KAVA - Shikaakwa review

Year : 2013
Genre : Doom Metal, Psychedelic Rock
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

KAVA brings you the music that fills responsible dads with the relentless urge to hide their daughters in the closet with earplugs attached to their appropriate orifices. This is a take on doom metal that definitely comes from the blackened heart, with an uncompromising determination to offer only such elements of doom eloquence that assume you to be a competent and exigent partner in the music deciphering process. The complexity and compositional/structural base is delightful per installments throughout, while the most prominent directive of what makes doom truly harvest your dopamine levels, is communicated with a pretty much masterful understanding of the involved productional rhetorics. The album is not particularly heavy sounding, - and thank God & Satan for that! - and this, in fact, is the reason why Black Sabbath is so timeless, too. It is not the sound that needs to be heavy, but the "mere" meaning of the sound. You can't substitute the meaning with weight, and, once your meaning is there, everyone will relate to it, you don't need to over-emphasize. OR not always. KAVA understands this connotation, and exhibits its craft accordingly. The music either dooms about with majestic promise of the imminent soulcrush, or, it gets deceitfully spaced out in an almost transcendental fashion, giving you apt opportunity to reflect on the sight the tinkering of decay so willingly offers. "So ecstatically pleasing decay", the Meshuggahs would say. Read on to know more about this spin.

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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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Forgotten Tomb - ...And Don't Deliver Us From Evil review

Year : 2012
Genre : Blackened Doom Metal
Label : Cruz Del Sur Music
Origin : Italy
Rating : 7.5 / 10

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I have no clue whether THIS Forgotten Tomb is the same one that has featured the band frontman and his insecurities contained in a bath tube on an early '2000s LP, but, in case it IS the same formation, then it is safe to say that the music has changed a lot since the inception of the "Songs to Leave" album. The content of the "... And Don't Deliver Us From Evil" contribution is a rather eloquent and well constructed flow of easily accessible - yes, I have said it - blackened doom, and, if you think that this very attribute harms the legitimacy of sheer heaviness, then, in my opinion you are purely mistaken. Read more to know more and necessarily desecrate the Forgotten Tomb in the mere process of knowing more about it.

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Down IV Part I - The Purple EP review

Year : 2012
Genre : Doom Metal, Sludge
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Rating : 9.0 / 10

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Down IV Part I - The Purple EP is the first of four extended plays  the band plans to release on consensus throughout the - logically - coming years. If you are not yet familiar with this band, then know that it is a Southern-State ensemble with quite a few illustrious members in its rankings. Fronter Philip Anselmo surely rings a bell or two as casual co-creator of the groove metal genre, and how about Crowbar fronter Kirk Windstein, who now handles the guitar strings of doom with much hoped for efficiency? The most relevant characteristic of the latest to date Down package that flatters the receptors, is a splendid and sublime spiritual similarity to - hold on to your horses before you vomit into the cleavage of the lady - ZZ Top, but these ZZ Top dudes have gone zombie on you, and now they are coming in to rip your heart out. As a start.

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Candlemass - Psalms for the Dead review

Year : 2012
Genre : Epic Doom Metal
Label : Napalm
Origin : Sweden
Rating : 4.0 / 10

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The reviewer is not important in a review, but now it is important to note that I'm a fan of Sweden. I'm an Abba fan, a Meshuggah nuthugger and meshuggah metal aficionado, and Swedish women seem to be beautiful cosmic constructs - though I've never met one in real life yet to this day - and Sweden sounds to have an interesting, funny native language, too. Tomas Ledin's timeless "Just Nu" drew my attention to this percept. Also, Sweden has the most high suicide rate in the world currently, which probably shows that they are deeply spiritual people. It is easy to kill yourself if you take yourself too serious. Like this release does with its last song, "Black As Time", more on that later. The reason I'm making these initial observations, is the following : I don't like the fact that yet again I must write bad things about a Swedish disc after the Diablo Swing Orchestra's latest output, because, believe you me, I wanted to love this release from Swedish doom metal ancients, Candlemass. But it is impossible, for me, because I find 75% of this release - to be modest - vastly underwhelming, non-inspired AND non-inspiring. Read on to find out more about this.

