Wino & Conny Ochs - Heavy kingdom (2012)

I'm a bit late with this one (it's been released in 2012) but it's so good and I still listen to it on a very regular basis so I had to post about it.. Heavy kingdom is a collaboration between Wino (yes this Wino, the one of St Vitus) and a young german folk singer-songwriter called Conny Ochs. Except for some guitar solo it's entirely acoustic. But they prove that songs don't have to be amplified to sound heavy or have a doom vibe! Even if it's more about the melodies than heaviness it still sounds heavy and very... Wino. Because of Wino's great vocals and because of the riffs that are powerful enough to sound great without needing any amplification. I said it sounds very Wino but that doesn't mean that Conny Ochs is a dead weight for this album, far from that, I don't know exactly which part he played in the songwriting but what is sure is that he's a great singer and his vocals are a great complement to those of Wino, bringing an extra dimension to the songs. I'm sure this album will stand the test of time and I would be really pleased if they do another one together.

the Lastfm page

Power Trip - Manifest Decimation (2013)

I suspect the guys at Southern lord records to know a few things about metal. Anyway they did a really good job in releasing this Manifest Decimation, the first full length of Texas' Power Trip. I'd say it's easily one of the best recent records in the good ol' badass 80' metal style. Even if the guys in the band were not even born at that time, when listening to it, you have a taste of the urgency, the attitude and the genuine spontaneity of the good metal of these days. It's mostly thrash metal (think Slayer circa Hell Awaits and Reign in Blood. The riffs, the sound, and the drummer paying some cool tributes to Dave Lombardo)  but also death metal (think Bolt Thrower) and a touch of crossover hardcore (think Cro-Mags).  a really awesome and flawless record (flawless if you don't absolutely needs something really original). Just push play and soon it will grab you and make you headbang and air drum in your living room... You've been warned…

Power Trip on BC

Six brew bantha / Suffering mind (split 7''-2013)

Six brew bantha and Suffering mind are two of the best grind bands of recent years and also are among those very active on the split releases front. so this split bringing them together is not a surprise but is nonetheless really welcome. the Suffering mind side is maybe a bit more old school and with more mid tempo parts while the Six brew bantha side is maybe more all-out grind.

Here is what I already wrote about Suffering mind.

and HERE is what I wrote about Six brew bantha.

if you need your 10 minutes dose of grind assault  don't think twice and go for it!

The BC page for the Suffering mind side

The BC page for the Six brew bantha side.

Head records : the interview

Head records is a label based in Montpellier (south of France) It  releases different kind of underground music, it can be hardcore, stoner, math rock, noise rock, or something else, but whatever the style it's interesting music of good quality (you might have heard about Verdun, Mudweiser, Morse, Pneu, Microfilm, or Cafe flesh for exemple which are among the bands associated with Head records) .
living also in Montpellier I had the occasion to interview Abel, Head records founder, about his label.

Check Head records website

and Bandcamp

and if french is not unknown to you, read the interview below :

-Abel, pour commencer est ce que tu peut revenir sur ce qui t'a motivé et décidé à lancer Head records?

 Abel : à la base j'étais chanteur dans un groupe hardcore / noise qui s'appelait Spinning Heads, ce qui m'a amené à auto-produire des disques, d’où le nom du label Head records puisque sa vocation première était alors de sortir les disques du groupe. Avant la sortie du premier disque en 2006 (le premier 45 tours de Spinning Heads) Il y a eu en 2003 la création d'une association pour organiser des concerts. Au départ Head Records faisait plutôt du management de groupe, aider à trouver des labels, etc., puis a fait label directement. le déclic a été de sortir le disque du groupe Goodbye Diana, ce qui a montré que Head records pouvait fonctionner comme label. 

-Quelles sont tes activités en dehors de Head records? 

Je produits des disques pour des labels de jazz basés à Montpellier, et depuis juin 2013 je fais aussi la programmation du Black sheep. 

-quel était le projet artistique de Head Records au départ, est-ce que ça a évolué? 

Non pas de ligne artistique bien arrêtée au départ, je fais mes choix selon mes goûts personnels tout simplement, aujourd'hui c'est globalement noise, stoner, hardcore, math rock, mais ce qui compte pour me décider à le faire c'est que j'aime la musique du groupe, quel que soit son style. 

 -comment se passe le processus qui va jusqu'à la signature d'un groupe? 

Comme je disais, mon choix se fait selon l'affinité musicale. Parfois c'est le groupe qui m'a contacté au départ, parfois c'est moi. Je reçois plusieurs liens de groupe par jour, qui viennent de presque partout dans le monde, certains sont pour les concerts que j'organise. Pour donner un exemple, sortir le disque de Mudweiser m'a fait recevoir beaucoup de musique de groupes de stoner. 

