Apostles Of Solitude - Warbird

Apostles Of Solitude - Slow Suicide

Reverend Bizarre Live In Dublin

The song is called Sodoma Sunrise, from their In The Rectory Of The Bizarre Reverend album. An amazing song from the best doom band in history.

The Wandering Midget

Apostles Of Solitude

Sunn O)))

These dark times call for some Sunn O)))...

Black Sabbath - Die Young

Beaver

From Wikipedia:

Beaver appeared on the Amsterdam music scene in the late eighties. Founded by guitarist/lyricist Roel Schoenmakers and drummer Eva Nahon, their line-up stabilized in 1992 with the addition of bassplayer Milo Beenhakker and ex-God guitarist Joszja de Weerdt. They started playing out on the European stages, supporting bands like The Obsessed, Rollins Band, The Melvins, Fugazi, Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age.

The results of their first three recording sessions at the Via Ritmo studio in Rotterdam were released on CD by the local W.E.R.K./WORKS label in March 1996. 'B' (13eaver) contains one hour of their heavy rocking metascience-fictional blues. The next trip to the studio yielded the Josh Homme-produced "Green", the band's contribution to the genre-defining 'Burn One Up!' compilation that came out in January 1997. The Beaver rhythmsection teamed up with Josh's 'Queens of the Stone Age' for the song '18 A.D.' This record got a lot of international press and put Beaver in the vanguard of the European scene.

In September 1997 their second album, 'The Difference Engine', was released by their new label Elegy. The album was written and recorded within weeks and captures the band in particular fine form, flaunting their trademark tortured guitar-riffing, odd timesignatures and extragalactic soundscapes, lyrically hunted by the heaviness of the load.

The release of the Beaver/Queens of the Stone Age split-EP on Man's Ruin Records September 1998 exposed them to a worldwide audience and drew a lot of positive reactions from fans and music press.

In 1999 Beaver toured Europe twice. After three appearances at the 'Roadburn'-fest, they hit the road in February with Eindhoven's finest 35007. September saw their second tour, this time with Spirit Caravan. In between they recorded their second Man's Ruin-release at 'The Void'-studio in Eindhoven. 'Lodge' was released in October 1999 and received 4 K's in the British 'Kerrang'.

2000 kicked in with a show at the Hollywood 'Troubadour', with Guy Pinhas on bass and Tos Nieuwenhuizen on guitar, a pre-1992 line-up as a matter of fact. While visiting the States they got the go ahead to release a full-length album. Recording started July 2000. Meanwhile, Tos had become a full bandmember again, replacing Joszja as lead-guitarist. The new line-up took to the road in November 2000 and toured extensively all through Europe, visiting the UK for the first time.

They went straight into the studio to finish recording what was to become 'Mobile', eight tracks that catches the band in transition from a five- to a four-piece. The release in May got overshadowed somewhat by the collapse of Man's Ruin, their record label, a month later. The band kept a low profile for the rest of the year, playing some local shows and festivals, working on new songs.

Check them out live here.

More From The Hidden Hand

The Hidden Hand

Debris Inc.

Saint Vitus Live - Born Too Late

Acid King Live - Busse Woods

Acid King - Bad Vision

More Indian

Indian - The Unquiet Sky

Reverend Bizarre - Council Of The Ten

Reverend Bizarre Live

Acid King Live - Heavy Load

Sleep - Lord Of This World

Sleep - Druid

Pentagram - Wartime

Starchild - The Futurist

My obsession with doom has discovered yet another good, solid band. They're called Starchild and they lay down some pretty heavy riffage. Take a listen.

Burning Witch!!

Lord Vicar Update

Chris Barnes interviews Peter Vicar, of Reverend Bizarre fame, here at Hellride. Lord Vicar has released a great EP called Demon Of Freedom; get it here.

Witch - Seer

Good video from Witch.

Smoke

From Smoke's website:

Naming themselves after a line in a Monster Magnet song, Smoke sprang to life out of the diverse Los Angeles rock scene with a sound that lives up to the boldness of its name.

In 2001, Smoke released its Cobra EP to the public. Metal Maniacs called Smoke a "heavy, evil combination of rock'n'roll's darkest forces" (September 2001). England's Terrorizer referred to Smoke as "beefy, laidback all-American groove metal" (..94 November 2001).

In 2002, LA Weekly award winning producer Bobby Tamkin took an interest in Smoke and invited the band to cut its next album at his recording studio. Tamkin (ex-drummer for The Warlocks, Hovercraft, 1000 Mona Lisas) played drums on the recording as well, and the result was 2002's Smoke Follows Beauty.

