2013 Chronicle (Year in review) part 6 - Best of May 2013

May 1 - Geezer (Gage EP)

May 2 - Ten Foot Wizard (ST)

May 3 - Procession (To Reap Heavens Apart)

May 7 - APE MACHINE (Mangled By the Machine) - By this point in the year, the Ripple Music machine was really rolling and it was impossible not to get mangled by it.  If this album was just a hefty stoner record of no inconsiderable girth, it would be notable simply for how good it is.  But that it was recorded in a single take, front to back with no pauses between songs, makes it an essential listen.  Original review here.  Get it here.  Highlights include: "Gun You Down" and "Angry Man".  Rating 5/5

May 10 - MAGISTER TEMPLI (Lucifer Leviathan Logos) - Old school metal combined with doom and occult / esoteric references set the foundation for this Norwegian quintet.  This was one of the more satisfying and memorable albums of the style released in 2013.  Anyway, it`s hard to go wrong with that mix of influences, Magister Templi concocted a killer potion indeed here.  Original review here.  Get it here.  Highlights include: "Master of the Temple" and "The Innsmouth Look".  Rating 4/5

May 10 - SHALLOW GRAVE (ST) - This Auckland quartet released one of the most addictive albums of the year.  It was brutal, sludgy and doomy with droney passages which played out like time spent tied to a chair in a shed or basement waiting for the next round of torture to begin.  This album is a rare combination of dark and aggressive.  Get it here.  Highlights include: "Chemical Fog" and "Nameless Chants".  Rating 4.5/5

May 12 - MAMMOTH STORM (Demo 2013) - This apocalyptically heavy trio must have emerged from deep inside a snow filled caldera.  One day Mammoth Storm and Salem's Pot are going to tickle fight to see who is Sweden's heaviest band.  All us mortals the world over will be destroyed in their convulsive jocularity.  No happy endings here, just mass.  Original review here.  Get it here.  Highlights include: "Volcanic Winter" and "Ancient Apocalypse".  Rating 5/5

May 14 - KADAVAR (Abra Kadavar) - German retro rockin' trio Kadavar's rise was a meteoric one.  Within the space of a single year the band went from one that few outside their home territory knew about to releasing a six song album with polyrhythmic structures to being signed by Nuclear Blast and releasing a streamlined straight up hard rock record and becoming everybody's favorite buzz band.  Original review here.  Get it here.  Highlights include: "Fire" and "Doomsday Machine".  Rating 4.5/5

May 14 - UNCLE ACID & THE DEADBEATS (Mind Control) - UK quartet Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats (named after a band former Cactus vocalist Rusty Day formed shortly before his murder) came out of their shell this year, conducting interviews and releasing promo group shots at the behest of their new label Rise Above Records.  They also made their live debut at the Roadburn Festival (!!! [that's some venue for a debut performance]) and later toured the UK with no lesser personages than Black Sabbath themselves.  Most importantly they released their third album and all-important follow-up to 2011's terrific 'Blood Lust' which had scored the band significant underground buzz.  As always of course, opinions were split on the creative success of the record with the majority falling victim to the album's deadly charisma.  Original review here.  Get it here.  Highlights include: "Mt. Abraxas" and "Mind Crawler".  Rating 4.5/5

May 15 - CULTURA TRES (Rezando Al Miedo) - South American sludge heroes Cultura Tres had a great year, signing to Devouter Records in late 2012, then successfully touring Europe shortly before releasing this terrific album.  Hooky, heavy & haunting, the album took Alice in Chains style harmonies and dragged them through the sludge.  'Rezando al Miedo' was one if the great albums and one of the great creative leaps forward for any band this year.  Original review here.  Get it here.  Highlights include: "La Ley Del Dolor" and "Hole In Your Head".  Rating 4.5/5

May 15 - Kings Destroy (A Time of Hunting)

May 17 - Evangelist (Doominicanes)

May 21 - A Pale Horse Named Death (Lay My Soul To Waste)

May 21 - ROTE MARE (The Invocation & The Kingdom) - It's not easy hearing someone pour their guts out on record but when the net results are an airtight split and a stellar pair of full-length albums it becomes a little easier to handle.  Sifting through the entrails reveals gem upon gem and any stretching of creativity expands to new heights, never thinning out.  Traditional doom never sounded so passionate.  Original review here.  Get it here.  Highlights include: "Suicidal Slayer" and "The Thief".  Rating 4.5/5

May 24 - Steak (Corned Beef Colossus)

May 24 - Vidunder (ST)

May 27 - BLOOD CEREMONY (The Eldritch Dark) - Canadian quartet Blood Ceremony's much anticipated third album came out of left field with a folk / doom tidal wave of top notch storytelling with more than ample memorable moments to match.  A decidedly more colorful record than their previous effort 'Living With The Ancients', 'The Eldritch Dark' has been a mainstay in my Top 10 records of the year since its release.  Original review here.  Get it here.  Highlights include: "Goodbye Gemini" and "Witchwood".  Rating 4.5/5

May 28 - Age of Taurus (Desperate Souls of Tortured Times)

May 28 - ALICE IN CHAINS (The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here) - Alice in Chains's second album since their 2009 resurrection was simply more of what you've come to expect from the grungy legends.  It's a great album, full of hooks and harmonies, big metal poses and faux cowboy ballads.  The thing I like about it most is that it exists.  Original review here.  Get it here.  Highlights include: "Stone" and "The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here".  Rating 4.5/5

May 30 - Witches of God (The Blood of Others)


Best Album From April 2013:
'The Eldritch Dark' by BLOOD CEREMONY

Best Song From April 2013:
"Mind Crawler" by UNCLE ACID & THE DEADBEATS

PARANOID Thoughts:

And the award for record label of the year goes to: Rise Above Records.  Forget that the label is currently embroiled in a minor controversy with all-world label signees Electric Wizard, 2013 ought to be remembered for the consistently high quality of the label's output.  Everything the label released was awesome and each album that came out seemed to be better than the last.  Any one of the albums listed below would have been at or near the top of any other label's best releases list for the year, the fact that label head honcho Lee Dorrian managed to rush them all out the door in the space of a single year makes you wonder whether the anti-trust lawyers won't be coming after him some day soon.

Top 10 Rise Above Records released albums from 2013:
1). Iron Man - 'South of the Earth'
2). Blood Ceremony - 'The Eldritch Dark'
3). Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - 'Mind Control'
4). Horisont - 'Time Warriors'
5). Cathedral - 'The Last Spire'
6). Moss - 'Horrible Night'
7). Church of Misery - 'Thy Kingdom Scum'
8). Age of Taurus - 'Desperate Souls of Tortured Times'
9). The Hidden Masters - 'Of This & Other Worlds'
10). Purson - 'The Circle & the Blue Door'
Last year's winner: Small Stone Records.

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