Sienná - Q.o.S review

Year : 2017
Genre : Chillout with a Soft Psychedelic tint
Label : Anneis Records 3H50002
Origin : Norway
Official site: > - here - <

Sienná's latest full length effort Q.o.S - the "S" is reverSe - brings deeply contemplative and reverberating pulsations along a chilled demeanor.

Clocking in around the 40 minutes mark, the spin values content quality over content quantity, dressing the experience up into an especially well-varied set of musical rhetorics that give apt opportunities for the artist to paint full fledged-, and quite imaginative visions on.

You'll never know what Sienná is up to, as your host is skilled enough at sound wizardry to maintain you curiosity via exercising the full-value right to administer surprises with considerable frequency, coming to you in the forms of soulfully sculpted-out sonic elements that constantly share the optimums of clear thought and playful-, albeit smartly channeled elegance. Read on to know more. 

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Red is the New Black track review

Year : 2016
Genre : Psychedelic Rock with a Doom tint
Origin : United States

"Red is the New Black" is a particularly strong, invasive psychedelic track with a definitive doom tint to it. A somber, massive declaration that has come to me through a review order placed with no additional information attached. "Red is the New Black", and that is that, no band name, no nothing, review it please.

The music itself is situated at the middle of an optimum intersection where the timeless rules - hah - of psychedelia and current production standards meet. The hefty, supra-old school intro guitar jumps you from the speakers like Magilla Gorilla on an otherwisely desolated island, and the ensuing sonic anatomy quickly reveals a type of devotion rendered directly unto the monolithic altars of ironically sly and sinister moods and sentiments, revolving primarily around money. Oh well, money does not make you happy, but it won't make you unhappy, either.

The track bravely explores brisk avenues along bluesy building blocks, while its constant focus/intention remains to ritually kamikaze into the bowels of good old fashioned blight, a dark, dangerous and deliberately heartless territory, which is revealed with picture perfect accuracy through exquisite chord choices and tempo alterations. During these segments, the incomprehensibly uplifting-, nihillistic indifference of Dark Souls - yes, the video game - emerges, symbolic of the somber-, yet imperturbably unfuckwithable attitude that lurks beneath the music as a fueling force.

One can tell that a whole lot of love has been given during the making of this track, as the whole structure is an excellently varied expression of a well-placed curiosity cultivated towards the most delicious components of its very own anatomy. The song eloquently showcases the timeless nature of doom-tinted psychedelia, and you want it.

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HoneyTrash - Suit & Tie review

Year : 2014
Genre : Indie Rock with a strong fascination of Doom and Sludge
Label : Independent
Origin: United States
Official site : > - here - <

HoneyTrash works best-, even bestest when its members are channeling the Black Sabbathian doom you can perceive the impervious silhouettes of in the background of pretty much all four songs on display herein. I don't even know of these men are aware of the quasi-fact that their music is supremely close to the timeless soul crushing charisma of sludge, but it might be so that their mere unawareness of it is the main attraction force of their strategies on how to defile silence with streamlined/hyper-optimized style and reckless abandon. The music on this EP always conveys the deceivingly calm sensation you feel before "teh" storm that is about to flatline the place you live in.

HoneyTrash, while misleadingly portraying itself as a stone-traditional indie blues rock affair upon surface inspection, is not reluctant nor incapable to instill superb sonic sensations of maddening decay into the fray, and a truly keen affection towards exotic, evil, aggressive chordal work also is observable: check out the chord being played in track number 2, at 3:20, for example: this is the type of harmony Cthulhu finds himself deeply affected of, pun not only intended, but willfully absorbed. Read on to know more about the disc.

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This Is The End Again - Mad Dog Under

GyZ gives you the song : This Is The End Again - Mad Dog Under

Lyrics by James Humphrey & GyZ

Lyrics :

oh, the old one smells like a pee pee
so you hump the bastard's leg
then he leads you out
and shoots you, guts you, skins you
and chops you up for bait

if you're not the lead dog
the view never changes
the same ass is my compass
in the sun and when it rains

top dog our leader
we fear him too
he's taking it easy
if we see his point of view

