Category Archives: Reviews

Tia Carrera – Visitors / Early Purple (2019)

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Tia Carrera – Visitors / Early Purple (Small Stone Records, 22 March 2019)

 

Many of you may already be familiar with this group, who rose to superstardom when they appeared in the 1992 film Wayne’s World as the fictional band Crucial Taunt, as well as having a few of their songs appear on the soundtrack. But perhaps you soon lost track of these guys, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if you hadn’t heard that several years later they decided to move to Texas, fire the lead singer, fire the rest of the band, bring in a completely new set of musicians, not bring in a new singer, and adopt more of an improvisational psychedelic style.

To cap it all off, they went on to alter the spelling of their name just barely enough to avoid any potential lawsuits. See, in a situation similar to Alice Cooper, who had been the vocalist of the Alice Cooper Band prior to his appearance in Wayne’s World, the original singer of Tia Carrere legally changed her name to the band’s name — using it in her acting career when she, too, played roles in Wayne’s World and its sequel. This left the rest of the band — which, to reiterate, by this time consisted of entirely different members anyway — in an awkward position, and they had little choice other than to change the name to Tia Carrera.

Or to put it another way, virtually nothing I’ve said thus far has been even remotely true, aside from “Texas” and “improvisational psychedelic style.” Austin-based trio Tia Carrera, who (as far as I can tell) are completely unrelated to the similarly-named actress or her fake glam rock cover band, put out an album with two new lengthy songs (their first new material since 2011!) via Small Stone earlier this year, and if you haven’t heard it yet, I’m going to tell you why you should.

 

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Daxma – Ruins Upon Ruins (2019)

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Daxma – Ruins Upon Ruins (Blues Funeral Recordings, 26 July 2019)

 

Hey! In case you were wondering, we still talk about music around here, too. Sometimes. This morning let’s dive into a fascinating two-track EP that emerged over the summer, from the Oakland (CA)-based post-doom/drone crew Daxma.

The band’s name is a homophone (or perhaps simply an alternate spelling) of dakhma, the towers built in Zoroastrian societies as a place to cast dead bodies, where first vultures and other scavengers, and then the sun and other elements, will ultimately cleanse and purify the bones.

 

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Talsur / Doomcult – Nameless (2019)

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Talsur / Doomcult – Nameless (self-released, 05 April 2019)

 

Good afternoon! Taking a break from our recent excursion into the wide world of sports, to bring you this recommendation of some music for you to check out!

Released back in April of this year — and brought to my attention by one of the bands involved right around that same time — Nameless is a six-track split album. There are two new compositions apiece by Talsur (a single-member doom band from Penza, sort of near the Russian-Kazakh border) and Doomcult (a single-member doom band from southern Netherlands); and then the remaining two tracks feature each band covering a previously-released song by the other. Dig it!

 

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Body Void – You Will Know the Fear You Forced Upon Us (2019)

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Body Void – You Will Know the Fear You Forced Upon Us (Crown and Throne Ltd/Dry Cough Records/Seeing Red Records, 15 March 2019)

 

Each of the past two years, Body Void from beautiful, sunny California has unleashed an album unto the world, which could be called anything BUT beautiful or sunny. Even if you’ve been hiding under a rock this whole time, surely they’ve still managed to catch your attention. But if by some inexplicable means you’ve missed out, please do yourself a favor and check them both out here.

Well, this deteriorating mass called earth and all its awful inhabitants have crept their way around the sun once more, and sure enough, the Golden State trio has graced our ears with another heaping helping of auditory despondence: You Will Know the Fear You Forced Upon Us.

 

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Stone Machine Electric – Darkness Dimensions Disillusion (2019)

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Stone Machine Electric – Darkness Dimensions Disillusion (self-released, 26 April 2019)

 

Good afternoon! Here’s some news that recently came across our desk here at VOH headquarters, which we felt obliged to pass along to you: guitar/drums/vocals “doom jazz” duo Stone Machine Electric have decided to make all their past releases “pay what you can” (including free) on their Bandcamp page. Naturally, that includes their 2016 record Sollicitus es Veritatem which we dug into at that time, right here.

Excluded from this offer is the band’s latest release Darkness Dimensions Disillusion which just came out a few months ago. But fear not, the price is still pretty cheap, or — even better — you can snap up a free download of this album when bundled with one of the band’s t-shirts!