Smoke gave the rock scene something to get excited about: "Without a doubt one of the best releases of 2002" (Noize Webzine); "Creatively, the band has scaled Mount Everest" (Hellride Music.com); "Some of the best rock out there" (Impact Press); "This is an absolutely superb album" (Roadburn). "A joint the size of a leg of lamb" (Kerrang, Oct. 8 2002); "Huge grooves will have you headbangin'" (BW & BK, Dec. 2002).

Distributors like All That's Heavy, Hellride Music, Kozmik Artifactz, Water Dragon and Devil Doll Records sold Smoke Follows Beauty worldwide and the band to hit the road. A two-month nationwide tour followed and Smoke bludgeoned 30 cities around the country.

Smoke is currently in the studio working on its next full length release.

More Witchburn

I'm already a big fan of Witchburn. Here's a good video from them called Army Of Voices.

Witchburn

Here's some good sludge from Seattle.

Z

Doomsday Is Coming

Albert Witchfinder

So, what happened to Albert Witchfinder after the breakup of Reverend Bizzare? Here are some comments I found in a review of Albert's solo album, The Puritan.:

After the demise of Reverend Bizarre, Albert Witchfinder has not let the tides of doom relent and in the same year as RB's ridiculously amazing finale, has released his solo debut under The Puritan. What's immediately noticeable about The Puritan is how much darker it is than Albert's work with Reverend Bizarre. Rather than song names like "Doom Over the World" and "Fucking Wizard", this EP has "The Sulphur Colored Clouds Are Hurrying Through the Lithium Gates" and "Opposite the Fireplace - The Wall of Shotguns". The music has changed similarily, Reverend Bizarre's fun/rock side is gone; even the beautiful melodies that carried gloomier tracks like "Sorrow" are not present here. The Puritan has retreated to the basics of doom: droning notes that steadily crash out of my speakers like waves on an oceanside cliff. Bleak music. What Albert has carried over to The Puritan from Reverend Bizarre is his ability to channel the misery of the world around him through his bass guitar into soul-purifyingly heavy music.

It's just not as pretty or as fun as when he did it with Reverend Bizarre.

Reverend Bizarre!!

It doesn't get any better than this, folks.

Rules Of Metal By Fat Ed

Wino News

Legendary guitarist Scott "Wino" Weinrich (SAINT VITUS, THE OBSESSED, SPIRIT CARAVAN, PLACE OF SKULLS, THE HIDDEN HAND) has an album's worth of "solo" recordings in the works. Assisting Wino during the sessions are Jean-Paul Gaster (CLUTCH) on drums and Jon Blank (REZIN) on bass. Entitled "Punctuated Equilibrium", the album is being recorded with J. Robbins (producer of THE HIDDEN HAND's "Mother Teacher Destroyer") in Maryland and is tentatively due later in the year via Southern Lord Recordings.

Commented Wino: "'Punctuated Equilibrium' will bring my career into focus."

from Blabbermouth.net

Argus Enters The Studio

From Argus:

We enter Soundscape Studios on Friday to begin recording our debut full-length, at this time self-titled. Track listing (no order determined yet) will include:

“Devils, Devils”
“The Damnation of John Faustus”
Eternity”
Bending Time”
“The Effigy Is Real”
“None Shall Know The Hour”
“From Darkness, Light”
As-yet untitled 10+ minute mini-epic

We also expect to include a short instrumental prelude to “Devils, Devils,” as well as a special contribution to “...Faustus” from a good friend... don`t want to jinx it so I won`t announce it until I have the goods in hand.

"Sleeping Dogs" will be exclusive to the 10" vinyl release (entitled Sleeping Dogs). That will be a remastered for vinyl version of our demo, minus "The Effigy Is Real" (time limitations). That is coming out on the Miskatonic Foundation.

“Dogs” is the oldest of the songs in our set and we love the song but those cats have been playing it since before I joined the band and have recorded it two or three times already and weren`t up for recording it again.

We`re hoping to complete all the basic tracks this weekend. Vocals and leads will follow later in the month (as soon as we can get back into the studio). We`re hoping to post some photos and video of the proceedings. I`ll keep ya updated.

www.myspace.com/theargus

More From Iraq

More news from Iraq's only heavy metal band.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid452319916/bctid1137687679

The Essence Of Doom

For those of you who didn't catch it the first time, pay attention! C'mon! Wake up! Read this! You need to know why doom metal is so fucking cool.


I thought this was an incredible description of doom and one I heartily agree with. Very inspiring.

What Is Doom? (from a statement by John Del Russi of Hierophant)

Doom-metal... probably the most extreme and most misunderstood forms of music. What is doom-metal? Creating a fitting and accurate description can be a long and arduous task, but I shall attempt to give my views on the subject of doom.

