Yeah, but I'm kinda diggin' it.

Step 1: Play the below video.



Step 2: Mute this video, then press play. Watch.



Step 3: Repeat.

Disma- The Manifestation EP (2011)

New(ish) two track EP from death metal masters Disma. The more I listen to it, the more I'm convinced that their album Towards The Megalith is one of the best death metal albums ever. Yeah, ever. Not just in the last few years or the last decade, but ever. These two tracks hang with anything off of Towards The Megalith. This was only released as a 7", so the link below is to a vinyl rip. It's a little noisy, but not too bad.

The blog will probably be slowing down a bit (yeah, I know, how much slower could it get?) for the last couple weeks of the year as I'm putting together a year in review for 2011. I've also got a few new ideas to generate content that I'll roll out next year.

Disma on last.fm

The entire EP on YouTube:


Get it here.

Graveyard- Hisingen Blues (2011)

Tip of the hat to Black Metal Bobby for the recommendation on this one. A lot of bands have been going for a throwback "classic rock" sound in recent years. Some of them do it pretty well. The Black Angels modern take on the 13th Floor Elevators' psychedelic sound has produced some of my favorite albums of the past decade. Black Mountain also does a nice job with a variety of different classic rock sounds (I posted their most recent album back in April), particularly with their more Zepplin and Sabbath-esque tracks. Unfortunately for Black Mountain, Sweden's Graveyard may have made them irrelevant in my mind. Graveyard's brand of heavy blues harkens back to...well... Led Zeppelin. Most of you know I have a love/hate relationship with Led Zeppelin and publicly I profess a lot more hate than I do when listening to them privately. Their lifting of riffs and entire tracks from blues musicians and traditional blues songs without attribution, responsibility for the bullshit self-aggrandizing rock star posturing that continues to this day and generally shitty attitudes  make it difficult for me to simply enjoy the music. Anyway, Graveyard remind me quite a bit of Led Zeppelin at their best. I'd throw Deep Purple, Hendrix and bit of Sabbathian heaviness into the mix as well. The vocals are particularly strong, channeling Robert Plant at times. "Hisingen Blues" might be my favorite blues song ever, lyrically at least, with its nod to the Swedish black metal scene.

It's not the most original thing you'll ever hear, but it goddamn rocks and that should be good enough for you.

Graveyard on last.fm



Get it here.

Void Meditation Cult- Sulfurous Prayers (2011)

I really enjoyed the Sperm Of The Antichrist demo that I came across a few years ago, so when I heard a track on a Hells Headbangers Records compilation that sounded exactly like Sperm Of The Antichrist I was intrigued. Turns out they changed their name to Void Meditation Cult and are currently working on material for a full length. Sweet!

Not sure which (if any) of you this will appeal to, but having grown up a punk rock kid who dabbled in crust, I've always had an affinity for the ugly and grimy in music. The first time I heard Mental Funeral by Autopsy I remember thinking to myself something along the lines of "Fuck yeah! This is exactly what I'm looking for!" Void Meditation Cult definitely have a bit of an Autopsy vibe, playing ugly, primitive...ummm... deathened black/doom?....doomed black/death?...blackened black/death/doom/black?....whatever, none of you are going to enjoy this.

Void Meditation Cult on last.fm


Get it here.
*Bonus* Sperm Of The Antichrist- Blight And Darkness

Oranssi Pazuzu- Kosmonument (2011)

When creating music some bands blur genre boundaries, and while difficult to pigeonhole, they can still be rather safely said to operate within a particular genre or two. Mitochondrion is a great example of this. There's a lot going on in their songs, but you can rather accurately label them a death/black band. Others completely smash genre boundaries, making simple descriptions of their music impossible. Oranssi Pazuzu is of the latter variety.

If I absolutely had to adhere to the two genre maximum when describing Oranssi Pazuzu, I suppose I would go with something along the lines of "blackened space rock." Which, in and of itself, should sound unique and interesting enough to warrant a download, but that's missing part of the picture. These dudes are obviously big fans of 70's psychedelic and prog rock, the Floyd and Crimson influence comes through loud and clear. I also hear some krautrock, Neurosis and the thundering bass-heavy industrial metal of Godflesh. Droning ambient sections are littered throughout the record. The track "Luhistuva Aikahäkk" starts out with a minimalist groove that almost reminds me of Portishead. "Maavaltimo" breaks out into a driving hardcore riff that nearly gets buried by a host of spacey guitar. "Komeetta" is astonishingly danceable. All of the vocals throughout the album are done in a black metal style and somehow manage not to completely clash with everything else that's going on. Then there are the actual black metal parts. Which, I'm assuming by now you could guess aren't very straightforward. They bend and twist and mutate in a way that reminds me of Deathspell Omega. 

Honestly, I have no idea what the hells this is. It completely defies categorization. I do know that it's one of the most interesting albums I've heard in a long, long time. It's going to take a while to digest, but somehow I know that I'll still be listening to this album years from now.

Oranssi Pazuzu on last.fm

The most "black metal" track on the album.


Might be my favorite song on the album. It's like Godflesh on LSD.


Get it here.