Church of Misery at Myspace

Japan’s Church of Misery have offered up another solid album of groovy stoner doom metal  with Houses of the Unholy. The first thing that I should mention is that while this is a fine album, it’s not innovative by any stretch of the imagination, with the songwriting based firmly in the 1970′s. However, the Church do a great job within those confines. The band’s lyrics are all about serial killers, much like the band Macabre, but the similarities end there, as there’s little of Macabre’s grim humor in these lyrics. I have to commend vocalist Yoshiaki Negishi; he chooses to downplay his Japanese accent (not that I have anything against them), and does it extremely well; I never once would have suspected this band was Japanese if I listened to this release blind. His delivery is raspy without straying far from the style of 70′s metal vocalists.

The songs are frequently lengthy (five of the album’s eight cuts are more than seven and a half minutes long), so the grooves have plenty of room to breathe. The musicianship is fine but really takes a back seat to the hypnotic chord sequences; doom metal is more about the songwriting and riffs than technical skills. Fans of 70′s metal and hard rock would do well to check this out.

Rosetta at Myspace

Rosetta’s particular strand of Post Metal takes the ethereal melodies present within Katatonia’s “Brave Murder Days” and The Angelic Process’s “Weighing souls with Sand” and merges them with the that staple of the Genre, the mid period Isis sound. The quiet/loud/quiet/loud dynamics are infused with a gradually increasing sense of urgency that many post metal bands try and fail to achieve. There is a sense of nearly but not quite linear progression in the song writing which adds a progressive and epic feel to the compositions.

“Wake/Lift” is a hauntingly beautiful yet exquisitely savage record and one that proves that Rosetta might be able to one day make the leap and join Isis, Pelican, Cult of Luna, and Neurosis as the accepted leaders of the genre. It is a measured and expertly crafted release which throws up new discoveries with each listen. If you like Post Metal you will probably like this!

Bongripper at Myspace

Bongripper is a stoner/doom/post-metal outfit from Chicago. All of the members are just in it for the love of music and don’t care about money; from what I read in another review of this album, one of them even leaked it onto the internet. The brand of sludgy psychedelia on Hippie Killer is excellent; it is almost entirely instrumental (with the exception of the track “Terrible Bear Attack”) I do have to admit that I didn’t enjoy the drumless, dronier tracks as much as the doomier ones, but the latter type tend to be much longer so it’s okay. I also thought the album went on a bit too long; at just under the maximum 80 minutes for a CD, it felt like the band was just trying too hard to fill out the entire thing. Also, I felt the vocals on “Terrible Bear Attack” were really annoying, and I was glad that track was just 3 minutes long.

Those are my only real quibbles with the album, though; it’s wonderfully atmospheric with crushing riffs, and I totally would’ve gotten high to this if my social skills were good enough to obtain weed. My personal favorite track was the 16-minute “Reefer Sutherland,” although most of the album was strong. Fans of this style of metal will love Hippie Killer.

Made in Japan is the third release from the Flower Travellin’ Band, and it’s just not as interesting as their first two efforts. Anywhere had some awesome cover songs, and Satori was wonderfully psychedelic, but the songwriting on here isn’t up to par with their previous release. There just isn’t anything on this release that seems especially groundbreaking for 1972. The songs are relatively short, so they don’t have the impressive lengthy grooves of those on Satori. The few highlights include the Pink Floyd-esque opening to “Hiroshima” and the wonderfully happy “Heaven and Hell.” This one’s only for completists.

The Flower Travellin’ Band released one more album called Make Up before they disbanded, but I couldn’t track down a copy, so I won’t be reviewing it.

Satori is the Flower Travellin’ Band’s most famous effort. The tracks are all named “Satori” parts I through V, but they really don’t sound that similar at all. Part I starts off with a tone reminiscent of the Emergency Broadcast System, and then vocalist Akira Yamanaka lets loose with a piercing scream. It’s amazing how heavy this stuff is for 1971. Part II is my favorite track on the album. The guitar melody is simply hypnotic and Eastern-sounding, the drums have a good mix of trippy cymbals and bass drum pounding, and there’s some great tambourine in the mix. Part III is an instrumental that takes a little while to get started, with some semi-ambient noise for the first 90 seconds, but it’s awesome once it does. The guitar work on this track is awesome; it’s fairly slow, but never plodding, but gets fast right towards the end. The fourth part is a little repetitive for the first third of its eleven minutes, but settles into an awesome, laid-back bluesy section with a harmonica that lasts until the final two minutes, when the song reverts to the first part again. The final track, Part V, has some awesome chanting from Yamanaka and some nice keyboard work, as well.