Doom, as I've always felt, is something to be experienced; not just a form of music. It is a transcendental experience into the darker, mysterious realms of being; of sorrow and hopelessness, hatred and despair; even a 'gateway' into otherworldly realms. Doom is intrinsically perhaps the most extreme form of music, being both agonizingly slow and monolithically heavy, and therefore has never become a mainstream form of listening among the masses. Its emotionality is such that, for the average person no matter their self-professed darkness, is very often misunderstood for what it truly is, or shunned out of the sheer unnerving atmospheres it evokes. In truth, doom (when done the way it should be) is the darkest, most emotional music on the planet.

Doom is extremely 'spiritual' in experience; being mysterious, dark and esoteric in its purest form. Doom is, in its own way, a very 'majestic' form of music. With the use of a wide array of accompanying instruments, from violins to keyboards, doom creates atmospheres that no other form of music can offer. Doom is extremely intense, due to its emotionality, atmospheres and heaviness, and should not, despite its sloth-like pace, be deemed as 'boring' or 'simple'. Quite the contrary, doom requires one to be a much 'deeper' soul to fulfill its compositional requirements. It cannot just be simply 'written', but must be composed; the entire artist's personal essence and emotions being expressed through every note. In truth, it is perhaps one of the hardest forms of music to compose and perform, First, to play at such slow tempos can be difficult in the aspect of timing. Second, to keep the atmospheres and emotionality of the music at a level that maintains the 'concept' of the songs is no easy feat. It takes great talent to achieve and maintain the level of power, emotionality and quality that not only express the 'concept' of the composer, but also keep the attention of the listener. Perhaps this will dispel the long insulting and ignorant prospects that doom is 'easy' to play and/or write.

I believe that doom should evoke the deepest of essences through the creation of almost otherworldly, emotion-laden notes utilized in combination with an earth-shattering heaviness that should rarely (if ever) be strayed from. To evoke the deepest emotions and atmospheres possible, I believe is the genuine purpose of doom; to create for the listener and experience like none other.

Though there are, like everything else in life, many people who view things differently, I stand firmly in my resolution that doom should always maintain the earth-shattering heaviness the likes of diSEMBOWELMENT, Evoken, Thergothon etc. While there are those who strive to achieve a more 'serene' form of doom, attempting to express purely the sorrowful side, I find it most lacking in power in the absence of the pulverizing heaviness of the afore-mentioned pioneers of doom. The majesty and mystery, sorrow and despair, I feel are delivered with much more power when backed by the heaviness of the afore-mentioned bands. While I have no qualms with 'calmer' moments throughout the journey of doom, which genuinely add to the atmospheres of doom, I believe there should be a quality of 'brutality' to its composition, which drives deeper the experience (especially as doom is, by definition, a brutal experience in itself). Along the same lines, it should never (or rarely) stray from
the slow-as-death pace that also creates the power and driving force that doom delivers which such punishing relentlessness.

Over all, doom is something to be experienced, as I stated earlier. It IS an experience, in the truest sense of the word. An expression of the 'darker', shadowy sides of the human self, sorrow, despair, mourning, hatred, emptiness, misery and mystery, doom-metal is something one needs to submerge one's self into, as opposed to
simply listening to it. It is perhaps one of the most majestic forms of music in existence, despite of (if not due to) its extreme form of expression of these essences and emotions. A journey through realms, which would otherwise remain unbeknownst to man, doom takes one into the deepest of depths both within themselves and external realms.

Doom shall forever remain a mystery, as that is its nature. It is intrinsically mysterious, and not for everyone. But for those who crave the most extreme experience of the deepest emotionality, atmospheres and essences possible to be expressed through music, doom-metal is the one and only path for the sullen few, who are
truly "evolved" enough to understand it and who are fearless of journeying into unknown realms of darkness.

Mourners in darkness gather, and lament your sorrows through the monolithic force that is doom.

My own inner journey has been influenced much by the experience of doom, since, as a lad of fifteen, I heard the earth-shattering power of Black Sabbath.

Z

Mammatus

I just discovered another good psychedelic/doom/stoner group called Mammatus. Check them out. They remind me of Earthless, but more stoned. Here is their MySpace page.

