Dead Reptile Shrine - Praise Cemetary (2013)

I remember my first exposure to Dead Reptile Shrine, probably about a decade ago, and being quite disappointed that a band with such an amazing name wasn't really delivering an appealing mesh of noise and black metal. Perhaps I wasn't listening to it with the appropriate mindset, since their approach was such an unusual, raw sound that placed them well out on the experimental fringes of Finnish black, well past Oranssi Pazuzu or Jumalhämärä and out where only enigmas like Circle of Ouroborus dare to dwell. Or perhaps the project just hadn't borne out the most interesting of eclectic, musical fruits it was capable of producing. I can promise you that ten years later, as I've gone back to discover their later, more recent efforts, that Dead Reptile Shrine has gotten no less strange than their formative recordings. If anything, Praise Cemetary is an even more anomalous concoction than those I've heard before it, but I have to say, despite the fact that this sort of album is only going to grok with a niche within a niche of gonzo extreme metal fans, there's a bizarre form of hypnosis that overtook me as I was listening through, which allowed me to bypass some of its flaws and focus in occasionally on its mesmeric abstractions.

The biggest factor working against this album is its lack of consistency, as it sort of warps all over a landscape of ideas, without any overarching cohesion, no method to its madness. To that extent it feels like a group of random recordings pasted together to form a full-length, and that can hurt the experience of listening to it. However, when I look at it as a collection of individual tracks and not so much as a structured, aesthetic exercise, the little hooks begin to sink in. On the surface, it's a raw as fuck bedroom black metal recording, with buzzing, droning or distorted guitars, wretched rasping vocals, and a slight penchant for dipping into a few more traditional BM riffs in spots. But as the track list gets deeper in, there's a transformation towards more of a pure, sparse ambient style that is occasionally littered with guitar or vocal effects. This is where the album really started to earn its keep for me, since I found pieces like the 12 minute "Death of a Sorcerer King" trance-inducing and eerie, like a rustic Lustmord tracking an indie horror film out in some woodland. The experimental edge of this doesn't always work, like in "Dimension of Mirrors" where some similar ritualistic ambient music and weird, distant spoken words are crapped on by a distorted, low guitar or bass tone that does them absolutely no service except to sound like its trolling the rest of the song.

Perhaps most interesting are the cuts that dwell between these two polarities of ambient noise and black metal, like "Unicursal Hex" or "Inside the Marble Polyandrium", which are truly unique, capturing the pure rawness of rehearsal-level demo black metal but playing out in such clamorous, often grooving, deconstructed forms that I couldn't tear my ears off of them. Weird, swaying guitars that occasionally bite off some disjointed Eastern melodies, as bass lines swerve through unapologetic patterns that seem entirely sporadic since they never land on a single damn note you want or expect. Meanwhile the vocals are being splayed out in tormented, husky groans, or cleaning wails to create a cacophony of unrest. The percussion is very unkempt, crashing snares and almost random thuds which make the whole thing lurch along with a drunken pacing. I'm sure there must be some improvisational components to Dead Reptile Shrine here, or rather an illusion of such, because to write this way intentionally would be sadism of a high order, but that's not to say that I wasn't fascinated by trying to figure out what in blazes was happening.

Don't get me wrong, it's disharmonious, dissonant, atonal, often painful and directionless, to the point that I can't imagine more than a small handful of listeners would be able to tolerate it for more than a short period. Not every track is equally grating, but just the fact that some of the more sensible pieces are wedged up against such counter-rational nightmares can manifest a degree of frustration. I can't say Dead Reptile Shrine is quite 'there' yet, because often what they do is just so far afield of the consonants or familiars of the metal genre, and this album doesn't have an answer to pulling it all together. So it's not a recommendation from me, but there is a compelling pulse beating somewhere within the black heart of this serpent, its just too irregular at this time to promote long term survival.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]

http://www.neuroscan.org/drs/

Til Det Bergens Skygenne - Vandringen II (Lynnelandskap) (2014)

Far from the rustic scenery of its predecessor, Vandringen I: Skoglandskap, released in 2012, the latest Til Det Bergens Skygenne cassette released through Voldsom promises little but nihilisim: a gray, impenetrable haze staring at the listener who happens upon the cover image. So I was entirely taken aback when I started listening through this, because while it's far from a bright bout of sunshine, it's not nearly so bleak and dark as I had guessed. The material is certainly a departure from the Til Det Bergens Skygenne tapes before it, which were a naturalistic infusion of woodland ambient and dungeon synth in the vein of cult recordings from Mortiis, etc. Here Lord Vravenorn has offered us a less structured, more psychedelically intimate fusion of ambient minimalism, lo-fi beats and synthesizer lines which hearken more to his old synth influences...for instance you might hear some Tangerine Dream, but he's not exactly implementing the same pads, with a fraction of the rigid mechanical structure of Kraftwerk.