I'm gonna blend right in at the back of the pack
behind a dog so big
I could get swallowed by his tracks
he's leaving more behind than footprints
so I'm careful where I tread
this is the end of the pack of the racks
oh lord, this is the end again

the lead dog has a point of view ya really catch his draft
it's the same in front as it was behind, the last dog on this shift
to the air goes number one dog's nose as the rest all gag and hack
this is the end of the pack of the racks, oh lord, this is the end again

now you're not the top dog anymore
now you've earned the right
to sleep beneath an indoor bed
you're brushed sometime
and you  never have to beg
but the old one smells like a pee pee
so you hump the bastard's leg
then he leads you out and
shoots you, guts you, skins you
and chops you up for bait

I'm gonna blend right in at the back of the pack
behind a dog so big
I could get swallowed by his tracks
he's leaving more behind than footprints
so I'm careful where I tread
this is the end of the pack of the racks
oh lord, this is the end again

within the pecking order, there's a problem in the pen,
every lead dog wants the front row, now the rest are charging in
they're all crawling up each other on a growling growing heap of crap
whoever thought they'd find me on the top of the pack?

this is the end of the pack of the racks oh lord, this is the end again
only in the opposite direction

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Fade to Black - G Street Panorama review

Genre : Classic Rock with a Psychedelic, Doom and Grunge tint
Label : Silver Maple Kill Records
Origin : United State
Release Date : 2013
Official site : > - here - <

You can't simultaneously gain knowledge of a track called "Aliens and Beer" and remain disinterested of it, and US based Fade to Black is doing all and THEN some in their considerable classic/doom/grunge rock charisma power to emphasize this point. The song is a clear initiatory representation of what this veteran formation is all about at first face value - massively guitar centered mid-range axe warfare that borders - JUST borders - on punk in its sonic volumetrics, backed up by a mean, and clearly audible bass presence and adept drum molestation skills that give any decent dope fiend drumma' a run for the next fix.

Luckily enough, the band delivers flamboyant variation in the context of intensity and general musical behavior. The ensemble has a legitimate punch and heft to it whenever they feel like showing off the obligatory granite balls, and they emerge competent/clear/thoughtful throughout the tamer compositions - "The Note", for example -, as well. Unhidden intentions are on persistent display that seek to compliment a psychedelic overtone, armed with an apt understanding of the related criteria systems. This fascination comes to you via a diverse set of various beneficiary and easily accessible iterations, too. The one you hear in "Aliens and Beer" is the Timothy Learian psyhedelia with a tint of doom, while the one you will find in "The Note" is more playful-, fanciful, showing reminiscences with Pink Floyd and a restless variant of Beatles, even. Nah, I'm only kidding with one of the references. Or am I? Read on to know more about the record.

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Fluorescent Lipstick - STD Statistic

GyZ gives you the song : Fluorescent Lipstick - STD Statistic. Listen in HD please.

Lyrics :

look out, you're hurting yourself again
entangled and twisted
in deathly deviations again
fluorescent lipstick, your name on a fence
the mood of a crowbar
what's the difference

I'm baffled by your every smile
you brought them Marilyn Monroe style
and when I apply your favorite lipstick on your face
how good it would be if you'd be alive instead

fluorescent lipstick
fluorescent lipstick
you're STD statistic
the rest of you is putrid
the darkness in the room
is hiding in your gloom
fluorescent lipstick
I don't want you without it

baby, I'm in no haste
I'm gonna put on your very best face
a little something to emphasize and praise
a little something to conceal and erase

and oftentimes I do wonder
what's left of you to remember
and when I'm losing myself against penumbrae
on your face
I take a glimpse and I'm right there on your retinae

fluorescent lipstick
fluorescent lipstick
you're STD statistic
the rest of you is putrid
the darkness in the room
is hiding in your gloom
fluorescent lipstick
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Cunt - Monday Cunt

GyZ gives you the song : Cunt - Monday Cunt. Listen in HD please.

This is a song about a woman, who, for whatever mysterious reason, loves to be called a cunt.

Lyrics :

I want you to kill me first
then lock me into your festering heart
I want you to wake up next
and do the procedure right from the start

something that I've never seen on you
something that changes you too
revealing the better but hiding the worst
hiding the worst of you
your sudden burst of pride
sucking me inside
stumble around to keep stumble around
to keep stumble around on your mind

your glamour-heart of baby blue

your proper heart of baby blue
it wants all things I am not
'cause I'm shit out of luck

she loves to be called a cunt

rubber lover
she's a miracle
a spectacle
for whatever
mysterious
reason

she loves to be called a cunt

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Woods of Ypres - Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light review

Year : 2012
Genre : Intense Funeral Doom
Label : Earache
Origin : United States
Rating : 9.3 / 10

