LDRTFS/GATE TO VOID/AEON NOUGHT "THOSE WHO DWELL BEYOND" (Black Mass Records)

Superlative three way split of intense, introverted blackened dooming drone, frosted over with a sorrowful and freezing emptiness. The draw here, for me at least, is the track from the mighty LDRTFS, also known as Like Drone Razors Through Flesh Sphere, a project of anonymous singular membership with a crushing array of hyper-limited underground releases. LDRTFS appear to have some sort of ties to the black metal community, as their first proper release (a CD retrospective of previously released demos) came out on the always excellent Goatowarex label, allied in my mind with the absolute best of depressive black metal. LDRTFS's contribution here is a 30 minute crusher of a track, a whispered hush of whistling ambience that grows and grows, eventually giving way to a volcanic explosion of plodding, ridiculously blown-out ultra-doom, complete with staggering, stuttering drum programming and gigantic, monolithic slabs of guitar ooze. No vocals to speak of, only a universe of bleak atmospherics brought to life via electricity and contempt. Fucking stunning in every way and well worth the price of admission.

Gate to Void are an entity that i am completely unfamiliar with. Judging from the three tracks showcased here, they're an ambient project concerned mostly with keyboard/synthesizer landscapes. There is a kiss of guitar on the first track, some lonely arpeggiated clean minor voicings and then everything after is a thin wash of early morning sorrowtone, like the pink crystalline skyline of a winter dawn. Track two is a Xasthur cover that fails in every respect, as Xasthur knows ambience better than almost anyone working in black metal today and to even try and bring something else to such an already dense and rich composition is pointless. What GTV thought they could bring to the table is anyone's guess but it's no horn of black metal plenty as far as these discerning ears are concerned. Coming after the LDRTFS track, these three songs just seem unnecessary, as they don't come anywhere close to the power on display throughout the disc's first 30 minutes. Maybe some resequencing would have been appropriate here.

The split ends with another project unknown to me, Aeon Nought, who are even more closely allied to depressive black metal in sound than LDRTFS. Aeon Nought is all scraggly, heavily effected crying guitar dirge, ultra-sad and imbued with an infinite sort of yearn that impressed me right away. The sound here is very trebly as well but with all the delays and echoes the sound works and becomes a ghostly, ethereal presence, a sort of hovering remembrance of time wasted and a lifetime of regrets left behind. I found Aeon Nought's side of the split to be extremely effective in conveying a mood of total hopelessness and am eager to here more from this person, whoever it is, in the future.

Again, the real star here is LDRTFS. Splits are rarely balanced in quality; there's always one band that you're buying this shit for and for me it's LDRTFS. If this had been a two-way between GTV and Aeon Nought there's no way i would have been interested unless it were on a trusted label. With LDRTFS's track, it's a 75 minute descent into purgatory, an unflinching look at tedium and banality. If you can handle the oppression, then invest. Otherwise LDRTFS's comp disc on Goatowarex is a better place to start.

BONG "BETHMOORA" (Infinite Exchange)

Probably one of the most laconic, drifting "stoner" albums that i've heard in years. Despite that upside down cross in their logo Bong carry no taint of evil in their sound and even less weight. This is floating, meandering barely there existing in the astrals style expanse metal, creating an extraordinarily calm and mellow atmosphere throughout its lengthy 71 minute runtime. There are about four riffs on this whole record and if that concept has any sort of appeal to you then you're going to love what Bong are doing. From what i'd heard of the band i was expecting some massive crusted over Eyehategod style NOLA sludgehate but this is way more exisiting on the side of tranquility. Make no mistake-it IS heavy, and there are a few who probably WOULD find this oppressive-but to me this is much more about a journey and a mood, sort of the Ash Ra Temple of doom metal or Popol Vuh turned to sludge. It isn't as heavenly or as cosmic as either of those two projects but the communicative nature of the material is the same. Bong want to take you somewhere else and to get you there, they will lull, soothe and intoxicate you until you're sleeping and travelling, via dreams or transference or some sort of combination of both.