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Paradise Lost - Tragic Idol review

Year : 2012
Genre : Doom Metal
Label : Century Media
Origin : United Kingdom
Rating : 9.2 / 10

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The new Paradise Lost LP brings ten sonic declarations of doom, orchestrated to morose guitars of gargantuan perspectives. The uttermost urge the disc is fueled by is its ever-present endeavor to coat you into lush wall of sound structures that seek both to entertain and to tamely interrogate the soul, primarily by top of the heat-, playful down tuned power chord melodic warfare. The album sounds particularly good and well defined, with multiple-, layered variants of the elements stored in each autonomous song-fabrics. Yet, the main factorial that casts an eminent light on this eloquent representative of the doom-flock, is the "mere" songcraft : simply put, the songs are pretty much flawless on this one, and provide the listener with an on-spot-I-get-it experience without making tasteless accessibility-compromises. The audio data on Tragic Idol is uncompromisingly doom, uncompromisingly exigent, and,  maybe you just guessed it : it uncompromisingly emerges to kick your ass to hell and back. Guys, let's talk about the music.

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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

Buy this for $1 at :
http://gyzmusic.bandcamp.com/track/cunt-monday-cunt

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Black Pyramid - II review

Year : 2012 
Genre : Stoner Rock reeking (the promise of) Doom
Label : MeteorCity Records
Origin : Hell, naturally.
Rating : 5.0 / 10

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It seems super-easy to understand where Black Pyramid is coming from, as this group is quick to establish the basic rule set by channeling coarse epic rock and almost-power metal vibes with a doomy heft and timber to get the actual point across. My primordial concern is that with the latter sentence I have just wrote-, I told you pretty much everything I feel there is to be told about this delivery. "Doomy" never turns to "doom" herein, the coarse epicness never puts goosebumps on your soft skin, yet, in my opinion, being forced to produce a physical reaction to doom music is the minimum a doom aficionado can expect. I DO want to be blown away by this release, as I am blown away by Argus' latest doom offering Boldly Stride the Doomed, yet this baby here, while packs theoretical sex appeal from top to bottom, (on paper, that is) simply does not impose relevant danger to my trusty little Geiger counter, you catch my drift? Read on to find out more about this rock-orthodox stoner rock album.


With a program time of 60 minutes of super-homogeneous stoning - with two songs clocking in above the ten minutes mark, one above 15, even - I personally feel the release is stupendously self-indulgent and has an ubiquitous set of minor difficulties deciding what "exactly" to do, and how "long" to do "that" for. Still here? WOW. The band follows and exhibits mostly - if not entirely - orthodox compositional techniques similar to that of ancient doom groups like Pentragram, - check out their latest album, superb record to put yourself to sleep with in 2 seconds - yet, in my opinion, the Danger-, the Animal contained in Black Sabbath does not accept the invitation to be featured on this delivery. It never touched the fucking envelope. The songs simply ain't that fun, nor that dangerous, the hooks reek sweat and worse, and the band, as hinted, has a reoccurring tendency to prolong simplistic musical ideas to their own pleasure. The jam session in track number 4, "Dreams of the Dead", for example. A tormented-, stone-simplistic guitar riff collides with a bonfire chord structure for eternal aeon-minutes. What?? The title justifies the means? You might be right about that.

Black Pyramid, in my opinion is pretty above average at best, and I do not think it is that harsh of a thing to say when you witness what the prominent representatives of the genre offer to this day, - hell, a Mors Subita intro packs triple the doom this album has the concept of or the access to - then why satisfy with less? I feel the release is packed with musical sections the whole would looked better without, simply because they are not that well defined, nor that well articulated or well presented. Granted, there is not much on this bloated LP that falls below the minimal expectation levels of my secretive inner stoner rocker, but I'm damn sure that there is zero on it that registers as manna for it.

A bloated-, relatively uninspired release with a modest set of charms that will start to reek sweat pretty swiftly, simply because the whole album takes itself much more seriously than the character of its (intended) music is flattered by the band members. The release suffers legendarily from a falsely positioned self-image of its own capacities, in my opinion. Other than that, I've heard worse. (A few times.)

Rating : 5.0 / 10

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Swallow the Sun - Emerald Forest and the Blackbird review

Year : 2012
Genre : Melodic Death Doom Hybrid with Atmospheric Black and mild Ambient tendencies
Label : Spinefarm, Svart Records
Origin : Finland
Rating : 9.0 / 10

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The Emerald Forest and the Blackbird LP from Finland's Swallow the Sun is a delivery with such pronounced ambitions as you ever dare to witness without skepticism invading your features in the process. The release simultaneously weighs in as a full blown sonic fairy tale with all its audio capacities to efficiently caress and feed the soul, yet the whole narrative content is far from the everyday average perspective of the idealist, and, as result of this, the character of the music oftentimes gets taken through more aggressive warfare than the most tame sections of the release are consisting of. These detours are numerous, their persistence is commanding, and their occurrence especially is frequent at the beginning section of the declaration, then a pacing flows into a narrative field with more interest and fondness exhibited towards the calmer register. Be wary and/or happy, as : the spectrum of the revealed moods and musical behaviors indeed are unusually wide, and the release has ample time to make thorough use of those with its gargantuan length of 66 minutes. Guys, let's talk about the music.


