Fair Warning! Don't Miss ... Voodoo Mule - Voodoo Zoo

The first time I reviewed an album for somebody else's website it was Harvester's 'Blind Summit Recordings' for Stoner Hive (see the very bottom link on Reviews Appendix tab).  I had already reviewed it for my site, twice(!) but I didn't want to rock the boat by refusing my very first review offer, thus revealing my very Canadian politeness (It would take some hard-digging research to confirm but I probably hold the world's record for most published reviews of 'Blind Summit Recordings').  But I've always wanted to keep my Paranoid Hitsophrenic and outside work lives separate.  'Voodoo Zoo' is an album I reviewed recently at the Temple of Perdition, but I did want to bring it to the attention of PH readers because it's more than worthy of institutionalization, so, never one to repeat myself (...okay once, er ... twice), I bring you this Voodoo Mule feature.  Don't let the lack of proper album cover artwork fool you, this is hot stuff!  Consider this fair warning!  Don't miss ... Voodoo Mule's 'Voodoo Zoo'.  (PS, I'll be pulling double duty again with a PH feature / Temple of Perdition review later this week with another band ... stay tuned folks!)

BIO:
Slovenian stoner rock/doom metal/sludge band Voodoo Mule just self-released their long awaited debut album called Voodoo Zoo. More copies will be out soon by legendary Croatian d.i.y. label Slušaj Najglasnije. Voodoo Zoo was recorded and produced by Rok Zalokar.

Tracklist:
01 - Honeyland
02 - Tapas
03 - Trunkfull
04 - Jizz Da Bizz
05 - I'm A Midnight Moler
06 - Church Snake
07 - Ripoff

You can now listen to full-length album and also download it for FREE at their Bandcamp:
http://voodoomule666.bandcamp.com/album/voodoo-zoo

Psysical copies are available for 5€ + postage via email: jutubemula@gmail.com

"A hybrid with an error, a not so clever idea gone worse, a menace that bucks you off with a hint of voodoo from under a tophat black... With a hint of sugar, spice and everything nice, that is how this sonic behemoth came about.
The idea behind Voodoo Mule was a simple one, no indie, just loud and filthy. These are the secret ingredients that bond together an ansable of three with Hippopotamus on drums, Iguana on bass, and Jagnje on guitar and vocals.
This is the form in which we`ve been working since March 2010 and performing since February 2011. We made our first recordings in February 2011 when we imortalized our first three songs that formed our first officialy unofficial demo that blogers labeled it to be stoner rock. Since then we have covered our homeland Slovenia throuout and our hometown Ljubljana several times as well, with disturbingly loud riff driven rock shows. Just cuple of highlighted shows were at Festival Lent, Paranoid Piknik Open Air, Metal Mania Open Air and supporting bands like Count Raven, Karma To Burn, Pagan Altar, Jucifer, Suuns, Rozbub and many many many more.
Our plans for the future are as simple as the basic idea that holds us together, play loud, play out, stay filthy and respect your roots."

Voodoo Mule is:
Jagnje - guitar, vox
Iguana - bass
Hippo - drums 

https://www.facebook.com/voodoomule
http://www.reverbnation.com/voodoomule

From my Temple of Perdition review:

"Slovenian trio Voodoo Mule is heavier and filthier than most stoner rock bands.  The fuzz flows thick and viscous, just the way you like it, downtuned all the way to hell which must be where their swaggering groove riffs originate.  They play slow enough at times to be classified as stoner doom, but for now we’ll just call it thick bottomed rock n roll as a foundation.
These boys play around with their riffs like a hungry cat plays with a mouse, improvising mid-stride and batting the thing around with pick-handling paws.  1000ccs rumble from the exhaust pipe of a Kyuss-made green machine with black (sabbath) trim.  One song flows into the next the way mercury travels through the brain, devouring all in its path."

But, as always, don't just take my word for it, listen on the player below and judge for yourself, hit the download button and pay what you like on bandcamp, you'll be glad you did.  I am ...

Rogue Transmissions - Chains & Jess and The Ancient Ones (album review)

SVART RECORDS TWO FOR ONE

Cover Artwork by Coven Illustration

CHAINS - DANCING WITH MY DEMONS

Not too terribly long ago, I reviewed Chains' self-released 'Of Death' demo album.  It was a dark masterpiece of horror drone which I found to be quite inspiring (read it here).  Now they have returned with a brand new 7" single, "Dancing With My Demons" backed with "Join The Sabbath".  This is their first release on the terrific Svart Records.  Where 'Of Death' was a solo effort by E. Chains, the size of the band has subsequently doubled to include Lord Samhain (Chad Davis) on drums.  For the first time, Chains has expanded their sonic territory into, well ... I'll let the band speak for themselves ...

Chains was born in 2010 as a Hypnotic Drone Doom project in the vein of Sunn O))), Moss, Urfaust with a 70s horror vibe influenced by bands like Death SS and Paul Chain. In 2012 after the release of the first opus ˝OF DEATH˝, Lord Samhain joined the project and became the fulltime Chains drummer. At this point, the music took a retro-evolution and became a hybrid between 80s Italian Dark Doom, Death Rock and 80s Dark Metal. Chains in 2013 Chains will revive the golden 70s-80s Dark Doom style with a spice of alchemic elements with simple and hypnotic riffs.

