Magma—Üdü Wüdü (RCA France, 1976)

I'm no Magma expert, but do know that I love their whole deal. I'm still smiling from the show they put on at the Venue last year. What the what was that? All I know is we should do that again sometime soon.

You don't often see their albums out in the wild, so I happily forked out for this copy that turned up in the new arrivals bin at Dandelion Records.

Üdü Wüdü is their sixth studio album; a return to the studio after the release of Live/Hhaï. Side one features short pieces ranging from weird sort of samba music to weird martial songs, all accompanied by Magma's characteristic Kobaïan chanting. Side two is devoted to "De Futura," an impressive epic that actually rocks, powered by composer Janick Top's frenzied, fuzzified bass playing. Though it doesn't appear to be the most well-regarded Magma LP, it's fantastic stuff, and more approachable than Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh (the only other Magma studio LP I own).

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark—Organisation (Virgin/DinDisc 1980)

My 15-year-old self wouldn’t be impressed that I’m listening to OMD these days. To hell with that kid, though; he was no fun. I sometimes consider an alternate history for myself had my parents stayed in England. Maybe my teenage years wouldn’t have been so rockist; maybe my friend that had a job might have come home with a Wasp synth one day, and our basement band would have been based around that. Or maybe, because of genetic programming, I’d still have listened to nothing but Rush, Queen, and Iron Maiden.

I picked up Architecture and Morality a little while ago, and then found a copy of Dazzle Ships after that. What strikes me about OMD is that, for a synth-pop band, they sure revel in bleak, atmospheric sounds. Organisation, OMD’s second album, is quite meek compared to those two later LPs, and less prone to dark tangents. More conventionally organised, you might say. “Enola Gay” is the most famous track, of course, a chorus-free ditty whose simplicity only hints at later, more sophisticated hits like “Joan of Arc” and “Souvenir.”

My favourite tracks end side one and begin side two. “Statues" and “The Misunderstanding” evoke Joy Division and The Cure respectively, and paint the rest of the album in the deep gray that frames the cover photo.

Richard Pinhas—Tikkun and Welcome in the Void (Cuneiform)

It’s release day for these two albums (already in my possession through the magic of mail order). Both are demanding listens worthy of your attention. Richard Pinhas is a French guitarist/synthesizer guru probably best known for Heldon, who released seven albums in the ’70s, each one searching for the ideal blend of man and machine…and often finding it. He’s continued along the same ferociously experimental path, and has been incredibly busy lately, touring and recording with kindred spirits everywhere. In fact, he almost played down the street at the Fox Cabaret last summer, but the show fell through. (The Fox wasn’t quite ready to reopen, unfortunately, but it’s too bad the Western Front or VIVO didn’t step in, as either of those would have been an ideal venue.) These two new albums, both on Cuneiform, document two of Pinhas’s latest collaborations. Together they paint an expansive, vivid portrait of his globetrotting, playing-in-the-moment modus operandi.

Tikkun pairs Pinhas with Oren Ambarchi, a multi-instrumentalist who has worked with SUNN O))) amongst many others. It’s a CD/DVD set, with the audio portion consisting of three tracks over 69 minutes. The DVD captures a further 41 minutes of duo madness on stage in Paris. The liner notes are rather cryptic, but from what I can decipher, the CD includes contributions from Joe Talia (track 1, I think), Merzbow, Duncan Pinhas and Eric Borelva (tracks 2 and 3, I think). Track 1, “Washington, D.C. – T4V1,” has some of the relentless, industrial qualities of Heldon, with its sequenced foundation. The guitars don’t waste any time; they raise a storm almost immediately. Ecstatic noise rains down while the drummer bides his time, finally crashing in after about 10 minutes. By now the trio have almost obliterated the sequencer’s pulse as the chaos climaxes. The final 15 minutes see the storm dissipate—the guitars become more spectral, the drums die down to the ticking of the ride cymbal, creating an almost unashamedly beautiful denouement. The feedback that returns just before the end carries a definite threat, though. The next two tracks are little more static. Ambarchi (I believe) lays down some solid beats on “Toyko – T4V2” overtop a subtly shifting drone of guitar, loops and electronic sorcery. Eerie insectoid sounds dominate the opening of the final track before it all rushes headlong into a vortex of transmissions from beyond the cosmos. Overall, these dense pieces are not for the timid or overanxious. It’s music you need to sink into with a generous spirit; it rewards careful listening.

Welcome in the Void is a strange title. In my mind I always correct it to "Welcome to the Void". But this isn’t about what I want, so Welcome in the Void it is. It sounds inclusive and reassuring: “(We are all) Welcome in the Void” is one interpretation. The album fills that void with 68 minutes of free-flowing music from Pinhas and Ruins drummer Yoshida Tatsuya. There are two tracks. Part One is a 4-minute preview or overture for Part Two, which sprawls forth over 64 minutes, which may be a new milestone in my music collection (it outlasts Dopesmoker, but just barely). Pinhas’s tracks of “stereo loop guitar” and “loop stereo guitar” create almost choral melodies. The way sounds emerge and overlap reminds me of No Pussyfooting at times. Yoshida’s drumming brings out the wild side of the music—pushing and pulling with respect to tempo, or appearing in boisterous, freeform bursts—yet he gives Pinhas a lot of space. He even drops out for the final eight minutes of Part Two to let the guitarist bring the track to a soaring conclusion himself. Compared to Tikkun, Welcome in the Void is the easier listen—being strictly a duo recording with a distinct division of instruments, it’s not so much of a challenge to pick out what’s going on—and right now it’s my favourite of the two. Admittedly, this is just after a couple of listens, and my second pass of Tikkun was far more rewarding than my first.