Iraq's Only Heavy Metal Band

Acrassicauda claims to be the only heavy metal band in Iraq. I don't know if it's true, but their music is pretty good. I like the name too. Acrassicauda is a Latin term for one of the most dangerous and unique kind of black scorpions lives in the Iraqi deserts. That alone is very cool. They sound a little like Slayer. The song, Massacre, is somewhat doomesque. Check out their MySpace site here. This is from their site:

Born out of a basement rehearsal space in Baghdad, Iraq, Acrassicauda (the scientific name for black scorpion) is the country’s only heavy metal band. Tutored by local guitar virtuoso Saad Say—the Yngwie Malmsteem of the Middle East—and inspired by Western bands like Metallica, Slayer and Slipknot, they began writing and playing their own music in 2001. They quickly learned though, that their simple goal of performing live was going to be no easy task. Original members Firas (bass), Tony (lead guitar), Marwan (drums), Faisal (rhythm guitar) and Waleed (lead vocals) played three shows together before the beginning of the war in 2003. Shortly after the invasion, Waleed fled the country, leaving Faisal to fill the void of lead singer. Because of the security situation in Baghdad, setting up shows or even just practicing together became increasingly difficult. Aside from the basic danger of walking the streets in their hometown, the band received death threats from fundamentalists and insurgent groups who thought they were devil-worshippers or simply didn’t like them playing Western-style music. Eventually, it became completely impossible to find anywhere they could safely play.

Is Doom Music High Culture?

I realize one could make a pun from my question above, but, seriously, can doom music be considered on the same level of art as, say, the music of Berlioz, Beethoven, or Strauss? I recently found a discussion on one of Hellride's forums where this question was discussed. Here is an excerpt which I found to be particularly poignant:

doom metal, when it is played properly and with sincerity, plumbs the same depths as a poem by holderlin, rilke or early goethe for me. it is the most poetic medium in heavy music, the most introspective, the most introverted (in jung's terminology at least), the most pensive. of course all this can, if taken too far, become lachrymose mawkishness, but i do think that great doom, like poetry, demands a great deal from the listener as it siphons and communicates sentiments that we try to obscure in our quotidian existences, doom makes you look inwards. as john has suggested, i think something like the new WARNING album crystallizes an ephemeral sentiment and transmutes it into sonic poetry..i think there is something aeschylean about this, it's the courage to stare deep into the chasm of human experience and embrace it. that's why the new WARNING album is so cathartic, it's simultaneously affirmation and unfettering, nietzsche's ''yes'' and reconciliation with suffering.

in contradistinction to this you can compare something like thrash, which often involves itself in (sometimes poorly phrased and arbitrary) socio-political concerns or black metal, which is mired in imagery that has become so threadbare it has been lampooned. the primary reason why heavy metal has become an object of derision for so many is because it can so often seem inauthentic (in heideggerian terms), it operates within a circumscribed set of norms (ie black metal bands have their own uniforms and jargon, not to say that doom metal is exempt from this) and can come across as disingenuous with its slew of inherited opinions, ideologies, posturing, etcetera. real doom metal is sort of like the phenomenologist's heavy music- getting back to the ''things in themselves'': pure sensation, all the pain of personhood, alienation and mortality, a priori afflictions that come before our secondary concerns with politics, religion and the like.

i don't think you can be apathetic towards a song like ''the skull'', ''spectre'', ''dying inside'' in the same way that you can be indifferent towards the politics, redundant sacrilege and abstruse mystical mumbo-jumbo of some other heavy metal. form and content are indivisible in truly great doom music, they are inextricably interwoven. i think a lot of music (and a lot of other media like bad books and bad movies) is unilateral- the listener stands back and consumes the music passively, like a receptacle for sensory stimuli. doom demands something from you, because its voice is so naked, immediate and so honest. it is like a wholly present Other that REQUIRES you to respond, to reciprocate, and that's why one cultivates such an intimate relationship with his favorite doom records, and why one feels like he KNOWS the lyricist involved after some time.

in all of music i think only wagner (though not all wagner) and beethoven have touched me so much, like i've had a truly personal communion with the artist, as though the art has been conceived specifically for me. i don't know if this makes it ''high culture'', and i guess i've gone off on all sorts of tangents here, but i have tried to articulate just why it remains my favorite form of music.

think of rilke's nineth elegy:
"Here is the time for the Tellable, here is its home.
Speak and proclaim. More than ever
Things we can live with are falling away, for that
which is oustingly taking their place is an imageless act.
Act under crusts, that will readily split as soon
as the doing within outgrows them and takes a new outline...