I'm reminded very much of another astral "metal" band, the mighty O. Like Om, Bong take simple riffs and grind them into spacedust ad infinitum and like Om Bong employ a very monotone, chanting/recitation style of singing that becomes very, very hypnotic as the music trudges on. Bong's aspirations are not as lofty as Om's, nor is their music meant to be taken as seriously. Unlike Om there is no philosophy underneath at all, no deeper belief. It's all about zoning the fuck out. Bong drives that point home on "Bethmoora" with a totally narcoleptic 30 minute cover of Pink Floyd's "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun"; when at last the guitars come cranking over the sleepy hills in glacial waves of plodding distorto-stumble you're too massaged into nowhere to give a fuck. Nihilism as transcendence-maybe there is some sort of philosophy there.

Do you need this? Not really. There's nothing incredibly gripping here, but it isn't bad by any means. If i saw a Bong record at a store i'd buy it; i just wouldn't go as crazy over these guys as other reviewers suggest you should. You're getting so so so sleeeeeepy........

KEVIN DRUMM "MALAISE" (Hospital Productions)

An extremely limited double cassette from Drumm, soon to be reissued as part of Picadisk's upcoming 5CD boxset of OOP KD material (which i personally cannot wait for.) "Malaise" is perfectly titled; the sounds on display here ride a variety of moods to their inevitable end: resignation to unease and the acceptance of sorrow. This isn't "sorrow" in the traditional sense; it's the first wash of sickness, the first clamming of the skin, the first acknowledgment that something is wrong. This is all the colour draining from the body and a cold weakness seeping in. The cover art also reflects that-the cusp of winter, the draining of colours, the wilting of leaves and the embittering of an atmosphere.

"Malaise" is divided into four lengthy sections, with each occupying a vastly different headspace and producing different effects on the listener. "Malaise 01" is a chop piece, made up of various noise clouds and free-floating skronk thrown against each other via spacing and edits, creating an incredible disharmony. Some of the frequencies Drumm works with here create a distinctly nauseating physical feeling-at certain points throughout i felt as though a swarm of bees were stuffing my ears and stinging me all over. If you looped this track over and over, eventually you would vomit. "Malaise 02" eschews the mass chopping in favor of a prolonged harsh static intro veering into a deep drift of white electric snow, an infinite strain of winds that soothe and calm (albeit into death) as much as they hurt. It's the middle of a blizzard, an image that Drumm has visited and summoned often in his compositions. This track is the most effective of the three in conveying the overall tone and idea of the record as i see it; there's a restlessness, a boredom and a deep sense of dissatisfaction and disgust lurking within. While not near as harsh as the first segment, this track goes a long way towards luring the listener deeper into a perception of illness. "dogdrone" is next, a respite of sorts, or maybe the fever and the hallucination, the sweating and the visions. thirteen minutes of gorgeous, dense, buzzing shimmery drone, unchanging but always changing, a Lovecraftian wisp of slightly ever-shifting bass tones and hot stuttery wired electricity. It's lovely and dreamy and stands at serious odds with the rest of the material; the fact that Drumm titled it differently but still considered it part of the work as a whole (the next track still advances the numeral) speaks to the feelings of distress that he infused into the track (but in KD material, no matter how serene, there is always menace.) Things end with the sickness overtaking the body, the complete physical purge of all the contagion. "Malaise 04" is KD in full noise tyrant mode, all bass throb and electric howl, terror and assault fused into one efficient rendering machine. I find it interesting that although this track is extremely harsh, it isn't difficult to listen to; rather it's almost comforting, like you know these feelings will end soon, that it's almost over, that there can be difference. Such an affirmation is hard to reconcile in a Drumm piece, but as discussed in other reviews he's an intelligent artist capable of both subtlety where you wouldn't expect and a wicked sense of humour.