 -Il a bien marché donc ce disque de Mudweiser? (vous trouverez ICI la chronique Blasting days du disque en question, avec l'interview que j'ai faite avec Jay le bassiste du groupe) 

Oui leur disque a pas mal marché, avec Pneu et Microfilm c'est le groupe du label qui marche le mieux. 

 -tu peux nous présenter maintenant les sorties les plus récentes du label? 

Alors les dernières sorties sont : 

 -Morse : (voir la chronique et l'interview dans Blasting Days). 

les autres gars du groupe m'ont forcé à sortir le disque (lol) ! 

 -Les yeux de la tête : Trio instrumental basse, batterie et saxophone. C’est le deuxième disque que je sorts pour eux, le premier étant co-produit avec un label jazz (Rude Awakening) pour lequel je bosse par ailleurs. 

 -Jean Jean : Duo instrumental math rock, Je les suis depuis leur début et leur ai proposé, il y a quelques mois, de sortir un disque, ce qui est désormais fait. 

En tout cette année 5 sorties donc (ces trois là plus Mudweiser et Town in a Mess, trio rock noise hardcore avec un ancien Spinning Heads). 

-et les prochaines sorties ça sera quoi? 

Le CD de Stuntman (métal core de Montpellier) en 2014 avec Solar flare records et Lost Pilgrims records sur d’autres formats : respectivement vinyle et K7. Mais aussi un split entre Les Yeux De La Tête et un groupe batterie et saxophone de Rome : Mombu. Un autre split vinyle entre deux groupes stoner de Montpellier : ÖfÖ Am et Lahius (voir ici la chronique et l'interview concernant le dernier album d'ÖfÖ Am, The beast within). On travaille aussi sur un prochain album de Pneu, j’espère le sortir en 2014. 

-de façon plus générale, comment tu vois l'avenir du label? 

J’ai prévu d'acheter un camion pour aider les groupes à partir en tournée, d'abord ceux du label, puis d'autres groupes de la région éventuellement. Sinon poursuivre l'activité "normale" chercher à avoir des chroniques pour les disques, les faire connaître via les réseaux sociaux, organiser la distribution (disquaires et streaming / download) et développer la vente par correspondance des groupes et labels que je distribue. J’aimerais créer de l’emploi mais pour le moment ce n’est pas facile de générer suffisamment de rentrée d’argent régulière pour y penser sérieusement. 

-c'est quoi ton avis sur le téléchargement? 

Au début le téléchargement illégal m'embêtait, mais j'ai compris que maintenant les gens voulait être sur d'aimer avant d'acheter et pour ça il faut qu'ils aient l'opportunité d'écouter avant d'acheter…

Nibiru - Caosgon (2013)

This time the nightmarish sludge heaviness comes from Italy. they are called Nibiru and their stuff is like a different kind of drug, a different formula in downward slow heaviness. Caosgon released in the beginning of this year is their fisrt album and it's excellent. I said sludge but it's because of the dirty noisy guitar tone and the raw vocals, there's no punk element or uptempo, it's mid tempo or for the most part slow. what's the most striking is the ritualistic vibe of their music, with a somewhat "tribal" touch provided by some excellent and original drumming. it evokes some primitive lysergik  induced collective hallucinated gatherings. the effects and the vocals and the guitars helping to build these ominous and eerie trippy atmospheres. dark psychedelia in its most powerful musical powers.

their Bandcamp


the guys answered to my questions by mail, read the interview below! : 

-to start with, can you tell us how Nibiru was formed and evolved up to now?

Ardath: The project NIBIRU started at the end of summer 2012, a storm that cleanses the conscience from too many constraints, too many static reality without concrete follow.
I,  RI and SiatriS after the experience in Tronus abyss, safe educational experience for better or for worse, we felt a strong need to free ourselves from to many constraints and fetishes elevated as inconclusive bogus gurus, to leave our creativity flow without chains.
Since everything is born 'CAOSGON "after a few months, recorded live at AADYA TEMPLE, pure, clean, embarrassing, angry improvisation. Listen to "CAOSGON" with the realization that nothing is programmed, pure moment.

-in your interview with The sludgelord you explained the reasons behind the choice of the cover art picture for Caosgon and I thought it was really interesting and revealing about NIbiru, can you explain it also for the Blasting days readers?