The Night Watch—The Night Watch

If your band features the violin, it’ll probably rule my universe. Wetton-era King Crimson to Van der Graaf (without the Generator) to Curved Air, to High Tide to Mahavishnu Orchestra to the Dixie Dregs, Skyclad, My Dying Bride—all have crushed my puny head over the years. It’s an expressive, forceful instrument, and fits perfectly into the frequency range of rock. In the hands of the right player, violin can be just the thing to keep an overeager guitarist in check or provide melodic backup for a vocal line. The Night Watch has plenty of violin, and I like the Night Watch. This instrumental quartet from Ottawa has been together since 2008. On their debut album they play a blend of European folk, progressive rock and metal. If King Crimson were abducted and brainwashed by gypsies, this music might be the result. Their style also reminds me of Estradasphere and Vancouver’s own Pugs and Crows. Catchy themes and sprightly melodies mingle with solo passages and bursts of distortion and double-kick drumming. The sudden transitions between these elements are executed with great musicianship. The arrangements and song structures on “Don’t Creep” and the 15-minute adventure that is “War Whales” are clearly the result of some intense rehearsals. Nathanaël Larochette’s acoustic guitar playing, highlighted on the album's quiet sections, is recognizable from his Musk Ox project. The only thing I found myself wanting was a more prominent role for the electric guitar. For the most part it plays support to the violin rather than conversing with it. “In the Beginning,” the shortest track on the album, gets the balance right, but overall I think freeing up the guitar and giving it some improvising space alongside the violin would benefit their future material. But for now, this is a striking, adventurous debut that'll appeal to any forward-thinking music fan.

Necromonkey—Necroplex (Exergy Music)

Lame as it sounds to admit it, but I discovered Necromonkey the same way millions of children discovered Justin Bieber—through YouTube. See, I was looking for Utopia Synth demos when I came across a treasure trove of videos posted by a funny guy in Sweden who seemingly spent every spare moment hooking up various devices and uploading the results, like so…

This fellow turned out to be famous prog-rock drummer Mattias Olsson, formerly of Änglagård, proprietor of Roth Händle Studios, and one half of Necromonkey (David Lundberg completes the duo). What is Necromonkey? Well, it’s a band that, to me at least, embodies the same inventive spirit as those videos. With Roth Händle’s droolworthy collection of analog gear at their disposal, they conjure some exotic sounds and set them to suitably cunning beats and arrangements. While the spirit may be experimental, the tunes are solid and the craftsmanship is serious. The duo are expert manipulators of sound as well as skilled composers. Sometimes their music resembles bands that the general public knows and loves, like Air, Mogwai or Tortoise. Sometimes it displays progressive rock’s flair for the dramatic, as on “Every Dead Indian,” with its tense CAN beat that transitions to an eerie second half. Some of these tunes could work as movie themes, like “Small Rome”, where the wistful piano and Mellotron provide the perfect soundtrack to a point-of-view shot of a stroll through a park at dawn. The album takes a few detours, with interludes based around just one or two instruments, from a glitchy horn section to the delicate, barely adorned bass solo on “Empty Traps and Nightfall.” It’s their fearless drive to make new sounds with old devices that gives Necromonkey its edge. On Necroplex there’s beauty to be found, fun to be had, moods both disturbing and soothing, some odd-time rough-housing, and good old rocking—nearly every track on Necroplex springs a surprise on you.

Pagan Altar—The Time Lord (Shadow Kingdom Records)

It’s always exciting to hear a new release from Pagan Altar, even when the material isn’t all that fresh. The Time Lord EP is a spruced-up CD version of a vinyl-only release that I Hate Records put out in 2004. The EP comprises five demo recordings dating as far back as 1978—way, way before heavy metal became the self-sufficient mini industry that it is now.

Pagan Altar were perfectly positioned to make a splash during the NWOBHM, yet it took the rise of the Internet to bring them out in the open. It’s a mystery to me why they didn’t get signed to a specialist label like Neat or Ebony at the time. Maybe their downtrodden and macabre Olde English style wasn’t what labels were looking for. They didn’t fit in with more fresh-faced and energetic bands like Saxon, Maiden or Leppard who were cracking it commercially, or extreme bands like Venom, who had an immediate appeal to the growing legions of freaks out there. Maybe if there’d been a doom scene beyond Witchfinder General and Trouble, Pagan Altar would have risen from obscurity more quickly. They've found their niche now, though, alongside the likes of Pentagram as once-obscure, now-revered forefathers of doom.

Elderly the songs may be, but there’s no expiry date on these babies. Blow off the dust, wash off the soot, and they’re still pretty tasty. “Highway Cavalier” is a hard-charging slice of biker rock about livin’ free and easy (and that’s how it’s gonna be) that rules even if the drum set sounds like something salvaged from a tip. The title track is the EP’s high point, partly because it's a heavy metal song about space. It has a Hawkwinded charge to it before opening up in its final act for some wonderfully drawn-out southern-rock soloing. The next three songs all ended up on Pagan Altar’s debut, Volume 1, and feature more of the band’s Sabbathy side, especially on "Judgement of the Dead." The recording quality is brittle but damn if there isn’t some impressive bass playing rising above the hiss. It’s almost as if they recruited Geezer himself for the session. On the nine-minute “Reincarnation” vocalist Terry Jones gets to showcase his unique, raspy style. Even in the band’s youth, he sounds like a wise old sage. It's probably down to the trebley recording, but that razor-wire guitar tone during the song's scorching climax sure works for me.

