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TUESDAY, MAY 6TH 2008
AVAILABLE NOW: TREES Lights Bane
The debut album from the Portland quartet Trees delivers two epic tracks of monolithic, blackened doom metal with a twisted, noise-damaged approach and a dank basement vibe. Trees craft glacial abstract riffs and rivers of ashen amplifier goo that fans of feedback-laden heaviosity will find highly satisfying, a kind of grinding, slow-motion black hole psychedelia that has a similiar hypnotic death-ritual quality as artists like Bloody Panda and Khanate, but with their own unique trance state of swirling guitar textures, horrific jet black dronescapes and ghoulish, excoriating vocals. Features members of the PDX psych-sludge outfit Tecumseh (Important Records). This CD edition of the TREE's debut comes in a Stoughton printed 4-panel gatefold case. We will also be carrying the limited edition (500 copies) vinyl version that is coming out on 20 Buck Spin.
***While supplies last, we'll be including an 11" x 17" Trees poster with CD orders, which features Neri's eerie artwork that appears on the cover of Lights Bane***.
::Click here for more information and online ordering::.
MP3 TRACK EXCERPTS FROM Light's Bane:
Track 1: "Nothing" ::MP3 EXCERPT::
Track 2: "BLack" ::MP3 EXCERPT::
AVAILABLE NOW: GNAW THEIR TONGUES An Epiphanic Vomiting Of Blood
Gnaw Their Tongues, an enigmatic project from the Netherlands that has wowed fans of messed-up heaviosity with the phenomenal Reeked, Pained and Shuddering CD that was released on Paradigms along with a host of super-limited CDR and cassette releases, is joining the Crucial Blast roster for the CD release of the new full length An Epiphanic Vomiting Of Blood, which was released as a limited edition vinyl release at the beginning of 2008 on Burning World Records. This undefinable mass of black amorphic horror is one of the most intense listens we've engaged in recently, a nihilistic pit of howling orchestral strings and blackened abstract doom, operatic female voices plunging into a fetid sewer of filth and blackness, equal parts avant black metal and splattered sludge and symphonic horror movie score. An overwhelming deathscape scrawled in jagged figures across pieces like "My body is not a vessel, nor a temple. It's a repulsive pile of sickness" or "Sawn asunder and left for the beasts", and flecked with moments of unbelievably crushing beauty that may surprise fans of Gnaw Their Tongue's previous work.
::Click here for more information and online ordering::.
MP3 TRACK EXCERPTS FROM AN EPIPHANIC VOMITING OF BLOOD:
Track 1: "My body is not a vessel, nor a temple. it's a repulsive pile of sickness" ::MP3 EXCERPT::
Track 2: "Teeth that leer like open graves" ::MP3 EXCERPT::
TRack 3: "Sawn asunder and left for the beasts" ::MP3 EXCERPT::
Nadja's Desire In Uneasiness now available .
Following a wave of recent reissues and re-recorded versions of older CD-R titles, Desire In Uneasiness is an album of all new material from the acclaimed Canadian dreamsludge weavers Nadja. Five colossal jams of eternally-fuzzy, ethereal dirge that are powered by the interlocking bass guitars of Leah Buckareff and Aidan Baker, who set loose a wave of monstrous grinding bass riffs amidst a fog of beautiful, swirling electronic effects. Desire also marks the first Nadja album to feature a live drummer in place of the drum machine programming that has driven the band's previous recordings, and the difference in the band's sound is apparent from the first crushing beats of album opener 'Disambiguation'. The organic drumming here takes Nadja's music into new realms of spacious jazzy exploration, dubby rhythms and cavernous psychedelia, while also delivering some of the band's most grooving, crushing hypno-bliss yet.
Desire also stands out from the rest of the Nadja catalog for it's bizarre artwork that Aidan commisioned from his friend The Reverend Aitor. Aitor's bright, bold lines and textured magic marker artwork gives the gatefold jacket we've presented this disc in the look of a twisted children's book on acid, with weird images of chickens, trees growing through chairs, and more. The package is a sturdy 4-panel gatefold jacket printed by Stoughton, and it looks killer.
::Click here for more information and online ordering::.
New WILDILDLIFE "Mutant Crucifixion" shirt available now!
We now have this new exclusive shirt design for WILDILDLIFE, we're calling it "Mutant Crucifixion" and these look AWESOME, with a huge front print with three-color artwork. You need to go over to the Shirts page to take a look at a more detailed image for the garments so that you can see the artwork in full - this is the coolest looking print that we've put together yet for a Crucial Blast shirt. We have this new design available on both black and ash colored garments in standard sizes, they are in stock and shipping now.
Click Here: SHIRTS for details and ordering information.
HEDORAH self titled collection out now from the Crucial Bliss series.
