TITLES: T

TAARMA Remnants Of A Tormenting Black Shadow CD $11.98 Suffering Jesus

Black metal has certainly become a universal language, especially in recent years-all kinds of variations on the black metal vibe have been popping up across the globe, often from some fairly unexpected places. Like Afghanistan, for example. Not the first place we'd think to look for the kind of damaged black metal that we go nuts for here at C-Blast. but that shows what we know. Taarma apparently is from Afghanistan, and like so many other strange BM entities, this is a total loner project, the product of Black Emperor Jogezai, one guy who happens to create an intensely forlorn and hopeless black fog that's almost too swollen with dread to escape. Xasthur has got to be a huge influence on Jogezai and Taarma, as the bleary, smeared waves of guitar that fluctuate and melt into indistinct blurs of blackened riffing, almost superfluous drum machines ticking away haphazardly in the background like an epileptic's death rattle, and beautifully depressing melodies all remind us alot of Malefic's twisted tomb ambience. The album ends with a cover of Xasthur's "Doomed By Howling Winds", as a matter of fact, so there's no question that Taarma is indebted to Xasthur's sound. But Jogezai's meandering, almost random song structures and dense walls of distortion produce a uniquely disorientating effect, like hearing the strangled wailings of someone on suicide watch through a thick wall of drugged delirium and distorted factory buzz, the indecipherable, heavily processed shrieks buried deep in the mix, the stumbling, woozy buzzing opening up every once in a while to reveal a painfully sad and beautiful guitar melody. Incredibly evocative lo-fi psychedelic blackness.

MP3 SAMPLE: "Apparition Of Misery " (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Beneath The Winter Moon " (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Bleeding In Utter Solitude And Loss " (excerpt)

TANTRUM The Frontier Bursts Into View LP $14.98 Radar Swarm

Radar Swarm does it yet again, this time with a ten song LP from epic French post-metalcore outfit TANTRUM, whose devestating, anthemic (and very melodic) churn possesses a post-rock sparsity that offsets/embellishes their convulsive and brutal lockstep riffage. Comparable to a more melodic,more epic and catchier version of KNUT, possibly. Again, very heavy, but shows way more hooks and atmospheric dynamics than we usually get from Euro metalcore. This slab was pressed in an edition of 500 on 190 gram vinyl, and we only have a couple in stock. Comes packaged in a super sweet full color gatefold that looks like something Aaron Turner at Hydra Head would have designed (it's actually from J-Michel Giminez), with nice spot varnish.

TARANTULA HAWK self titled CD $11.98 Life Is Abuse

Tarantula Hawk create heavy, metallic instrumental psychedelia with bombastic 70's style prog-rock keyboards. This debut release contains 6 songs that melt into one continuous epic track, total psychedelic death-prog, laced with samples of vehement insects and wretched machines. Reminiscent of the likes of GOBLIN, early PINK FLOYD, MAN IS THE BASTARD, and KING CRIMSON. Massive, epic, creepy. Features former members of The Locust and Struggle. Packaged with beautiful artwork by Kevin Ross. For fans of Magma, Thrones, Neurosis, The Champs, Ruins etc.

TARANTULA HAWK self titled #2 LP $12.98 Life Is Abuse

Stunning second incantation of psychedelic death-prog heaviness from San Diego's Tarantula Hawk, featuring former members of The Locust and Struggle. Confusingly self-titled (as was their debut), this gatefold LP deals in immense ritual drone prog that is way darker than their previous Life Is Abuse album, all instrumental, majestic and bass-heavy, with cosmic electronics and bombastic 70's prog-rock keyboards and intense drumming afloat in a sea of sinister gloomy murk, huge crushing metallic guitars sometimes rising to the surface, equal parts Neurosis-ian crust metal, Man Is The Bastard, Goblin, 20th century classical, Red-era King Crimson, and ELP. The final track is an extended half-hour epic, proceeding from a spacey keyboard intro to a slow, funereal guitar riff, then moving through a series of feverish, dramatic ups-and-downs before finally settling into an utterly eternal extended feedback drone lock-groove. Crucial.

TARRAKIAN The Swarm LP $13.98 No Options

Debut EP from the new San Francisco band Tarrakian, whose lineup features former members of heavy riff-hitters High Tone Son Of A Bitch, Totimoshi, Secret Order Of Tusk, Kalas, and Cruevo. As you might expect from that pedigree, Tarrakian do indeed push the heavy riffs, with a burly, infectious brand of 70's stoner rock-influenced crust punk, lots of hypnotic droning battleriffing and raging midtempo crush, and fronted by a girl named Jessi who belts out a tough as nails shout that makes The Swarm sound like the alcohol drenched offspring of High On Fire and Nausea that I've been waiting for all my life. Alot of the riffing and bluesy lead guitar playing is damn catchy, especially on the B-side which consists of an extended two-part jam, prog style, titled "Surman Suukun 1 & 2", which starts off sounding just like some demonic Runaways jam, all cowbells and pounding drumming, sickeningly catchy hooks and crushing fuzzbomb guitars. Awesome. But then close to halfway through the side, the band suddenly shifts gears and lurches into a punishing melancholy doom march, with a droning war riff as massive as anything from High On Fire's Matt Pike, and overlaid with a haunting melodic lead and somber worldless female vocals. Pretty damn awesome. This 3 song slab comes in at 20 minutes, but all three songs are killer. I've been spinning this all day, as a matter of fact. Awesome record sleeve too, with amazing paintings from Andrei Bozikov, which totally give this the look of some long-lost, obscure prog-psych-metal record from the early 1980's.

TASTE OF FEAR Discography 1991-2003 CD $11.98 Throne

Posthumous complete discography release from this NY crustmetal legend. Twisted and brutal grind mastery formed in the early 1990's by members of CITIZENS ARREST, ASSUCK, and BORN AGAINST, and was essentially a raging motor-grind version of Citizen's Arrest. Aargh! This record includes 3 brand new tracks recorded at the end of 2003, and these new tracks are PURE INSANITY, like an awesome mix of INFEST, old INTEGRITY, and ASSUCK, an awesome power-violence death assault !!!! Man, we really wish they could have stuck together and kept ripping out stuff like this, they would be a total killing machine! The production on these new songs is great,too, a big difference from the appropriately crusty production of their older recordings, which are all included here in the form of several unreleased tunes, some compilation tracks, plus all the stuff from the split 7" w/ EVOLVED TO OBLITERATION, the split 7" w/ Unholy Grave, the s/t CD, and the split 7" w/ Disrupt. 33 songs total. Booklet includes all lyrics, biography, discography and pictures. Recorded and mastered by Don Fury. CRUCIAL extreme hardcore/grindcore/death violence/speed mania !!!

TEEN CTHULHU Ride The Blade LP $13.98 Life Is Abuse
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE AT THIS TIME. PLEASE DO NOT ORDER.

We're huge fans of Seattle's sadly defunct Teen Cthulhu; their debut full length Ride The Blade is one of the most imaginative albums to appear out of the extreme hardcore scene in the past decade, mixing together elements of symphonic black metal with brutal fastcore, like Infest meets Cradle Of Filth, a grim, mystical assault of sludgy grindcore, arty sludge, and thick thrash augmented with bombastic black metal keyboards, choir chants, and dueling hardcore/black metal-esque vocals. So awesome! Everything about Ride The Blade rules, from their name (one of our fave band names of all time!) and the grim suicide art of their album sleeve, to the weird snippets of electronic noise and minimalist melodic piano that appear...a killer, ridiculously catchy black/grind/fastcore album that we continue to blast triumphantly years after it's release. Recommended!