While it’s not the perfect place to first approach the Pagan Altar, there's no denying that this EP features some excellent material. These recordings aren’t exactly up to Martin Birch’s standards, but they’re well up to the job of capturing Pagan Altar’s mystique; the band's raw despondence and devotion to the macabre corners of heavy metal. Nobody writes and plays ’em like this anymore. Kudos to Shadow Kingdom Records for making this release available again.

Mares of Thrace—The Pilgrimage (Sonic Unyon Metal)

Calgary duo Mares of Thrace’s second album perfects their raging brand of creepy-crawly noise rock. Their debut, The Moulting, certainly did a great job capturing what they were all about, but the recording’s ragged urgency revealed a few rough seams. They were still a fairly new band at that point. After seeing them live a couple times in 2010 it was clear that their fierce playing and dedication to touring would pay off on their follow-up album, and it has. The Pilgrimage outdoes its predecessor in every way. Sanford Parker handled the recording and mix, and extracted the maximum precision and intensity from the group. The sound is huge, built on the twin forces of G. Thérèse Lanz's bulldozing baritone guitar and Stefani MacKichan’s thunderous drum kit. Adding another musician would be redundant, I think; the band’s existing approach doesn’t suit. It wouldn’t be Mares of Thrace anymore. While the red-lined vocals aren’t totally my thing, they are at least consistent and don’t succumb to the hackneyed old growly/clean tradeoff approach. No, Lanz’s voice preaches discomfort and horror amidst her spiralling riffs. How else are you supposed to make yourself heard over such an onslaught?

Music this astringent demands attentive listening. Confronting its stark beauty head on is the best strategy, one made easier by the album’s approachable length and varying flow. The riffs are electrified barbed wire dragged across the art-damaged realm of post-punk/post-metal heaviness. The first four tracks dish out some stern punishment, with “The Gallwasp” standing out as the best crafted and memorable. The rest of the album branches out from there, with the mostly instrumental “Act II: Bathsheba’s Reply to David” and entirely wordless piece for solo guitar “The Three-Legged Courtesan…” providing some welcome, and sinister, mood shifts. When I stick this disc into my computer at work, it comes up as Unknown album by Unknown artist. Stupid bloody computer. Let's get it straight—it’s The Pilgrimage by Mares of Thrace, and it’s going to end up as one of the best albums of 2012.

OSI—Fire Make Thunder (Metal Blade)

Listening to music has become a private affair. Music is shared anonymously and usually consumed alone, spat out of tiny devices directly into our ears. We left the megawatt stereo behind in our parents’ rec-room when we moved out. Now, roommates are trying to sleep; the neighbours and landlord are just on the other side of those walls. Best to keep it down. OSI are a band for this era. Their music is crisp, detailed, and intimate, and it sounds great through my 20-dollar earbuds.

Conceived around the time when a new generation of prog supergroups emerged—guitarist Jim Matheos was originally tipped for Transatlantic before Roine Stolt got involved—OSI have developed their own inimitable style of progressive/ electronic rock over four albums. OSI’s core team is long-distance collaborators Matheos and keyboardist Kevin Moore (ex-Dream Theater, Chroma Key), along with a changing cast of drummers and guests over the years (Porcupine Tree’s Gavin Harrison lays down the beats on Fire Make Thunder).

Like previous OSI records, especially Free, this one slowly gets under the skin. Their approach is cool, yet it lures you in as you acclimatize to it. OSI are a studio creation; they have never played live. The musicians recorded their parts separately, and the end results don’t try to conceal this fact. The production draws attention to itself by design. Rhythmic synth pulses, blips, and st-st-st-stuttering beats mix with hefty, off-kilter riffs from Matheos. While the aesthetic may offend those who cling to the sacred ideal of live performance and the rehearsal-room chemistry of a gigging band, the gentlemen of OSI execute this style with undeniable control and taste. It never tips over into techno tackiness.

The first thing that draws you in is Moore’s voice. His exacting performance lobs melodies into the air that, after many listens, can begin to haunt your day. The other key ingredient is the songs. The OSI sound is flexible enough to encompass some surprising treatments and textures, such as the acoustic guitar-based lament “Indian Curse” and the unabashed prog metal instrumental “Enemy Prayer,” which reveals that three musicians working remotely can bridge the distance and rock out a little. “Big Chief” has a groovy, almost Clutch-like flow. “For Nothing” is as simple and pretty as U2's best work, while possessing a melancholy that only OSI can inhabit. It’s difficult to piece together every detail of the album’s concept, but the theme seems to have to have something to do with the plight of Native Americans. On the album’s best track, “Wind Won’t Howl,” Moore ruefully croons “We were already down before/we were already down on the floor”* as the song soars towards its climax.

Fire Make Thunder’s odd-yet-assured fusion of processed sonics and fragile humanity confirms that not only does OSI own this particular corner of the progressive metal galaxy, but—to borrow a phrase—that all this machinery making modern music can still be open hearted.


*Probably. Ain't got a lyric sheet.

