In Jaci’s post asking for comments, one of the visitors of this blog asked for more indications for listening stuff and, eventually, buying stuff, i.e., not solely sterile download but acquaintance with a band and support.
That’s a very good attitude especially for the final result, support.
Btw, with such attitude I’m encouraged also in writing a bit more of the few lines I normally write on here (those of you who follow the Swamp know that I can flood the blog with words, hahaha ... ). But if people feel like having some info, I’m glad to gather them and pass them on. But I promise I won’t flood here as I do in the Swamp …
Going back to how this post started, if you don’t like myspace because it jumps if the connection is not working well, etc., you may then appreciate what some bands and some labels do, i.e., giving away a few tracks and substantial samples in mp3 to let the people listen to the stuff in adequate conditions. This is the case of a finest label precious for the underground, true underground music where open-minded attitude and experimentations among genres of heavy music are welcome: label Crucial Blast.
If you go and visit Crucial Blast’s webpage you get some tracks and samples from some of the coolest, creative and in various cases, I would say, most extreme bands around, if you think about what the label’s roster has been during its ten years of activiy: Genghis Tron, Monarch!, Gnaw their Tongues, Subarachnoid Space, Nadja, Skullflower, etc.
Well, in this period some cool albums are about to be released (tomorrow, 9th November 2010) by eclectic acts Theologian and Ehnahre.
Theologian may appeal to those of you who like weird, grim heavy tunes “poisoned” with electronics.
Theologian is a New York-based project by Leech, previously in Navicon Torture Technologies, that creates a dreary blend of blackened industrial drone ambient noise heaviness. As described in the release notes, the debut album, The Further I Get from Your Star, the Less Light I Feel on My Face, and the accompanying digital EP Charting The Schism, are a descent into roaring, cosmic drone, howling electronics, colossal industrial soundscapes and grim, low-end heaviness. Leech elaborates, strains and mixes extreme music genres such as Swedish death industrial, classic power electronics, dark ambient, etc., on a base of melodic presence; the music is harsh, often hellish, but retains an icy, desolate beauty.
The other release of extreme heaviness as well as charm is Taming The Cannibals, the new album by Boston trio Ehnahre, that recently inked an agreement with Crucial Blast.
The band has a “stable” line-up including Ryan McGuire (Bass, Double Bass, Vocals, Percussion), John Carchia (Guitar, Vocals) and Ricardo Donoso (drums). Btw, Ryan McGuire and John Carchia are members of the avant-garde metal band Kayo Dot. Additional fellow musicians crafted in all sorts of instruments and from other cool bands, such as Maudlin of the Well, Milligram and Castevet, etc., contribute(d) to create the evil music produced by this bunch.
You may know their killer debut album, The Man Closing Up, released in 2008 when the band was on Sound Devastation Records. In that debut album they experimented their overly distressing, mind-melting, powerful, obscure, crazy metal, which has been defined as “untraditional” in rhythm and chromatic/disharmonic in tonal interaction, speaking drum-, guitar- and bass-wise.
If you want a simplified tag for Ehnahre’s, you can call it "avant-garde doom death metal". In more detail, Ehnahre combine atonal contemporary classical music (they studied Arnold Schoenberg) and "vicious blackened death laced with shots of free-jazz horns, stretches of intense choral ambience, and blasts of calcifying glacial doom".
Definitely a difficult, ruthless and absolutely heavy way of playing that does create a bleak, restless, menacing and chaotic atmosphere, which is what, at the end, gives us the thrills. But, incredibly, there are melodies dragging you through this chaotic darkness. The result is fascinating …
If you feel like for more and far better “literature”, you may appreciate the brand new and very well made interview to Ryan McGuire on Doommantia.
So go to the label’s webpage to get your mp3 sample tracks for Theologian and Ehnahre releases: here, here and here
