[batreleaser]

It seems to me that one man sicko avant-metal is becoming a genre all on its own, or at the very least is going through a major renaissance. I thought metal was going down the tubes for a while there; with basically all new bands being some overly-technical Relapse Records grind or death (of which used to be a damn goood label sadly) or boring ass faux-art Metal like that piece of shit band Pelican.

But now I'm getting into these bands like Gnaw Thier Tongues, Cadaver in Drag, Black Mayonnaise, etc...

These bands all have different approaches and sounds, but share an aesthetic of basically making the sickest music possible. All the bands are influenced by the whole spectrum of extreme music, and not just Black, Death, Thrash, or whatever. They listen to it all.

Let's take Black Mayo first. "Unseen Collaborator" was easily one of the most overlooked records of 08, if not the most. Black Mayo is Mike Duncan from Akron, who has been performing under this moniker and other bands since the mid 90s (hes also playing in season of discontent and order of black vision, neither of whom ive heard). The music is great on its own; buzzing guitar noise (no surprise there), lots of pulverizing drones, and a slew of environmental sounds all collaged untill they resemble something of a metal track. He also uses delayed drum programming, which lets the music kinda drag on, killing you slowly. It's Duncan's vocals which are really what makes him special though. Just totally inhuman gurgling that even without the delay sound totally inhuman. There's no singing here, no lyricism, just totally chaotic shrieking and moaning. It takes balls to make sounds with your voice that are so odd.

After the first track "Low Twelve", the album actually becomes more cohesive. The guitar noise eventually erupts into a bit of an odd riff pattern that is definitly a little reminescent of Sabbath. Even though the vocals are indecepherable, there is something very Ozzy about them in the repetition of the sounds. "Flight" is the closest this dude will ever make to a rock song, which isn't close but this shit is totally rad. When I think of what Noise Metal should sound like, its Black Mayonnaise.

Now let's talk Gnaw Thier Tongues. Let's forget thier new record never came out though because's it's a piece of shit, so here I'm only referring to last year's "An Epiphanic Vomiting of Blood" and 07's "Reeking Pained and Shuddering". Damn. I'm usually at a loss for words to descibe this stuff, even though it should be fairly simple. The dude is from the Netherlands, and is obviously highly inspired by the Occultist Metal that has been popular in his homeland for sometime. The vocals are vintage Black Metal screams and shrieks, nothing very avant about them, but they are still totally killer. The one thing that blows me away about this shit is it seriously sounds like the sickest most blackened Doom Metal band, like Moss or something, playing with about 10 other dudes on random electronics and instruments. It does NOT sound like a solo recording. The drum programming sounds like real drums, the electronics sound like guitars colliding, and the guitars sound like electronics blasting. The horror movie influence is something that you really can't avoid, and in most cases is beneficial to the music (he took the angle way to far on the new one though), especially in the case of "Epiphanic...". Total Metal feedback blasts will disintegrate into piano melodies while some disturning spoken word sample is played above, and then BOOM>the music is in full force again. This band is more metal than most metal bands, yknow? Influences? Obvious. Black Metal (especially the more operatic type), sick Doom (Moss, not Electric Wizard), early electronic Music, Swans (the percussion, or fake percussion, is very swans-y), horror film soundtracks, etc...

And last, we have Cadaver in Drag, who has a shitload of releases so I will not on any particular one. This band/dude is from Lexington and hangs with all the cool experimental musicians who hang around there; Hair Police, Warmer Milks (who should be everyone's favorite band), Three Legged Race, Sapat, etc.. For this reason, people might think, "Oh, just some experimental poser trying to make tough guy metal shit." FUck that, this is the real deal. Julian Cope described his album "Raw Child" on Animal Disguise as, "Primitive as Khanate covering Flipper’s ‘Sex Bomb (My Baby)’, as brutally simple and as monolithic as Les Rallizes Denudés’ ‘The Last One’ (choose your version for comparison as there’s about 50,000 different ones), and as relentless and shark-eyed as the current Wolf Eyes line-up playing Brain Donor’s vile and stentorian ‘Just About Now’, RAW CHILD is possessed of the kind of effortless rock’n’roll spirit that most musicians only glimpse in the opening moments of each band rehearsal, plugging in without tuning, turning the dials way up, then delivering brief but incandescent blasts of un-self-conscious Mung Worship before some hung up turd soon-to-be-ex-band member screams: “Enough! Let’s do something proper now”. Luckily for us, there ain’t no such anal retentive type within 12 miles of Cadaver In Drag’s practise room; shit, these shirefolk wouldn’t even let that bastard chauffeur ‘em there." I can't do better than that, even though it's kinda lame to pluf your own band into a record review, haha. Also I just realized Cadaver is one guy, but that he plays with a band. There are instruments here.

[Derek]

ohh, sounds sweet.

[chairman of the bored]

i heard black mayo live on wfmu while making deliveries one sunny day. pretty damn good and also pretty damn antithetical to the gorgeous weather.

[Toilet & Bowels]

yeah, the weirdo one man operations are awesome, my favourites are ildjarn and striborg

[narlus]

no love for xasthur?

[batreleaser]

xasthur is boring.

im not really thinkin that stuff though, but yeah, striborg, akitsa, all awesome shit. Akitsa "Goetie" on Hopsital rules.

[demonrail666]

Yeah, I've tried hard with Xasthur but at the end of the day you're right: very boring.

[chairman of the bored]

Fuck yeah, goetie is badass. but there wre two sickos in the band when that one was recorded. xasthur boring?...i thought subliminal genocide was pretty good...its the instrumentals that kill the album for me...if it was only the tracks with vocals it would be totally not boring IMO

[Toilet & Bowels]

i like xasthur's tracks on the split with leviathan

[demonrail666]

I think he's fine in those kinds of doses, but a whole album of him gets too much. It all just seems on one level.

[Massassinated]

currently listening to Gnaw their Tongues, great stuff. thanks

[Everyneurotic]

xasthur has some great albums and some that aren't that good.

I'm yet to find a black metal band that survives an endurance listening test. Tried many times to do that but it just doesn't survive the human psyche, not mine anyway. Unless it has other musical or thematic elements that are coming from outside, it's just an occasional pleasure.

Any suggestions of bands which challenge that are more than welcome. I have only heard good things by Xasthur so far, which isn't much, anyway.

[greedrex]

you guys know yr black metal.

 

[PAULYBEE2656]

its just funny......

[batreleaser]

Xasthur's music is just too, I don't know, not disturbing for what he's going for. There are sounds on Xenakis and Stockhausen recordings that make his music sound like commerical jingles.