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On December 21, 2011, founding member, lead vocalist, guitarist of funeral doom band Woods of Ypres, David Gold, 31, dies in a car accident near Barrie, Ontario. I personally hope Gold's spirit remains active in a dimension the consensus percept of reality has no immediate access to without a turbo pineal gland, yet, one thing is for sure : Gold's spirit also is projected to this plane of (meta)physical existence, as necessary result of the latest Woods of Ypres LP, titled Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light. My first experience with this band was/is their official video of their song Mount Pleasant Cemetery, and I remember how I found it both intriguing and hilarious that the narrator sings about his own funeral, but, as viewer/listener of his uncompromisingly bitter musical report, here I am, being subjected to an elegiac meatspace-rant filmed in full HDRI gloom-glory, despite how the physical shell of the singer was "burieeeeeeed in Mount Pleasant Cemeteeeeryyyy" already. (And "the sadness was overwhelming." [and not little, you know?]).

The song probably is a ghost song of some sorts, necessarily resonated by a meatspace human while performed. The meatspace-narrator, one is invited to assume, attempts to channel the sentiments of the wannabe-narrator-ghost, which is bending to the will of the commanding spiritual system that demands a status report of its infinite suffering. Moral of the s(t)o(r)ry is frightening enough : suffering demands talent. Not surprisingly, this Woods of Ypres album is a fresh collection of attempts at exhibiting noteworthy spiritual suffering for your semi-perverted joy of continuous self reference, and you will need to read on to find out how it all turns out/in for this band in 2012.


I generally am not too big of a fan of music comparison, when you attempt to describe what you hear by enthusiastically naming earlier inputs of similar sonic character, thereby wanting to smuggle immediate merit to your argument. This almost always is the easy way out. Luckily, consensus reality does not give a nickelfuck with two lost holes in it about my sentiments regarding this issue, because, quite frankly, this album renders a huge amount of tasteful tributes to its numerous inspirators.

Opening track "Career Suicide" is a surprising build without any doubt. The song and David Gold both seek to dial in a mood-, a modal behavior reminiscent to Type O Negative and Rammstein, and you can add a little bit of early Anathema - think "Sleepless" era - on top, too. As the release lets you know hastily, the early Anathema feeling is one of the most important dispositions of this full length, one that consorts with the Type O Negative soulset amidst a natural flow of beneficiary chemical reactions. The delivery is more mid-tempo peacefulness and morose meandering than hefty rampage with ballsy grit, and, even when it IS hefty, it conveys its intensity along the elegantly risky register of the Anathemian "killing me softly" tenderness. The album is not at all on steroids, nor is in the need to be in order to come through as evidently relevant sonic data. The relatively fragile, yet absolutely tasteful production values all give a slick underground club feeling to the LP, which lets it communicate the messages along that special "You got me burning" emotional field of the first Terminator movie. Subtract the disco from "You got me burning", and worship the pure toast blackened leftovers, as that is what this album is about, lover.

In essence, the darkest charms of the '80s is here, fueled by contemporary emotion, realized in full comic book sonic glory, and the only minor caveat I care to mention is David Gold's notable urge to mime a variety of performers. He mainly seeks to imitate the sub-bass vocal style of Peter Steele, which is a real risky thing to do unless you sport the unquestionably near-divine charisma of Steele, at minimum. The results are quite frightening, but hilarious, too : David Gold's rendition of Peter Steele sounds more like the fronter of Crash Test Dummies, and I have nothing further to add to this.

Mind you that this pseudo-negative aspect I have just been telling you about, is not an excruciatingly daunting percept to endure, - it is fun, in a puzzling kind of way, instead - and it would be unjust to regard this trait of the release as a true annoyance of it. There really is nothing at all to dislike about this record in my opinion, as it is nothing short of inventive, honest sorrowful music, top to bottom. No filler songs, no alibis. The commanding mood of the disc seeks and tolerates no self-indulgent cultivation of stock-joy or instant, cheap comfort-hope. The music of this slitherer contribution drops on your skin as black velvet, yet this black velvet brings the elegance of sporting calming guarantees of the lack of a danger with venom hidden above it. Woods of Ypres is not out there to bestow cuts on you, thank God & Co. Woods of Ypres' latest studio album is out there to convey a special kind of underground retro gloom, one Peter Steele silently approves of. Steele did not object. This record is a truly pleasant surprise with no blemishes or notably weaker segments I care to mention, and I recommend it with a poker face and great satisfaction. Once again, if you are a fan of Type O Negative and early Anathema - even better : both - then this baby is immediate ear-treasure for you.