BREAKING NEWS: as an added bonus, just as we were about to go to press with this, we just learned that the band also plans to include a free patch with CD/shirt/cassette orders — but hurry because supplies are very limited!

 

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Spirit Adrift – Behind-Beyond, Chained to Oblivion (2016); Curse of Conception (2017)

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Spirit Adrift – Behind – Beyond (Prosthetic Records, 26 February 2016)

 

Spirit Adrift – Chained to Oblivion (Prosthetic Records, 12 August 2016)

 

Spirit Adrift – Curse of Conception (20 Buck Spin, 06 October 2017)

 

Migration Fest is officially here! For more information, you can check out this feature we did several months ago, but instead we highly recommend this hugely informative guide to the festival AND the city of Pittsburgh in general that was assembled by our esteemed colleagues at Meat Mead Metal.

Whether you’re coming to Pittsburgh, are already here, or you aren’t able to make the trip but you are interested in good music, today we’d like to call your attention to Spirit Adrift who will be performing Saturday evening (28th July) as part of their nationwide headlining tour!

 

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Secret Cutter – Self-Titled (2014), Quantum Eraser (2018)

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Secret Cutter – Self Titled (self-released, 10 February 2014)

Secret Cutter – Quantum Eraser (self-released, 06 July 2018; dist. by Deathwish Inc. [N.A.] / Holy Roar Records [EU])

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania — in the heart of the Lehigh Valley — was named for the canonical birthplace of Jesus, while today it’s better known as the birthplace of Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Well, that, plus the fact that (like our own hometown on the opposite end of the state) it served a pretty significant role in this country’s steel industry.

While the city is not exactly known as a hotbed of musical activity (losing out to neighboring Allentown in terms of songs commemorating the working class), it has given us a trio who produces an utterly brutal blend of sludge and grind: Secret Cutter. In this article, we’re going to check out that band’s first two full-length records, the second of which sees the light of day today!

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Bell Witch – Mirror Reaper (2017)

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Bell Witch – Mirror Reaper (Profound Lore Records, 10 October 2017)

 

Today we’re going to talk — again — about Bell Witch. Since the release of their demo recording back in 2011, this bass+drums+vocals duo of doom has been delighting our auditory cortices with a combination of immense gravitas and lofty, haunting melodies. With the departure of drummer/vocalist Adrian Guerra following sophomore album Four Phantoms, bassist/vocalist Dylan Desmond soldiered on with a new partner in Jesse Shreibman.

As observed in our 2016 review of that 2015 double-LP, the tragic passing of friend and former bandmate Guerra devastated the members of Bell Witch — who, as it turns out, had just started working together on the first new material with their current line-up. As you might expect, this event would certainly have a strong effect on the writing process, the result of which became Mirror Reaper, revealed to the world last fall.

With these guys hitting the road TONIGHT for a month-long expedition all over North America (including stops at two different festivals this weekend), alongside fellow Pacific Northwesterners Yob, we’ll spend some time with Mirror Reaper, and then share that list of tour dates down below.

 

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Chrch – Light Will Consume Us All; Fister – No Spirit Within (2018)

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Chrch – Light Will Consume Us All (Neurot Recordings, 11 May 2018)

 

Fister – No Spirit Within (Listenable Records, 18 May 2018)

 

Hey! Remember that incredible split of DOOOOOOM between California’s Chrch and Missouri’s Fister, that came out last November? We just wrote about it at the beginning of this year. Well, both of those bands recently wrapped up a joint European tour, and coincidentally they are both beginning a series of U.S. tour dates TONIGHT (although those will all be separate shows). Also, they both signed to new labels in the recent past (Neurot and Listenable respectively), and both bands have just released their first album on those labels within the past month.

In this article we’re going to talk about both of those albums, and then at the end will be a list of upcoming performances for each band. Prepare yourselves.

 

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Venom Prison – Animus (2016-18)

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Venom Prison – Animus (Prosthetic Records, 14 October 2016 / deluxe edition 23 February 2018)

 

British death metal horde Venom Prison, who exploded into international consciousness with their Prosthetic-released debut album in late 2016, are currently touring North America with a whole bunch of other heavy hitters in the genre.

In fact, the month-long tour is a little more than halfway over, so we don’t want to waste any more time — here’s our write-up of Animus, and later you can see the full list of dates, plus a handful of European cities the band will be visiting in August with Dying Fetus!

 

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