TEETH OF LIONS RULE THE DIVINE Rampton CD $14.98 Southern Lord

Recently repressed and available again, this album from a couple of years ago features the ultimate doom/drone/sludge metal supergroup, including deathmarch drummer extraordinaire Justin Greaves (Iron Monkey), Greg Anderson (Goatsnake, Thorr's Hammer, Sunn O))), Engine Kid), Stephen O'Malley (Thorr's Hammer, Sunn O))), Khanate, Burning Witch, KTL, etc), and freaking LEE DORRIAN of Cathedral and Napalm Death fame on vocals...holy crap! And they deliver exactly the sort of mind-blowingly downtuned and doomed tar metal you'd be hoping for, three tracks of loud, super slow dirge that stretches out to almost an hour and sounds like it's being blasted out of gigantic blown speakers. The guitars on Rampton have one of the harshest, gnarliest tones on any doom/sludge metal release, a brutal midrange snarl that rips right thru you, the feedback riffs stretched out like smoked flesh over Greaves' violent slow motion pounding. Negative, hateful and trance inducing. "The Smiler" gives a nod in the direction of infamous funeral doomsters Thergothon who are hailed in the album's liner notes, "He Who Accepts All That Is Offered" is a nearly 30-minute construct of free flowing, earth shaking sludge, and they reconfigure Killdozer's "New Pants & Shirt" as a heavy-as-concrete deathdirge. Riffs will disappear completely at times into black clouds of fetid amplifier rumble and distant percussive thunder. The whole set was formed out of a stuporific jam session that took place in England, and Lee Dorrian's vocals were added in later on; the mixing was completed a couple months later by Billy Anderson. The off-the-cuff nature of the recordings give this a loose, improvised feel that actually makes Rampton sound even more monstrous. Seriously crushing and evil hypno-doom, sounding sort of like the heaviest Melvins jams mixed together with the deepest, most downtuned Earth rumble (they do take their name from the title of one of the songs off of Earth 2). Blackened and pulverizing low-end heaviness from the pits.

MP3 SAMPLE: "The Smiler" (excerpt)

TEKHTON Summon The Core CD $12.98 Church Within

Church Within is another new label that I just got hooked on - based out of Germany, the label only has a handful of releases out but all of them are stunning pieces of progressive doom/sludge, each with a unique take on slow n' low heaviness. The first disc we picked up from the stash of Church Within jams that we just got in this week is a brand new full length from the Dutch band Tekhton, Summon The Core. The band used to be called Lahar but found out that the name was already claimed by another band; they managed to change it to the superior Tekhton just in time to lay down the seven songs of monstrously beautiful, trance-inducing prog-doom on this album. The pace is slow, slow, slow, and Tekhton have clearly spent alot of time listening to classic doom metal like Cathedral, Saint Vitus. But they also incorporate cool dissonant chords and long, extended instrumental passages of pretty pastoral arpeggios and delicate melody, but where alot of bands that use quiet melodic parts to build up into loud, epic crescendos, Tekhton general use them wind down a song that started off crushing. Long drawn out droning riffs alternate with more traditional Sabbathian hooks and some angular twists and turns, and the vocals are a strained gruff roar that reminds me of someone but I can't put my finger on it. At various points Tekhton remind me of Melvins, Cathedral, and Mogwai, a combination of quiet dreamy instrumentals, lumbering intricate sludge rock and primordial doom, but they don't actually sound like any of 'em, instead coming out with a debut that stands as one of the more creative sludge/doom albums of '07. The package for Summon The Core stands out too, with a tasteful package design consisting of beautiful photos of seaside cliffs, minimally arranged. Recommended.

TEL AVIV AFTERMATH compilation CD $11.98 Topheth Prophet

Here's an extensive compilation showcasing the little known (but quite diverse) Tel Aviv avant/noise/experimental music scene. Some of the standouts on the album include the opening krautrock-ish arrangement by Grundik/Slava, the New Jerusalem Defense Forces' 'Make Law,' a malevolent burst of raw-nerve power electronics...Avant-garde bassist Igor Krutogolov's intense, frightening solo piece...Chaos as Shelter's excellent drone track using chimes and shortwave signals...and Vera Agnivolok's rendition of 'The Golden Skull', a ragged mix of stately chanting, piano accordion and other instruments. Most of the remainder of the album is made up of solid left-field electronica from Screening, Forma's robo-glitch (reminiscent of K.K. Null), HU's field-recording manipulation,and the swirling, Aphex Twin-esque dream-industrial of Vectorscope. The compilation closes with a lengthy improvisation by the Crossfishes, all stumbling rhythms, honking clarinets, and muted electronica that coalesces into a dark anti-war message.

TEMP SOUND SOLUTIONS I Yobot CD-R $4.98 MT6

Killer full length private-press disc released on Baltimore freak-scene imprint MT6 features this Bmore glitch/videogame/metal mutant hustling 8 blasts of original (mostly) instrumental tuneage that's sort of a weird but rocking fusion of Nintendo game music, Gameboy synth bleeps, ridiculous stadium hard rock guitar shred anthems, blasted glitchy electronics, awesome android funk, crunchy electronic noise, and bizarre spoken word passages. Sorta like The Fucking Champs doing videogame music. Obviously this has some similiarities to stuff like The Advantage and Minibosses, but folks into Genghis Tron's indie/blast/tronics would probably love this as well. Packaged in a minimal xeroxed hand assembled sleeve.

TENGORAK Konsentrasi Massa CD $10.98 Bloodbath

Indonesian grinders TENGKORAK deliver some of the best old school grindcore we've ever heard. Konsentrasi Massa delivers the groceries: sickening highspeed blastbeats, monstrous, and I mean MONSTROUS "rrrarrrgghh" ogre vocals, killer mid-tempo thrash breaks, and bonecrunching breakdowns. Highly recommended for fans of brutal, wicked grindcore. 26 tracks, including the tracks from the split 7" EP with CEREBRAL TURBULENCY.

10LEC6 Join Us! CD $9.98 Troubleman Unlimited

10LEC6 (pronounced "dis-lec-six") and their nocturnal Parisian disco punk first surfaced on a self-released 7" in 2005, which has been re-released on disc and 12" by Troubleman. Formed by a couple of French art school kids infatuated with post-punk and hardcore and the original drummer of Daft Punk, 10LEC6 use wiry bass guitar lines, martial drums, found sounds, and percussion to create their jumpy, hyper dance punk jams. I really dug the variety of percussive instruments used here, congos, bongos, shakers and more all rattling away, and the tribal rhythms that these instruments create sort of makes the band sound like a mutation of 1979 art punk a la Crass and Slits and anarchos DIRT mixed with Bow Wow Wow's bouncy new wave and shot through with brief blasts of primitive hardcore thrash. Plus, singer Emi's killer lead vocals eerily recall Eve Libertine of Crass, further turning this EP into a weird timewarp. Join Us! sports some fuckin' creepy artwork that recreates the original 7" layout. This CD re-issue is released as a limited edition of 1,000 copies.