I've been a fan of Wilt ever since Matt Gibney (RIP) sent me a copy of the The Black Box Aesthetic: Zeitgeist 1 CD that he had released on his label The Rectrix. The combination of dark ambience, organic sounds, and industrial creep that Wilt delivered on that (and other early albums) had me captivated, but I lost track of the project for a few years as the labels that were releasing Wilt's albums were largely off of my radar. It wasn't until late last year that I rediscovered Wilt after member James Keeler sent me a bunch of his recent releases to check out for Crucial Blast. Not only did I flip out over the newer Wilt stuff that came in the package, which now had a tactile metallic heaviness in addition to the always present waves of black sound, but I was also introduced to a band called Hedorah that was on a split cassette that James included a copy of. The Hedorah tape (a split with The Fortieth Day) felt like a boot to the skull when I popped it into the office stereo, an oozing syrup-blast of blackened doom metal delivered over sickening downtuned guitar riffs that seemed to drift in and out of phase, smears of filthy electronic noise, and crushing monotonous drum machine beats. Not one ray of light, nor ounce of melody is anywhere to be found. Just plodding, utterly hypnotic, nauseatingly crushing industrial doom. That tape immediately became one of my favorite items that James sent, and after writing him back to ask what the deal was with this band Hedorah, it turned out that the band is actually the "doom metal" alter-ego of Wilt, with both James Keeler and Dan Hall of Wilt making up the band. It also turned out that they had some surplus recordings that they were looking for a home for, and in an instant this collection of Hedorah recordings was birthed, screaming and covered in black oil into this world.
Taking it's name from the aerial pollution god that faced off against Godzilla in the Japanese psychedelic kaiju classic Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971), Hedorah is fully documented on this sort-run disc that combines the track "From Beyond" from the split cassette with The Fortieth Day, "Planet Of Doom" from the Dr. Who Vs The Noise compilation, and five unreleased tracks. Hedorah proves to be a multi-tentacled beast: "Crystal Smoke" evokes a smog-ridden wasteland laced with acid-rock guitar soloing, pummeling industrial bass, and trance inducing beats, and ends up as some kind of grim krautrock jam. "Self Medicated" emits looping dialogue and whirring drones over monstrous throat chanting. "Hyperbolean" combines terrifying screams converted to echo-chamber hiss and overdriven, pummeling metal riffage thrust so far into the red that it sounds like there are flaps of speaker material smacking up against yer eardrums. The twenty-minute "Black Walls" is the apex of distortion though. That final track starts off as a sheet of obsidian ambience, a shimmering drone streaked by whirring noises, but then the riff appears, a massive three-chord doom dirge looming over the horizon, massively distorted and plodding, a hateful obelisk of fuzz lumbering through the increasingly violent blasts of feedback and distorted vocal noise that's shot across the soundfield. Ominous synth melodies and dank cave ambience appear later on, but become devoured by vicious feedback lashings a la Prurient and the return of that bottomless crushing doom dirge. Heavy is an understatement.
Packaged in our signature 3-panel Crucial Bliss glossy sleeve, which has been designed by Lord Keeler himself. The disc is attached to the inside of the jacket on a plastic hub, and there is also a small insert card included in the package. Released in an edition of 250 copies.
Click Here: HEDORAH Collection CDR for details and ordering information for this disc.
FISTULA Inverted Black Star and Lessons In Lamentation Crucial Bliss discs available now.
Every time I get something new from Fistula, by the time that I reach the end of the CD, or 7", or whatever, I make up my mind that there's no way that this band can get any goddamn heavier. This ongoing habit of laying down sonic ultimatums in my relationship to Fistula's music has been going on for what I guess has been seven years now, ever since I first picked up their Hymns Of Slumber CD on Shifty Records. Man, I felt like someone was stacking cinderblocks on my head the first time that I spun Hymns. And each subsequent release from the Ohio group (which over the years has oscillated between various permutations of the same lineup, always returning to the core of guitarist Corey Bing, bassist Bahb Branca, and guitarist Scott Stearns) just keeps cranking the frustrated, ultra-pissed-off negativism, mutant crossover thrash riffs, gooey doom tempos, feedback, narcotics, trailer park satanism and absolutely skull-splintering slow-motion mosh riffs even further. If you've never heard 'em, imagine an unholy union between Japanese doomlords Corrupted and the scathing thrash of The Accused colliding together into a mutant form of sludgy, thuggish doomthrash and left to stew in an oily vat of Gummo-esque atmosphere. God damn, I love Fistula.
But this, this is something different. Different at least from any of the other Fistula records. At some point last year, the members of Fistula met up with another Ohioan, Steve Makita from the midwest power-violence legends Apartment 213, midwest power-tool noise legends Lockweld, and current second throat for Agoraphobic Nosebleed. At some point, both of these parties decided that joining forces would be a good move and had Makita lug over his toolbox to the Fistula practice space and drag out some of his most lethal circuit-shredders, keyboards and power tools. The end result are two new discs, Lessons In Lamentation and Inverted Black Star, each one possessed by a single hour-plus track of Fistula with Steve Makita conjuring fucking HUGUNGOUS slabs of apocalyptic free-metal. And it's Fistula's most abstract, demonic music ever, a charred mess of harsh electronic skree and gut-rumbling noise and unholy doom metal.
