts the listener in the right frame of mind to imagine, be creative and focus thoughts.  It's unobtrusive without being background music.  It won't distract the listener from a train of thought because it is an active participant in the process.  It is a vehicle for creativity and in that regard the duo of Chains (Chad Davis along with E. Chains) are quite successful in accomplishing their goals.

In the extremely limited and now sold out CD version of 'Of Death' a 'lyrics' booklet is comprised of song titles in psychedelic font with pictures in lieu of words which are not only excellent graphic artwork (the entire package is) but give form to the ideas present on this release.  "Of Death" features a wild eyed mummified corpse turning in a tight coffin, "Anticosmic Void" shows an hourglass with bat wings emerging from a spinning disc, "All The Colors Of The Dark" reveals a skull-littered cave of torture, "Fireborn" displays a skeletal fetus emerging from flames.  "Necromantic Force" depicts the approach of a skinned horse whose head is framed by a black moon, "Electric Doom"'s totem is a cloaked and hooded wraith and the horned, ragged, saw toothed demon is finally made manifest in the artwork for "Spiritual Evocation".

Three albums of bottled inspiration.  No, this isn't party music, this isn't the kind of thing to throw on when buddies are over for beer, unless of course those beer swilling buddies are travelers down the left hand path. For this writer, this is utilitarian music, it's useful music, but it wouldn't be so if it weren't also enjoyable music.  Pitiless drone for those morbid moods or when it's simply time for a change of pace.  We can't all listen to Red Fang all day or whatever.  That's the great thing about underground music, it doesn't just all lead you in One Direction, so to speak.  Bands like Nønsun, Slow Heart and Chains are from vastly different backgrounds and take the listener to some chilling and eerie places.  The adventurous, the spiritual, the thoughtful will go along for the journey and some will return the favor.

Genre: Drone, Sludge, Doom.

Release Date: October 5, 2012 (Chains); December 12, 2012 (Nønsun); December 18, 2012 (Slow Heart)

Suggested listening activity for fellow non-stoners: Writing.  Or waiting at the river's edge for the boatman to return

Better Reviews:
Sludgelord Nonsun review
Heavy Planet Nonsun review
Temple of Perdition Slow Heart review