10LEC6 Join Us! LP $9.98 Troubleman

The 12" vinyl version of Parisian dance-punkers debut EP.
10LEC6 (pronounced "dis-lec-six") and their nocturnal Parisian disco punk first surfaced on a self-released 7" in 2005, which has been re-released on disc and 12" by Troubleman. Formed by a couple of French art school kids infatuated with post-punk and hardcore and the original drummer of Daft Punk, 10LEC6 use wiry bass guitar lines, martial drums, found sounds, and percussion to create their jumpy, hyper dance punk jams. I really dug the variety of percussive instruments used here, congos, bongos, shakers and more all rattling away, and the tribal rhythms that these instruments create sort of makes the band sound like a mutation of 1979 art punk a la Crass and Slits and anarchos DIRT mixed with Bow Wow Wow's bouncy new wave and shot through with brief blasts of primitive hardcore thrash. Plus, singer Emi's killer lead vocals eerily recall Eve Libertine of Crass, further turning this EP into a weird timewarp. Join Us! sports some fuckin' creepy artwork that recreates the original 7" layout. This CD re-issue is released as a limited edition of 1,000 copies.

TERATISM Invocatum Furae Diabolis CD $9.98 ROAE

Opening with layered Gregorian chants and ogrish muttering, Invocatum Furae Diablois quickly launches into 8 tracks of raw and brutal American black metal with ferocious, scattershot drumming, cacophonous walls of buzzing melodic chainsaw guitars, epic melodies, and tortured orc vocals. Features members of ANAL BLAST. Also features a CD-ROM bonus track.

TERMINAL SOUND SYSTEM Compressor CD $14.98 Extreme

It's been awhile since we've heard anything from the Australian industro-doom duo Halo, as it has been a couple of years since their last album came out, but Halo bassist/vocalist Skye Klein has certainly been keeping busy in the interim with his own side project, Terminal Sound System. Under the guise of TSS, has warped and deformed the sounds of ambient dub on past releases issued through his own Embryo Recordings, but with this new album Compressor, Klein blasts some heavy radioactivity on the sounds of drum n' bass and comes out with a hypnotic series of complex, skittery rhythms and blasts of distortion that nods to the likes of Squarepusher and Autechre while infusing his own mutant heaviness and atmosphere. Released by Extreme, the same label that put out the infamous 50-disc Merzbox, Compressor features eight meticulously crafted tracks, none of which which run under 5 minutes, which allows Klein to spread out and turn each track into an eerie dystopian narrative that take their time to evolve. Swells of threatening, deep bass frequencies, clouds of dreamy jazz piano, and even the occasional distorted, metallic power chord rise up out of the buzzing bass drones and stuttering, skittery breakbeats and shuffling slowed-down bebop rhythms, reminding me of some of Justin Broadrick's more abstract rhythmic work, but also sounding like a crackling, brutal cyber-jazz-noir beamed in from some smokey lounge from Blade Runner.
MP3 SAMPLE: "Dustbox" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Ghost Summer" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Gridlike" (excerpt)

TERRY EARL TAYLOR Another Time CD $9.98 Dark Holler

Terry Earl Taylor plays a Fender Allegro five-string banjo in the two-finger picking style. He draws from the folksong traditions of the UK and Appalachia , and like all the great banjo songsters, he adds much of his own style to the music. A comparison might be Clive Palmer, or perhaps Dock Boggs if he was from Edwardian England. But really, Terry is his own man, playing his own music, timeless and original. "Another Time" is a collection of songs that range from originals, to the partly traditional (with additional lyrics by Terry), to the wholly traditional. This music resides in the lonely back roads, haunted dark hollers, and graveyards of the rural traditions that bore it.

TETSUO David Keenan Is My Dick CD-R $6.98 At War With False Noise

A spiked-glove slap in the mug to anyone looking for a beard-stroking noise experience, this cd-r single houses a single six and a half minute live discharge of beyond-low-fi, thoroughly unfriendly primal punk-improv snot from the Glasgow based duo Tetsuo, who apparently delight in seeding misinformation, worshipping Gerogerigegege, bashing the likes of Wolf Eyes and Whitehouse through their "At War With False Noise" campaign, and generally acting as disruptors in the underground noise movement. The group also take on the guise of a Japanese noise act through the mangled english on their MySpace page and in the text of the cd sleeve, making this even more fucked and disorientating. This recording is so low-fi and blown, the crumbling recording is barely able to contain the groups ecstatic scum wave of mongoloid singing and larynx bursting shrieks over corroded guitar racket and unintelligable drumming. Even the sound of audience applause at the end of the jam is so rotten that it's just another gob of caustic noise splatter. Think Hanatarash, think Gerogerigegege, think Destroy 2 and extreme noisecore and the junk noise of Crank Sturgeon, Noumena, and K2. Total skull burn! Packaged in B&W xerox wallet sleeve. B U R N !

TETSUO / BRONDIE Love For Debbie 3" CD-R $6.98 At War With False Noise
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE AT THIS TIME. PLEASE DO NOT ORDER.

The deeper we dig into this latest crate of audio skullfuck from At War With False Noise, the weirder it gets. Here's a tiny plastic DVD style case with an old live photo of Debbie Harry on the cover, and an, ahem, "provocative" photo of Ms. Harry on the back. It's a split 3" CD-R from Tetsuo and a band we've never heard of called Brondie, and it's titled "Love For Debbie". OK, so this has two bands paying tribute to that siren of 80's new wave, and who can blame 'em? Debbie Harry rules. Tetsuo's sole track "My Love For You Is Like A Claw!" is almost 10 minutes of deranged free-noise, spunkjazz drumming chaos, samples from old samurai movies, and debased improv grind layered together and recorded in a live setting. Crazed, shapeless percussive blast-slop...these two freaks are determined to corner the market on Nihilist Spasm Band-meets-7 Minutes Of Nausea style damage. Nice. After that it's three tracks from Brondie, a supposed Japanese Blondie tribute band, doing a couple of noisy covers. The label is saying that these Brondie tracks were recorded in a rehersal space in Kanazawa, Ishikawa in 2004, but we're pretty sure that someone's putting us on and that we're listening to old Blondie recordings being blasted through sheet of distortion and transistor radio fuzz. Still fun to listen to nonetheless. Limited run of 100 copies.

THERGOTHON Fhtagn-nagh Yog Sothoth CD $14.98 Eibon
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE AT THIS TIME. PLEASE DO NOT ORDER.

Recent re-issue of the 1991 demo from suicidal Doom pioneers Thergothon features some of the slowest, heaviest cosmic doom ever recorded. This remastered edition has all four songs from the original Fhtagn-nagh Yog Sothoth demo, with close to a half hour of long epic jams of distant, downtuned funereal riffs that have an eerie processed tone, over sluggish drumbeats soaked in reverb and ultra deep death growls. Washes of keyboards and organ add layers of droning ambience a la Skepticism, who were clearly influenced by Thergothon's sound. Everything has this weird watery tone to it that makes it sound like the band recorded these songs in a cavern somewhere in the wilds of Finland. Definitely depressing dirge metal, but also weirdly beautiful in it's desolate, Lovecraftian atmosphere. Along with Disembowelment, these guys were forerunners of this style, and anyone into totally bleak extreme doom like Esoteric, Skepticism, Shape Of Despair,etc., are going to require this. This edition comes in a standard jewel case package with new artwork and design.