Rating : 9.3 / 10

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Esoteric - Paragon of Dissonance review

Year : 2011
Genre : Funeral Doom
Label : Season of Mist
Origin : United Kingdom
Rating : 9.2 / 10

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Esoteric - Paragon of Dissonance is spaceship-delerict doom metal with its focus exclusively directed on the incapacitated states a human is in and constructs its assumed reality by. This band is out to rip your face off to help you see better with the heart, but, according to the music contained on this double barreled, it is not at all guaranteed that what the heart sees, will be to its liking, either.

If you want to go mad-, or, at the very least, would prefer to suck on the tongue of good old fashioned existential dread as result of you lacking the capacity to consciously and radically adjust those at any time, - which is indeed not something we possess the capacity for, but we are permitted to accept this state and do our best to improve this capacity in the future, [- by improving our current ones, for example?? -] then this CD is your immediate premiere choice to move in for the ancient, saggy tits of existential anxiety.

I bet she is a much more adept kisser than you, and no, I do not want to try. This review will include a superb nervous system trick as well, if you need one. If you don't, then I apologize. Yet, as for now, read on to find out how the latest Esoteric delivery to date crashes into your concept of reality.


Esoteric seems to be a critic, and one with a troll temper at that, and this double CD set is openly out there to rip your face off, so the access to your third eye is realized, at last. Esoteric expects you to give thorough face time - oops - to your dire companion Mr. Unbeknownst, the guy who is equally open about his agenda to bury a part of you every single day.

Esoteric is crawling, crushing doom metal reigning evident-rampant, primarily realized by analog instruments. Big, tidal-wave drums, guitars tuned to the depths of hell, and bass wide enough to make your subwooffer reconstruct your DNA, what irony! Esoteric also utilizes some rather elegantly and meticulously realized digital atmospherics to spice a build up here and there with little vile vibes of much greater significance. Yet, mind us that this solution is not ever present on the release, so its occurrence always is a very efficient-, and, paradoxically enough, gracing feat to behold.

As for the main attraction of the music herein, that is none other than a superb sense for strong, albeit tormented harmonic structures and odd - in a good way - rhythms. One would be quite curious of the lyrics, as well, - though I imagine there is not much manlove in them - because what you can get away with without the textual description of those, is nothing less, nor nothing more than decent vocal delivery via traditional death metal growling.

The songs are long like a round under a banshee, and thank God & Co. for that, because Esoteric's music absolutely demands these thorough investigations. The listener can not be criticized if she/he dismisses the stimuli she/he hears if to think of it as being unsuccessful. This is not the case herein at all. Esoteric, as hinted, comes up with harmonies that are sewn out of a highly psychedelic nature, and they are so well researched-, so "well felt" and smartly sculpted indeed that listening to their progression - various basic intensity and background to them, etc - remains utterly efficient and highly enjoyable for the multitude of minutes they tend to address their autonomous, exquisite deviancies. It seems to be quite true that once a harmony is strong enough, you are not sure you want it to go away too soon. A funny thing to witness : the ending track of this double CD shows emotional/modal similarities to Epitome XII from Blut Aus Nord, in my opinion

Paragon of Dissonance is a - seemingly - robust fabric in which full musculature sonic monstrosities are handling the door knob to each other, but, to be honest the record does not even sound to be too lengthy to me, despite the program time of 1 hour 33 minutes of both discs combined. The reason for this is simple : the record investigates places time comes to a still in. Time. Is. Not. A. Factor. Herein.

You, I think, are depriving yourself from a significant musical experience if you listen to this album amidst submitting to your daily activities. Give this tightly realized mindhack attempt the decency to listen to it with your eyes closed and your hideous body being comfy, so there is only the music and you, and the experience that connects the two. Which is all it is about.

Here is the nervous system trick, which I have read in a book by Rudolf Steiner : if you want to tap into the higher worlds, then - among 23423423423 other things - you need to focus on the energy that connects your physical body with the soul. That energy is beyond your physical body, it's been around since the days of cavemen and Cleopatra, and still it is here, as a part of your being. This thought has hacked my existence for the better superbly, and I hope you find it beneficiary, too.

now BE FUCKING HORRIFIED and check back soon.