Pink Floyd—Music From the Film More (EMI)

Until now, this was the only Waters-era Pink Floyd album I’ve never owned. I’d been looking for it for a few years, after realizing that my favourite Pink Floyd era was that fiendishly productive and exploratory period between Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Dark Side of the Moon. I managed to pick up their other soundtrack album, Obscured by Clouds, on LP, but finding a decent copy of More was difficult. The recent Pink Floyd reissue campaign couldn’t have come soon enough. Suddenly the Floyd were everywhere, even in London Drugs, which got me feeling nostalgic, seeing as I bought a lot of my music at London Drugs as a kid. KISS albums, mostly. London Drugs doesn’t need my help though, so I picked my shiny new copy of More at the soon-to-be-empty edifice of HMV Downtown.

When you open the mini-gatefold LP sleeve, you can see a lady’s boobs, which makes up for the fact that there are no bonus tracks. There’s also a nice booklet with lyrics and stills from the movie. That’s it. If there were liner notes, they might go something like this: Music From the Film More was recorded between A Saucerful of Secrets and Ummagumma at Abbey Road. Director Barbet Schroeder paid each member of Pink Floyd 600 pounds apiece to put in the eight days’ work that produced this music: 13 songs and assorted jams and fragments; their various lengths dictated by the film, which was pretty much complete by the time the band started recording. In his book Inside Out, Nick Mason recalls, “A lot of the moods of the film…were ideally suited to some of the rumblings, squeaks and sound textures we produced on a regular basis night after night.”

Side one has the best songs, written by Waters and mainly sung by Gilmour. They held on to a few of them after the album’s release, with numbers like “Green Is the Colour” and “Cymbaline” showing up on BBC Sessions and other live sets. Nowadays, “The Nile Song” may be the best-known song on the album, having been covered by Voivod, Melvins, and others. For Pink Floyd, it’s practically garage rock, and they wouldn’t record anything so brash until maybe “Young Lust” or “Not Now John.” My personal favourite, though, is the opening track, “Cirrus Minor,” a slightly sinister wisp of a song that presages Waters’ “Grantchester Meadows” with its acoustic guitar picking, sleepy vocal lines, and dubbed-in birdsong.

Side two focuses on atmospheres. “Main Theme” is effectively eerie, with the bass and drum interplay foreshadowing the minimalist drone of OM by a couple decades. “Dramatic Theme” closes the album with a similar jam, with Gilmour playing a more prominent role. “Quicksilver,” the longest piece, sounds like what Schroeder was probably after in the first place, resembling “A Saucerful of Secrets” without the narrative thrust. “Ibiza Bar” is a cool variant on “The Nile Song”’s groove. “More Blues” is exactly as advertised—a straight up blues jam. You have to take the bad with the good, though. Fans often name “Seamus” off Meddle as their least favourite Pink Floyd track, but I’d nominate David Gilmour’s “A Spanish Piece” from More as another low point.

It would take Pink Floyd a few more albums to fully merge their two strengths—the songs and the atmospheres—into an even stronger whole, but just hearing them dabbling in the studio, finding their way in the absence of Syd Barrett’s erratic vision, is fascinating enough.

Primordial — Redemption at the Puritan's Hand (Metal Blade)

This is another masterpiece from Irish black/pagan stalwarts Primordial. You could argue that Opeth or Enslaved can stand alongside them in terms of consistency, although recent albums by both bands have plenty of detractors. I’ve never read anyone accusing Primordial of dropping a discographical turd. For me, Primordial’s main “problem” is their consistency—I don’t know if they have that one “Hall of Fame” album for the ages. Hence, I listen to each new album a lot then file it away till the next one (I’d hate to part with any of them, though). Maybe Redemption at the Puritan’s Hand will be the one. I have been playing it a lot lately. I’ve tried to get sick of it, but it refuses to get old for me.

When I get a new Primordial release, I worry that all the songs will fall into the same rhythmic rut. The rolling 6/8 feel is Primordial’s thing and I feel they’re a little too comfortable with it. I was happy to hear that they break out of it a couple times on Redemption… on “God’s Old Snake” and “The Puritan’s Hand.” “Lain With the Wolf” also stands out for its unique rhythm, a propulsive, ultra-fast triplet feel that I don’t think I’ve ever heard in a metal song before. It sounds like it was a difficult song to record. The drums are right on the edge, but they always come back to hit hard on the “one” with the help of the locked-in bass line. The song generates huge momentum, and by the time it charges into the final frenetic 90 seconds you’re feeling as exhausted as the band must have been laying it down.

Singer (as opposed to vocalist, note) A.A. Nemtheanga is as articulate and passionate as ever here. He made last year’s Blood Revolt album a genuinely moving experience, and his work on Redemption… proves he can still go for the throat and the heart. “Bloodied Yet Unbowed” is the kind of song you want played at your funeral; a grim hymn to defiance and an instant classic that I’m sure Primordial will be playing live for the rest of their career. You can’t write a line like “Raise a glass, raise hell” without expecting people to respond in kind!

Led Bib—Bring Your Own (Cuneiform)

To adapt a line from LA punk legends Fear, Led Bib’s alright if you like saxophones. Fortunately I do—I haven’t always, but I came around to them. As a staunch rockist, I regarded them as poisonous garnish (the sax on IQ’s Nomzamo in ’87 filled me with rage). All I needed to hear was saxophone being properly deployed. After Van der Graaf Generator opened the gateway, the sax and I were good to go. A bit of skronk is good for what ails ya.

