Heard the Grails album Take Refuge in Clean Living after GK's reco and ended up liking it quite a bit. It sounded like a more energetic version of something that Earth usually play. Great instrumental stuff and actually very proggy in parts.

Hammers of Misfortune - Fields/Church of Broken Glass - On a first listen, very good but didn't wow me the way Locust Years did. Both parts started on a low note and got better as they went on. This ought to grow on me with more listens I think.

Ereb Altor - By Honour - After a really boring and unnecessarily long piano intro, this really kicked ass. Really loved the way these guys used gregorian chants type things with slow crunchy riffs. Awesome folk doom stuff.

Six Feet Under - Death Rituals A lot of the songs sound like the band is re-visiting their old songs and 2 songs on the album sound like War is Coming from Warpath. Basically sounds like the band wants to do hard rock but Barnes wants to continue his one-dimensional growling approach. The result is an album that sounds like Graveyard Classics mixed with Warpath. Still, I used to love this band and things aren't too bad.

Day without dawn - Understanding consequences ( experimental post rock/metal)
one of my favorite albums of the year.

Biclops - demo

Same members as day without dawn but just another vocalist, decent band, very similar to DWD without the clean parts.

Got something from Bhalla called Kingfisher sky first song was a great proggy thing with female vocals. Second song was good not so proggy thing with female vocals. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth song it sounded like mediocre modern rock with female vocals at which point i gave up.

Been having a lot of fun with this album/band called Efendi's Garden - some weird German band that's at the intersection of 70s hard rock, funk and prog. As in, each song on the album can be bracketted into one or the other of these genres. The vocals are very much an acquired taste: a hiccoughing, slurring bleat of a voice that's somewhat like Iggy Pop, but the album is incredibly varied and unusual and I've been hearing it constantly ever since noon yesterday.

Mr Universe - Ian Gillan: Fantastic Purple cloning meets some of the jazz rock stylings of Gillan's solo work in this superlatively energetic, enjoyable album. Definitely up there with Gillan's best work in Deep Purple and probably his best solo album from all I've heard.

pleasepassthesalt wrote:
Ya i actually liked all 3 of his bands. Full marston worship for me :P
I dint think i would like Krallice, but loved it on the 1st spin itself

He's also playing on the new Jarboe album. Quite a busy year for him I guess.

Satyricon - Age of Nero
The first 5 songs have these cheesy catchy guitar bits that make the songs fun. It all goes balls up very quickly and the songs are fun only on the first 2 listens but still, better than what I was expecting.

Darkthrone - Dark Thrones and Black Flags
This is some good stuff. Way better than F.O.A.D. and probably a bit better than Cult is Alive. The songs are really growing on me with every listen.

Black Elk - Always A Six, Never A Nine
The vocalist reminds me of a less shouty Henry Rollins and the music has a fair bit of Black Flag in it, but there's also plenty of the Melvins, Jesus Lizard and even some vaguely Neurosis style sludge. This is pretty kickass.

Spoiler - The Return Of King Sonic
7Zuma7 - Deep Inside

Highly enjoyable rawk. Highly recommended.

Was listening to Devin's Accelerated Evolution while getting back from Surathkal - An absolute cracker of an album. Depth Charge, what a way to start an album! Storm, Random Analysis, Deadhead, Suicide - one fantastic track after the other and the album is consistent too. Curiously, this ranks as my favourite Townsend output, as opposed to Terria (which I believe is common consensus) which comes in a close second.

Yeah I'm a huge fan of Accelerated Evolution as well, ranking it up there with Terria. I even really like that full-on pop closer, Slows Me Down.

Want it ,need it,
My want is found and feeding,
Hanging around with a girl
'Cause I want it, need it,
So bad I can hardly breathe but it slows me down.


Ooh yeah!

Spinning some Om right now.

Edit: Just saw GK's post on the last page about Grails.

Tripping on Lifelover's Konkurs. This is one trippy album that has all the elements of black metal but also has some sort of alt-rock atmosphere happening. Very mid paced and clean sounding BM that's also really catchy and full of terrific songs. Not sure how to describe this but in a very vague way, imagine The Gutter Twins jamming with a depressive black metal band and now imagine the combination working out.

Listening to Nomeansno - this supposedly seminal punk/noise rock band who were laying out the foundations to math rock back in '86. Currently, The Day Everyday Became Nothing is playing and I'm completely digging. There are bits which sound like Misfits, The Jesus Lizard, Shellac, Pixies even and then there are some completely original parts characterized by slow, brooding, doom-laden grooves (the song Forget Your Life). Overall, I like the shit a lot. Terrific so far.

Joan Osborne - Little Wild One I used to love her debut album Relish. Osborne had the kind of raw, dark and sexy voice that was quite something else and the songs on that debut album were all quite dark and brooding apart from the break through hit single. Anyway, in the intervening years between then and now, Osborne's spent time in gospel groups and the country music scene and the new album is a watered down country pop record with severe gospel undertones. she can still sing but the the raw sexuality of her voice is now a silken smooth pop delivery. Very disappointing.

Jarboe - Mahakali Ogre, Ancestors, Iota and Blood Ceremony have all been knocked off their lofty pedestal and THE stoner album of 2008 has arrived. This is fantastic. I wasn't sure what to expect after Jarboe's collaboration with Justin Broadrick led to the shoegaze friendly, laid back J2 but Mahakali is dark, heavy, layered and filled with the kind of songwriting that should be a stoner's wet dream. The song she does with Attila Csihar is probably the best thing the vocalist has ever done and is a crawling droning doom beast. On the other hand Anselmo sounds severely constipated but is saved by a very clever studio job and excellent backing vocals from the lady. The guitars are mostly of the sludgy doomy sort by Marston and Unsane's Vinnie Signorelli's drumming is fucking awesome right through the album. Just a completely awesome album.

Great to hear about the Jarboe. I didn't think too high of the J2 release.

Oh yeah! Mahakali kicks ass. I thought you guys had heard it already. I like the Anselmo track as well - he sounds pretty awesome when he starts hitting those high notes, otherwise like GK said he sound like he hasn't pooped in a while.

I've been down with fever and all sorts of other shit like pink eye, sore throat, cold etc. Played Afghan Whigs' "Black Love", The God Machine - "One Last Laugh In A Place Of Dying" and this weird Latin band Rondellus' medieval tribute to Black Sabbath called Sabbatum - Sabbath played with flutes and clarinets.

@Dee: Get well beeyotch!

@GK: Damn, I need to get Mahakali ASAP.

^^Yeah. Been tripping on it all day and it sounds terrific when I'm sober too :p

@powerdog - You're right about the Anselmo song. The second half of the song after the spoken word bit is fucking awesome. cheers.

Still giving the new SFU a few spins. It's really dull after the first listen though.