Previous recordings, while simplistic, were very consistent and felt a little more prepared than the material on this, which really feels as if he set up a few aesthetic parameters and began to unwind, layering in the varied synth textures to create something a little more alien. This was not unlike the parallel development of another of his projects, Yearner, although I feel like The Second Howl was a much more frightening and unusual effort, while this is honestly pretty smooth in parts. The three tracks create an overarching ebb and flow of psychedelia pointing straight at the 70s, a decade in which the keyboard was being developed with so many new tones; with the caveat that some of the grimier indulgent tones, beats and ambient swells were not in fashion during that time, and these tunes (like "Part III") definitely have a tendency to simmer into a climactic point. Fuse that sort of nostalgic miasma with colorful, spacey imagery kind of like you'd find as the backdrop to various antiquated science fiction shows and you'll find the appropriate headspace from which you can properly appreciate the hallucinatory terrain Vranevorn is digging through.

For much of the playtime, I felt as if I was floating weightless through some strange Limbo where the weird tones and melodies created a sense of serenity that was occasionally being marred by the more obnoxious little sounds that occasionally present themselves. The synth lines often feel playful or communicating with one another. The stark, sparse interruptions feel like astral garbage scows sifting through the puffy, purple emptiness for emotional salvage. But this is my own hyperbolic reaction to the stuff...you may feel as if you're watching a patch of multi-hued mushrooms bloom, or in some forgotten underground space where you're watching fluorescent slow motion waterfalls. It does occasionally have its moments of gloomier atmosphere, generally when the keys are more minimal and deeper tones ring off into the emotional void, but in general I found this to be really consistent, trippy material which is not at all an unwelcome shift from the canon predating it.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

http://voldsomtapes.bandcamp.com/album/vandringen-ii-lynnelandskap

Black Crow King - To Pay the Debt of Nature (2012)

It might look relatively harmless, but trust me when I tell you To Pay the Debt of Nature is one of the most painful experiences I've had in recent memory when reviewing a metal album. Not painful as in 'this sucks' painful, but painful as in it will rip your fucking ears off and then violate the gaping, bloodied virgin orifices newly opened to the world around them. Part of this is in its volatile production, but also the pure tearing black metal rasp of its author, the fuzzed out offensive guitar tone and the eerie implementation of atmospherics which you can so barely make out at times through the canopy of sluggish carnage that you feel as if you just might be hallucinating them. To Pay the Debt of Nature is more torturous than when my girlfriend subjugates me to a road trip marathon of the cheap country pop pageantry she so loves...

Oh, Black Crow King will try to fool us for a few minutes with the distorted, atmospheric inertia that inaugurates "I, Crow". Dissonant, noisy picking rings out over the roiling, distant feedback, but once the charnel evisceration of the vocal arrives, you know things are about to head south quickly. Strangely, this music is not without some measure of inherent beauty, since the droning guitars often configure into shining, melodic patterns, but it's easy to lose this in the ensuing carnage. Percussion is optional. In "I, Crow" or long passages of "Grotesque Existence", the drums are omitted completely to allow the rest of the conflagration to breathe, but in other places the Crowlord will incorporate minimal tribal beats (the opening to "The Shadow Falls") or eruptions of chaotic clamor as found in the depths of "Vengeance" or "Crowbait". With the exception of "Vengeance", the individual slaughterscapes are quite long, from 8-17 minutes, and this contributes to the torment, tallying up the ruptured organs of its audience the longer they are able to hang in the game.