This is a great album, and I recommend it to anyone who loves Black Sabbath or other early metal bands.

Flower Travellin’ Band at Myspace

The Flower Travellin’ Band was one of the first bands that was heavily influenced by Black Sabbath, and who helped established the earliest form of doom metal. Despite that fact, they’re not well known today, which is a shame, because they’re quite good. They were originally a cover band with a female vocalist called the Flowers, but they retooled themselves as the Travellin’ Band after she left. They broke up in 1973, but reunited recently and recorded an album, “We Are Here,” which was released just last month in Japan. I have decided to celebrate this by reviewing their first three albums.

Aside from the minute-long harmonica opener “Anywhere,” all the songs on the first proper Flower Travellin’ Band release are covers. Things start off with a lengthy cover of Muddy Waters’ Louisiana Blues. While the musicianship on display is fine, at nearly sixteen minutes, the jamming goes on too long for its own good. Next up is a cover of Black Sabbath’s self-titled song from their self-titled debut. It lacks the atmospheric lightning, rain and church bells that were at the beginning, but it’s still pretty good; I especially liked vocalist Akira Yamanaka’s delivery of the “OH GOD NO!!!” line, although his pronunciation of the English lyrics is about as poor as you’d expect (as well as in all the other songs). This is followed by a rendition of the traditional song “House of the Rising Sun”; this has an intro that goes on for too long, and the sparse arrangment with just an acoustic guitar and drums makes the song’s eight minutes seem even longer. I felt this was the worst song on the album. The album closes with King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man.” I have to say I liked the original version better with its screeching saxophone, but the Travellin’ Band’s cover is still quite good.

It was clear that the Flower Travellin’ Band had talent, but they hadn’t quite found their niche yet. Their artistic breakthrough wouldn’t come until their follow-up, Satori, which consisted entirely of original compositions. This album is still a decent effort, though, and it’s historically important because it contains what must be some of the first Black Sabbath and King Crimson covers ever recorded.

Blue Cheer are widely regarded as one of the very first metal bands. Vincebus Eruptum was their first album, which was released in 1968, two years before Black Sabbath’s debut. It’s not hard to see why they’re considered to be metal; unlike other bands in the San Francisco psychedelic scene, they used a heavily distorted guitar tone that was extremely unusual at the time.

Vincebus Eruptum is a pretty good album; it’s fairly tame by modern standards, but one has to wonder what went through listeners’ heads as they heard this for the first time. It’s short, clocking in at just over half an hour, with just six songs, but they’re all fairly good. There are three originals and three covers; the album opener, a cover of Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues, is the band’s best known song. There are some rather dull moments, such as the too-long solos in “Doctor Please” and “Second Time Around”, but for the most part, Vincebus Eruptum doesn’t have many wasted moments. The bass is easily audible throughout, which is also a plus.

One has to wonder why Blue Cheer isn’t better known, since they were one of the first metal bands. This is probably due to two factors. One is the fact that the band went through a series of tumultuous lineup changes following their second album, Outsideinside, and broke up in the early 70s. The band did not reunite until the mid-80s. Another factor is that while many metal bands owe much to Blue Cheer musically, their lyrics and atmosphere were a holdover from 60s psych rock. Blue Cheer’s lyrics weren’t gloomy, like Black Sabbath, or epic, like Led Zeppelin’s lyrics; they’re pretty much a product of the time.

I highly recommend Vincebus Eruptum to those who are curious about the early history of metal, or who also enjoy 60′s psych rock or blues.

Nachtmystium at Myspace

Nachtmystium are the top American Black Metal band that is active today in the sense that they both apart from the pack and leading it. They were born with the depressive and hate filled persona that is now typical of American Black Metal but they went several steps further than most of their contemporaries with every subsequent release with “Assassins” their fourth and most recent album being the standout so far.

“Assassins” crackles with a vibrant sense of energy rarely seen in the top tier of American Black Metal yet retains the ambience of misanthropic loathing that is the hallmark of this regional scene. It also contains a dramatic sense of dynamism a quality often overlooked by their peers in favour of hypnotic repetitiveness. The influence of Psychedelica and Prog Rock also looms favourably with spacey Robert Fripp style solos and fizzling and bubbling Moogs being examples of this. The influence of Pink Floyd and Hawkwind is seen in spirit if not in body with the mind-bending free flowing but always recurring direction of the melodies on display here.