THIRD DEGREE Outstay CD $11.98 Selfmadegod

Most brutal grindcore album of 2005? To our ears, hell yes! This thirteen song disc, the second full length from Polish grinders THIRD DEGREE, delivers awesome blasting (and ultraheavy) crusty grindcore with huge grooving metalcore breakdowns, supertight blastbeats and awesome maniacal blasts that sounds like the CD is skipping, and deep,monstrous vocals. But then the band breaks into these massive crushing sludge dirges with clean group chanting and growly singing (reminiscent of Justin Broadrick), huge epic droning metal powerchug sort of like Isis' or Neurosis, with gigantic, locked groove atonal earthquake riffs a la Godflesh, that fucking CRUSHES us. Plus there's weird guitar harmonics, punky brutal crustcore D-Beat assaults that remind us of Disassociate....this album is so brutal, and economical (at just over 35 minutes long), it hammers you with devestating riff after devestating riff, no filler. An awesome combination of brutal Napalm Death/Disassociate/Misery Index style grindcore and dirgy,punishing Isis/Godflesh/Neurosis-esque post-metal. Total precision aural carnage!

THORRS HAMMER Dommedagsnatt CD $14.98 Southern Lord

The first ever release on Southern Lord, Dommedagsnatt originally came out in 1996 as a cassette on Moribund Records, then in 1998 as a three-song EP from the short-lived Thorr's Hammer, went out of print for a couple of years, and was finally resurrected as this reissue edition with an additional live track and a live video of the band's first ever live performance. With all of their recorded material captured in 1995, Thorr's Hammer was notable not only for featuring a pre-Sunn O))) Greg Anderson andd Stephen O'Malley playing alongside Burning Witch drummer Jamie Sykes and bassist James Hale, but also for the beautiful young vocalist Runhild Gammelsaeter. A 17 year old Norwegian exchange student, Gammelsaeter delivered some insanely harsh and gutteral vocals for Thorr's Hammer that you'll have a hard time believing came out of the throat of a teenage girl, for real. Still knocks me out whenever I listen to these songs; just check it when Runhild kicks in with a total Tom Warrior style 'ugh' deathgrunt at the beginning of 'Norge'. Brutal! Thorr's Hammer recorded three studio songs of crushing, monstrous, monolithic death sludge: the opner 'Norge' starts off with Runhild droning clean, melodic chants like a dreamworld tundra maiden over the quieter subdued passages, then shifting into her ferocious, demonic death belch when the band fully kicks in with the massive slow magma riffs. 'Troll' and 'Dommedagsnatt' are equally grinding slowmo assaults of cinder block sludge riffs and somber droning amp-murk in the spirit of Winter, Thergothon, and Disembowelment, and are followed by the live track 'Mollom Galgene', a 12-minute slog through creeping, blackened Sabbathian dirge. The sound is kinda fuzzy for that live recording but it still sounds crushing. It all adds up to just over 30 minutes of awesomely brutal crusty doom, heavy on the drone and reverberating speaker cones, their rumbling shadow rendered even more unearthly through Runhild's Norwegian poetry (all of which is included in the CD's cool 6-panel booklet, printed in silver inks over migh contrast black and white images). The 34 minute MPEG video of the band's debut live performance that is included on this disc is unsurprisingly raw and crude, shot on a standard issue video camera, but as someone who never would have had a chance to see Thorr's Hammer live during their brief flash of an existence, I'm not complaining! It's certainly watchable, and pretty amazing to actually see this slender, blonde Scandinavian girl belting out those amazingly horrific vocals. Thorr's Hammer bit the dust after Runhild went back to Oslo, and Dommedagsnatt is the sole document of this outfit's existence, pretty crucial stuff for extreme doom fans that are into the Southern Lord tree of tarpit metal (Sunn O))), Goatsnake, Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine, Khanate, Burning Witch, etc).

THRALLDOM A Shaman Steering The Vessel Of Vastness CD $14.98 Profound Lore

The third and final album from arcane avant-black metallists Thralldom closes one of the most ambitious chapters in the US avant-metal underground. Over the course of their recorded works, Thralldom have ambitiously molten down the basic black metal template and reforged the sound into something intertwined with improvisational aesthetics and essentially indefinable. A Shaman Steering The Vessel Of Vastness is a descent into heavy, abstract sound designs drawn from treated samples and grinding industrial loops, trance inducing passages of repetitive blown-out black metal, subterranean drone, and dense psychedelic doom/dirge. Thralldom's ranks include members of Unearthly Trance, and the same misanthropic, occult intelligence that fuels that group is in full force here. This album has drawn comparisons to a cross between Darkthrone and Swans Great Annihilator, which on a conceptual level at least is pretty accurate. Fans of the blackened strangeness of USBM hordes Leviathan and Xasthur should definitely check this out. Packaged in a striking gatefold digisleeve with metallic silver ink and complete lyrics printed within.

324 Across The Black Wings CD $11.98 HGFact

This is a recent 3-song EP disc from Japan's finest executors of TERRORIZER/NAUSEA -influenced grindcore thrash, manned by former members of MELT BANANA, CROW, and a host of other Japanese thrash faves. These tunes are freaking FAST but shift away from the ultragrind DISCORDANCE AXIS worship of their previous releases...on this EP, 324 incorporates some heavy fucking crustcore velocity with cool melodic undertones (sort of like TRAGEDY), while still launching into those insane grindcore blasts. One of the best Japanese grind acts out there.

324 Boutoku No Taiyo LP $9.98 HG Fact

We picked up a stack of the hard-to-find HG Fact release of 324's Boutoku No Taiyo LP direct from the band's Japanese label, HG Fact at a really cheap price; what we weren't aware of though was that these records all suffer from varying degrees of shelf wear, which we want to make very clear to anyone thinking about picking up this record. The vinyl is all in mint, unplayed condition, but the jackets for these records all have a visible amount of wear along the top half of the cover - not so bad that the artwork is messed up or anything, but enough is there that the jackets are basically "used" quality. That said, this is a crucial dose of crushing, vaguely arty Japanese grindcore, and we're offering these up SUPER CHEAP...we've only got 20 copies of the vinyl and will not be getting these back in stock!
The crucial 2000 mini-album from one of Japan's heaviest grindcore trios. Featuring former members of Melt Banana, Satanic Hell Slaughter, and Crow, 324 dropped this 14 song, 24 minute blast of primal blast energy at the turn of the century, and it remains one of the band's most crushing statements...noisy, controlled, HEAVY grindcore with an early Napalm Death/Earache Records vibe, ferocious and punk as fuck while having these really developed lyrical and thematic ideas happening alongside some amazing hooks and inventive riffing. Every song here is a skullcrusher, blasting out ultra catchy downtuned riffs over D-beat drumming and whirlwind blastbeats, deep, monstrous vocals, grooving sludgy breaks, and a general apocalyptic vibe, like a Japanese answer to the crusty grind of Terrorizer and Disassociate. There aren't that many bands that manage to be this artful and unrelentingly brutal and catchy at the same time, and it's not that surprising that Discordance Axis were BIG advocates for these guys while they were still around, going so far as to release this slab of grind genius on vinyl in the US via DA singer Jon Chang's Studio Grey imprint, and tour with 324 in Japan. Definitely something you should check out if you're into the more cerebral grind of bands like Pig Destroyer, Discordance Axis, Napalm Death, and Disassociate.

