Tag: instrumental
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Trabants – “Mantra” b/w “Surfers On Acid” 7” single
Trabants “Mantra” b/w “Surfers On Acid” 7” (Hypnotic Bridge Records) It’s impressive how engaging Trabants prove they’re capable of being on theirt “Mantra” single, particularly given that the first which tends to hook listeners is the thing that is noticeably absent from the band’s construct: a singer. Usually, a band’s singer is the first thing…
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ZOMBI – ZOMBI and Friends Volume 1
This album is possibly the Zombi album that will get the least amount of repeated plays of their entire recorded output but it is a really fun listen nonetheless. It’s a big step, at least to these ears, from what the band is best known for, but kudos to them for putting it out there.
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Jinjer live in Frankfurt, 18 May 2018
It’s been a while since I attended a concert in a small venue but I have to say that even though they are not the best lighted places, they offer the most intimate shows and the interaction between the bands and the fans is at its loveliest and most honest levels. It was just such a…
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Clouds Taste Satanic – The Glitter of Infinite Hell
Hey, at least they don’t have Witch or Wizard in their name. This New York instro doom quartet has played a couple of the underground doomfests in the U.S. while self-releasing four albums over the past four years—these guys are pretty prolific! And not having any vocals allows Clouds Taste Satanic to spread their wings…
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We Lost the Sea – Departure Songs
What drew me to Departure Songs, the third album from Aussie post-rockers We Lost the Sea, was the concept. All of these songs are about people who died helping others, from deep-sea diver David Shaw to the two men who shut down the Chernobyl reactor; they’ve even got a two-part epic about the Space Shuttle…
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Mountain of Wizard – Casting Rhythms and Disturbances
This NOLA quartet, Mountain of Wizard, is best known for having the drummer who replaced Joey LaCaze in Eyehategod. Unlike some other outfits from the area, they aren’t really known nationally… at least not yet. And they’re not really your standard sludge-metal outfit, either. For one thing, this album is entirely instrumental, featuring some up-tempo…
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Pyramids On Mars – Echo Cosmic
When I went to see the film Jonah Hex in the cinema I was astonished by two things. One, how it was possible to take such a good character and make such an utter balls-up of a film. Seriously, all they had to do was adapt the graphic novel Riders of the Worm and Such…
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Karma to Burn – Arch Stanton
You always kinda know what you’re getting from Karma to Burn. Debut album aside, on which Roadrunner insisted they add vocals, they’ve always been an instrumental band, with song titles consisting simply of numbers—they’re up to 59 now. And while they took a seven-year break just past the turn of the century, they’ve been cranking…
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Music Blues – Things Haven’t Gone Well
I must admit that I’m somewhat partial to the autobiographical sludge solo project. (Let’s just say that if I ever get my shit off the ground, you’ll hear it here first.) Music Blues is the nom de plume of Stephen Tanner, ex-bassist of Harvey Milk—who weren’t exactly a band of happy campers to begin with.…
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Shooting Guns: dealing some heavy instrumental magic
When it comes to the metal aesthetic many bands feel they need to choose the route of texture or torture. Bands decide whether to build weapons or evoke atmospheres with their sound, and to focus on the ephemeral often means leaving a sense of visceral threat behind. After all, smoke cannot hurt us, and shadows…