But strangely, even at its most overblown and swollen, the 17 minute closer "Excarnation Ritual", To Pay the Debt of Nature is never monotonous. As grating and irritating as it might prove, the feedback and disheveled structure of the compositions ensures that you're never quite hearing the same thing twice. It seems to be an equal balance of measured malice and improvisation, and thus despite its malevolent thanatopsis, Black Crow King seems curiously transitive and 'alive'. Direct comparisons to other acts are difficult, because you'll perceive everything from Skepticism to Burzum to Merzbow to Electric Wizard beneath its blasphemous eaves. Elements of post-rock, dark ambient, drone, funeral doom and even pure noise are cast about its sweltering bulk, but it never rests its withered laurels upon one particular category...

I can't give this debut the strongest of recommendations, since it's quite likely to erode the sanitary of many who would dare its depths, and I really don't need the lawsuits right now. It also does occasionally come off as cluttered and directionless, due to the sheer lack of structure that defines it. It's not an experience I'm apt to repeat often. That said, if you're a brave soul and seeking a paradigm shift in your perceptions of just how harrowing a musical recording can be...then Black Crow King is pretty much your last stop before entering the realm of pure, undiluted hell-noise. Wear a flak jacket, make out your will and say a prayer to whatever made up deity might comfort you.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

http://www.myspace.com/black.crow.king

De Magia Veterum - The Divine Antithesis (2011)

The previous De Magia Veterum full-length, Migdal Bavel was the equivalent of sonic rapture. A bludgeon of malignant black noise that left me both mesmerized and mutilated. The culmination of 'M's 20+ years crafting blasphemous aural architecture through projects like this one, Gnaw Their Tongues, and various of his former, demo level projects in prior decades. Naturally, I had some rather high hopes coming into The Divine Antithesis, and after a few listens, I cannot say that I'm heavily disappointed. It's not necessarily the measure of the 2009 opus, but it approaches its utter sense of disheveled chaos with a different aesthetic that sometimes feels more annoying than absorbing, more callous than cloying.

As usual, 'M' throws the book at you. Walls of discordant guitar riffs grinding down your spine while both black and spooky, Gothic narrative vocals sound off in unholy unison and the manic programming escalates like a composite phalanx of spastic grindcore drummers. It's essentially the poor man's Deathspell Omega, with a similar effect due to the theistic lyrics and jangling, panicked guitar lines, but this is far cruder; not the sort of music you expect to 'enjoy', even when you are affixed and fascinated to its jubilant torture. I found "The Stench of Burning Wings", with its streams of gallant, colliding noise, and the ravenous, ripping walls of "Burning Hands and Crowns of Flame", the soothing near miss bliss of "Angelical Deformity" with its ringing, down drifting melodies and insectoid droning alongside the deep chants in the bridge break.

The Divine Antithesis is like being molested by a gang of fallen angels in every orifice. It's noisy, abrasive and will truly piss off anyone who is not expecting it. That said, as usual, De Magia Veterum is an acquired taste. You will either fall in line with the sheer chaos or you will fucking loathe it and spit upon the ground 'M' walks on as he's coming up with these nightmare scenarios. Personally, I enjoyed it, even for its differences from the last album, which I preferred. This is the sound of all the world crashing, all beliefs shattering and all hope being cut free from the corporeal human shell to herald the spirit's ultimate collapse unto oblivion. Harrowing.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10]

http://www.myspace.com/demagiaveterum

Jute Gyte - Young Eagle (2010)

Young Eagle is another excursion into the realm of the unholy impulse below the existence of all thinking beings, courtesy of Missouri noise musicians Adam Kalmbach. It is the 6th long player from the Jute Gyte project, and while a worthwhile successor to Old Ways, it actually expands upon those ideals and takes the aggressive maneuvering into new directions, untapped abysses through which a broader palette of atrocities are committed. For a great deal of its playtime, Young Eagle is simply not as noisy as its spiritual predecessor. The harsh distortion that once was the rule is now the exception, but Kalmbach's brutal delivery is carried out through other means on this 61 minute audio terrorist extravaganza.