324 Rebelgrind CD $16.98 HGFact

324: our favorite Japanese grind band going right now, with their noisy, apocalyptic rush of metallic, ultraheavy grindpunk and dark vibes. Seriously awesome heaviness that's just as great as Napalm Death's best, and easily the most ferocious grind band to emerge from Japan since Die! You Bastard. Rebelgrind is the second full length from these Tokyo denizens after 10 years of crushing heads, and it delivers everything these cats excel at, moving between endtime hardcore that reminds us of Integrity and Tragedy, brutal and raw grind straight outta the Earache school of blast-thought, anthemic rock riffs transmitted at bone powdering density, and immense throat destruction that serves as a megaphone of nihilistic visions. Quality. 14 songs in half an hour. Dressed in weirdly esoteric artwork. Pretty crucial for fans of Napalm Death, Disassociate, Discordance Axis, Pig Destroyer, and any insane fast and crushing heaviness!

3EEM Essence Of 3EEM CD $9.98 Small Voices

More unique, electronic/post-rock/avant pop from our current favorite Italian label, Small Voices. This debut full length from Italian trio 3EEM (comprised of saxophonist Fabrizio Bazzoni, guitarist Danilo Corgnati, and electronics tweaker Valerio Zucca Paul (aka Abstract Q) combines infectious avant-dub, spacey trip-hop beats, airy guitar drones a la Labradford , and circular krautrock with alternating melodic tenor sax lines and manic, nervous free blowing. The end result is totally hypnotic, like bits and pieces of a 60's spy film on endless repeat mashed up with electronic noise and static white-outs, trumpet solos, and Middle Eastern melodies. Pretty killer stuff, especially the album closer, "24 Apes", which clocks in at 24 minutes of loopy, jazzy, noisy bliss, like Fennesz and Scorn jamming with Massive Attack and Mogwai. An excellent hybrid of avant-jazz and post rock.

THRONE OF KATARSIS Unholy Holocaust Winds CD $12.98 Paradigms
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE AT THIS TIME. PLEASE DO NOT ORDER.

Here's another Paradigms release of obscure sonics, this time from the Norwegian black metal duo Throne Of Katarsis. These forest frostlords unleash 3 tracks of blazing Scandinavian filth recorded to 4-track, a lo-fi assault of buzzing, fuzzy droning blast that elicits legends like Emperor and Mayhem while infecting Unholy Holocaust Winds with unexpected cheery church organs, baroque acoustic guitar textures that suddenly appears at the front of the mix while the band blasts away at a lethal buzzsaw riff, and waltzy psych-doom weirdness akin to something from Xasthur or Leviathan. The shifts between druggy, damaged black metal psych-stumble, Burzum-ish buried melodies, and the more straightforward Norwegian black metal explosions make this a killer (albeit short at right around 25 minutes in length) dose of bizarre BM, capped off with a field recording of Norway's Liarlund Forest at night, with footsteps crunching through deep snow surrounded by distant bird sounds and icy winds blanketed with eerie synthesizer murmer and incomprehensible devilish mumble. Esoteric and ferocious. Limited to 750 copies and presented in a sealed, hand-stamped brown paper sleeve.

THRONES Day Late, Dollar Short CD $14.98 Southern Lord

Here it is! The highly aniticpated new release from robo-doom/earthquake pop/mutant sludge master THRONES !! Well, not exactly new, as Day Late, Dollar Short is an anthology of out-of-print,rare songs dating back to 1994. But it has been five years since the awesome Sperm Whale album came out, and we have been starving for more THRONES stuff. Plus, much of the stuff on this CD is unreleased. THRONES is, of course, the mighty Joe Preston, currently of High On Fire, and boasting a sub-harmonic pedigree- having done time in Earth, Melvins, and Sunn O))). Rubbery bass riffage, stuttering robotic beats, catchy demented indie pop, noise whiteouts, floor-caving subterranean dirge...THRONES rule! And here we are treated to 19 tracks taken from 7"s, cassettes, compilations, and collaborations with other bands, including the awesome RUSH and BLUE OYSTER CULT covers that first turned us onto THRONES, and 4 unreleased tracks. The packaging on this is gorgeous, designed by Stephen O'Malley, and is covered in bunnies! One of Crucial Blast's favorite bands EVER, and thus very highly recommended.

THRONES Day Late, Dollar Short 2XLP $18.98 Southern Lord

Gorgeous gatefold vinyl double LP version of Throne's Day Late, Dollar Short, one black slab, the other pink, limited edition!
Here it is! The highly aniticpated new release from robo-doom/earthquake pop/mutant sludge master THRONES !! Well, not exactly new, as Day Late, Dollar Short is an anthology of out-of-print,rare songs dating back to 1994. But it has been five years since the awesome Sperm Whale album came out, and we have been starving for more THRONES stuff. Plus, much of the stuff on this CD is unreleased. THRONES is, of course, the mighty Joe Preston, currently of High On Fire, and boasting a sub-harmonic pedigree- having done time in Earth, Melvins, and Sunn O))). Rubbery bass riffage, stuttering robotic beats, catchy demented indie pop, noise whiteouts, floor-caving subterranean dirge...THRONES rule! And here we are treated to 19 tracks taken from 7"s, cassettes, compilations, and collaborations with other bands, including the awesome RUSH and BLUE OYSTER CULT covers that first turned us onto THRONES, and 4 unreleased tracks. The packaging on this is gorgeous, designed by Stephen O'Malley, and is covered in bunnies! One of Crucial Blast's favorite bands EVER, and thus very highly recommended.

TIDES From Silence CD $11.98 Teenage Disco Bloodbath

We freaking loved Resurface, the 2005 debut full length from Tides, a young upstate NY band specializing in heavy-but-elegant instrumental metallic post-rock, majestic and droning and heavy, moving from pretty, jangly melodies to crushing heaviness to spacey softness, a great debut that sat nicely between Pelican and Explosions In The Sky and Mono. From Silence is the newest installment of instru-might from these guys, following some slight lineup and geographic shifts. This disc houses three songs at twenty minutes in length, and is more layered and feels a bit darker than the last one. Spacier and more brooding, really, with the detuned guitars churning around sad, shoegazey tunes, channelling Radiohead and Mono and sublime metallic crunch. A great follow up to Resurface and a solid dose of Tides until they concoct another full length for us!

TIDES Resurface CD $13.98 Teenage Disco Bloodbath

This young upstate NY band brings heavy, elegant post-rock along the lines of Pelican, Conifer, and Red Sparowes. Droning, instrumental and dramatic. Majestic jangling indie-rock melodies build into fuzzed-out, crushing metallic monsters, huge beautiful dirges that give way to dreamy space rock, propulsive and slow building. Awesome stuff, highly recommended to fans of Isis, Old Man Gloom, Neurosis, Circle, and everything post-metal .

TIGROVA MAST Tigrova Mast CD $11.98 R.A.I.G.