Rating : 9.2 / 10

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Argus - Boldly Stride the Doomed review

Year : 2011
Genre : Epic Doom
Label : Cruz Del Sur Music
Origin : United States
Rating : 9.2 / 10

Buy it now

At this very moment, Argus' Boldly Stride the Doomed is not featured on Wikipedia, nor the encyclopedia has any notable awareness of the very existence of this top tier metal squad. This is an unacceptable situation. This is not only an embarrassment on the collective psyche, but a pretty well defined one at that, so now is the time to attempt to draw more attention to the musical ripeness and elegant power this release defines for 56 minutes.

Simply put, and, according to (Yours, Truly's) theory, Argus makes the music that 999 - and not 666 - of 1000 doom metal bands originally/secretively are going for, but, their end products fall more and more distant from the then-formless instinctual aspirations, as result of being bombarded by compromises of various kinds during the creative process. Only a functional approximation of the original intent is left then, because that exactly is as much as it remained of it, after being eaten alive while being born. Aua.

Argus though never, not for one second, exhibits any suspicious intent to serve evident deceit or leftovers on your plate. Instead, everything is top tier, unalloyed, clearly and gratefully decipherable metal music content, and, what seems to be even more important than that, Boldly Stride the Doomed reigns totally free of all urges to scare / pressure you, regardless how it chooses to incorporate the most relevant and most weighty human questions into its primer interests. The release does not judge, it does not suggest - it reports.

On Argus' latest LP, metal gets resonated through a noticeably peaceful BUT fervently curios spiritual stance, one that soberly reveals a musical field that draws elegant, dainty patterns by sledgehammers, always being ready to deliver one of the flamboyant charms or luscious dangers it has in store for you as its primer components. Read more to lighten the immensity of the embarrassment on the collective psyche, that which is formed by the unacceptably low awareness level of this fine record's mere availability.


Boldly Stride the Doomed is as serious as music can get while threading along in the company of drums, bass, twin guitars and a singer - only this time, the singer tore an illegal space-time rift into the fabric of cosmos, and topples the fine instrumental cake with vocal presence emanating from the mighty throats of a Sonic Wargod!!!4

(note : the "4" at the end of the latter sentence is deliberate, and it serves the well tamed function to reveal my level of enthusiasm.)

While Argus' music emerges as spotless metal even when Kermit is rapping on the tracks, lead singer Butch Balich gives you the vocals that do a whole lot of kinds of "just" justice to the favorite attributes of this musical language. While it is totally common to attempt to reveal epic determination in an intentionally rhythmic and dramatic fashion in order to come through as epically determined, Butch Balich plays an entirely different ball game, simply because of the size of the balls he plays that game with.

This ex-Penance member gives you the raw animal vocal traits while he is worshiping the current melody as God, and his midrange packs more than sufficient power to - as suggested elsewhere on this here site - shatter neighboring icebergs at will, let alone how he keeps his stupendously ballsy vocal timber intact even when he is going into the higher registers. In a zone your good enough metal singer delivers among signs of not being entirely comfortable, Butch Balich shatters the icebergs. But, the higher registers on this spin are mainly used to sing a one note song of rage - copyright by Dave Mustaine - and are not serving as a basis to conduct the entirety of the vocal themes on. Higher pitched, real deal MELODIC screams are often used on the release to emphasize key elements of the lyrical context, while the major portions of the narrative itself tend to take place on the above addressed, exceptionally powerful midrange. And there is a whole lot of delicious narrative going on, from legit existentialist/spiritual pondering, rhyming nicely with the developments of both ancient and recent science - track called The Ladder - to desperate, nevertheless dignified and bitterness-free prayer - track called Wolves of Dusk - or a blaming finger in the collective face, - track called Curse on the World - and others that remain to surprise you. All in all, the funny thing simply is that Butch Balich does not sound to have a vocal zone he is not naturally gifted to deliver mightily on, and the raw charisma presence his contribution imbues these tracks with, are pretty "beyond precedent, at least until The Butch Balich did that, that is" - level.