...These things that live on departure
Understand when you praise them: fleeting, they look for
rescue through something in us, the most fleeting of all.
Want us to change them entirely, within our invisible
hearts,
into- oh, endlessly- into ourselves! Whosoever we are."

for me, doom rescues us from ''acting under crusts'', the carapace of insincerity and inauthenticity. it is the DEMAND for honesty, first of all with ourselves and the transience of things. it rescues the ephemera of emotions from being forgotten, transmutes them.

and "To Music"
"Music: breathing of status. Perhaps:
Stillness of pictures. You speech, where speeches
end. You time,
vertically poised on the courses of vanishing hearts.
Feelings for what? Oh, you transformation
of feelings into...audible landscape!
You stranger: Music. Space that's outgrown us,
heart-space. Innermost ours,
that, passing our limits, outsurges,-..."

i feel like that poem was written for doom metal!
pardon the prolix and arty response.
__________________
No change, no pause, no hope! Yet I endure.
I ask the Earth, have not the mountains felt?
I ask yon Heaven, the all-beholding Sun,
Has it not seen? The Sea, in storm or calm,
Heaven's ever-changing shadow, spread below,
Have its deaf waves not heard my agony?
Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, forever!
- Shelley
Last edited by Equimanthorn666 : 11-17-2007 at 01:45 PM.

Read the entire discussion here.

Z

New Bands

I'm constantly looking for good doom bands to plug on this blog, so here are a couple I've come across today:

Blutch, from Mons, Belgium. Very heavy, very sludgy doom. Excellent! Check them out at their MySpace site.

Kongh, from Sweden. Doom/drone and doom/death genres are prevalent, but many styles of doom are present. You WILL like it. Listen to a few tracks here.

A Message From Lord Vicar

From Lord Vicar's MySpace site:

As the final nails were hammered to the coffin of Reverend Bizarre (1995-2007, R.I.P.), guitar player Peter Vicar started to follow his vision of a new True Doom Metal band. He felt forced to fulfill his need to compose and play this most arcane form of metal in the way it was meant to be, full of intensity, cruelty, heaviness, and force. Still firmly walking in the footsteps of Saint Vitus, Trouble, Witchfinder General and Pentagram, this new band brings together an international lineup of four devoted metalheads.

The first release will be a 7” EP The Demon of Freedom, released by heavier than life Swedish label I Hate Records (http://www.ihate.se/). The EP will be based on an old werewolf legend from the island of Hiiumaa, as narrated by Finnish author Aino Kallas (1878-1956) in her novel Sudenmorsian (The Wolf’s Bride, 1928). The EP will contain three songs, “Hiiumaa”, “Becoming One With the Spirit of the Forest”, and “Running Into a Burning House”, recorded in London, Stockholm, North Carolina and Turku respectively.

Stranger passing by, hear my advice… Look forward to this offering for the Elder Gods, and then remain on your knees until the first Lord Vicar full-length albums Fear No Pain and Signs of Osiris are revealed to this world.

Fiat Ars, Pereat Mundus!

Ogre To Release New Album

From Leafhound Records:

OGRE NEW ALBUM
Portland, Maine's Ogre has announced that it is heading into the studio in early December to record its third album. This will be the band's second release on Leaf Hound Records (Japan), following 2007's acclaimed Seven Hells. As yet untitled, the album will consist of a single, 35 minute multi-part epic suite, which the band describes as its answer to that age-old question, posed by no one yet pondered by all: "What if Black Sabbath had recorded 2112?"

Considering that the band recently released its shortest song (a one-minute track entitled "The Centurion" and available on the vinyl-only 7" compilation, Short Songs for Long Fellows), this new album should prove to be yet another interesting chapter in the band's history.

Lyrically, the band promises a concept that addresses the past, present, and future of our troubled society, while incorporating many characters from earlier Ogre songs, including, of course, plenty of giant robots from outer space. The album will be recorded with engineer Marc Bartholomew at Portland's Acadia Recording Company (Ocean, Conifer) and is slated for release in March 2008, coinciding with Ogre's first trip overseas: a tour of Japan with Church of Misery and recently reformed NYC doom pioneers Blood Farmers.

Blood Farmers

This group was amazing, but have disbanded. Blood Farmers released two albums, Blood Farmers and Permanent Brain Damage. Here is their MySpace page. Incredible doom!

Z

Back To The Future Of Metal

Gimme Back My Bullets: Weedeater Style

Weedeater

Check out some Weedeater. This one's called Bull.

Ogre

Check out Ogre, from Portland, Maine. Pretty decent outfit. Here is their MySpace page.

Devil To Pay

Here's a good tune from Devil To Pay called Tractor Fuckin' Trailer.

Devil To Pay

I've recently discovered a pretty good band from Indianapolis called Devil To Pay. Click here for their MySpace site. Sure, they sound like a lot of other stoner/doom bands out there, but they're good musicians and that always counts for a lot with me. Their lyrics are intelligent as well. They seem to have good chemistry and a great sound. Check them out.

Z