More frenzied prog-core from R.A.I.G., this time in the form of a powerful debut album from the Croation trio Tigrova Mast, who enigmatically call their sound "Sufi trance punk". One of their members, Niko, is also a member of another R.A.I.G. affiliated band, the psychedelic hard rock outfit Seven That Spells; although Tigrova Mast's music is definitely psychedelic, this stuff is way heavier, and way more warped and chaotic. First, though, the album artwork: the disc comes in another one of those neato gatefold cases with a disc-hub on the interior panel, just like the recent U.S. Christmas and I Am Above On The Left CDs on R.A.I.G. Very cool, I love this kind of digisleeve package. The album art though is completely fucked up, a mural of crudely drawn skeletons and cave-wall pictograms colliding with some sorta disturbing erotically graphic images that are just weird. My Croatian is rusty so I'm not sure how the song titles translate, but the weirdness certainly continues with the half-hour of music on Tigrova Mast; the trio use a lineup of bass, drums, and microkork to create short, furious fast-paced instrumental pieces that crackle with raw electricity. The bassist thrashes out wiry basslines, sometimes kicking in the distortion to create crushing chords, and wraps it all around the awesomely complex drumming that locks into repetitive, trance inducing grooves. The microkorg is pretty much the lead instrument here though, unleashing frenetic calliope-core synth leads and futuristic klezmer shredding over the rhythm sections dense, muscular progpunk attack. This is pretty blistering shit throughout most of the album's 18 songs, which end of evoking something similiar to a thrashpunk incarnation of Ruins gone gypsy spacerock. Huh? The Ruins connection doesn't stop there, either...Ruins drummer Tatsuya Yoshida was actually enlisted by these guys to master this album. Tigrova Mast also inject bits and pieces of various styles of music into their songs, everything from pop-punk, Eastern European folk melodies, and disco are combined with their hardcore thrash/prog rock fury. As crazed and technical as this debut gets though, Tigrova Mast know how to anchor their tunes with some great hooks, and this is alot catchier than you might expect. It's hard not to love R.A.I.G. when they keep supplying me with killer stuff like this.
In addition to the full album of music on this disc, there's also a DivX file contained on the disc that has a 36 minute live set from Tigrova Mast recorded using pro sound and multiple camera angles. That footage is pretty rad, with a shirtless Niko thrashing out on the microkorg while sitting on a barstool while the bassist and drummer blast away at the dizzying gypsy thrashprog tuneage; visual proof that these guys are indeed freaking tight. Limited edition of 500. Highly recommended!

TIME OF ORCHIDS Early As Seen In Pace CD $9.98 Epicene Sound System

TIME OF ORCHIDS maintain a strong pop sensibility while totally traveling within the spectrum of abstract, "out music". This follow up to their two self-released full lengths Melonwhisper and Much Too Much Fun features 4 songs, 40 minutes+ of schizophrenic (yet surprisingly cohesive) prog pop meets metal weirdness and jangly indie-rock screamathons that twist and turn throughout the course of their songs. Like a fucked up version of the TALKING HEADS with MR. BUNGLE songwriting sensibilities...sorta. Incredibly catchy, yet challenging. Some of the best avant-pop I’ve ever heard , really, and I can’t recommend this enough to anyone into outsider music that still retains a pure pop center. Immaculate production, too.

TIME OF ORCHIDS Much Too Much Fun CD $14.98

We now have some of the final copies available of Time Of Orchid's mindblowing 2003 album Much Too Much Fun, the second full length from the New York quartet. It's just as dreamy sounding and confoundingly complex as it was when it first came out, with chirping, abstract guitar skronk, crazed slap=bass action, lush male and female vocals, droning dark synthesizers, and confusing time signatures. Those female vocals actually appear courtesy of Kate Pierson from the B-52's, who sings on four of the album's nine songs. How in the hell did they hook up with her? What's even weirder is hearing Kate Pierson's voice amidst this surreal, often quite atonal and dissonant heavy prog/jazz/improv/ambience/indie rock feverdream. Time Of Orchids have been closely aligned with Infidel?/castro!, and they sure share alot of the same tendencies towards absurd, uber-confusional prog, but Time Of Orchids also have a way of veering suddenly into an amazing pop hook or beautiful ambient blissout that can take yer breath away every time you listen to 'em, and they use those more easily digestible pop parts to great effect on Much Too Much Fun. Parts of this album might remind you of Mr. Bungle, especially when they launch into super intricate funk/prog rock jams like "Gone Fishin'" or the slap-bass mayhem of "You Danced" (the latter of which actually sounds like Primus backed by a carnival organist), but they also dive in and out of long stretchs of textured abstract ambience and angular orchestration that feels more like Kayo Dot than anything else. Definitely an album you need to immerse yourself in several times to really grasp everything that's going on.

TIME TO BURN Starting Point CD $11.98 Basement Apes Industries

Seven song disc of apocalyptic, introspective French post-metalcore from Time To Burn, churning out a super heavy combination of chaotic post-hardcore, Temporary Residence-style cinematic post-rock (Mono, Explosions In The SKy, etc.), and crushing metallic dirge with monstrous death metal vocals. Yep, there's definitely nods to Neurosis with Starting Point's epic metallic dirge, and the band is clearly situated alongside the likes of Knut, Isis, Breach, and Cult Of Luna, but they bring their own particular brand of menace to these songs. Godflesh-esque rhythms grind away beaneath huge mathy riffage and splattered, evil vocals that have been processed into hellish tortured shrieks, and superb post-rocky melodies simmer beneath crashing waves of metallic heaviness. Time To Burn also incorporate math rock, massive eruptions of melodic chaos similiar to Envy, and totally doomed sludge into their immense crush. Excellent. CD is packaged in a gatefold digipack.

TIMOTHY, REVELATOR Lost Gospel Music Volume One: Beneath the Bleeding Moon CD-R $9.98 Dark Holler

"Beneath the Bleeding Moon," the first volume in Timothy's "Lost Gospel Music" series was recorded at Unreal House, direct to tape (yes, analog) over the course of a few nights in September 2004. With the exception of some overdubbed bowed-dulcimer on two tracks, all songs were recorded live with vocals and ent-banjo, an instrument of Timothy's design. Here are moon-songs to God and the green wood, and secret songs to night angels - drawing influences from east (Ostad Elahi, Abdelah Ghania) and west (Buell Kazee, Derroll Adams), Timothy blends the Middle Eastern/African roots of the banjo easily with its American descendant. Improvisation is blended with structured songs. Timothy's music is blended with Richard Crashaw's words (Crashaw was a Catholic metaphysical poet, 1613-1649, 4 of his poems are set to music on this release). The end result of these mixtures is "Beneath the Bleeding Moon," an album unique in both concept and sound.

TJOLGTJAR Five Tjolgtjarian Keys CD $11.98 Suffering Jesus

A couple of weeks ago, we were buggin'over the inter-dimensional, classic rock-tinged black metal of one-man band Tjolgtjar (pronounced "Toll-Tar") and his latest full length The Tjolgtjarian Mass on Baphomet. That disc unleashed a savage, thrashy, ultra lo-fi BM assault with over-the-top croaking vocals, weird keyboard effects, bizarre stumbling riffs, primitive hard rock drumming and sloppy blastbeats, and awesome, what-the-fuck blasts of LSD-soaked 70's hard rock guitar solos and detours into classic acoustic country rock instrumentals. In addition, Tjolgtjar's psychedelic Midwestern black metal is entrenched in a weird occult religion that was created by the man behind Tjolgtjar, Reverend JR Preston, which finds him writing lyrics and song titles in the made-up language of an ancient race of creatures called, you guessed it, the Tjolgtjarians. Utterly weird and quasi-conceptual sci-fi/satanic/drug feast action. We've been jamming that album non-stop, and it seems like the Tjolgtjar cult continues to grow; there is word of more new albums to be released on Baphomet Records, and now we have what will hopefully be an ongoing series of CDs on the Suffering Jesus label that documents Tjolgtjar's various demo/tape releases, starting with Five Tjolgtjarian Keys.
Released in a single edition of 1,000, this disc collects 2003's Five Tjolgtjarian Keys and The Gate to Vruguun demo, 2002's Nuun Raagunn Skuulkuun. and a cover of "Devil Take Me", a song by an imaginary band called Moloch that was on an episode of the old TV series CHiPs. What the fuck? These older recordings don't have quite as much of the demented casio action that possessed The Tjolgtjarian Mass, but it's still an utterly awesome, ratty, totally lo-fi and blown-out mash of garage black metal, acid-guzzling 70's psychedelia, killer classic 80's metal riffs, and primo 70's hard rock riffage, with the Rev trading off between his gnarly quacking rasp and grapefruit-clutching, King Diamond-esque wailing. Far-out, fucked up, and amazingly catchy blackened outsider thrash.