From an instrumental point of view, Argus gives you 10 crystal clear renditions of the ripe, exceptionally intact, and, as noted, also deliciously dangerous musical field so keenly frequented by the members. "Dangerous" in a sense that these elements are out to affect you without notice, but they never try to harm you, because Argus' music "simply is" beyond the intent by a galaxy or two of causing harm in its listener. Causing harm requires no true effort. While the most persistent and most pronounced mood of the release doubtlessly and wholeheartedly belongs to good ol' fashioned impending doom, it majestically reigns beyond the levels of taking itself all that lethally serious, and so it emerges free to reveal a kind of legit beauty that expresses itself 100% free of all saliva, slime and the usual average smarmy stuff you can so easily and so cheaply come across on other albums to have your spiritual contact comfort fix shoveled down on your astral throat nice and proper. It always is interesting when you hear a monster talking about the fact that it (she/he) secretly is having a heart along the claws and jaws, and this vibe, this tender monster reigns ubiquitous on the spin, without any aspiration present on its part to toll or crave your sympathy for the state of existence it is in. Dignity, beauty, and the persistent possibility of getting your ass handed to you at any moment, are all key factors of this exceptionally intact album. Argus' Boldly Stride the Doomed has everything AND beyond you ever hoped to come across during a metal spin. It is a musical report delivered from a field of reference that deems nothing as having no right to exist, and it always chooses to enter and inspect, as opposed to chickening out, and reject. Boldly Stride the Doomed has what your ears want, and also

it has the BALLS.

Rating : 9.2 / 10

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Yob - Atma review

Year : 2011
Genre : Sludge Doom
Label : Profound Lore
Origin : United States
Rating : 8.2 / 10

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Oregon based sludge splasher Yob already has a dedicated fanbase, and it is not without reason, of course. The superficial listener would assume that this trio delivers this extreme sludge metal to eradicate the will to live, but this could not be farer from the truth. Sludge seems to be an art form that is quite suitable to confront your beginner or black belt level demons through the register this music takes place on. While the rules of this style are relatively rigorous, its interpretation field is limitless.

The direction of the sludge can happen for the cleansing, and, for the defilement of the autonomous soul / awareness that connects with it. Some may connect with the filth so they can be free from it when functioning onwards after the listening experience, while others may be depressed by it, by falsely thinking that sludge's agenda is to depress. Nah. Proper sludge simply does not give a sear shit what you do with it. The best part of Yob's latest is that it is this exact kind of - paradoxically enough - elegant nihil-sludge, while the only shortcoming you will likely experience as an appreciator of sludge, is this : the five monstrous tracks of this LP show minor - and ONLY minor - inconsistency regarding the power they are pushing your face into the sludge with. Read on to find more on how much of your spiritual integrity will remain after colliding with this here sledgehammer baby.


The basic methodology the release is employing is easy to grasp unto, as this one is a methodology of a lazy, but quite-quite solid sledgehammer logic. A sludge sobriety that has elaborate tools in its possession it can corner your musical awareness with. After an acceptable and risk free "let's take this decent sludge riff to its logical conclusion" opening track, the second track, called Atma, has all the chance in the world to alter your mood dramatically. It either wrecks it, or cleanses your soul proper. It is up to you, it is your right and decision to select the mark you want the music to leave on you, the content simply needs to render the pattern and the route, and the feeling you walk through on it with, is yours to shape to, so it can shape you.

Atma does render the route, no problem : the opening notes of the first riff are evidently out to administer the hurt real bad, but, their intent to utterly crush is super-obvious, and it is hard to take them serious. The riff, elegantly enough, realizes this deliberate deficit in its character, and the shady thing offers you a hand to shake, via adding a consecutive element to itself, an element that has a friendly, almost tender vibe to it. A tender vibe with such fragile of a duration that you will end up wondering if it really happened at all. Conclusion : when you reach out to shake the hand, only THEN you will see it is holding a knife, though it did NOT, when you started to reach out to accept the handshake. This is the kind of feeling the riff goes for, and this is a much rarer sensation to experience musically, than it is to be crushed by a riff. There are dozens of great riffs on this planet that crush proper, but not many that do deceive masterfully. The LP's second track gives you such a riff, and also it gives this delicately deceiving musical experience.

This titular track, Atma, is great from another point of view, as well. It features an additional sequence that is likely to put a mark in a part of you that you did not know you had. The middle build of the song consists of an extremely down tuned guitar, chugging proudly and infinitely bitterly about the twisted kind of beauty it finds in the sharply defined misery he is devoted representer and slave of, but, here is the catch : this tormented guitar has brought with itself an army of undead just for good measure, and, to make sure you take its meaning seriously. In the middle section of the track's fabric, this almost tragicomic, intent menace of this seemingly solitary, twisted and tormented down tuned chug gets a short, complimentary support from the sonic power of the ENTIRE band, from time to time. They draw short, sharp, and powerful riff patterns, as light would slap the darkness, just to reveal random average tormented zombie faces, and, when darkness falls again, only the chug remains. The chug with a new resonance, one that rides on a fresh promise, a promise that the chug, in fact, might STILL not be alone at all. You can't be sure until the twisted kind of light decides to show up again.