Led Bib’s got two wild, battling saxophones capable of erecting walls of sound, then crashing right through them, raining blows down upon each other. The British quintet play jazz…of a sort. Their music marries the attack of rock with jazz’s freedom and exploration, which I admit reads like marketing copy, but that’s how I hear it. It’s two great tastes in one. The prominent Fender Rhodes tints everything with a bit of the’70s jazz-rock/Canterbury sound. It’s not ’70s-style fusion and it’s not techy like Zevious, for example.

They’ve made their own rules. They’re sometimes quite heavy, as on “Is That a Woodblock?”, where the bass growls away, or the menacing opening of “Little X”, one of the few tracks not composed by drummer Mark Holub. The tracks often start with an ultra-catchy head played at full-tilt. You can parp along with them, if you’re given to parping. But Led Bib don’t milk their themes; they get on with it. Where they’ll go after establishing the head is always open to question. On “Shapes and Sizes” the band races each other like a grid of F1 cars heading towards the first corner. They strike a more placid mood on the brief “Hollow Ponds,” or on the occasionally mournful “Winter.” Sometimes the whole endeavour collapses, and you’re left wondering how they’re going to claw themselves out of the pit they’ve fallen into, as on “Moth Dilemma.” But they always do.

Like their Mercury Prize-shortlisted Cuneiform debut Sensible Shoes, Bring Your Own brims with action and adventure. It’s a blast, in short. With duel-to-the-death saxes, great riffs, and crack musicianship in service of exciting, frequently weird, songs, what’s not to love? If you don’t like saxophones, well, grow up! You’re missing out on some stirring modern music.

Mitochondrion—Parasignosis (Profound Lore)

Listening to this album is a hellish experience. That’s not a critique; that’s just how it is. Parasignosis is grim, oppressive, and gruelling, a torture chamber in which twisting tendrils of death metal slither, entwine and ultimately suffocate whatever sensibility you had when you entered. You’re compelled to explore this black pit of sonic horror just in case a sliver of light finds its way in, giving you a glimpse of its terrible mystery.

Victoria’s Mitochondrion are furthering the distance between metal and rock 'n' roll, extending the line drawn by Hellhammer’s primitive expulsions, Incantation’s abstract death metal, and Gorguts’ fractalized dischord. Every element seems designed to confuse. Riffs—so many relentless riffs—coagulate and break off, overlap, and mutate. Songs merge to form time-dilating expanses. Cyclic song structures are mostly absent, giving us few cues with which to orient ourselves. The production smothers details—vocals are subterranean gurgles, and reverb blurs any fine lines that might have existed. It’s a triumph of atmosphere over clarity, yet it works for their style.

However much Mitochondrion revel in metal’s inversion of values, there are genuinely outstanding elements to celebrate. The drumming, full of militant beats and blasting, has advanced quite a bit from their first album. K. Godard’s use of the entire kit is particularly striking; skittering under, over, and between the guitars. The packaging is a masterpiece of cryptic writing and symbolism. I know not what it all means, but it, like the music, is clearly the product of advanced thought and dedication. Having released this daunting work, it’s intriguing to consider where they might go next. If there’s a more depraved, extreme form of metal that lies beyond Parasignosis, then I’m sure Mitochondrion will be the band to find it.

Six Organs of Admittance—Asleep on the Floodplain (Drag City)

It’s a credit to Ben Chasny’s abilities as a guitarist and songwriter that his work sounds so effortless. It has the flow and spontaneity of conversation, making the listener feel like a privileged eavesdropper. Listen to the exchange of phrases on the opening track “Above a Desert I've Never Seen”: tentative at first, then faster, as the discussion heats up, trills jabbing back and forth, then resolution and a calm parting of the ways. It’s surely the product of intense concentration on the part of the artist, but sounds easy as breathing.

Asleep on the Floodplain takes a more intimate, acoustic approach than recent Six Organs of Admittance albums such as Luminous Night or The Sun Awakens. Four of the tracks are solo guitar, with occasional harmonium overdubs. The combination works very well—the guitar paints a compelling line in the foreground; the harmonium provides the background element; that other dimension.

Sounds both placid and haunting dominate, like the low thrum that underpins “Brilliant Blue Sea Between Us” or the synth that curls like smoke around the memorable “Hold But Let Go.” “S/Word and Leviathan,” the longest track, establishes an uneasy atmosphere, vibrating like a dozen hammers pounding on power cables for several minutes. A chord progression emerges, then some vocals, before an electric guitar slashes through and obliterates all the chatter. “A New Name on an Old Cement Bridge” follows, a bluesy guitar piece to balance the mood after its predecessor’s cloudburst.

The album abounds in water imagery, which suits the flowing qualities of the music on Asleep on the Floodplain. These are small-seeming songs that resonate much larger, like the chain of ripples forming behind a skipping stone.

