BLACK RAINBOWS - Hawkdope (Album Review)

If you don't know by know, then 'Hawkdope' should cement things for you: Black Rainbows are one of the best rock bands in the world. The consistently high level of artistry of the band's output over the course of eight years, four albums, one E.P. and a highly regarded 4-way split album is staggering. I wrote about them once before, for the 'Holy Moon' E.P. which you can find at this location, but I'm not sure I drove the above point home enough in that one. This is the band's first full-length album since 2011's 'Supermuthafuzzalicious!!' and in that time some things have changed and some have stayed the same. Let's get into it ...

I caught on to Black Rainbows very early on in my discover of the underground stoner rock world. Before facebook, before the Paranoid blog, way back when I was deep down the wormhole of youtube suggested video links. I heard a song off of the band's 2010 album 'Carmina Diabola' and it blew my tiny, insignificant mind. When I finally tracked the album down I wasn't disappointed, it was a masterpiece. It's just a collection of 10 straight forward scorchers with some proggy elements. The same can be said of the above-mentioned follow-up from 2011. I saw 2013's 'Holy Moon' EP as somewhat of a departure. The band was spreading their psychedelic wings to a certain extent, with songs like "Chakra Temple" and the title track, it was an experimental effort. The band has always had a touch of Hawkwind in them, but I don't think anybody could have expected the "sound paintings" sections found on the EP.

'Hawkdope' is classic Black Rainbows, but they've retained more than just a hint of those psychedelic tendencies to stay true to their label name (Heavy Psych Sounds). For the most part, the new album is stuffed full with head-down rockers, but room is made for smoke-blown sections and ripping solos. This is Black Rainbows gone cosmic, but staying within the lines of their established boundaries. The Italian trio subtly deviates from the formula here, musically and structurally and the result is a more dynamic album. Though the pausey rhythms that characterized earlier albums have largely been jettisoned here, the stripped down approach acts as a stage II rocket, propelling the band into the cosmos. Musical boundaries have been eliminated, this is the band's apotheosis. Black Rainbows can go anywhere from this point, the nine-minute title track is proof of that.

'Hawkdope' will be released this Saturday, March 14 by Heavy Psych Sounds, but you can stream the entire album right now over at The Obelisk website.

Rating: «««« / 5

Black Rainbows on facebook
Heavy Psych Sounds on facebook

BRETUS - The Shadow Over Innsmouth (Album Review)

I've been sitting on this potboiler for about three months now, keeping mum about it and it's been killing me. I wanted to hold off on talking about this album until there was a solid timetable for its release. Well, I still haven't seen an exact date for its release from Blood Rock Records, but the band said March, so that's close enough.

Bretus's new album is riffier and probably better than its predecessor, 'In Onirica' which I happened to like a great deal (two years ago this month I posted the review at this location). While the new album has lost some the prog appeal of the last one, it aligns more closely with throwback metal bands like Devil or Demon Eye, whose albums made the top three in my best of lists for 2013 and 2014 respectively, so you know I'm biased towards this kind of sound to begin with. But why wouldn't I be? This is exactly what I'm looking for: it's heavy, riffy, sounds like the kinds of albums I'd heard in my uncle's basement suite in the mid-80's and isn't alienatingly overproduced.

The first bit of info about the album I'll arm you with is that it's a concept album. As your inner Sherlock Holmes can surmise 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth' is about the seminal H.P. Lovecraft tale of the same name. The story is broken down here, quite well actually, with each song title breaking down the story in chronological order. Interestingly, I was in the middle of reading this story when the album was sent to me. Still am in fact because as a pure piece of writing, it's not one of Lovecraft's best. But the story resonates. It's about "otherness" and true alien-ness, and perhaps in a bout of self-awareness, Lovecraft turned the tables on himself, to see his xenophobia through the other side of the lens. Or maybe he was just trying to shock. None if which is here nor there really.

'The Shadow Over Innsmouth' is full with riffs the way a mother shark is full with shark babies. The crispest example is third track "Captain Obed Marsh". I put it on a podcast weeks ago and I still haven't gotten over this song. The whole first half of the album is a gallery of riffs, the Italian band puts on a clinic here.