Each of these two discs is available in an edition of 300 copies each, presented in the signature Crucial Bliss three-panel sleeve with artwork from Ralf Burkart, the disc itself attached to the sleeve on a plastic nub.
Click here: FISTULA Inverted Black Star for details and ordering information for this disc.
Click here: FISTULA Lessons In Lamentation for details and ordering information for this disc.
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WEBSTORE UPDATE: TUESDAY, MARCH 25TH 2008
Yeah, I know...we're running WAY LATE on bringing you a new update from Crucial Blast. It's been, what, close to a month and a half? Jeez. Things have been a little more nuts than usual here, with family emergencies, a massive swell in mailorders, and other stuff, and it's been taking even longer than usual to get this update together. On the other hand, we're getting much closer to launching the new, improved webstore which will (fingers crossed) be hopefully happening in the next few weeks, and it's going to be amazing once this thing goes live.
At the very least, we've got a ton of new stuff in this week's update. both brand new titles and older stuff plus some killer rarities that'll have some of you noise rockers stoked. And we've got a new album in from an Aidan Baker related project, this weeks featured release, the Arkhangelsk CD from ARC, the Toronto-based drone rock collective that Aidan plays in. Most of ya most likely know Aidan from his terrific solo albums and of course the mighty blissmetal duo NADJA, but he has been playing in Arc for years as well, and although this project might not be as well known by fans of his heavier output, Arc's dense droning percussion-heavy ambient rock is just as amazing as his other projects. This new album comes to us from the Czech-based avant metal label Epidemie, and it's the heaviest stuff that Arc has released yet.
Some of the other killer new titles that are listed in this weeks Crucial Blast update include the new, final self-titled album from Dystopia, a crushing full length album that sees the legendary Bay Area crust/grind band bowing out with some of their most lethal and crushing jams ever, available on both CD and on limited edition vinyl. There's a new CD from the other band that Nadja's Aidan Baker plays in, ARC, a heavy slab of drone rock and massive percussive overload. Power violence plunderphonics masters CROM make their return with their new album Hoit Sumerian Nights, and we also have an amazing new double-disc album of dark doom folk from The Elemental Chrysalis. Iron Lung serve up a crushing new platter of chaotic, complex hardcore grind on Sexless/No Sex, which features cover art from Nick Blinko. And we have the massive new album from OCRILIM, Mick Barr's (Orthrelm) pure guitar project, debuting on Hydra Head with Annwn, a seven part symphony of dissonant minimalist speed metal shred and Branca-esque guitar wall, as well as a brand new 3" CD of insane noisecore blasts and genre-hopping from Japan's FINAL EXIT.
There are a couple of new cassettes in stock this week, too, like the demo from the very weird, very heavy Australian doom metal band called A.D.P., a bunch of tapes from the Recycled Music Series on RRRecords from sludge-noisician Josh Lay, Australian harsh noise/thrash/cut-up artist Agit8, NY black noise terrorist AHLZAGAILZEHGUH, porno power electronics drum machine blasters Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck, Euro psychedelic noise duo ALVARS ORKESTER, and GRAVEYARD CROWS grim, trippy psychedelic tape murk.
We're also carrying most of the in-print discs from Realicide Youth now, the microlabel run by Robert Inhuman that has released a bunch of really furious gabba/digigrind/noise CDRs, including stuff from Robert's own group Realicide plus a neat disc of anarcho-cheerleader-deathmetal, a couple of solo discs of abstract gabber and weirder soundscapes from Robert, DJ Thumper's clandestine gabber remixes of top 40 pop tunes, and more, all packaged in hand assembled sleeves and with silkscreened/spraypainted discs. And alot of CDs and records have been reissued lately; we've got the new version of Bongzilla's singles collection, now titled Nuggets and featuring two new comp tracks of crushing pot-fueled sludgecore...a newish CD from noisecore legends Anal Cunt that collects a bunch of out of print EP and compilations tracks...and a new domestic reissue of the double-LP version of YEAR OF NO LIGHT's Nord and MONARCH's self titled double CD. Two new DVDs in stock: the awesome live document Live 1980-1981 from the legendary sludgepunk band Flipper, and the older Pikadourei DVD from Discordance Axis that we've finally managed to get a few copies of for any fans of DxAx's spastic art grind that haven't picked it up yet. Plus some rarities like the two albums from early 90's doom weirdos UPSIDEDOWN CROSS (including vinyl and tape formats!), the scum-sludge of KILSLUG's crucial LP, and a stash of the out of print NACHTMYSTIUM ep Euolgy IV!
Head over to the Crucial Blast Webstore to check out all of the new stuff.
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