Red Fang—Murder the Mountains (Relapse)

What’s the angle on Red Fang? Well, there’s the beer-fueled, Pythonesque hilarity of the “Prehistoric Dog” video. I got on board after catching that, I’ll admit. There’s the Portland angle. Who doesn’t like Portland? Place is awesome. There’s the “produced by a Decemberist” angle, but that’s hardly an angle. It’s not like Red Fang are suddenly writing fantastical folk songs to be savoured by NPR listeners (and me). They rock, and hard. How about the fact that they’re on Relapse Records, purveyors of fine grind? Nah, Relapse embraces all genres of fine music these days. Fact is, Red Fang don’t need an angle. You just gotta hear them. I’m feeling pretty evangelical about Murder the Mountains, similar to how I felt about Harvey Milk’s Life…The Best Game in Town. The resemblance is superficial—the two bands’ demeanours are quite different. Red Fang are more sociable than Harvey Milk, but in terms of big American rock with great riffs and unexpected, unabashed catchiness, I get the same feeling from both albums. Red Fang mainly operate in two modes, combining a thudding, Melvins-like approach and a breezier, QOTSA kind of feel. One mode often dominates a song. “Into the Eye” and “Throw Up” are two of the most bruising tracks, while “Wires” and “Number Thirteen” have the shuffle going on, and are massively catchy. The alternating styles mesh well, and give the album that most valuable, old-fashioned quality of being able to tell the damn songs apart. The best thing about these songs, however, is that they go interesting places. Although they follow a three- to five-minute verse/chorus format, there’s always a cunning segue into an instrumental break or other digression that wakes me up from my rock trance thinking, “Wait, how did we end up here?” The best example might be “Wires”—the scuffed-up glam stomp heads into the orchestra pit, where guest Jenny Conlee’s keyboards take over and we’re suddenly prog-rockin’ for a stretch until another colossal riff—the kind of riff that can only end a song because it cannot be topped—breaks out. Sure, Red Fang can write memorable riffs and vocal lines, but this drive to explore what can happen within a song provides the X factor that’s made this one of my favourite albums of 2011 so far. Beyond the bearded, beer-swilling trappings there lies the souls of true rock ‘n’ roll craftsmen. And I’ll hoist a tall can to that.

Rotting Christ —Aealo (Season of Mist)

Rotting Christ’s basic sound is extremely masculine, even by metal standards. It’s precise and regimented. The band is in lock step and fit to fight. Even when they bring in contrasting elements, like reed pipes or female vocals, their warrior stance doesn’t flinch at all. The vibe on Aealo is inclusive— “Come, do battle with us. Together we are stronger.”

The opening title track is a mad rush of sound that reminds me of Hüsker Dü’s "New Day Rising" with its four-on-the-floor momentum. The wailing female voices add a disorienting twist that transforms the track into something truly novel. Above all, no matter how elegantly they’re constructed and adorned, songs like “Eon Aenaos” are catchy. Every last detail has been honed, right down to the guitar solos, which show some serious time invested in composing them rather than being tossed off to fill obligatory solo space. It’s impressive that the guitars are frequently playing three or four different lines at once, yet nothing is lost or muddled. I wouldn’t accuse Rotting Christ of “grooving,” but when they hook up the wah-wah pedal on “Demonon Vrosis” it’s hard not to get ensnared by the rhythms they lock into. “Noctis Era” is the album's ultimate anthem, with its Celtic-sounding guitar harmonies (you could play them on a tin whistle) mixing with band leader Sakis’ desperate screaming and “hoo! ha!” gang chants in the background. The guitar riffs are so simple that a beginner could pick them up. This all may sound like it’s a dumbed down play for accessibility, but there’s nothing dumb about it.

Guests contribute to the Rotting Christ arsenal. As co-vocalist on “Thou Art Lord,” Alan Nemtheanga is in his element. The track is the sort of battle-ready, passionate metal that his band Primordial trades in. Nemtheanga’s commanding voice provides a nice foil to Sakis’ rasp, making the track an album highlight. Diamanda Galas adds half-spoken vocals to a metal arrangement of her own “Orders from the Dead.” Some listeners may be turned off by her domineering incantations; others may find the track an impressive, imposing album closer.

I’ve never followed Rotting Christ’s career too closely, but I’ve gained a new appreciation of them via Aealo. Their eleventh release is a superb piece of work full of deadly intent, craft, and a cunning mix of elements, and I’d believe anyone who says it’s their best album to date.

Bedlam from Belgium

A lot of the music I listen to comes from a dark place. I’ll lap up the guttural, gut-bursting fury of Suffocation, the blood-caked emotion of Neurosis, or Deathspell Omega’s dissonant, Dantean hymns and gladly return for more. But when it comes to true Musica in Diabolus, none of them are fit to touch the grim robes of legendary Belgian chamber rock/Rock In Opposition bands Univers Zero and Present. A lot of prog bands describe graceful arcs with their music. The Belgians slash and stab, grind and jab. I have no idea how music like this gets made. Sacrifice, poverty and hunger play a large role, I’m sure...plus a buttload of rehearsal. Why doesn’t every kid who’s forced into piano lessons just flip out at age 17 and start making music like this? If I was a bitter child prodigy, with classical chops and a hate-on for mumsy and papa, that’s where I would have gone.

Univers Zero is led by drummer Daniel Denis; Present’s leader is guitarist Roger Trigaux, who was in Univers Zero for their first two albums. Each band reflects its leader’s instrument. Univers Zero’s music is abrupt and choppy, with riffs that sound like they’re based on drum rudiments. Present trolls similar dank, stony chambers, with the guitars of Roger Trigaux and his son Reginald providing additional menace. Both bands have monster drummers. In a genre where the standard was set by Christian Vander and Magma, it’s a must. Denis (who actually joined Magma briefly in the early ’70s) combines a free-flying Art Blakey and Keith Moon approach with a classical percussionist's discipline. Present’s Dave Kerman hits even harder—he’s a big fan of Gaza and other types of grind madness—yet he matches Denis’s orchestral approach in playing the entire kit at all times.