The lyrics are refreshingly direct and unpretentious yet like most USBM bands still evoke a general distaste for humanity and existence as concepts and yet there are also musical interludes with a deep emotional resonance such as the instrumental “Seasick Part I: Drowned at Dusk” and continuing with a saxophone solo on “Seasick Part II: Oceanborne” that’s sounds like its straight out of the seventies. This is a contender for record of the year, and I would certainly be surprised if any American black metal albums are released that are better in the next 6 months.

Sahg at Myspace

‘Sahg II’ is unsurprisingly the Second album by Norwegian Doom Metal super-group Sahg. Their first album, unsurprisingly titled ‘Sahg I’, was a superb piece of inventive trad doom inspired principally by Black Sabbath and Candlemass. Their second effort expands both the range of influences and range of contrasting style contained with Sahg’s sound immensely. There are two main directions that Sahg are pulling on ‘Sahg II’. The first is 60′s and 70′s psychedelia with the likes of Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, Cream and Hawkwind being key references points. The swirling, lush and almost seductive tones of the ‘Echoes Ring Forever’ with its epic, seductive drugged-up outro and the chilled out and inventive instrumental that follows it, “from conscious sleep” being prime examples of this.

The second major influence is that of NWOBHM and pre thrash 80’s heavy metal in general such as Witchfinder General, Angelwitch, Manilla Road, and Witchfynde. These elements are usually more subtly placed within the overall ‘Sahg II’ sound with them only coming to the foreground in the fast paced stomper ‘Pyromancer’ but just like the progression between their heroes Candlemass debut and sophomore, the trad heavy metal influences that are more prominent on ‘Sahg II’ than on ‘Sahg I’ change the chemistry of this slice of doom distinctly and when combined with the more overt and noticeable heady psychedelia create a cocktail of metal that is just about irresistible. From the Nostalgic Hammond Organ on ‘Starcrossed’ to the sinister campfire hymn to the dark side of the Age of Aquarius that is ‘Escape the Crimson Sun’, ending with the spacey epic album ender that is ‘Monomania’ this is one sophomore release that ends up bettering the bands stunning debut rather than paling in comparison to it.

Ufomammut at Myspace

One of the metal bands I was always embarrassed about liking is Deicide, and one of the reasons why was that any satanic rite undertaken to “Satan spawn the cacodemon” or the like would be one of the lamest blasphemous acts ever committed. It would be the ritual that the guys who went to the A/V club at school and the Young Conservatives at University went to. You want to know the music all the cool kids sacrifice virgins too? Its “Idolum” by Ufomammut, a record that drips with a supernatural malevolence rarely seen in doom metal. Sinister riffs evolve throughout the course of each song producing an air of foreboding that pays off magnificently when each new segments comes into play and chills you to the bone. Behind these gargantuan riffs are haunting keyboard lines played on vintage synths and moaning and howling yet somehow ethereal male and female vocals that bring to mind Jarboe of Swans fame. Add some unsettling laughing, crying and cursing in the background and what you have is possibly the most evil doom record since “Black Sabbath”.

It’s also one of the most original ones I’ve heard in a long while. While the influence of genre staples Hawkwind and Neurosis can be heard within this vile connotation, there are some more unorthodox comparisons that come to mind, like the thought that “Idolum” does for psychedelic doom what Blut aus Nord’s “The Work Which Transforms God” did for industrial black metal, in that it created the genuinely wicked and malicious atmosphere that was always capable of being spawned from the genre’s roots.

The pinnacle of “Idolum” is “Void”, a 21-minute epic that is the penultimate track on the record. It starts with a low-key yet evocative build up, which by the 9 minute mark turns into a sludgy murmuring segment that is somewhat reminiscent of Moss, then subsequently turns into a pulsating yet hypnotic drone that might be considered too much for even Sunn0))). This continues with various intoxicating changes in frequency and tone for 8 minutes before reaching a crescendo with some disturbing spacey synth and distressed female pleading, before kicking into the motherload of all riffs with “Elephantom” acting as a post rock-cum-sludge bookend to the record. This record is so complete for the occult metal experience that the only thing missing is your own virgin to sacrifice, but hopefully you can find one at your local Young Conservative / Republican branch office to enhance your “Idolum” experience. If you want evil metal, as in actual malevolence rather than teenage cartoon theatrics, then this is the album for you.