"Malaise" has been maligned as something of a minor work amongst some reviewers. Perhaps the incredible limitation of the material resulted in an unfair assessment. There is nothing new here but there are plenty of variations on everything that Drumm does so, so well. "Malaise" is a towering record, another masterpiece in a discography littered with them, an epic exploration of indefinable feelings and introverted hypochondria. Surrender to the fatigue of winter; give up on it all. Accept total defeat but don't forget: things can change.

FAUNA "THE HUNT" (Aurora Borealis)

Gorgeous, epochal 71 minute suite of atavistic pagan black metal from the Cascadias. Fauna operate from a space far removed from the majority of modern black metal and while correlations can easily be drawn to other nature-worshiping bands like Wolves in the Throne Room, Fauna achieves a distance in their music that only comes from the outright rejection of society and a subscription to more ancient values. "The Hunt" is nothing less than a ritual and it feels like one when listening to it. I've encountered plenty of black metal records that attempt to set a magickal aura with their sound but Fauna actually delivers. There's an organic element to their approach that few other bands seem capable of capturing or tapping into and the resultant atmosphere is a dark, thick tapestry of nighttime evocations and praise thrown out to the cosmos.

"The Hunt" is presented as a seven part movement alternating between the aforementioned ritualistic musical soundscapes and lengthy blasts of atonal, ultra-repetitive black metal, a sort of Slint by way of Burzum demonstration that leaves the listener wanting little and wrapped up in a whirling, dizzying state of hypnotic mesmerization. The record reaches a dual apex in the near 20 minute "The Scent" and the 15 minute closer, "The Kill...Fulfillment" (itself divided into two equally different parts, "The Feast" and "Ascension of the Prey's Soul") wherein black metal conventions are reduced to their basest forms and Fauna totally bludgeon you into a state of lulled, rubbery submission via their endless, passionate repeating of vaguely melodic mid-paced power chord destructionisms. The intent of "The Hunt" is to take the listener on a journey through the mind of a predator, to bond you to the simplest survival instinct and make you understand the idea of kill or be killed, the necessity of what is essentially murder in a less intellectual setting, the idea that as much as we like to deny it, baser drives are what motivate us in almost all decisions.

The music plays this journey out extraordinarily well. There are moments of extreme fist-clenching tension, sweat-soaked minutes of dark and menacing contemplation, elegiac laments borne of clean and austere guitar figures exploding into thrilling, cathartic adrenaline-fueled release. Fauna bring you there with the wolf, alongside the solitary quest for survival, a witness to the necessary cruelties that nature demands of its creatures. It all peaks with "The Kill," wherein the bloodlust is sated by way of "The Feast", whose buzzing metalstorm gives way to the achingly beautiful coda of "Ascension of the Prey's Soul," an absolutely commanding and epic tribute to the prey just taken, a reverence for what it has given and the blood that once flowed through its veins, alive and hot and slick with terror and awareness. Fauna weave a thick fog of heaven-seeking keyboards amidst a clod of earthen guitar communion, creating a severe and majestic atmosphere of pagan worship.

This is flat out amazing black metal art, an obvious path to transcendence. Fauna have no goals beyond the adherence to a very personal philosophy and the commitment to that statement has birthed one of the most awesome and powerful black metal albums i've heard in years. It's a shining jewel in the USBM crown and a high mark for the genre as a whole. A masterpiece.

PANTERA "I AM THE NIGHT" (Metal Magic Records)

Holy shit is this terrible. Pantera's third album overall, and the last to feature vocalist Terrence Lee. It's obvious at this point that the band was out of ideas and had taken this style as far as it could go. A change needed to occur. Whereas "Projects in the Jungle" was a flawed but promising effort with a number of good songs and riffs, and one absolutely amazing track, "I Am The Night" is unequivocally terrible. Everything here sucks, with the lone exception of "Come On Eyes" which actually rocks pretty hard for glam. More than likely it was a "Projects..." outtake.