Univers Zero—Relaps: Archives 1984–1986 (Cuneiform)

Relaps collects Univers Zero live recordings from a difficult time in the band’s history, as documented in the liner notes. Although line-up changes and financial woes put the band’s existence in jeopardy, the eight tracks featured are bombastic and fierce—the sound of a band driven to survive by destroying all comers. For the sake of my nervous system, I hope I don’t hear anything more intense than the version of “The Funeral Plain” heard here. The extended ostinado solo section that sees Jean-Luc Plouvier and his demented DX7 work handing off to Michel Delory’s equally sadistic guitar solo is audio terrorism at its finest. It’s surprising to hear the audience applauding at the end, and realize that UZ hadn’t rendered the crowd into clumps of bubbling goo at Belgium’s Centre Culturel de Seraing that night. Some people evidently survived.

After this period and a final studio album (Heatwave), Denis retired the band until 1999's The Hard Quest.

Univers Zero: Evil Incarnate

Present—Barbaro (ma non troppo) (Ad Hoc)

Present took a similar path to UZ, releasing two albums in the early ‘80s before resurfacing with Certitudes in 1998. Their latest, Barbaro (ma non troppo), is a two disc set comprising three new studio recordings (44 minutes) and a DVD with nearly three hours of performances from 1994 to 2007. The new music is stunning. “Vertiges” is a 16-minute labyrinth of percussive insanity—pianist Pierre Chevalier hammers the piano like a man possessed—that builds to a couple climaxes. You might think they’ve given everything they had at the 9:30 mark, but wait, there's more to come. Chevalier’s “A Last Drop” has more of a sustained groove—albeit an off-kilter, juddering sort of groove—before it drops into a tension-building section that almost sounds pleasant and achievable by mere mortals. The final track is a little bit special in that it’s a remake of Trigaux and Denis’ “Jack the Ripper” from Univers Zero’s malevolent 1979 masterwork, Heresie. The older version was shrouded in the murk of a London fog; this new one gleams and flashes like a knife blade.

The DVD portion is just as alarming. The primary footage is well shot and edited, with the musicians’ craft as the main focus. Present in concert isn’t a heads-down noodle-fest, though. They do have a flair for the theatric. Witness the stern, gaunt figure of Roger Trigaux conducting the band through the first half of “Promenade au fond d’un Canal” like he’s casting spells. Cringe at the shirtless war-painted guy who takes centre stage to pound out time on a pipe. Thrill to Trigaux smashing his guitar at the end of “Promenade...” from a seated position, no less. Chuckle at the world’s unhappiest teenage girl sulking in the front row at the Gouveia Art Rock Festival in Portugal. Wonder at the sight of Kerman playing the drums with wooden spoons, chains, and Barbie dolls at various points. The highlight comes when the Barbie heads eventually come flying off and Kerman continues smashing the cymbals with the decapitated doll bodies. It’s official: Present are the most brutal band ever.

The Pugs and Crows Band—Slum Towers (indie)

This band’s name makes me think of my neighbourhood and its healthy populations of both pugs and crows. The pugs are roly-poly and happy to be out for a walk; the crows are often ornery and will dive at your head during nesting season. In terms of temperament, The Pugs and Crows Band fall somewhere between the two creatures—neither eager to please nor randomly hostile. Their music swings gracefully between moods jaunty and despondent.

Slum Towers is the work of composer/guitarists Cole Schmidt (from Cortez the Killer, reviewed here) and Clayton Murray, along with Russell Sholberg (bass), Ben Brown (drums) and violinist Meredith Bates. The 11 instrumentals and one vocal track feature a lot of tasty playing, but the approach is clean and careful. They will not pin you against the wall with screaming solos. Each tune establishes a strong theme right off the bat.

The haunting, placid opener “’Lil Red Spiders” immediately reminds me of The Dirty Three, but that direction doesn’t return until the superb “Ballet for BC” (featuring a beautiful bowed solo from Sholberg) late in the album. The rest of the record stumbles into some exotic grottoes. Tracks like “Two Tastesless [sic] Italians” and “Ramadan” have a gypsy air that reminds me of Estradasphere without that band’s speed metal digressions. “Turducken,” one of the longer tracks, has a desert caravan feel, a waltz chorus, and a more abstract, improvised section to heave the whole thing off balance. Even at its bounciest, Slum Towers carries a sombre dignity.

The only non-instrumental is “Scarecrow Shadow,” a macabre, sepia-toned ballad that sits in the middle of the album. Sung wonderfully by Debra-Jean Creelman, I can picture it playing over the opening credits of a David Lynch movie.

The Pugs and Crows Band finds an unsettled and unsettling territory between rock and jazz—a sound that has a gritty elegance, with none of the funky elevator-music cheese that “fusion” often entails. An interesting, enjoyable new cross-breed unleashed on Vancouver's musical landscape.