Ardath: Watch the video SMASHANAM on you tube, watching those images do not need words to understand how the Aghoris coherently represent the tribal and instinctual universe, that Nibiru wants to bring with the music

Siatris: on the cover of CAOSGON you can see a man, or rather the vestiges of a man, who lives beyond good and evil, he lives for the moment, is pure instinct, pissing inside a skull used as a bowl for the alms, eating junk and cadavers... meditates for hours on the crematorium ground .. maybe he's crazy maybe he's realized, ​​in his mind everything is perfect, the design created by Shiva takes its course, then everything is ok.. perhaps too hard for us to understand…but I find him so fuckin' alive, he can kill with is eyes, the Aghori is the cancellation of the planned consciousness...

-looks like many bands with a very improvisationnal / live approach to their music have a kind of spiritual relation to their music, is it also your feeling?
Ardath: Undoubtedly the live improvisation requires a journey without a destination in the deep inner self, to be overwhelmed by the desperate cry of a man condemned to death, now dissociated from the world, he starts up the scaffold.
A journey into the dark regions of the unconscious ..... Spiritual? It may be, for me it's a never-ending sexual magic .....

Siatris: create an improvised track is like a ritual, you can immediately feel the vibrations if something positive is coming, personally I try to empty my mind, I do not think anything, I let the music flow because if I let my mind interfere, I do a mistake.

-what about Caosgon and the way your wrote / improvised the songs, recorded and produced it?

Ardath: there is a marked road and no indication in the moment, moment in which we have our instruments, each of us develops and shamelessly spews his anger, his love and hate,to exorcise the whole, true animal instinct without foolish and trivial calculation and without any desire for pleasure or meet someone. We exist, only us, it is essential the deep union that creates a single indissoluble bond .... Moreover there is not give a fuck. But if your approach to NIBIRU is this, you cannot go unscathed from listening to these sick notes.

Siatris: we get into our rehearsal room, turn on the instrument, play and record everything live, we understand immediately if a piece suit us or not ... at first listen we imagine immediately what to add in post-production: Virus, Moog, tibetan bell…. I made a premix of the tracks and then we rely on a professional studio to complete the work.

RI: it is much simpler than you might think ... we enter in AADYA TEMPLE without anything fixed, without purpose. Warm up the amps,few cigarettes, beer, wine, and then we start playing live recording. At the end of the evening we hear again if the session has "played" well then Siatris brings home recordings and works on premix. After a certain number of evenings we go into the studio to mix and master the product. And the disc is ready ...

-Caosgon is on my list of favourite heavy records of 2013, and I saw it's also in other similar lists, did you expect the attention you get in the underground circles?

Ardath: yes,I expected it, CAOSGON is outside the box, now the audience listens mostly banality or projects extremely rhetorical, always the same,but this does not mean that those who like a certain genre of music does not notice and feel the wave and the uncontrolled energy of a musical approach disturbing but at the same time hypnotic that makes the world around superfluous.

Siatris: not really ... the problem is that nowadays comes out so much material that it becomes difficult to find something that will really amaze you, and this happens in all genres of music. I felt we did something special, and I was satisfied, but read so many positive reviews made ​​me realize that we have gone a step further..

RI: If you produce a disc even if it is not recorded very well to those who must arrive, arrives... I enjoy it…. satisfies my Ego and gives me reason that Caosgon is "arrived" ..

-you already posted on your bandcamp a songs that would be on your next album, are some other new songs already written? what can you already say about Netrayoni?

Ardath: "NETRAYONI" is ready, it will be a double CD available from the middle of January 2014, nothing has changed with regard to the mode of composition and recording, so much alcohol, a lot of smoke, a lot of anger and a lot of psychedelia.
it was a memorable trip for us, we trust that the listener can grasp the revelation breathing sweat and blood with satisfaction.

Siatris: I am very excited for Netrayoni, unfortunately I have vague memories of evenings spent record the songs, I remember Ardath,totally drunk that falls and breaks through the table of the mixer, I remember that I've played drums naked with a cowboy hat,  and RI, which is "possessed" by the spirit of a famous deceased italian actor , Vittorio Gassman and recites a monologue about life pulling punches against the amplifiers and the walls ... evenings were crazy, came out a lot of great materials and we could not discard it , so we choose for a double cd...there is a raw but powerful sound, better than caosgon, the songs are very dynamic, forget the verse-chorus structure, each song is a cosmic journey.

-what are you listening to at the moment? and which italian bands would you recommend?