Kalmbach maintains the early, unrepentant black metal influence, but here it is amped up through a generally faster execution. He's also come some way as a guitarist for this, and incorporates some nigh on technical noodling and busier rhythms, which make a very interesting dent on the poetic, smoggy din of the percussive landscape. The drums are patterned in a mix of straight rock, metal and varied patterns, and and there's a strong presence of the distorted bass here, which I barely noticed on the prior work. Young Eagle is a more potentially random experience, as songs will segue in and out of depressive, slightly distorted guitars-only passages or other diversions. It's still highly destructive, despite the fact its easier on the ears, and I'm reminded of what might occur if some avant-garde luminary like John Zorn danced on the precipice of black metal, rather than the Merzbow meets Burzum & Darkthrone feeling that permeated Old Ways.

The heretical floe of sewage begins with "See the Abandoned Throng", a rather straight black piece with chugging, strange bass and drums that often seem as if they're moving so quickly you can no longer hear them. If Transilvanian Hunger were re-written as a concept album about the abandoned caverns and sewers beneath and beside a metropolitan subway system, it might have come across something like this, though I doubt the Norse would have incorporated the schizoid guitar weaves and chugging patterns that break up the crashing forceful gale of the verse. "Glory at Hand" explores the dynamic contrast between slow, dirty guitar drone and grim, blasted hubris, with some sludgy rock rhythms added, for over 11 minutes, while "The Wine-Halls Are Crumbling", one of the albums best tracks, micro-manages dingy guitars, a muddied, subtle pipework of throbbing bass and the overall feeling that your brain is being extracted through your ears and nostrils by a very clever mind flayer who doesn't wish to tamper with your skull, instead saving it as a trophy for his lair.

In another stark contrast, the album moves into the gloom of a rolling ambient piece, "What a Bird Bore away Overwith clean guitars, soon layered in the cystic fibrosis of hell-scarred distortion winds, with some trippy, moaning vocals that I was not expecting. "The Might of Ash Spears" transforms from an acoustic guitar intro to a chugging, bizarre metal force, later affixed with strange electronic signals like aliens trying to break a communication satellite code. "Young Eagle" is pretty much a straight black rocker with some strange start/stop drumming and a melancholic, off-kilter guitar melody that arrives above some distorted, retch inducing vocals. "The Flower and the Chain" explores a jarring, desperate piano line with an unnerving mix of subtle dark ambient architecture and summery sounds of nature.

The lyrical talent here remains impeccable, and perhaps superior to that found on Old Ways, though the imagery being conveyed has the benefit of grasping from a wider collage of images both beautiful and frightening. Many noise artists or noise/black artists do not even attempt to incorporate lyrics into their composition, much less good ones, so Jute Gyte remains a treat to the imagination, an added dimension that elevates the listener to a rapture of both sound and word. Yet some of the statements are noticeably subtle, and gentle in their passing:

In winter we make the spring. In summer, the harvesting. I feel the nothing accumulate as days go by. I feel the weight of every passing sun and moon. In autumn we search and store. In springtime, we wanted more.

Though some of its contents are superior to the previous album I've listened through, I did find Young Eagle a touch less consistent. Several of the tracks are brilliant and breathtaking, like "The Wind-Halls are Crumbling", "What a Bird Bore Away Over the Deep Ocean", and "The Flower and the Chain", or for the aggressive fare "See the Abandoned Throng" and "Glory at Hand". However, "The Might of Ash Spears" and "Young Eagle" had a few minutes there that I could have lived without, where suddenly the album felt a lot less interesting than I'd expect of Jute Gyte, largely due to some mediocre metal riffing tucked in there. Still, for an album that is largely diverse and experimental, it rather holds its conflicted aural imagery together well, and still worth purchasing. What it might lack in coherence it compensates for with an increase in sheer musical skill, and the inclusion of the pianos and more ambient range from other, non-metal Jute Gyte efforts is welcome. Combined with its curious packaging (DVD case, lyric sheet, minimal black/white text and cover image) it makes for another exquisite journey into a nexus of corrosion and rainbow light.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10] (the cruciform shadows of nuclear angels ejaculating manna from the heavens)

http://www.jeshimoth.com/jutegyte/

Jute Gyte - Old Ways (2008)

To many untrained ears, black metal music is already noise enough, crossing the line from comprehension to confusion. Part of this is an unwillingness to accept extreme climates in which art can find a center, and part is simply the natural, visceral shock to such elements being streamlined into the brain with such seemingly inhuman pacing and energy. To those well indoctrinated in the form, sometimes the traditional rock band instruments are not enough, and thus we've seen a wealth of black/noise artists spring up since near the genre's very inception. Pioneers like Sweden's Abruptum or the USA's Havohej have given way to a landscape of solo and paired projects worldwide, and of these, Missouri's Adam Kalmbach has to be one of the more interesting I've encountered as of late. Hit output through Jute Gyte spans a range of styles. Some of the albums pursue a more purely experimental, ambient texture, while others lap at the bloodspring of primal black metal in the vein of Darkthrone and Mayhem and take their aesthetics into an even more grisly territory than the woodlands in which they were born.