So what went wrong? Probably Pantera's intense desire for crossover success. The most off-putting aspect of this record, for me, is the ZZ Top style mechanized drums which appear in every song, leading me to believe that Pantera were following the charts (a few years too late) and wondering what they could do to achieve that level of marketability. What they failed to realize was that along with the robot drums ZZ Top were writing great songs like "Sleeping Bag," "Give Me All Your Lovin'" and "Legs" (never mind that "Sleeping Bag" was never a single-it's a song called fucking "Sleeping Bag" and that should be enough.) It wasn't just cold mechanical beats making stars back then-you had to have something that people could remember.

Pantera at this point, and working in this style, didn't have that. They were too heavy for mainstream radio but not heavy enough for underground success. The arrival of Phil Anselmo would rectify that but at the time it must have been dire for the boys. What to do with the talent? "I Am The Night" boasts plenty of pure uninspired techinical shit riffing and even has yet another Van Halen styled guitar exposition but nothing in the way of quality songs-what's a band to do? Blame the singer, of course.

Terrence Lee did his best here. His performance is the only one that actually shows improvement and progression from "Projects." He works in different ranges here and tries a number of varied approaches, all admirable and acceptable and laudable within the terrible frameworks given but not enough to escape the inevitable sandbagging overall. I'd like to know more about this guy just to see if he knew what was going wrong at this point and if he had any inkling that he'd get the axe. Obviously Anselmo came in and took things to the the next level but it'd still be interesting to hear Lee's side of the story.

On "Power Metal" Pantera were totally different. Every vestige of accessibility was gone, replaced by a "harder faster louder" mentality that fueled the band for years to come. Perhaps the memory of "I Am The Night" prompted them to do better all the time. It made for some great records, certainly. For fans and musicologists, "I Am The Night" is priceless. If you don't laugh a little listening to these songs then i'm not sure what this blog could do for you. Likewise, if "Come On Eyes" doesn't blow your mind then i wonder the same. Better things were on the horizon for Pantera, but history is forever inescapable.

PYRAMIDS with NADJA "INTO THE SILENT WAVES (Remixed by Lustmord and Ulver)" (Hydrahead)

Wow. If this LP weren't so crazy limited (a scant 300 copies) i'd call it totally worthless. Normally Hydrahead outdo themselves with the vinyl versions of their albums but this is deplorable. That image is pretty much exactly what this LP looks like- no artwork, no insert-just a fucking sleeve and a record. And it wasn't inexpensive. Horrible!

The Pyramids with Nadja album itself was excellent. A very subdued jaunt across naturalistic landscapes accented with tons of echoed guitars and Faith Colaccia's inimitable piano symphonics. It brought Nadja down into the atmosphere and showed exactly what Pyramids were capable of as a composing unit. This remix LP does the original a disservice which is a shocker, considering the musicians involved.

Lustmord's side is the longer of the two and reduces the track to its barest essentials-the bass line and a minor amount of atmosphere. I find that little is gained by his treatment of the track-i don't feel like i've explored the potential any further nor do i see any new territory unearthed by his remixing. It hardly even bares his stamp. I would much rather have heard a lengthy near dub-style ultra-bass reduction of the track's simplest elements stretched to a plodding, echoing length rather than the pointless rework on display here. It's just longer with less going on. Nothing new, nothing learned.

Ulver's hack job is even worse. Their remix would have fit comfortably on a 7" single and considering the price i paid for this LP that pisses me off a bit. It seems like Ulver took what Lustmord did and encapsulated it a bit, adding a few seconds of delayed orchestral flourish to the minimalist reimagining previously employed. I can't even embellish what's here because it's so totally skeletal in the worst possible way. It's a vapid, empty treatment that reeks of cashing a paycheck.

I'm wary of remixes overall but Hydrahead normally go above and beyond. Their commissioned mutations of Knut and Isis are both exemplary of what the remix concept can achieve. This, however, falls well short of that mark. Avoid at all costs. I can only hope that someday this LP will be worth hundreds of dollars to justify its existence.

ROKY ERICKSON "TRUE LOVE CAST OUT ALL EVIL" (Anti)

A tremendously dissatisfying later period album from Roky Erickson. For me this a really polarizing record-there are things i like about it and there are a lot of things i don't. I'll do the best i can in addressing them but forgive me in advance if this review falls prey to tangential raving.

