Warning (UK) - Watching from a Distance

Here's a fairly recent release from Warning, a depressive UK-based doom band I should have heard of sooner. I have no idea if Swill (creator of this blog and friend of mine) is going to like this, but this is my idea of astoundingly good doom. I've recommended some doom and stoner rock gems to Swill in the past, for example Valkyrie from Virginia (go listen to them), and he's shot them down. He also thinks Asunder sucks and I would call that a stretch. (not true. just said that their albums are boring, which I stand by - swill)

I hope he will enjoy this band if he hasn't heard it cause this is without question the best doom record I've listened to this year. Yes, it came out in 06. Chronic weed smoke means I'm slow on the uptake, why are you judging me? Please forgive me for being slightly behind schedule in faithfully delivering you free music you ungrateful jerk.

The riff proficiency here is clearly top shelf and no internerd out there will convince me otherwise. But what's truly brilliant about this album is the vocals, and I think that's what might hang people up with this band. I won't ruin it for you by describing them too much, but they're unique. If you don't like the vocal performance then I just don't understand you. Personally I am blown away. Few doom bands are this successful at creating an atmosphere so bleak and depressing. Someone on the collective zine board described it as being like "listening to Loss and Red House Painters at the same time."

I'm cursing myself for sleeping on this because every copy seems to be sold out now, including the reissue on Metal Supremacy earlier this year. Fuck... I'm stuck with these mp3s:
http://sharebee.com/2842c251

Gris - Il était une forêt (2007)

Here's some black metal from Canada. You can tell by the excess of color and presence of a toy boat on the cover that you're getting into delicate post-rock influenced territory. Usually when I hear bands like this I'm like dude, wheres the metal, but this is actually amazing. Most "depressive/suicidal" black metal bands should feel embarrassed by the level of musicianship and songwriting on this album. The atmospheric passages are all excellent and don't sound like some nerd with a keyboard lifted the melody from a Nintendo game. How many black metal bands can you think of who can play competent chamber music?

At first I felt kinda bad for letting you internet cheapos download this fine slab of blackened art for free, since its pretty recent, but then I was like fuck it. You can decide whether or not to buy this from Sepulchral Productions; their website makes it seem like you'd be supporting Québécois nationalism and possible Nazi connections. Buy it (and potentially support separatist bombings) or download it from the link below. Or don't, see if I fucking care. Does my opinion mean nothing to you?

http://sharebee.com/32f8d763

Contropotere - Nessuna Speranza Nessuna Paura LP

One-of-a-kind experimental punk made by like 9 Italian squatters. Contropotere is really fucking bizarre and you will probably not enjoy it. Dual female vocals (not to be tokenizing) and strangely structured songs with atypical instrumentation. This would completely alienate most crust kids I know - a rare virtue. Their name translates as "counterpower", and apparently they were heavily involved in the Napoli autonomist movement during the 90s.

This is is their first LP, which came out in 1989 on Attack Punk. They released a demo tape, an EP, and an additional LP, all of which are available on other blogs. Oh yeah, and a CD of fucked up techno. After this their shows seem to have become mostly high concept performance art, which I'm sure pissed off alot of fans, which rules. Check youtube.

"Contropotere is every one of us.The power to transform us, to come into contact with our part more True, more intimate, more powerful person.To transform us to be able to transform.To pass from what risks becoming a simple game, a possibility without potentiality, in something serious, less spectacular perhaps, less recognizable and catalogabile as the spirit that continues and it animates…the power that every one of us has as potential of transformation.Every form to be able imposes.Easy to be authoritarian to the outside of us.Difficulty to be with ourselves.Difficult because the correct street.The power on if same is the first footstep toward the change.The transformation through our transformation.The self-discipline that becomes management of own power.That natural power as a lightning that doesn’t recognize external authority to itself, but it recognizes that every to be able is balanced to the other, that every living being is connected to the other…in a delicate equilibrium.The reality, further to be a fascinating mystery is very hard and Raw / the life that we live is a stage on which all recite a part looking for the more possible than to be comfortable..."

Some dude on the Profane Existence message board hosted this, I can't take credit. I don't own it cause this album is out of print as fuck.

http://www.mediafire.com/?mg2jxtmmtqd

Zeroid - 2004

Here's some classic dark hardcore from Germany - oppressive, dissonant, rapidly changing downtuned riffs coupled with throat-tearing screams of absolute desperation and hatred for daily life. I think Zeroid fucking rules, but the reviewer for Violent With Anger Zine #57 has a different opinion. Here's the dude's take on an earlier Zeroid album:

"A few hardcore wanna - be's tryin' to play some nihilistic death - metal influenced whatever-core. To make it short: If you've ever been listening to the real gruesome shit, than you definitely don't have to waste your time on this crap. Weak and powerless drums and uninspired and straight-to-no-point guitarriffing makes this one a pain in the ass of true death-metal maniac's. I'm not sure if there's even a bass line 'cause of the low - level production, which was made in several no-name studio's which i've never heard of and hopefully never ever have to. The vocals suck. If this is the future of the "hard-and-heavy" genre than you better start headbangin' to the new eminem cd. However, reading the 16-paged booklet doesn't make it more comfortable to bore through the full-length (nearly 70 minutes) digital desaster: The lay-out is done only semi-professional and seems to be stolen from arty-farty photocatalogues no one ever wants to see. But the really pathetic and offensively senseless lyrics are more interesting: These guys have the guts to heavily flirt with suicide, death and destruction. Real sickos will love it. It's been released on formerly totally unknown bremen based hardcore label "Unsociable" whose mastermind gives proof of excellent bad humour by turning the unholy but still sacrificed "Earache" logo into a "Hellache" synonym. Really funny, guy. This record is so shitty that i've to honor it with 9 out of ten points on my very own "crap-of-the-month" scale."