Much of Old Ways, Kalmbach's third full-length release through this project, carves a simple but destructive path through a carnal and uncomfortable territory. The raving guitars and rasped vocal lunacy are gowned in veils of hideous distortion, industrial-like drum beats, and strange psychedelic segues into bass and noise samples that make me feel like Attila Csihar, Skinny Puppy and Merzbow are hosting a housewarming party together, with your ears as the appetizer. Like much primitive black metal, repetition is key to the music's hostile, drowning breech of the listener's defenses, but Kalmbach is wise to shift it up as often as he does. There is of course a barrier to entry in place for the unsuspecting listener: the intensely saturated hiss of the distortion will provide much pain until you can latch onto the underpinning rhythms. It's like a musical release via smokescreen, but glimpsing that beauty behind at this or any other angle, through any obstacle is almost sweeter than a clear, sunny day.

Old Ways is comprised of seven acts performed in just over an hour, and I'd recommend you partake of this for the long haul, since the relative consistency of style will easily hypnotize the errant cerebronaut for that period. Several of the songs operate in fairly straightforward, archaic black metal territory with the added advent of the noise functions, like the openers "Waves" and "Teeth", but others take some liberties. "Round" incorporates segments of processed guitar noise, swollen dark ambiance and broken industrial rhythms against periods of necrotic surge, while "Interlude" is all out mystical twanging strings and freaky synth tones that remind me of something Muslimgauze might create. "Peace", one of my favorite pieces on the album, is a slow, damning burn with periodic, cautionary lapses into this fuzzy, doomlike rhythm that almost awakens the listener from the cobwebs of stupefaction to a rapt awareness of his environment. "Snail" provides another interesting guitarscape below tortured vocals, and the extensive finale "Death" is 18 minutes of rampant, plodding hostility, a cryptic black haunt in a gargantuan, rusted junkyard through which electronic roaches skitter and feed upon the last strands of life and human nutrition.

I might also point out how much I truly love this man's lyrics, a conceptual procession that details the struggle of organisms with such an infusion of blunt poetry that they almost exceed the music in ghastly effectiveness. The song titles are all quite minimal here, proof of their existence in a pattern, but some of Kalmbach's prose is truly bewitching:

A pale dwarf-wrath keels over, fatally injured. Mouth gaping, revealing long, curved and yellowing hook-like teeth, it vomits a chunky white substance with the texture of curdled milk. It foresaw this long ago, but now cannot believe. Crimson patches darken a miniature black cloak. Small hands clutch at the brumal air.

No, folks, we are not in Norway anymore. A project like Jute Gyte both compels and disturbs me. The former because I so enjoy the rewards obscured within its oppressive borders, and the latter because I know so few people out there will be able to form the connection to its strange, abstract beauty. Through the Jeshimoth imprint, Kalmbach has offered an attractive if minimal packaging which I found highly appealing. The CD is placed in a DVD shell, with a simple black and white cover and a lyrics sheet tucked into the booklet flap. He does this with a lot of his releases, and though they occupy a little more space than a standard CD, they look very flush together and impressive. I might add that the DVD presentation does more than simply gather dust, it offers you an almost theatrical insight, like a Luis Buñuel picture, a conflagration of sounds and distressful imagery, only here it is delivered through Kalmbach's unhinged control over the chaos and struggle of existence. This is yet another of those works that can change you in increments, as I'm sure it has changed its maker, and worth entertaining if you favor the more experimental extremes of black metal music which in its some of its most incendiary personas reside (Abruptum, De Magia Veterum among numerous others).

Verdict: Win [8.75/10] (a gentle hum: negative space)

http://www.jeshimoth.com/jutegyte/

Alpha Drone - Alpha Drone (2006)

"We live and we die, day in and day out...and we dream!"