The most serious misstep here is in the choice of Roky's backing band. I don't know if this was his choice (i seriously doubt it) or more the desire of the label, but Okervil River is not suited in any way to play Roky's songs. For me, Roky is more or less Elvis-he is my total definition of what rock and roll is. He embodies it. His music is pure, simple and honest and his best backing bands have understood that. Okervil River drowns these songs in needless, worthless instrumentation. I don't want to hear fucking horns and sappy strings in a Roky Erickson song. Disgusting! It's dentist's office/elevator music bullshit and to attach it to someone who is wild and feral and free is a disgrace. I won't blame Okervil outright-i feel this was more a label decision than anything else-but to assume that Roky's audience has aged with Roky and wants to revel in the sounds of being fucking ancient is just sad and shows a serious disregard for the artist and the listener. At their best Okervil can work up a nice droning din but far too often this sort of explosion is tempered in favor of FM light garbage that embarasses everyone on the record. Why didn't Anti just bring in the Explosives (Roky's go-to live band, and an amazing set of musicians as well) and make this album what it should have been? The simple answer is dollars, and that sickens me all the more. Anti has established themselves as a sort of home for outcast punk forefathers (Tom Waits) but has done little to foster the belief that they actually care about the artistic visions of said individuals.

It IS nice to have Roky out there and making music again. Granted, many of these songs have been around for a long time (and have been played better by many different backing bands) but it's good to hear Roky surviving and enduring and engaging with the world once more. His voice has been rendered sweeter by the years but such softness suits him-it's always been there and now it's just more apparent. He's lost a little bit of the edge, yes, but i can't blame the man himself for getting older. Tons of other artists have turned in absolute shit at this point in their careers so in comparison Roky still seems pretty youthful. There is still THAT VOICE and there are still the songs.

Roky has never attempted to go beyond what he does and i admire that immensely. There's been no branching out, no experimentation-it's always been simple songs and simple words. I won't comment on the lyrics because they're one of two things-ridiculously heartfelt proclamations of love or horror movie rewrites, sometimes a combination of both to great effect. As stated above there's an honesty to what this guy does that no one else has even come close to. The true poet wears his heart on his sleeve for all to see, good or bad, and cares little for what others think. That's Roky, easily.

I expected this recording to be much more intense than it was. Roky recordings were always rough and ragged, even the studio work, and i feel the lullaby-esque nature of "True Love..." taints the legacy and shows a skewered portrait of the artist as a lackadaisical, tired old man. There is not a single guitar solo on this album and that is just plain unforgivable. I know when he tours this live (if he does, and if it's with a better band) he'll rock the shit out of these songs the way they're supposed to be. I was psyched that "John Lawman" was on this record, one of my absolute Roky faves, a destroyer of a song, total pre-punk disgust and disdain, but Okervil has transformed it into a mid-paced near flatline snoozer with a hint of distortion and a glimmer of attitude. It's a song that breathes "fuck you" and it's been moulded into a sort of "well, i guess." Perhaps that sentiment describes this album best.

The high points, for me, are the opening and closing tracks-two songs recorded in incredibly low fidelity consisting of just Roky and acoustic guitar, the utter nakedness and beauty of the material on complete display. Towards the end of both Okervil begins to pour in but they never achieve full immersion-they're struggling to get in amongst the honesty of the songs, and that's the way it should have been. This album should have been either Roky solo acoustic or with the Explosives. Then it would have been a masterpiece. As it is now it's just another album by an aged counter culture hero. I know Roky is better than this and i think there were just too many people whispering in his ear. It's Anti that fucked up. I also won't blame Okervil River-who wouldn't want to play with Roky?-but if they were true believers they should have known this fact-Roky is best with the Explosives.

Avoid this record. If you're new to Roky start with "Halloween," "The Evil One" or the starkly gorgeous "Never Say Goodbye." Those capture the man as he is-loose, unbridled, free and pure. "True Love Cast Out All Evil" is watered down adult contemporary bullshit.