On the second half of the album, the mood darkens considerably, starting with "The Oath of Dagon" as narrator Robert Olmstead runs into increasing danger. The atmosphere grows darker and increasingly frantic and claustrophobic. The listener loses some of "easy-listening" nature of those bright, memorable side one riffs on side two, but by then you're already knee deep in the story of the album and pulled along compulsively. That said, the darker side isn't without its thrills. "The Horrible Hunt" stands alone, musically with its cycle of almost black metal riffing, near thrash tempo and doom metal bridge. It's a tour de force.

If the idea of adapting Lovecraft's famous tale appeals to you, you should check out the 2001 film Dagon from director Stuart Gordon (the best interpreter of Lovecraft's stories). It's a loose adaptation of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" that plays a bit like Night of the Living Dead with horribly deformed fish people in the place of zombies. I recommend it as highly as I do this album.

It was incredibly difficult not to put this album in my top 2014 list, but I wanted to play by the rules, this album being destined for a 2015 release, it didn't belong on a 2014 list. But I can tell you right now, that this album is best of 2015 list bound. Three months after first hearing it, I haven't stopped listening to it and I'm sure that this album will take its place among the two albums mentioned above along with Magister Templi's 'Lucifer Leviathan Logos' as timeless metal albums that will never grow old.

Rating: ««««½ / 5

Bretus on facebook

HORRIBLE NIGHTS - Demons (1985)

"They will make cemeteries their cathedrals 

and the cities will be your tombs"

While many other sites will be talking about the Friday the 13th film franchise today, I'm going to give you an alternative. I'm going to show you a movie that is one part mondo schlock and one part metafiction in overdrive. This is a horror film about people watching a horror film. As the film-within-a-film unfolds, the audience's reality intertwines with the story's plot. Like many Italian horror films, there's an ambiguity of intention due to narrative dissonance. While American filmmakers torture themselves over details of a tightly constructed plot, Italians have often gravitated toward pure expression. For audiences trained in Hollywood storytelling, these films appear to be a confused jumble of ideas. Things just sort of happen on screen and it's on the viewer to shuffle them into order. The film might be saying that horror films make demons of their audience, or it might be saying nothing at all.

The nihilistic tendencies of the story negate any sense of meaning at all. What begins as a story about people infecting and destroying each other in a self-contained environment, ie: the Metropol movie theater, ends in an apocalyptic outbreak. There is no hope here, no moral victory and that just may be the muted point, that the violence and destruction horror fans witness desensitizes them and destroys the moral fabric of society. The horror film itself is the demon infecting those in theaters who are then unleashed upon the world. Or it might be saying nothing at all.

Demons (Dèmoni) was directed by Lamberto Bava, the son of legendary Italian director Mario Bava and produced by Dario Argento. Argento's association with the film has taken precedence and many believe that the movie was directed by him. With such a pedigree the film may be a slight disappointment aesthetically. This is sleazy camp, the story is a mess and the English overdubs are atrocious. But no matter, those are reasons to love this film.

When a second set of characters are introduced we stay with them for a while and get to know them. They do interesting if hideous things like drive while sniffing coke out of a straw sticking out from a coca-cola can, then spill the can on their ladyfriend's chest before using a razor blade to scrape up the mess. They bicker, we understand their group dynamics and the air in their car is electric with sexually charged danger and tension. Ultimately, they're there to free the demons from the barricaded theater, a simple job that might have been handled by less developed characters. Their punk rock sleaze may be symbolic of a destructive force in society. In this film, it's those racy, drug-addled punks who literally set the demons free. Then again, the film might be saying nothing at all.

Those trapped in the theater and suffering at the hands of the demons are no better. The daughter of a blind man (what's he doing at the movie theater?) who relies on her to give him 'descriptive audio' sneaks off to bump uglies with a man, as far as we know a complete stranger, without exchanging a single word with him. These are people who talk during the movie or, in other words, assholes. Then there's the even bigger asshole who incessantly shushes them. There's the pimp and his two whores. The horndogs and their all too willing prey. And when the shit hits the fan, they're just people. Leaders emerge and are dragged or thrown of balconies, replaced by new leaders. Demons could be saying that this is what people are, scratch the surface (literally, with a metal mask) and underneath you'll find the most horrific, lustfully murderous perversions.