Such is the passage that concludes the liner notes for the self-titled debut of John Gill's Alpha Drone, a margin walking musical entity so far departed from the ball & chain of convention that it defies reality itself, assuming an alien configuration safely outside the confines of simple classification. At its core, you may very well identify with some fraction of the whole. There is a black metal influence here, or something that once called itself black metal, now a mere reflection in a dissonant stream of harsh, distorted vocals and the subdued, bitter flow of guitar chords that creep across a recessive, programmed drumming which exists solely to measure the momentum of the listener's descent into madness (or ascent into nirvana, your choice.)

But that description alone would be selling the music sort, for in addition to its raw, metallic components there is an overarching, ambient sadness throughout the near 40 minutes of this album. Not the gentle gleanings of an emergent Brian Eno, mind you, but the foreboding of the free form noise, ritual and martial genres, convergent upon this one, single cipher of expression. Having delved into the works of many such artists in my time, I can tell you that Alpha Drone does not quite sound like any one other. To forge a direct chain of recognition is nigh impossible. But try and dream of an electric-age Beherit jamming to Lustmord, or an Abruptum chilling by the pool, Raison d'Etre in It's headset. Or perhaps an extra terrestrial interpretation of old Summoning with a spark of the late Muslimgauze's more twisted emissions. This is an electric array of names I'm dropping, and yet Alpha Drone conforms to none of this.

But it's just as far out.

The inspiration for the project's name comes from an old science fiction tale the creator once drafted up in some earlier flight of imagination. Imagination is a positive thing. I'm a space cadet myself, engaged at any one time in a myriad of science fiction, fantasy or speculative media that challenge my perceptions and fuel my simultaneous addictions to nihilism, nostalgia and boldly asserting myself where no cosmonaut has gone before. So the concepts behind the compositions of Alpha Drone intrigue me, especially after a perusal of the album's archaic visual aesthetics and the extensive food for thought provided in the liner notes. There are no lyrics printed in the CD, but I've read that they follow the liner notes pretty closely. Ancient civilizations, elements, cycles of existence, the illusions of modern science, the farce of religion, all of these are considerations behind the music. The album is akin to having an existential archive of history, philosophy and every thoughtful (if theoretical) History Channel pseudo-documentary about religion, extra terrestrials, conspiracies and the coming Armageddon slowly hammered into your left temple simultaneously with an iron piton. When was the last time you enjoyed such a feeling?

The experience of Alpha Drone is delivered through five separate acts, each of which takes subtle liberties from another, deftly avoiding the chagrin of monotony that might develop if Gill were to simply follow one idea beyond its welcome. Other artists might decide to forcibly bludgeon the listener with the same cycle endlessly, mistaking an inflated flair for minimalist drama as effective expression. Most of these have failed. Gill doesn't even attempt such folly, because his universe is just too damned vast to dwell for too long on one caustic spark. Truth be told, there is some sense of numbing repetition here, in particular with the 15 minute epic "Shambala Serrano", but hardly impossible to digest, since you'll be reeling from the uncanny procession of deep, throat chants, distorted background chords, harsh vocals hinging on the edge of pure distortion, and most impressively, a keyboard sequence worthy of any truly ghastly 70-80s horror film. And even here, the tempo shifts from a crawl to a more punishing, slowly blasted segment over which an additional synth alights like a star signal from afar.

The rest of the tracks are not so extensive, but equally riveting. "Theozoology" is the opener, a swelling opus of trembling noise that slowly introduces a distant, martial percussion battery, a vibrant yet thin flourish of frightening organs, clean if subtle guitars, and ungodly distortions that sound like Galactus is slowly taking a chunk out of your world. The vocals arrive after 3:00, like a late warning, and then a deep chant carries the track out. "To Take Earth Back from Man" is a terrible joy despite its extremely wish-wash, background feel, a melodic black/ambient metal charge erupting beyond a martial chant segment set to the samples of storm. "Akashaganga" is as desolate as anything Malefic or Wrest have penned, a subdued, submissive stretch of horror so void of warmth and hope that it would perhaps best serve as a soundtrack to Lord Byron's classic, end of times poem "Darkness". The album has been so punishing to this point that the shimmering rays that open "The Sophonaut" come as a total surprise, for somewhere within the guitars is a distant wisp of hope. But it fades out all too soon, into voice samples and throbbing, electric atmosphere that sounds like an Elder God dropping bong hits dangerously close to a Tesla machine.

