Aelter
Dusk-Dawn/Follow You Beloved
Crucial Blast (2011)
Aelter, like most bands, have a backstory. Unlike most they can be explained through their other projects without fully describing what they are about. The band acts as an offshoot of the doom band WolvSerpent (formerly known as Pussygutt). Wolvserpent deal in massive undulating walls of sludge with use of uncommon (for their style) instruments, namely violin. This tends to … Read more
Black Elk
Black Elk
Crucial Blast (2006)
Am I the only one who doesn't hear the comparisons to The Jesus Lizard that Black Elk has received from a handful of reviewers? I'm not saying that makes it a bad album, but besides a few isolated pieces of songs here and there, saying that this sounds like The Jesus Lizard is kind of a stretch. What I do … Read more
Demonologists
Miscarriage Of The Soul
Crucial Blast (2011)
This is another band that while maintaining some bleak footing in the black metal scene exists as a noise group. That is not to say there aren't obvious trademarks of black metal within the structures, however loosely built they are. This band plays on the darkness that many black metal bands try to play up and orchestrate. Rather than just … Read more
Geisha
Die Verbrechen der Liebe
Crucial Blast (2008)
What a weird mix (sound wise this is really thin sounding without much bottom end) for the opening track to a record because I really was hoping to be immediately crushed by Geisha's Die Verbrechen der Liebe, and instead, "Prelude to Amber Pays the Rent" is a bit of thin riffage being pushed through a thick haze of white noise, … Read more
Geisha
Mondo Dell'Orrore
Crucial Blast (2006)
Noise is a funny term. Not "ha ha" funny, but highly prone to linguistic slippage: its connotations cover everything from the stylized squawk of Lightning Bolt to the Pacific Rim blasts of Incapacitants or Masonna. The mutant term "noisecore" has been beaten virtually beyond recognition, referring to everything from the nitroglycerin airbursts of World and Final Exit to the unrelated … Read more
Genghis Tron
Dead Mountain Mouth
Crucial Blast (2006)
Genghis Tron is something of an anomaly in the world of music. On their Myspace site they list themselves as Grind/Electro/Metal, which is a pretty disconcerting declaration to some. It sounds a bit off-putting, like a botched crossbreeding that has yielded mentally handicapped offspring in the form of songs that should have never been written. That's the way it usually … Read more
Gnaw Their Tongues
An Epiphanic Vomiting of Blood
Crucial Blast (2008)
Gnaw Their Tongues is almost completely indescribable, it is a project that simply needs to be heard to be believe. Forget understanding it as the primitive emotional outbursts that pepper the sounds on their records as these compositions seem to aim at leaving listeners aghast at the emanations of sound. An Epiphanic Vomiting of Blood is the latest recording from … Read more
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Gnaw Their Tongues
Per Flagellum Sanguemque, Tenebras Veneramus
Crucial Blast (2011)
Nightmares are a hard thing to quantify. As they happen without any control or uniformity. The terror invoked can be quite real and seem silly later when described out loud. This is a problem many musicians have in trying to deal with dark, evil or, dare I say, nightmarish sounding music. Since the early days of metal (and possibly earlier) … Read more
Korperschwache
Evil Walks
Crucial Blast (2011)
Korperschwache may seem like a new band. In many ways this is true. This being their first widely available album after years of putting out limited run cds. This band hails from Texas and there is very little to connect their sound with any worldly surroundings. The band play a mix of heavy industrial, black metal and sludge to create … Read more
Microwaves
Contagion Heuristic
Crucial Blast (2006)
I don't think I've ever heard an album come from this far out in left field and still come together flawlessly. The general consensus seems to be that you can either have a totally bizarre album or a catchy, cohesive album, but you can't have both. But Pittsburgh, PA's Microwaves is living proof that they don't have to be mutually … Read more
Nadja
Desire in Uneasiness
Crucial Blast (2008)
Where to start with Nadja? To be honest, being inundated with hype from the Internet's hype machine forces my hand into checking out what this duo has to offer my ears. Desire in Uneasiness is the two-piece's first full-length of new material after a slew of re-releases and re-recordings. But the promise in what I am hearing about Nadja truly … Read more
Nekrasov
The Ever-Present
Crucial Blast (2011)
Nekrasov as an artist has made a name for himself over the past few years. Working in a rather limited, hard to define genre (Black Noise) and managing to inadvertently become one of the flagship artists in the current crop of artists in this genre. Black Noise itself is best defined by the over arching characteristics of it. That being … Read more
Overmars
Born Again
Crucial Blast (2009)
Yes, yes, there are many bands that descend outward and are influenced in a myriad of ways by a certain band (Neurosis), some more so than others. And still, of those bands, some speak more on their own than others or are more unique. Overmars is just one of those bands that while yes they do owe some to that … Read more
Reclusa
The Anticonscience
Crucial Blast (2011)
Reclusa has joined the ranks of the crucial blaze releases and take little time to make their intentions known. While the group released a few short run cassettes this is their first big project. Their style matches seamlessly to the labels' general modus operandi revelling in a strained and disturbed combination of noise, industrial and black metal. The press release … Read more
Skullflower
IIIrd Gatekeeper (Reissue)
Crucial Blast (2008)
Skullflower is the long running project of Matthew Bower, but in its initial incarnation the band did have other members and was a bit more "rock oriented" than the cacophonous oppression of sound and noise that Skullflower is today with Bower as the (pretty much) sole member and driving force. IIIrd Gatekeeper is a re-release of the extremely difficult to … Read more
Skullflower
Tribulation
Crucial Blast (2006)
Most people can't handle the devastating beauty that Skullflower has been known for since its inception in 1987. This latest offering, Tribulation, shows Skullflower in mind blowing form, and I mean that in the most literal sense. This record is loud and thick with ambient noise, feedback, and fuzzed out droning that weighs heavy on the listener's mind and soul. … Read more
Souvenir's Young America
An Ocean Without Water
Crucial Blast (2007)
From the reviewer's initial notes made upon first hearing the album: Quiet + Loud + Quiet + Harmonica = Souvenir's Young America What a sad, lazy reviewer I am. And, as always, lazy reviewing makes for lazy reading, so if the above equation says it all for you, Godspeed my child. For readers with more moxie, yes, the above equation … Read more
Sutcliffe Jugend
Blue Rabbit
Crucial Blast (2012)
Sutcliffe Jugend started as an offshoot of British power electronics specialists Whitehouse, using this project to reveal the outer reaches of the human psyche—both sexually and otherwise—more so than their counterparts. Most times, in the past, the music had managed to match the questionable content. The question is: how does one react when a band that is so reactionary responds … Read more
