Tag Archives: United Kingdom

Conan / Slomatics – Split (2016 Reissue)

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Conan / Slomatics – Split (original release 2011 / to be reissued by Black Bow Records, September 2016)

 

Yesterday when we talked about Slomatics‘ first two albums, I mentioned that the band has signed with Black Bow Records, who has rereleased those two albums in advance of the band’s new record due later this year. But this partnership was not the first time they’ve dealt with that label OR its owner Jon Davis. Slomatics and Davis‘ band Conan — from Merseyside County, England, just across the Irish Sea from Belfast — had put together a split record back in 2011. After that limited-edition vinyl quickly sold out, Black Bow put out another pressing of the split in 2014, which also wasn’t around for very long.

And now, they’ve announced that there will be a new batch coming soon — only 200 copies will be made available this time, and each record will be pressed onto a full-color representation of that incredible cover art! An exact release date hasn’t been set yet, but pre-orders are on sale now, and they’re expected to begin shipping around early September.

 

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Slomatics – Flooding the Weir, Kalceanna (2015 Reissues)

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Slomatics – Flooding the Weir (original release 2005 / reissued by Black Bow Records, 20 November 2015)

 

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Slomatics – Kalceanna (original release 2007 / reissued by Black Bow Records, 20 November 2015)

 

Here we find ourselves in the midst of another magnificent Monday. It’s kind of shocking to realize how much of each day (and therefore how much of the workweek) is spent basically sleepwalking, semi-conscious, sort of in that fuzzy slow-motion daze that they always use in movies and tv shows when someone has been drugged or tranquilized or something. And I mean, a large portion of each day even after a cup of coffee or two. Maybe this is why I find myself drawn to low-tempo, fuzzy, swampy/sludgy, crawling-through-quicksand styles of music so much of the time?

I don’t know. But that’s exactly what the music we’re here to talk about today sounds like. Slomatics, from Northern Ireland, have been actively creating heavy fuzz-sludge music for about a dozen years now. Their first two albums were released in 2005 and 2007 on CD, but have been out of print for years. So naturally, after they had signed to Black Bow Records (the label run by their neighbor across the Irish Sea, Conan‘s Jon Davis), while the band got working on their upcoming fifth album (which is set to release in early September), the label decided to once again make those early two releases available in digital format.

 

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Ghold – Of Ruin (2015), Pyr (2016)

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Ghold – Of Ruin (Ritual Productions, 16 March 2015)

 

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Ghold – Pyr (Ritual Productions, 06 May 2016)

 

Hello out there — how is your Tuesday going? It’s almost time to go home and I’m totally ready for a nap. I feel pretty confident in saying I will probably be passed out on the bus ride home, if I even make it that far. And there’s another hockey game tonight, so if there’s going to be any hope of me staying awake to see that, maybe a late afternoon nap wouldn’t be the worst idea.

Before I go, though, it’s about time to share some more listening material with you fine people. Today that will consist of a pair of albums — one a little over a year old, the other released just four days ago — both by London stoner-sludge-grunge-noise band Ghold …

 

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Menhir – Hiding in Light, Sunwølf – Eve (2016)

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Menhir – Hiding in Light (Tartarus Records, 17 April 2016)

 

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Sunwølf – Eve (self-released, 18 April 2016)

 

Good afternoon, and a very happy Friday to you all. I don’t know about you, but for me this week just couldn’t end soon enough. It’s been kind of rough around here. Of course, for those of you reading this in Europe, it’s already late Friday evening and your work week has probably been over for several hours by now. And for those who are way on the other side of the world, it’s already Saturday morning and maybe you’re hungover by this point and already totally forgot about this week. I don’t know. But for me, the day is just about over and I’m totally ready to head home. Before I do, I’d like to share a bit of music with you, though. After all, that’s what we’re all here for, isn’t it?

After yesterday’s whopper of a review, I figured it might be nice to scale it back a little today, and only focus on two releases. The two that I’ve chosen to write about actually have very little in common with each other apart from the fact that they’re both scheduled to come out within the next few days. But I found them both quite enjoyable, and I suspect several of you might also like each of these — or at the very least one or the other just may be your cup of tea …

 

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Boss Keloid – Herb Your Enthusiasm (2016)

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Boss Keloid – Herb Your Enthusiasm (Black Bow Records, 08 April 2016)

 

Well it’s Thursday now, which means it’s almost Friday, which means the weekend is almost here, so I guess that’s a good thing, right? I dunno. I’ve been so tired all week, it’s tough to feel excited about anything. Although — again, tomorrow is Friday, and we’re now finding ourselves coming into what’s traditionally one of the biggest times of the year in terms of new music getting released. Which means a bunch of stuff will be coming out tomorrow (just as it has for the past couple of weeks and will over the next several). So at least there’s that.

I totally missed out on getting anything published here yesterday, due to some super lame crap that kept me busy all day, which means we’re already behind schedule in terms of what I wanted to be able to share with you people this week. So probably it’s about time to quit rambling and get straight to the music, right?