Emerald Forest and the Blackbird, as an intact and complete delivery, shows the character of a masterfully produced mid-tempo fairy tale package with sections of increased intensity embedded into it to offer variation. These intense sections are not seeking to rival the hilarious comic book heft and aggression of fellow countrymen Mors Subita, in fact, they most often dress into musical patterns that dials in the percepts of intense atmospheric black metal, performed though with instruments of melodic death, all in the spirit of the super-polished sound of recent times. (Like time would give a fuck if it is recent or not.)

As hinted previously, these thorough intermissions of more intense character are "but" - logically - intermissions in the true soul of the contribution, that which is an intriguing-, natural-sounding blend between doom metal and atmospheric quasi-black ambient. The disc takes the fortunate liberty of going supermild during these segments, but it never falls to the other side of the horse, either. It is mellow, yet briskly produced delicacy-music with a sound-, yet assuaging mid-tempo character, primarily reliant on a guitar-centered tone that keeps a gracious and stone-cold sober focus on the flow of the dangerous fairy tale itself.

The record is robust, and, as mentioned, marathonian in nature. The acumen to draw a fabric of flamboyant variation all the way through this length, does not prove to be sufficient in my opinion, which prevents this LP under this roof to score above the 9.0 mark. Emerald Forest and the Blackbird is a flawless piece of art when it is riding on its very own peak moments, and it is heartwrenching to see how it subjects itself to radical suicide attempts on your helpless watch, situated behind a bullet proof glass on numerous occasions. I will give you only one example of such behavior, because my intent to attempt to degrade your initial percepts of this record is sub-mininal. What is up with the spoken words on this release? They suck purple donkey dicks, and the narrator does not sound menacing or anything like that. He sounds like he needs to clear his throat and re-record the fucking sequence to reveal the silly little thing called "performance" as opposed to revealing the silly little thing called "throat disease".

Do not let yourself be put off of this release, no matter what consensus tries to persuade you of. This particular review seeks to assure you that the content of the disc is top of the heat, and its only significant fault is its tendency to miss out on the spot it better to stop at than to fade away after. As such, Emerald Forest and the Blackbird has all the charms and charisma of a young bardess, and the only shortcoming is that the bardess relentlessly gives to you everything she has, then she gives it again and again and again until she gave you absolutely everything, and now she has no dignity left to keep. Sometimes less sound and more silence is more eloquent.

Rating : 9.0 / 10

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Glorior Belli - The Great Southern Darkness review

Year : 2011
Genre : Black Metal / Doom / Sludge hybrid
Label : Metal Blade Records
Origin : France
Rating : 8.0 / 10

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Glorior Belli's latest opens a voodoo portal on you that transfers your sorry ass to the immediate vicinity of an extremely irritated and 3 meters long crocodile in Naouleens, - pronunciation : New Orleans - so the plan of this spin is none less than to consort the exquisitely massive and monumentally lazy nature of sludge music with the restlessness of especially unforgiving black metal.

The Great Southern Darkness - try to find the very sloppily hidden tribute to The Great Southern Trendkill in the title - comes to you with a core that declares this delivery as a black metal album at heart, yet the LP's highly grim character packs the aspiration to claim the southern vibes via a good amount of elegantly researched methods that reek the fat promise of good old impending doom. Read on to find out more about these elements, or be voodooed proper, biatch.


The compositions on this record are both solid and flamboyant, and all primer components of them - black metal, dainty doom and bloated sludge - are presented in an eloquent, well varied fashion. None of the respective methods of the ingredients get abused at constant top-efficiency to harass the epitome of instant effect. In other words, it must be pointed out that this album, wisely enough, does not seek to serve out your anticipations by blast beating your misery on the altars of instant southern sludge, it instead is focused to give a kind of doom-tinted black metal, that which gets constantly assuaged by a much more calmer - but still mean - stroll along the southern sludge vibes.

The closest the album comes to-, and fulfills your initial anticipations you are likely to cultivate, is the third track, called They Call Me Black Devil. This song gives you a superb rendition of southern sludge having an explicit affair with specter-black metal, and the next track that follows this one up, sounds extremely strong with its unalloyed misery spilled all over the place in the style of a more sorrowful kind of doom, that which though still has the will to move on. Oh, and the fact that the track's first segment has nothing southern about it, is an embarrassment to complain about.

