Tag: metal
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The sound of the unnamed
H.P. Lovecraft, the lonely, bitter, racist, visionary poet of American horror, conceived ancient malevolences from the beyond the limits of the knowable, unnameable terrors from the vast gothic hinterland where knowledge is madness. It seems quite apposite then that his most famous creation was literally unnameable when Metallica devoted to…
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Earthmass – Collapse (doom)
When you pull music apart and start to think about it, it often appears to be built up in several ‘dimensions’. These are our modes of perception, rather than qualities with the same independent existence as the the different materials that go into making a house for example, or the…
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Various Artists – Album Roundup
This is a selection of records that I’d like to review, but for one reason or another, it’s not going to happen. Some (in fact most) of them just didn’t quite make the cut, in light of the extremely high standard and preponderance of physical submissions I get now (these…
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Various Artists – Album Roundup
Mark Harrison and his very capable band (whose members include the extremely talented duo Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker) play a curiously English take on American roots music. Their stylistic materials mine the cracks between country blues and old time country music, continuing a UK tradition that began with skiffle…
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Peacemaker – Cult .45 (doom)
This album comes from a band that situates itself in the tradition of doom metal quite deliberately, and with some self-awareness. By this I mean that they’ve thought about the meanings of the music they love, and precisely how they are produced in that music, and set out intentionally to…
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Various Artists – Album Roundup
When we get to the fourth track, ‘Womb’, we learn that Cthulhu Detonator is capable of changing tack. There is still noise, in the sense of forcefully stochastic elements within the timbre of the music, but the principal sound is tonal, sonorous and enveloping. ‘Blinding White Light’ takes a similar…
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Various Artists – Singles and EPs
Why do I write reviews? Largely so that I can blag free music instead of buying it like everyone else, and so I can kid my conscience that my inane ramblings are an adequate substitute for paying musicians their due. Of course I can (and will, given half a chance)…
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Goya – Demo (stoner metal)
Drugs. Weed, hash, blow, smoke, tea, skunk, green, charas, gear, pollen, bud, sensemilla, kif, oil, dope, black, pot, marijuana, cannabis. I don’t wish to imply that Goya’s music is one-dimensional, but this is very clearly the central inspiration for their creative activities. So much so, that their Bandcamp page is…
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Various Artists – Singles and EPs
If you describe Tamara Parsons-Baker’s practice as a formula, it doesn’t inspire much excitement: simple, mainly diatonic guitar strums; emotive vocals; songs about unsuccessful love affairs; we have heard these elements before. However, the five songs on Lover proceed from a somewhat more warped perspective than this formula might suggest,…
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Various Artists – Album Roundup
Given its title, its cover, and Quak’s avowed intention to make ‘dusty’ albums, we might expect a taste of nostalgia, of painful distance about this recording; it begins with thunder. This doesn’t presage any protracted exposition of sturm und drang however; it seems rather more like the thunder heard through…
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Various Artists – Singles and EPs
This sophomore EP from The Light That Kills is less granular, more directionally narrative than the debut A Day That We Drift And Fall. This is not to say that it consists of conventional musical phrases arranged according to a nice, accessible formal grammar; that really would be weird, given…
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Slabdragger/ Meadows – split LP (stoner metal)
The last split release I reviewed also involved Meadows. The rationale behind split releases is obviously to seek a synergy: the artists involved generally have a close stylistic affinity, or their audiences overlap, to their mutual benefit; sometimes I suspect the reason has more to do with the relationship between…
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Bright Color Vision – Carousel (metal)
The language of metal is so fragmented and diversified now that it’s hard to distinguish one sub-genre from another, and many bands build their sound as though they were filling their plates at a wedding buffet, after quite a few drinks. This is a positive tendency in my view, as…
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Various Artists – Album Roundup
Quietness has been an important trope in avant-garde music since the days of Minimalism I guess, but it has been articulated in many ways, within a diversity of musical practices. The near inactivity to which some free improvisors have gravitated, or John Cage’s invitation to listen to the contextual ambience…
Oliver Arditi 