Hahaha... anyway here is the last (and best?) Zeroid disc. I can't find any other blogs hosting their music and they're one of my favorite bands so I might put some more of it up later. You should pick this up, by the way, from Pray for Death, a sweet distro out of Savannah : http://prayfordeathrecords.com/

Or download it here you cheap fucker.
http://sharebee.com/c0f6a3f1

Tracklist:
01. rien ne va plus
02. kurzschlußüberlegungen
03. frage / antwort
04. wir gewinnt
05. warteschleife
06. vorletzter akt
07. auf zielkurs halten
08. rohrkrepierer

Naked City - Torture Garden

Here's another old school Earache release. Fans of total mindfucking music are hopefully familiar with avant-garde multi-instrumentalist John Zorn, but if not here's an album of some of the most fucked up jazz(?) you will ever come across.

This pretty much defies classification. If I had to pin it down I'd call it jazz grind, but there's surf, country, and punk in here too. Also featuring horrific screams from Boredoms member Yamatsuka Eye, this is the perfect album to put on at a party after you've taken too many drugs and you want all the squares to leave.

1. Blood Is Thin - 1:00
2. Demon Sanctuary - 0:38
3. Thrash Jazz Assassin - 0:45
4. Dead Spot - 0:31
5. Bonehead - 0:51
6. Speedball - 0:37
7. Blood Duster - 0:13
8. Pile Driver - 0:33
9. Shangkuan Ling-Feng - 1:14
10. Numbskull - 0:29
11. Perfume of a Critic's Burning Flesh - 0:24
12. Jazz Snot Eat Shit - 0:24
13. The Prestigitator - 0:43
14. No Reason to Believe - 0:26
15. Hellraiser - 0:39
16. Torture Garden - 0:35
17. Slan - 0:23
18. Hammerhead - 0:08
19. The Ways of Pain - 0:31
20. The Noose - 0:10
21. Sack of Shit - 0:43
22. Blunt Instrument - 0:53
23. Osaka Bondage - 1:14
24. Igneous Ejaculation - 0:20
25. Shallow Grave - 0:40
26. Ujaku - 0:27
27. Kaoru - 0:50
28. Dead Dread - 0:45
29. Billy Liar - 0:10
30. Victims of Torture - 0:22
31. Speedfreaks - 0:29
32. New Jersey Scum Swamp - 0:41
33. S & M Sniper - 0:14
34. Pigfucker - 0:23
35. Cairo Chop Shop - 0:22
36. Fuck the Facts - 0:11
37. Obeah Man - 0:17
38. Facelifter - 0:34
39. N.Y. Flat Top Box - 0:43
40. Whiplash - 0:19
41. The Blade - 0:36
42. Gob of Spit - 0:18

This came out in like 1989 or 1991 or something... who gives a shit, I'm drunk.

EDIT: LINK FIXED
http://www.mediafire.com/?mfnd6s2yxps

Nocturnus - The Key

For my first contribution to this blog (swill has been on me to post for a while but I'm a lazy stoner), here's one of the most insane and atypical death metal albums ever released. Does this album belong on Burning Minds? Not sure, but theres no doubt it completely fucks my brain.

Anyway, Florida band Nocturnus released The Key in 1990 on Earache. Vocalist, drummer, and main songwriter (!!) Mike Browning had played earlier in Morbid Angel, a far more well-known Florida death metal band. DM from this region was exploding in popularity during this time, but Nocturnus never quite got the exposure of peers like Obituary, Death, or Morbid Angel. It certainly isn't due to inferior musicianship, so I suspect that it has more to do with the fact that this album is fucking weird.

First of all, Nocturnus was basically the first death metal band to use keyboards - this may not seem terribly novel eighteen years later, but it was definitely new and innovative in 1990. The song structures on here are more complex than your typical DM release and there is an absurd amount of soloing everywhere that's pretty much guaranteed to shred your head. This disc also has very unconventional lyrical content. While Satanist themes remain, the band has an unheard of sci-fi angle to their blasphemy - The Key is a concept album of sorts about a cyborg sent back to year zero via time machine in order to kill baby jesus and head off the rise of Christianity. Pretty hilarious and cool if you ask me... and just look at the fucking badass cover art. I love it.

01 - Lake Of Fire 05:04
02 - Standing In Blood 04:20
03 - Visions From Beyond The Grave 04:09
04 - Neolithic 04:51
05 - Undead Journey 04:16
06 - BC/AD (Before Christ/After Death) 04:57
07 - Andromeda Strain 03:42
08 - Droid Sector 04:21
09 - Destroying The Manger 06:09
10 - Empire Of The Sands 06:27

You can pay 50 bucks for it on amazon or download it free here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DP0YD28I

Om - Splits with Current 93 (2006) and Six Organs of Admittance (2006)

It's no secret that I've been on a serious Om kick ever since their demise earlier this year. Featuring the (achingly slow) rhythm section of Stoner/Doom legends Sleep, Om's music centers around Al Cisneros' droning bass lines and hypnotic chanting, conjuring up mystical imagery that would make Alejandro Jodorowsky proud. This post is intended as a compliment to Anthem of the Space's incomplete discography, rounding out their LP collection with a duet of splits recorded with Six Organs of Admittance and Apocalyptic folk wierdos/legends Current 93. While the Six Organs release seems to be out of print, you can still grab the CD version of 'Inerrant Rays of Infallible Sun' from Jnana Records.

boomp3.com

Grab 'em here