One beneficial key factor of Glorior Belli's latest declaration is its capacity to surprise you without end while the spin lasts. Once you find yourself more and more accustomed to any central moods the album is fond of revealing, the more closer you are to a dramatic change in the fabric of things. These changes never trade variation in for less efficiency, and an intact build that has sober capacity to flatter and consort traditional black metal / impending doom and massive sludge, indeed is established and decently delivered. The last 20 seconds of the album is especially rabid compared to the character of the release. Why did I just say that? Because I just have heard it.

All in all, The Great Southern Darkness delivers ruthlessly, despite any qualms a culturesnob position may give birth to. If you have enjoyed this release, you may also find luscious pleasure in a death / doom hybrid, scrutinized herein. As for The Great Southern Darkness, the naked intent to consort black with thick sludge and slim doom, results in stable, mean success with razor sharp crocodile teeth, and it seeks to rip out a piece of you. As a start.

Rating : 8.0 / 10

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Rainroom - And the Other, that was a Machine review

Year : 2011
Genre : Death / Doom hybrid
Label : Relapse
Origin : Finland
Rating : 7.5 / 10

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Finnish death / doom hybrid Rainroom represents a musical consortium in which both its key participants - death and doom - are having exquisite fun with each other. Alas, it also is an unbalanced record, as 12+ of its 43 minutes are likely to give you sequences by which you can quite safely and peacefully give the green light on saliva pouring from your corner of your mouth to the pillow. This record is "death" only in the sense that it features totally full blown, integrally presented death metal vocals : growls, hauls, guttural, you know the death deal. But, here is the catch, and the dramatic turn of events! Instead of backing the death metal vocals up with traditional death having a rampant run in the background, Rainroom hits you with the kind of doom metal that - thank God and Co.! - still did not give up the will to exist. In other words : and yet it moves, and yet it lives.

The first track of this LP, called "...yeah, many machines", is a profound and efficient example of what the plan is. These growling/hauling death metal vocals are arranged over lively doom metal music which is in its autonomous and epically gloomy hurry to reach its favorite place to suffer on, - on this track, that is - and the ensuing aural experience will likely have a truly significant, lifting and positive effect on you. Or not. It does exhibit this effect on me every time I hear it. It is just hilarious and so logical, the relentless misery of death metal anger being supported by doom metal that seems to despise this level of misery-extroversion, and now it still is ready to hear it out, like a psychoanalyst female giving a session for the rampant reaper while it has one of its favorite nervous breakdowns. Read on to find out how the session went.



Rainroom's And the Other, that was a Machine, has a tamely, but elegantly presented steampunk theme to it, and you only have two choices regarding steampunk : you have to love it, or you have to love it in a manic fashion. Which, granted, may be self-explanatory.

Truth is, that the first track of the LP sounds to be more ripe of a creation than its follow-up, called Abort Engine, which is a much more undisciplined build initially, and it is having this fixated pastime of smashing your awareness against any single wall it comes across. The effective riffing, the structure of things to be found herein though, are not strong enough to claim validation of the act of smashing you around for this long. Probably the least successful track on the LP, and its more peaceful demeanor in the climax does not sound to do all that much noticeable justice to it, either. The tender part sounds more like an alibi, a cover story, and not content you can wholeheartedly regard as relevant, not when measured to the ripeness and the integrity of the stupendous first track "...yeah, many machines".

The similar initial percepts arise with the third track, called Loew Machine, and these impressions decide to stick around for no less than five minutes. What threatens to be another mid-tempo convolution, gets assuaged by legit instrumental saving graces found to be embedded in the track's midsection to its end. That body though is about three times as big as it would still look acceptably hot with/in. Track number four, called Steam Conjecture once again draws a clear and truly vibrant picture : following a flamboyant intro section that also incorporates the goal of preparing you for the Thing that Comes, super-heavyweight doom metal indeed relentlessly arises and demands a stop from time, then addresses its supreme misery of gargantuan proportions with top notch death metal singing to flatter it. And, following a short and elegant interlude to draw your attention away, the exact focal theme comes back to claim your soul with brisker, but still heavy as the tenderness of two bisexual gorillas-type mid-tempo rhythmization. This is a clearly sorrowful song at heart, and the magic arises as result that now there are monster-instruments that unconditionally submit to the charm of the beautiful/sorrowful harmonic pattern, which reigns as the core meaning of the track. This one is the same caliber as the opening contribution, and it is just a pity that two wasteland-fillers are separating them.

Rainroom is a band you want to keep an eye on, (just make sure you have something to wipe the slime off with) and this debut shows sufficient amount of brilliance to regard the relative tedium it spends in the dark via its midsection clearly redeemable.

Rating : 7.5 / 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

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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

Buy it now

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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