Under the surface of this film is a kind of frame story. The same actor who appears in the film being screened at the Metropol, whose character is the first to don the fateful chrome mask, hands our heroine the complimentary pass for the theater. He doesn't say a word, he just hands her the ticket.

The storytelling in Demons seems ham-fisted, the acting is distracting and much of the plot makes little sense at first brush. But the sleaze is on point, many of the kills are highly memorable and there are some good moments on the soundtrack. Behind it all is a subtle social message, a warning gilded with fun. As if to prove the underlying point of Demons, I'd love to have seen the highly atmospheric film-within-a-film that the spectators are watching. There have been endless sequels that are only tangentially related to this film, one that ends with very little possibility for a sequel.

WATCH DEMONS HERE:

HORRIBLE NIGHTS - Jacula

Jacula was formed in 1966 by Satanist Anthony Bartoccetti and his wife Doris Norton. Their 1969 album 'In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum' is the most evil music that the world had ever known at the time of its release. That is, until a certain Brummy blues band stormed the world months later.

[Image Source]

Still, the impact of this album remains keen. There is a conspiracy theory that the album was actually recorded in the 80's or 90's and some of the production touches certainly seem to indicate that. In its original form, the album was said to be released as an edition of 300 copies, and they weren't sold in stores. In fact, they weren't sold at all. According to legend, the band gave copies away to anyone they met who had an interest in the occult. Most, if not all of the original copies have been lost or destroyed. I have yet to find any mention online of someone having dug up one up. If they did, I suspect they would hear much the same music as you would today on the iTunes version, for example ... minus some of the crushingly heavy guitar and synth overdubs.

But regardless of its true origins 'In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum' is an amazing album. In 1969 this album wouldn't have fit in anywhere. Church organ, played by Charles Tiring is the lead instrument, followed by thunderous timpani (played by Norton), with the occasional spoken/whispered vocal laced throughout. The album features 6 inverted hymns and insists on being listened to by candle light. This is dark ambient music before there was a concept of such a thing. While the infant prog scene of the day seemed to be focused on some of the more fanciful applications of the hippie ideal, Jacula were provocative, unapologetic occultists. One thing's for certain, this isn't pop music, but is it even prog?

Anthony Bartoccetti [Image Source]

The best way to describe the sound would be to call it devotional music. The thing is, what the group was devoted to would surely have sickened the sensibilities of the masses. They seemed to be made to inspire hatred. One could only imagine the response to the band at the time. Keyboardist / organist Charles Tiring was said to be in his mid to late sixties and married to an 18 year old girl by the time of their second (and last) album 'Tardo Pede in Magiam Versus' in 1972. This is one of those bands that every story you read about them gets crazier and crazier. Jacula is almost too good to be true. Another clue to make one question the authenticity of 'In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum' is to compare it to what came later.

'Tardo Pede in Magiam Versus' is very much a product of its time. It's certainly progressive. At times the album transposes the spookier organ works of J.S. Bach onto a Fairport Convention album. However great that idea looks on (e-) paper, it sounds even better in practice (see "U.F.D.E.M."). Doris Norton's singing voice is deep, rich and powerful, her spoken word passages sound desperate and pleading, whenever possible she leads group chants. Much of the album however is devoted to organ solos. There are jazzier / loungier / dreamier parts of the record however, such as "Jacula Valzer" which belies any proto-metal leanings. In spite of that, much of the record is steeped in eerie moods, but falls somewhat flat when compared to its predecessor.

[Image Source]

After this second record, the band changed parts and Anthony Bartoccetti changed gears into Antonius Rex with new personnel. The new group first appeared in 1974 with their 'Neque Semper Arcum Tendit Rex' album and continue to this day. Their latest record, 'Hystero Demonopathy' came out in 2012.