I don't know John Gill personally, and I'm not familiar with his other projects (of which there are a good number). It took me some time to fully digest what I was listening to on this album. Weeks. Into months. But all of the most interesting works do. Alpha Drone is not an act that will reward you with any semblance of bold melody or conventional metal structure. It's instead a fabric of finely woven, alien torment, threaded through the grasping talons of the Fates into every awaiting orifice. There is no hiding from this end. You can complain about the album's roughshod production (it was created over a number of years), and you could attempt to write it off as mere noise, reveling in its own liberating obscurity. But then you wouldn't learn anything. Alpha Drone feeds your head. And it bleeds your head. I haven't heard anything quite like it before, and I'm not sure I ever will. I'd like to think even Alpha Drone itself would move forward from this, as there is nothing to improve upon. Only more to explore. And isn't that last word the key?

Highlights: Earth is still here. For now. It was not eaten during this recording.

Verdict: Epic Win [9.25/10]

http://www.alphadrone.de/

Havohej - Hornbook Seytan EP (2008)

Paul Ledney has continued to refine his addiction to noise over the years, having long since abandoned the rigid black metal that anointed his cult classic Dethrone the Son of God album for a more raucous, experimental schematic that repackages the origins of the medium with a unique, visceral, haunting abandon. Hornbook Seytan is one of several short-play releases in his catalog, a two track journey into dementia released on 10" vinyl in limited quantities, and understandably, as there are very few people who dwell this far out on the fringe.

There are but two tracks here, with about 16 minutes of total music, but both give plenty of time to inhale their noisy nightmare fumes. "Hornbook" is an avalanche of dense sonic throughput smothering a rather weak drum beat and suicidal, terrifying vocals, interspersed with interesting breaks. At around 1:40, the break takes the form of tonal ringing and then even an abyssal, whale-like noise as the track cycles back into the waves of terror that feel like your ears caving in. After 4 minutes come the sounds of bedlam in the form of sampled pandemonium, like a vortex of souls has blown forward, a tornado interrupting the normal progression of the already hectic music. "Seytan" is a longer piece, with only faint traces of ambiance (no vocals) to guide the hoarse nuclear wind eruptions. I find this the more meditative of the two, but at the same time there is no surprise waiting beneath the surface as with "Hornbook".

Havohej is always fucked, it's simply a matter of varying degrees of fuckedness. The compositions of Hornbook Seytan are probably not the darkest or most disturbing that he's released, but they rank fairly far to the right of the scale. Despite their deceptive simplicity, both of the tracks operate at the most pensive level, as wellsprings of the macabre imagination. Perhaps more for fans of experimental noise than black metal, Ledney is one of the best in the business at finding a point between the two in which to carve his niche. The two tracks here make for a fine prelude to the great 2nd full-length Kembatinan Premaster, which follows a similar theme and has more to offer (over 30 minutes more), so if you've heard this and not been frightened away, seek that out, you won't regret it.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

http://www.myspace.com/havohejofficial

Havohej - Kembatinan Premaster (2009)

Here's one I've been sitting on for some time, as the mood it creates is one that I only occasionally have the stomach to visit. Those of you familiar with Paul Ledney's work (in particular I speak of Profanatica and Havohej) know that he's always had a proclivity for engaging, disturbing material, a stark contrast from much of the USBM scene. If you've been following the renewed activity of this band (the Tungkat Blood EP in 2007 and Hornbook Seytan EP in 2008) you'll know that an increased use of ambiance and industrial noise has crept into the style. The primitive, vile black metal heart still pulses blood beneath this sheen of subterranean endeavor, and surely you will hear brief touches that recall the classic Dethrone the Son of God album (now 16 years old).