 

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Writhe – The Shrouded Grove (2014)

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Writhe – The Shrouded Grove (self-released, 22 September 2014)

 

“One-man black metal band” — or perhaps to be more accurate, “one-man black metal project.” What do you think of when you hear (read) those words? It sort of makes my skin crawl just to type them. In my line of work (expert music-opinion-haver), the phrase almost always means bad news: some kid who lives in his parents basement downloaded some pirated sound editing software onto his Macbook, cut-and-pasted the same generic drumbeat for twelve minutes, plugged his crappy guitar directly into the line-in input, screamed some stuff about the Impending Conquest of the Dark Lord Urkel Grue into the built-in laptop mic, and then ran the whole thing through some cheesy preset distortion plug-in. Then found some old black-and-white picture of some old buildings using Google image search, photoshopped some nonsense like “Desolation of Solitude” (using Parchment font) onto it, and then emailed it all to me. The message probably started out by saying “Infernal Hailz.” Never a good sign.

But today — surprise!! — I’m going to introduce you to something that goes against all of those stereotypes…

 

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Employed to Serve – Long Time Dead (2012)

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Employed to Serve – Long Time Dead (18 September 2012, Grindcore Karaoke)

 

Hello readers, and happy Tuesday. For the majority of you, this is just like any other Tuesday in any other week, but for many of my domestic readers, we’re fumbling our way through our first day back to work from a long weekend — due to Presidents Day, which is a made-up American holiday based on the fact that a couple of the country’s better-known presidents had been born sometime in February, and is used as a convenient excuse to take an extra Monday off work. It’s a nice idea in theory, but then heading back to reality is just that much more unpleasant. Everyone hates Mondays, but I’ve mentioned in the past how Tuesdays can be even worse sometimes, and especially when it’s a Tuesday that behaves like a Monday. Ugh.

Fortunately — whether we’re returning to work today or yesterday or any day, since it’s all equally miserable — I’ve got the perfect soundtrack to help make it through.

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Spider Kitten – Behold Mountain, Hail Sea, Venerate Sky, Bow Before Tree (2014)

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Spider Kitten – Behold Mountain, Hail Sea, Venerate Sky, Bow Before Tree (Undergroove Records, 27 October 2014)

 

Hello out there in Internetland, how’s everyone doing? — (Really, I’m only asking out of habit. No one ever answers me. For the record, I see the stats for this website, and I know how many of you are visiting each day — would it really hurt to say hello while you’re here?)

Anyway, the important part is that you’re here. And you’re in for a treat, because (of course) I’ve got some great music I’d like to share with you. Introducing: Spider Kitten, a Welsh band that has been kicking around DIY-style for well over a decade, in some form or another (I understand that the group has featured anywhere between two and seven members over the course of its history). Presumably, the name — much like Iron Butterfly — is meant to evoke images of widely contrasting concepts. In this case, apparently, those would be that the band is vicious and frightening, as well as cute and cuddly?

Regardless, this is indeed a band who have spanned a wide array of styles throughout their history — and its members have their hands in many other projects ranging anywhere from black metal to Americana. On the particular album we’re discussing today, we’re presented with a heaping helping of sludgy doom, kicked up a few notches with some epic arrangements and plenty of Viking themes…

 

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Diesel King – Concrete Burial (2015)

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Diesel King – Concrete Burial (When Planets Collide, 02 February 2015)

 

Hey there folks, how is everyone on this fine Wednesday afternoon? It’s weird, ’cause it’s like, on the one hand — cool, the week’s halfway over. But then on the other hand — damnit, there’s still half of the week left to go. Either way, I think I need some more coffee. Be right back.

So I’ve made mention in the past about having a “to do list” of stuff I intend to write about, as well as a library filled with stuff I still need to listen to. Sometimes these two lists can seem pretty overwhelming, but I’m determinedly chipping away at each of them. I try to listen to at least a few new items every day so that I don’t get too hopelessly buried, and typically I’ll make a judgement about whether to keep them (for a future review) or discard. Stuff that gets moved onto the “to do list” can sit there indefinitely, because there might be other things I had already started writing about or that I had planned to share on a particular day. Very rarely do I hear something and immediately drop everything else to start writing about whatever it was that I just listened to. But today is one of those cases. Slowly combing through my folder of new stuff, I happened upon a band called Diesel King who’d released an album earlier this year, and I felt like I needed to share it right away. So here goes…

 

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Fen – Dustwalker (2013)

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Fen – Dustwalker (Code666, 21 January 2013)

 

Hey, people. It’s time once again to take a little stroll back in time — all the way to last year. I am determined to finish reviewing everything on my top albums of 2013 list before the end of 2014, and with this one I’m publishing today, I’ll officially reach the halfway point! No worries, there are still over three months for me to work through the rest of these (while still somehow trying to keep up with newer stuff, too). Oh well, I’ll get there eventually (hopefully). It just gets kind of frustrating sometimes, especially when bands keep putting out newer stuff faster than I can keep up with them — as is the case with UK atmospheric/progressive black metal band Fen (not to be confused with the Canadian prog-rock band of the same name). They’ve just announced that their fourth LP Carrion Skies will be coming out this November through Code666, which is exciting news for sure, but first I need to share their awesome THIRD album Dustwalker with you!

I publicized some of the details about this album when they were first announced, nearly two years ago, and I have been really enjoying listening to it ever since it was released (about three months after that). I’d say it’s about time I got around to following up and writing about the album itself!

 

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