TJOLGTJAR Halloween CD $11.98 Illinoisian Thunder

Extreme music isn't a stranger to the film score for John Carpenter's horror classic Halloween; the moody music score and iconic main theme are instantly identifiable to all of us that grew up in between the shelves of the horror section at the Mom-n-Pop video outlets in the 1980's, and there are few other film themes that are as dread-inducing as Carpenter's original score. From the the early 1980's through to the present, all kinds of dark, heavy outfits have either appropriated or straight-up covered the main theme from the film; Buckethead, Finnish black meddlers Förgjord, Nightmare Lodge, King Diamond, Wehrmacht, and Secret Chiefs 3 have all taken a stab. But nobody has taken it to the limit like Midwestern Black Metal unit Tjolgtjar, though. The recently issued Halloween CD is a full-on quasi-concept album about the HalloweenFive Tjolgtjarian Keys and Tjolgtjarian Mass discs that came out last year, both crazed inter-dimensional blasts of raw, skuzzy basement black metal laced with these awesome 70's classic rock solos n' riffs, and gobs of fucked up, FX-damaged sonics. With Halloween, Tjolgtjar gives us another lick of the blotter, opening with the immortal main theme (here titled "Night Of The Living Dead") and translating it into a fuzzy blast of tinny distorted guitars and stumbling garage blackness and buzzing 5/4 shamble, still as creepy as ever, but with rumbling double bass drumming and swirling Casios buried down in the mix. "Judith Myers" takes another motif from the score and weaves it around a dissonant black dirge of droning riffs, sickly atonal melodies, and awesome sloppy blastbeats. Tjolgtjar mastermind and singer The Rev busts out his fucked-up blackened quack for a bunch of the songs, but there's also alot of purely instrumental stuff on here too, including a great piece of psychedelic tape sludge and sample looping called "The Blackest Eyes", and the Goblin-esque synthesizer interlude "The Myers House". That awesome classic rock/70's rock riffage shows up towards the end in "The Haddonfield Babysitter Murders", which as always creates some killer temporal dissonance when those Molly Hatchet licks first kick in. And there's an unlisted "hidden" track, a crazed, carnival black metal version of the "Silver Shamrock" song from Halloween III: Season Of The Witch. Awesome !!

TJOLGTJAR Holnijimnjok CD $11.98 Red Stream

We've had a total Tjogtjar infestation lately - not only has Suffering Jesus issued the killer Midnight Mindtrip CD which collects two demo tapes together, but we've got a BRAND NEW full length from the Illinois acid cult that just came out through Baphomet/Red Stream. I've been ranting about Tjogtjar for awhile now, the one-man band of The Reverand J.R. Preston, an eccentric figure involved with the Illinoisian Thunder label as well as Midwestern freakthrashers Blood Cult and necro-nintendo black metal generator Xexyz. Tjogtjar is the Rev's main band though, and it's black metal, but a mutant version of black metal that's been beamed back into the 70's and fed a steady diet of Ted Nugent records and obscure private press psych sides. With Holnijimnjok, Tjogtjar is catchier than ever, but the album also has the "cleanest" recording of any Tjogtjar disc I've got; it's still low-fi, but it sounds like The Rev may have gone into an actual studio this time. Normally, I'd be worried when a band like Tjogtjar cleans their sound up - part of the fucked-up appeal of his psychedelic FX-overloaded soloing, classic hard rock riffs and messed up arrangements is the noisy abandon that the music is delivered in. But thankfully Holnijimnjok is still raw enough. You get nine tracks on this new album, they're all great, catchier than ever, a trippy mix of Venom, Ted Nugent, and Mercyful Fate. The last track is, as far as I can tell, the entire 2001 First Ritual demo stuck on as a single track. And that stuff is really fucked, starting with a glutinous intro of backwards babble and gunky psych-noise and then becoming a noxious blast of super-low-fo black metal with a waaaay over-the-top vocal performance from The Rev's that slays.
MP3 SAMPLE: "Cold Bones Rattle Over Graves" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Tjolgt Invocation" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Tjolgtjarium Eust Waanuuj Uus Ikarik" (excerpt)

TJOLGTJAR Midnight Mindtrip CD $11.98 Suffering Jesus

Not one, but TWO new Tjolgtjar discs in this week! What the hell? Well, I can never get enough of Tjolgtjar, so it's a no brainer that these new albums and demo collections have been dominating my stereo lately. If you haven't already read my ranting about that bizarre midtwestern one-man acid cult headed by The Reverend JR Preston on past updates, Tjolgtjar combines gnarly 70's hard rock and skuzzy basement black metal into some of the weirdest, wildest BM filth ever, psychedelic and ultra-raw, but also really, REALLY catchy. The Rev has been around in the scum-metal underground for ages, in the past playing with the blacknoise beast Enbilulugugal, cornfed horror thrashers Blood Cult, and the necro-nintendo BM of Xexyz, among many others, but as far as I'm concerned, Tjolgtjar is the guy's crowning achievement. Ripping acid rock solos and dingy 70's riffs are fed into a black maw of raw black metal, like Ted Nugent and Venom and Mercyful Fate run through a bunch of blown out amplifiers and ripped speakers, and splattered with serendipitous recording fuckups, video game noises, prehistoric casio keyboards, and awesome guitar leads dripping with wah and phaser effects. Suffering Jesus continues to document Tjolgtjar's rare demo recording, and Midnight Mindtrip is the second in their series of demo collections (the first being last years Five Tjolgtjarian Keys disc), gathering together pretty much everything from the 2004 demos Dark Tjolg Mindtrip and Midnight on Witches Sabbat. Essential for the Midnight... tracks, which is some of the band's best stuff ever - worth it alone for "Creepshow", which pays homage to the classic George Romero/Stephen King anthology from the 80's via a sickeningly groovy necro-psych jam that ranks as one of the best goddamn Tjolgtjar songs ever. Released in a limited edition of 1000 copies.
MP3 SAMPLE: "Creepshow" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Dark Tjolg Mindtrip" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "I AM The Ruler Of The Earth" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Voyage Of Satans Elves" (excerpt)