We’re Gonna Rise Above (Some More)

Litmus—Aurora
Hawkwind are one of the great unsung influences in rock, especially from the North American perspective. Monster Magnet is the only stateside band I can think of that’s copped to their influence. Back in England, the entire “space rock” genre can be traced back to them, and Litmus are definitely carrying on Hawkwind’s tradition of blissed-out, cosmic hard rock. Aurora features the requisite pounding beats, whooshing noises and time-stretching jam interludes. Refreshingly, they also incorporate their forefathers’ passion for strong melodies and hooks. Hawkwind may have been hyper-conceptual space cadets, but they also had hits. When Litmus kick in the afterburners, as on “In the Burning Light” or “Stars” they sound like an ultra-polite Motorhead (go figure). But for every supernova there’s a cloud of cosmic dust: “Kings of Infinite Space” is a drone-based anthem, and “Ma:55°N Rift” is a scorching instrumental that fills the black hole that Porcupine Tree left when they went to a major label and moved away from their style on Signify and Stupid Dream. Very English, very fun. When on “Red Skies” the guitarist lets loose with his Keith Richards-style licks, the bass growls like an angry thing and everything else goes “whoosh!” you’d be forgiven for thinking the Mother Ship’s about to land.

The Gates of Slumber—Hymns of Blood and Thunder
This well-seasoned Indianapolis trio arrived last year with their third full-length, the loud-and-proud Conqueror on Profound Lore. Hymns of Blood and Thunder delivers more of the same, but with more intensity and better songs. TGoS play proper doom metal, as Odin intended. You know the deal: “For fans of St. Vitus, Trouble, and Black Sabbath.” Like a less dour Reverend Bizarre, their approach is untainted by death growls or double bass. Their songs breathe; the main riffs are substantive and the melodically powerful vocal lines play off of hanging guitar chords. Songwriters Karl Simon and Jason McCash provide informative notes explaining the stories behind each song, which is cool. However, you don't need any of that behind-the-scenes stuff to realize that “The Bringer of War” is totally badass. “Descent Into Madness” (based on an H.P. Lovecraft story, readers) is the epic, highlighting some new elements to their sound in the form of synths, and a David Gilmour influence, manifested by Karl Simon’s guitar solo. They lob another curveball with “The Mist in the Mourning,” a medieval/folk lament based on words that Simon wrote in a "drug-induced haze in a London hotel at 4 in the morning." True to Rise Above's roster of talent, The Gates of Slumber have style, taste, and imagination, even within the smoke-filled, sweaty, despair-ridden, resin-caked, beer-soaked confines of dooooooom.

Six Organs of Admittance—RTZ (Drag City)

Ben Chasny’s folk/psych project rounds up some rare split and limited edition releases on this sprawling double CD/triple LP release. Recorded at home on a Tascam 424 four-track—the title refers to the unit's RTZ (“Return to Zero”) button—the five epic “segments” showcase the more mystical, murky side of SOoA. None of them are in a hurry to get anywhere; each explores a becalmed and forlorn sound-space while wandering into some weird nooks and crannies along the way. With just four tracks and a few guitars Chasny creates some impressive music. It's often sparse, as his recording methods have dictated, but it's never in any danger of becoming uninvolving. “Warm Earth, Which I’ve Been Told” embraces stasis, with a quavering organ drone supporting a variety of clanging string sounds, the whole thing bookended by a mournful guitar figure and chanting. Bleakest number here? On “You Can Always See The Sun,” Chasny’s intricate playing is offset by a looming drone of distortion. “Punish the Chasm With Wings” offers the most contrast. A low, prolonged hum threatens a cacophony, which arrives with an electric guitar spazzout overtop some frantic acoustic guitar and primitive drumming, which is in turn replaced by the same low hum. It's like scanning a radio dial exclusively occupied by weird underground radio stations, for whom Ummagumma and First Utterance are the foundation for all music. Despite originating between 1998 and 2003, the pieces on RTZ are remarkably cohesive, fitting together to form an audio mural of beautiful desolation, to be listened to with lights off and contemplated like an ultra-malevolent Wyndham Hill album. I don't know if Chasny chose these pieces wisely or simply had them as his only non-album tracks, but they work well together. Wallowing in ramshackle beauty and noble loneliness, RTZ is a unique and important entry in the Six Organs of Admittance saga.

Marnie Stern—This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That (Kill Rock Stars)

Dabs of paint, like cells vibrating into place, coalesce into a portrait of the artist. The cover painting captures a lot of what Marnie Stern is about. Sometimes the brushstrokes overlap, and the paint runs together. Stern doesn’t like to colour between the lines with her music either, rendering it in frantic note bursts—tapping, slashing, rapid fire picking—avoiding any large fields of colour or convenient rest stops. Everything works to convey her music’s restless, relentless energy. These are pop songs blown apart, the glimmering, half-melted shards reassembled in an unexpected yet equally sturdy new three-and-a -half minute forms. The material comes out in a mad rush, with Stern’s keening voice commandeering the melee. When she asks “Is there no way out of my mind?” in “The Package is Wrapped,” you’d be forgiven for thinking she’s found a way out of it already. If, as she implies, she’s trapped in there, it’s nice that she’s letting us in for a visit; her mind is a fascinating place in which to spend 40 minutes. Sometimes she gives us glimpses of the conventional, where it sounds like she's about to embark on an indie-rock hit (as on “Vault” or “Roads? Where We’re Going We Don’t Need Roads!”), but then it all goes thrillingly haywire. Stern and producer/drummer Zach Hill (Hella) make a fearsome team. Hill’s roiling fills and devious rhythms are a good match for Stern’s own playing. This album sounds like freedom, imagination, colour, fun, and the mysterious unmappable impulses that make us who we are.