Excellent stuff.  It seems like everything Chad Davis is involved with is awesome, Chains now joining the ranks and sounding like the spiritual cousin of one of his other recent projects, Witchcoven.  Remember, this is the first time Chains has ventured into structured song territory.

The a-side, "Dancing With My Demons" starts off with some droney atmospherics and a plaintive, almost whiney riff.  No big build-up, the lyrics float in straight-off.  This is the first intelligible vocal performance for this band.  The vocals are unaffected, classic sounding but not necessarily clean, because they are smothered in production ketchup.  Altogether it's a great song, mist-shrouded graveyard vibes with cobwebs and dancing skeletons.

"Join The Sabbath" appears on the b-side but it's my favorite of the two tracks.  A great doom riff with horror embellishments.  The vocals are once more obscured by echo, but again the lyrics are still clear.  The chorus is catchy and driving and the song is perhaps a bit more adventurous in terms of structure.

I have no idea right now whether this single is a precursor to a lengthier work but I look forward to more of it all the same.  My guess is a full-length from these two demented geniuses will be epic in scope and vision with great riffs and haunted soundscapes.  Whether it be drone or this kind of graveyard dwelling doom, Chains always hits that crypt-keeping mood.  A gruesome twosome to keep an eyeball out for.

Rating: 4.5/5




Tracklist:
1). Dancing With My Demons (5:02)
2). Join The Sabbath (5:14)
Total Run Time: 10:15

E. Chains - Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Fx
Lord Samhain - Drums

From: Slovenia & United States

Genre: Doom, Sludge, Drone, Horror

Release Date: March 15, 2013

Suggested listening activity for fellow non-stoners: Be careful of what you wish for, and be wary of what you conjure.

GET IT HERE


*********************************************************************************

Cover Artwork by Adam Burke

JESS & THE ANCIENT ONES - ASTRAL SABBAT

It's hard for me to say this because I don't like being critical, but I didn't really like Jess & The Ancient Ones self-titled debut from last year. I liked a couple songs but it just wasn't something that I found myself returning to.  If you, like me, were luke-warm on their album, then do yourself a favor and give this one a listen because JATAO turn up the heat on the follow-up.

Title track "Astral Sabbat" has a winding labrynthine sixties swinging London riff that sounds lifted from some mythical Satanic occultsploitation flick of the era.  Naked ladies lie placidly on altars while black or crimson robed men in goat masks clutch daggers in both hands high overhead.  A pentagram on a high stone wall, gnarly tree or rocky outcrop behind.  This is the best song I've heard from the band.  It's immediately catchy and memorable.

When I got the CD in the mail, I opened her up and checked the inside booklet.  The lyrics for the front and back songs were listed which led me to believe that the middle track "Long And Lonesome Road" was an instrumental.  Nope.  It's a cover of what is probably the best song Shocking Blue ever did.  For those who are only familiar with their disco smash hit "Venus" (I'm your venus, I'm your fire ...), if you like the JATAO version here, do yourself another favor and dig into their back catalogue.  They were so much more than that one song.  I've long been a fan of this song and it's a delight to hear it covered by a modern band.  You ask me it's one of the best songs recorded in the early seventies which proves Jess and her gang have great taste.  The song is given heavy and respectful treatment here.  Well done!

"More Than Living" showcases a more subdued mood with a slight country vibe, more in line with the material from their self-titled album of last year.  A slow and constant builder, the song gets a lift from punctuated organ and lap steel guitar (played by Jani Karhunen).  The song is a nail bomb of dynamics, scattershot ideas fly in all directions, the band never losing the listener's attention for its full 14 minute span.  There's always something going on, something changing, something happening.  The long build up leads to a heavy final third and it's well worth the wait.

Though only 3 songs and some 24 minutes long, 'Astral Sabbat' is an impressive record.  It showcases what the band can accomplish in a limited space, strong and interesting song dynamics, great and interesting riffs that are just a touch different from anything contemporary, great taste and a bevy of musical ideas.  This is a good direction for the band to go in and I for one will be looking forward to their next offering with great interest.

Highlights include: "Astral Sabbat" and "Long And Lonesome Road"

Rating: 4.5/5



Tracklist:
1). Astral Sabbath (6:27)
2). Long And Lonesome Road (3:10)
3). More Than Living (14:48)
Total Run Time: 24:23

Jess - Vocals
Thomas Corpse - Lead guitar
Thomas Fiend - Lead guitar & backing vocals
Von Stroh - Rhythm guitar
Fast Jake - Bass guitar
Abraham - Keyboard
Yussuf - Drums & percussion

From: Kuopio, Finland

Genre: Prog, Hard Rock, Doom, Stoner

Release Date: February 22, 2013

Suggested listening activity for fellow non-stoners: Back woods occultic hoe down.

Better Reviews:
Ave Noctum
The Midlands Rocks
Metal Temple

Jess & The Ancient Ones official website

GET IT HERE

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