Tag: review
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Publicist UK – Forgive Yourself
It’s always nice to hear new music in the form of yesterdays or decades gone by or in terms of genre. This may be even more true in the case of musicians who come from a background of extreme metal. This is just the case for Publicist UK, who have created a post-punk era album with some…
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Eternal Black – Eternal Black
For those of you who feel you were born too late, here’s a little EP from a Brooklyn band that feels the same way. Eternal Black unload three tracks of retro-styled doom on their debut, self-titled EP. Through a haze of grimy, overdriven tone and feedback the trio lay down seriously groovy, Wino-influenced doom riffs.…
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Arakk – Self & Distance
Self & Distance is a 25-minute piece of droning doom from Danish quintet Arakk. Originally released digitally in June 2014, Aonair Productions has given it the physical release it deserves. Casting light and shade over a desolate landscape shaped from a tortured soul, S&D tests the endurance of anguish against a backdrop of soul-withering atmospheric…
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Neal Hefti – Record Store Day (Black Friday) Batman 7” single
“Batman Theme” b/w “The Batusi” – Record Store Day (Black Friday) 7” single It might sound like earnest overreaching to contend at first, but the “Batman Theme” written by Neal Hefti and featured (in varying lengths) at the beginning of every episode of the original Batman television series broadcast from 1966 to 1968 of ABC…
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Yidhra – Cult of Bathory
Countess Elizabeth Bathory has been the muse of many a black-metal band, from Venom onwards, but this is the first time I’ve seen her name attached to a doom-metal record. Mind you, L.A. outfit Yidhra are no strangers to the occult; they’re named after the dream witch in H.P. Lovecraft lore. This four-song, 10” EP…
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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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Hound – Out of Space
This Philly power trio contains Ted Leo’s bass player and was once described as “neo-stoner.” Now, I’m not sure what that means, but if neo-stoner is to stoner rock what neo-conservatism is to right-wing politics, chances are Stephen Harper has a secret mancrush on these guys already. Or maybe neo-stoner has something to do with…
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Judas Priest – Painkiller 10” single
Hey – remember that period of time when the lights went out in Judas Priest? There have been a few reasons for the stall proposed over the years, but the truth is that it really needed to happen. Painkiller (the band’s twelfth studio album) was a portrait of a band running on creative fumes and on…
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Jamstik (gear review)
In the spirit of full disclosure, I must confess that I began my review of the Zivix Jamstik harboring a great deal of trepidation. A lot of that sprang from what I projected that the limitations of the device would be; Jamstik is a MIDI-driven (that’s Musical Instrument Digital Interface, for those who are completely…
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Northumbria and Famine – Blood Orchid
Blood Orchid is a nearly 16-minute live collaboration between Northumbria and Famine. The ambient drone unfolds over an expanse of time that feels much longer than it actually is because of how deeply you can get lost in it and lose your sense of reality. It feels futuristic and ancient at the same time as…