Ardath: At this time the projects that have impressed me most are Altar of Plagues, CELESTE, BLACK PYRAMID, very interesting VISTA CHINO and ARCTIC MONKEYS, always present in my listening ROZZ WILLIAMS, NICK CAVE, Fields of the Nephilim.
I do not particularly like the Italian music scene as I don't love the country where I live, in any case, there are some interesting reality, shame that our musical context prefers the banality and commercial ..... Well shit.
The first MARLENE KUNTZ…. I always listen to them with pleasure.

Siatris:Now I listen black metal bands like Tenebre in perpetuum, Fenria, Black blood and sometimes electronic or dark ambient music like the last work of Juno reactor or Troum and Jen Pox... a very interesting italian band for the doom scene is Malasangre,another great italian band is Stoner Kebab and there's also a sludge band from Switzerland called Intercostal, they are fuckin' awesome..

RI: I'm monotonous but I still listen to Black Sabbath, as 30 years ago. Then go back to listening to today SLEEP, YOB, SUNN O))), EARTH, NADJA, DARK BUDDHA RISING, NEUROSIS, ISIS and everything a Post Sludge in its various forms. Currently in Italian I recommend GOBLIN in the 1975's formation.

-which evolution would you like to see for underground music in the future?

Ardath: The mass who listens mostly banality without depth,should suddenly light up and approach those who make music with heart and soul with the desire to release the energy of which we are made without calculation and preconceptions. Pure utopia, now it's all a sad, sad calculation

Siatris: It's a very hard question…I'd love to see a massive return of physical media such as CDs and vinyl, I'm not a lover of the download, I do not like things that can not be touched ... starting from the women! but I imagine that the situation will evolve exactly the opposite ... I'd like to see the collapse of  the multinationals of fake music and watch the small independent labels, those who work with passion, have the deserved success

RI: I honestly cares little, I just know that Nibiru will pull right for his road, for the rest ...

-what is planned for Nibiru in 2014?

Ardath: The new CD will open the year, we would like to introduce ourselves as soon as possible in front of an audience, I am sure that it will be truly perceived the primal force of NIBIRU

-some final words to close the interview?

Ardath: cleared the temple if you will not be affected, unless you want to throw up in pain, is not at all permissible to approach this dwelling.
A few days, and NETRAYONI will exorcises your limits.

Siatris: Many thanks to all the people who, with infinite patience lead with passion blogs and create what is the true underground music scene, Kaly is on your side.

Prepare for the mindscan- Prepare for the mindscan (EP 2013)

Prepare for the mindscan is a band from Buffallo (US), they released this year their first release, a self titled EP, around 15 minutes of hardcore / grind. it's a solid and promising first record, not bringing anything new but showing a very good mastery in their style of straightforward and focused hardcore / grind aggression. the intro is too long but then it really hits the nail and it hits hard. it's really worth some listen and i sure will check their next releases.

you can stream / download it on Bandcamp

and here's their blog.

Correction house - Last city zero (2013)

Correction house is Mike IX Williams (Eyehategod), Scott Kelly (Neurosis), Bruce Lamont (Yakuza) and Sanford Parker (Minsk), so their first album Last city zero raised many questioning and expectations. Does it live up to it? I'd say yes, it's a really good and interesting album. With a lot of diversity but managing to stay cohesive thanks to the overall atmosphere it develops through the record. So what do we have? Mostly industrial beats and bleak acoustic folk but also saxophone (Bruce Lamont), spoken words (Mike IX Williams) and noisy post-rock guitars. It can evoke at times Neurosis, Scott Kelly acoustic solo works, The swans or Einsturzende neubauten. Its global sound is related to industrial, post-punk / post-rock, or neofolk  but in a way that is personal and innovative. While you listen to it it's always evolving and surprising while staying in the same moods and colours. Well, it escapes easy description so you'll have to try it, it's really worth it anyway.

Correction house on Neurot records

Glorior belli - Gators rumbles, chaos unfurls (2013)

witht heir fifth album aptly titled Gators rumbles, chaos unfurls, french black metallers Glorior belli is further devbeloping its blending of black metal and southern groove. they now really sound like a black metal version of Down, the BM elements left are the vocals even if they're not completely black metal either, and a few blast beats, but very few, it's mostly mid tempo heavy metal songs, but with a darker twist. it could also reminds the most "rocking" moments of Goatwhore. this "southern black metal" concept is really cool and Glorior belli are doing a good job at breathing life into it. maybe Gators rumbles, chaos unfurls is lacking really strong epic song of the caliber we could find in the preious records, but on the other hand it's more homogenous and it's really good overall, with a really good atmosphere, ominous but in a warm almost bluesy way, black metal but in the bayou..


www.gloriorbelli.com