The track Upon the Sight of the Other Shore has a healthy amount of inventive surprises in store for you, as well. This song, while spouting out a sludge that has the capacity to make fun of-, to submit to-, and to soulrape the vibe of folk at the same time, features an impressive vocal contribution with such legitimate howling incorporated in it that you have ever hoped (?) to hear, while, in the later portion of the track, the primal riff suddenly finds itself dwelling in the comfort of madness.

The track Adrift in the Ocean features a set of strong, easily decipherable musical ideas once again being taken to their respective logical conclusions along a well balanced "let's bury hope for fun and see how that feels like" style, and the sludge never loses a continuous, elegant narrative it is riding on. A narrative that exhibits a propensity to construct hope, but demands the right to kill it upon interception. This is the kind of sludge that has a well defined awareness of the entertainment value of its own, intimate and expressed sentiments, and, as such, it does not lose from its charisma by committing the mistake of over-repetition. Yob's sludging is well varied, yet the sludging in Adrift in the Ocean sounds to be one of the most flamboyant sequences on the spin.

This awareness of the mere efficiency of the sludge is almost ever-present on the record, and moments of less appeal and related-, shallower sequences of content-richness are hard to stumble upon, fortunately. Yob's Atma is a sludge pile big enough to wrap a soul around, and also one that no doubt demands a multitude of spins to reveal all aspects of its doubtlessly strong and ripe character.

Rating : 8.2 / 10

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Uncle Acid & the deadbeats - Blood Lust review

Year : 2011
Genre : Doom Metal / Blues Rock
Label : Independent
Origin : UK
Rating : 8.2 / 10

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Uncle Acid & the deadbeats invite you on a ride that does not come with a safety guarantee, as their latest to date audible contribution is a lush, tastily, lively realized tribute to the mere retro charm you could harvest during the restless sitting time of a z-grade exploitation horror / thriller made in the '70s.

Blood Lust is a pretty easily and gratefully approachable project at heart, as it is one that finds elegant reason behind its existence simply by the act of kissing the lips of its own aspirations, and not stopping until there is at least a drop of blood involved. Can't say do not be afraid : be afraid, because Blood Lust wants your soul, and for it, it will cut you down. (As a start.)



Uncle Acid & the deadbeats introduce a central vibe that is the devoted lover, hell, even the devoted sex slave of two primal styles. Imagine a mixture of the ancient, lazily yet dangerously energized dooming of Black Sabbath, combined with the feminine kind of coolness/restlessness declared by the Bee Gees. These nine tracks reek the manic-, and, as such, proper kind of love towards the aforementioned inspirators, yet it remains safe to say that the Black Sabbath vibe-language reigns as the LP's primal intent, while the high pitched head voice singing, that which still keeps dignity and packs the menacing factor no problem, summons and establishes a truly powerful, tasty combination with the instruments being in proper, playful, constant doom in the background.

Wait.

Constant doom is not doom at all.
Or is that the only kind of doom?

Some think - I try to avoid the "I", and I fail - Doom is sexiest when it comes with an urge, and it gets more and more miserable when it scrutinizes its own image. Luckily enough, Blood Lust seems to share this approach for dooming around, as the LP never loses a simple, yet proper kind of drive to express its vile and hateful intentions.

The production is flawless both for what it wants to do, and even when considered as something on its own : a homage to the horroristic side of the entertainment industry of the '70s, and a delivery that has intimate affliction and intimate affection for the dangerous, for the lethal aspects of the era. The sound, of course, is not free of elegant (!!) mud, but it IS free of the will of trying to conceal it. As hinted, a nice kind of mud it is anyway, one that adds a special, cold hearted warmness and intimacy to the experience. The mud this project simply could not work out well without. Blood Lust is a sexy, violent, restless contribution with its focus being placed on the various ways and methods retro doom could affect you by, pointing out the staggeringly obvious : retro doom does not need to "try" to make your soul react - it simply needs the volume, and you will have no choice, but to submit.

Rating : 8.2 / 10

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