The beautiful and talented Doris Norton would eventually go on to become an early electronic music pioneer in the 1980s, actually working in IBM's research lab to create music. It's very much "robot music", not entirely unlike Kraftwerk. In hindsight, her fast moving electronic compositions might sound "retro futurist" to modern ears. They are not without their charms.

DOOMMABBESTIA - Marijuanaut Vol. I

Since November 2011, Doommabbestia has been one of the premier Italian-language doom metal zines on the web or anywhere else. They are absolutely PLUGGED-IN to the underground scene and the staff represents that fact proudly, with many familiar names and faces among them including some ass kicking musicians in their own right. The folks behind Doommabbestia have pooled their resources to deliver a double album compilation of sixteen of the finest Italian underground bands including some of my personal favorites like Kröwnn, DSW, Black Capricorn and Naga. The Italian scene is one of the oldest and most consistent in the world of doom metal and when you consider that this 2-hour collection is just a tiny fragment of all the incredible bands the country shaped like a boot has to offer, well it's quite the kick in the ass, isn't it? Check out this free download on the players below ...

CRYPTRIP - The Great Magmatic Leviathan

Artwork by Riccardo " Gore" Longhitano.

Found this one late last night and I was pretty excited when I heard it. I only got to hear the first song but the riff got stuck in my head almost immediately. Apparently I wasn't the only one 'cause before I shuffled off the bed I saw it was already making the rounds online. Just getting to listen to it now and the hype is warranted, to say the least. I'm hearing touches of psychedelia and some elements of black metal speckled here and there over an overwhelmingly doom-y, sludgy framework, not entirely unlike a Lord of the Grave perhaps. This thing is a PAY-WHAT-YOU-WANT so there's no going wrong. This is an excellent album, well worth a spin.

Cryptrip is not to be confused with this band.

JUST THE FACTS (according to the band's facebook page):

Biography

Cryptrip was born during the exhausting summer of 2012 Anno Doom. Combo's evil aim is to unleash total darkness, altered sonic landscapes and echoes ! From the end of DECEMBER will be available the 2012 Promo in white cdr with two tracks of disease and during the days of January will be released the first demo in tape format,both recorded between October and November 2012! Prepare My Crypt.

Description

Terror in the horizon and Biosphere of Shame.

Band Interests

Records Hunting, General Nerding, Money Haunting, Auto- Shocking and...

Basic Info
Born 2012

Genre: Doom, Death, High Sonic Landscapes

Members 

Creature: Unsteady Pounding and Hallucinated Howls
Faust: Scepter of Confusion and Master's Prophecies
Y: Liquid Contaminations on the Oceans of Titan

Hometown: Catania

Influences No order, Just Horizontal Line: Electric Wizard, Acid Witch, Coffins, Autopsy, Morne, Obliteration, Black Sabbath, Saturnalia Temple, Morbid Angel, Abysmal Grief, Ghost, Pentagram, Candlemass, Solitude Aeturnus, Satan's Satyrs, Nocturnal Blood, Seremonia, Jex Thoth, Grand Magus, Crowbar, Lord Vicar, Age of Taurus, Ramesses and stuff

JUST THE MUSIC:

LIZARD QUEEN - Third Eye

Lizard Queen, that strange side-project from the even stranger band from the northeastern Italian border, Deep, is back. This is the first we've heard from this collective that has received favorable comparisons to Ice Dragon in the past since the last Lizard Queen album was released about a year and a half ago. But this isn't a quick little jab of a release, at 12 songs and an hour and a half worth of fuzzy goodness this is a twelve-round bout. Thing is, many bands and musicians out there would ask listeners to take out a second mortgage just to hear an album of that magnitude. Lizard Queen is asking you to PAY-WHAT-YOU-WANT.

Now, if there's one thing to complain about here, it's the tinny mix, which will definitely turn off the hardcore audiophiles out there. For me, a good tune is a good tune and I listen to old scratchy records from the interwar period anyway. Once you turn up the volume, adjust the bass and treble, it becomes a kick-ass record fairly quickly. There are little touches of Tool, some desert sounds, a thesaurus of progressive motions and it's all covered in the jelly of stoner fuzz. Judge for yourself on the player below.