Kembatinan Premaster carries forward the torch of minimalist abrasion that fueled Ledney's past releases with this band, in a haunting and fascinating stroke to the psyche, a black spike of nihilism that will enter through the temples and snake its way down into the hearts, stomachs and intestines of those who behold it. This album is a bowel movement for taste, complexity and pretentious fuck all, derisive in its honesty and divisive in its affectations. The title track opens like an industrial defibrillator, before a driving beat thrums to life below a wall of hovering noise and Ledney's perverse rasp. "Pious Breath" continues the swelling noise with a faster, almost blasted beat, and "Bloud and Souls" feels like you're about to be slapped upside the head with Ministry until the tortured throat opens and the man summons oblivion. "Melancholike" is further dense, turbulent noise with the accompaniment of drums and grimness. One of the more fascinating tracks is "Sundowning (Destroie Men and Beasts With Lookes)", which feels like Tangerine Dream and Fenriz jamming while a vacuum sucks your brains out through your nose. I also fancied the piercing pangs and slugging of "Hatefull Unto God" and the brief, oily swell of dark ambiance that closes the album in "Homerica Medicatio".

This is truly a 'bedroom' style release, but I don't mean that in any trendy sense, just that an album like this can be recorded with a bare minimum of equipment and a simple piece of software. That does not render it any less profound or interesting. The noise elements here are actually accessible when compared to an artist like Merzbow, but there is just something so dark about what Ledney has accomplished. It fucks with you, it hypnotizes you, and it makes you hate all life, and yet, appreciate it...

Highlights: Sundowning, Pious Breath, Hatefull Unto God, Melancholike

Verdict: Win [8.5/10]

http://www.myspace.com/havohejofficial

Satan's Almighty Penis - Thy Foulness Cum EP (2008)

Witness the edification of the unholy! Three blasphemous tracks of disheveled aural holocaust channeled into loosely structured black metal with streaks of noise and ambiance. This is both the best and worst thing you will hear this Christmas. And there has been no greater evidence that Iowa, is in fact, the gateway to Hell. And you thought it was Las Vegas!

The EP opens with the devastating "Sacrifyx", bludgeoning busts of buzzsaw blade chords and speed lines intermixed with the horrific vocals of Syntax Function A. "Leper Apocalypse" is more metal in the face, though the noise still flows around the driving daemonic riffs and tortured screaming. This is serious fucking business:

O rich man in his tower
The holy bastard in a church
Starving wretch in his hovel
In death, all men are equal

The third and final track, almost four minutes in actual length, is "Scarred With Human Life", which boasts a different production, and is more of a straight black metal tune, and a decent, primal one at that. This third track does break into a somber, doom-like phase which is glorious like the death of all humanity.

This is actually a pretty enjoyable EP if you have less than 10 minutes to kill and you want to listen to a foul abberation of black metal and noise, which is both sadistic and entertaining. Having no exposure to their previous full-length Into the Cunt of Chaos, I can't draw any comparisons. Apparently this was recorded back in 2006. Hail Iowa. And hail Satan's demonhood.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

http://www.satansalmightypenis.org/

Atomine Elektrine - Nebulous (2007)

Nebulous is the fourth full-length album from this project of Raison d'Etre mastermind Richard Andersson. Both projects share the path of the free-form and ambient: you can almost tell the same composer is behind them, but where Raison d'Etre's focus lies in the surreal, the cavernous, and a dark audio mythology, Atomine Elektrine excels as an aural interpretation of external and 'scientific' phenomena, of the natural world 'above' the clouds.

While on this particular subject, "Veiled Clouds" is perhaps my favorite track here: an eight minute plus piece to which I can envision myself rising on helium, my ascent documented by tiny, weightless, percussive machines. "Energy Net I" and "I" represent the most vacuous of pieces, and the brief. "The Eye of the Nebula" is just that, a shining beacon of mystery glaring at you from the far reaches of the void for about 12 minutes until you liquefy in its grace. "Deep Sky Twilight" is the warmest of its numbers...a drizzle of electronic rain pours into the listener amidst a futurist backdrop, it could easily merge into a cyber-delic Bladerunner dream.

The minimal/ambient scene is hit or miss for the most part, but Andersson's got a vast arsenal of hits under his belt. Some of his work with Raison d'Etre stands among my favorite ambient ever. An attention span is mandatory if you really wish to capture the depth of this journey. If you possess such a virtue, you will be only the richer for this experience.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (crushed beneath the weightless)

http://raisondetre.coldmeat.se/