TJOLGTJAR The Tjolgtjarian Mass CD $11.98 Baphomet

Pronounced "Toll-Tarr", TJOLGTJAR's gloriously weird one-man basement black metal is the creation of The Reverend, an old school metalhead from the bowels of Illinois who has created his own transcendental cult called "Tjolgtjar". We haven't been able to dig up anything that sheds any real light on what the fictional "Tjolgtjar" is supposed to be about, other than that The Reverend states that he channels entities called "The Spirits" to enter a trance state by which which the utterly baffling psychedelic black metal of TJOLGTJAR is formed. Since 1996, The Rev has been recording and releasing tons of demos under the TJOLGTJAR name, with The Tjolgtjarian Mass being the first official CD release. And it's some seriously fucked up, mind bending stuff, believe me. At it's core, TJOLGTJAR unleashes a savage, mega lo-fi BM assault with killer thrashy riffs with ridiculously croaked over the top vocals that come close to sounding like a satanic Donald Duck at times, and all kinds of weird effects on the vocals and guitars. The demented production has the vocals and guitars pushed way to the front, really loud and in your face, while the hissing, sloppy drumming tumbles around in the background with lots of weird electronic keyboard noises. Definitely great, ripping, stumbling black metal weirdness that has some exquisitely cheapo, random Burzumic casio action happening. But then The Reverend adds a million confounding what-the-fuck moments to the mix that thrust this album even further into total outsider genius, ranging from sudden blasts of acid-trip classic rock lead guitar that come screaming in over the blackthrash attack, to the jarring appearance of the 70's style acoustic country rock instrumental "Acts Of Communion". Then there's the amazingly bonkers Neil Young-gone-blackened filth-psych of "Curse Upon Our Enemies", and the numerous cheery casio parts that appear all over the album. The whole thing possesses the same sort of freak scene vibe that late 90's vomit like ENBILULUGUGAL, BLACK MASS OF ABSU, and HAVOHEJ had, but filtered through a collection of classic rock and heavy metal albums that goes back to 1968 and performed as a sort of black metal theatre while devouring entire sheets of acid.

TOADLIQUOR The Hortator's Lament CD $14.98 Southern Lord

Extreme sludge fans: this is essential. The Hortator's Lament collects pretty much everything put to tape by this crucial 90's outfit. These guys were masters of freaking punishing and epic gooey heaviness, equal parts Eyehategod and Melvins, Grief and Negative Reaction, early Swans and US crustcore, just as strongly tapped into the hardcore and crust artery as they were to the burgeoning extreme doom/sludge scene. Filthy, diseased streams of feedback spurt from monstrous SLOOOW sludge riffs. The vocals are truly anguished and fucked. Tunes are as likely to end in freeform noise as they are with riff sacrifice. This disc gathers up the vinyl-only tracks from 1993-1998, all of which are long outta print, including Toadliqour's star-crushing adaptation of "Also Sprach Zarathustra". An ugly, pounding, monstrosity whose black maw occasionally reveals moments of melody and epic beauty before drowning once again in pure pitch-black psychedelic mud violence. The last track, "The Hortator's Lament", begins to touch on a weird jazz-doom malevolence, with distant creaking and odd vocals and blasts of free jazz horns and walking basslines. Killer. Artwork by Stephen O'Malley of Khanate and Sunn O))). With songs called "Gnaw", "Charred", and "Tatterdemalion: The Gladiators Debasement Before Cain", how can you go wrong. Highest recommendation to fans of slow/low weird filth.

TODD self-titled CD $13.98 Bulb

It's little surprise that one of the best noise rock outfits in action right now is fronted by a member of Am Rep's old guard; specifically speaking, we talking about Craig Clouse, who did time with Am Rep sludge rockers Hammerhead, giving the dude instant cred. After the breakup of Hammerhead, Clouse reloacted to the UK and formed Todd with his wife, keyboardist/vocalist Fifi Cernosek, carrying on the heavy noise rock tradition but piling on TONS of distortion, fucked up casio keyboards, super catchy hooks, and a syrupy, sludgy heaviness that you would more likely expect from swamp metallers like Eyehategod and Buzzoven. It seems like Todd has been getting alot of attention lately, with recent appearances at All Tomorrow's Parties and SXSW, which is defintiely a good thing...and their last album Comes To Your House was pretty much hailed as an instant noise-rock classic. We don't have that one in stock yet, but I did just happen across this early album from Todd, a strange release which I think was their 1st EP, but which isn't even listed in the discography on the band's own website. Seriously, I looked all over the place for more info on this particular album, and there is no info on this anywhere. Strange. This is a killer disc though, with six tracks of mega-heavy distorto-sludge rawk that mash gnarly guitar riffage that's massively distorted, droning Casio keyboards, male and female vocals going off at the same time, everything covered in a sheen of white noise and distortion. There's a catchy, almost poppy element here too that makes the songs really memorable, hooks galore, handclaps and singsong chants appearing over Todd's propulsive dirge. Casio keys aren't something I'm used to hearing in a riff-heavy noise rock outfit, and their presence here makes Todd's take on post-Am Rep heaviness pretty unique; parts of this almost sound like Devo being assaulted by the crushing indie sludge of bands like Part Chimp (with whom Todd has shared a split 7"), Hey Colossus, and Geisha. Hell, "Shepherd's Eyes" could almost pass for a Weedeater song with the Locust's keyboardist backing 'em up. In addition to the six listed tracks, there are an extra six untitled tracks that sound like they were recorded live, low-fi and blown out and raw as hell. If you're into stuff like Tad, Killdozer, Melvins, Love 666, Jesus Lizard, Zeni Geva, Butthole Surfer's heaviest shit, and other purveyors of heavy duty gnarl, this'll be right up yer alley.
MP3 SAMPLE: "Good Neighborhood" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Solid Gold Death Mask" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "The Sedan" (excerpt)

TO LIVE AND SHAVE IN L.A. 2 The 300 Dollar Silk Shirt CD $15.98 ugEXPLODE

The confusional "sequel" to the legendary noise band To Live And Shave In L.A., TLASILA2 was an offshoot cell made up of Rat Bastard, Weasel Walter, Misty Martinez, and Nandor Nevai playing what they called "free glam". This disc collects the entire studio output of TLASILA2, including a remastered version of their Kill Misty: Threnody/300 Dollar Silk Shirt CD-R as well as a previously unreleased full length album that was recorded in 2000. TLASILA2's "songs" are violent spasms of heavy, stream-of-consciousness noise rock/no wave that's further fucked up, freaked out and mutated using extreme production techniques, fronted by even more damaged and freaked out vocals delivered via what appear to be helium sucking cartoon characters screaming through a 20-foot megaphone. We're talking way surreal and damaged sounds here, a cough syrup soaked mess of fractured riffs and drums, gruesome blats of electronic squelch, chopped up carnival hardcore, freeform pots n pans jams, breakbeats, nonsensical lyrics and retarded mumbling, Weasel's scorching, Borbetomagus-strength sax blasting, songs titled 'Belatedly Embroilment the of She She It-It' and 'March March The Yoghurt, And', and tape recordings of To Live And Shave In L.A. leader OM Myth mixed in as if the dude was actually there. This comprehensive disc contains 18 tracks total, in a full color case with an 8=page booklet containing color photos and extensive liner notes penned by Weasel Walter and Abraham Boulez, and released in a limited edition of 500 copies.

TOLL Christ Knows CD $13.98 Cold Spring

The whole 1980's Broken Flag/UK Industrial scene has always fascinated me. I started exploring the label's artists and discography a couple of years ago when I started to really hunt down Skullflower records in earnest, and discovered the label's history online primarily through websites like Monotremata. For those that are unfamiliar with this chapter of underground UK music, Broken Flag was a label established in the early 1980's by Gary Mundy, a longtime guitarist in legendary improv-noise outfit Ramleh and a key figure in the early years of Skullflower. Broken Flag released several seminal LPs from bands like Skullflower and Ramleh, as well as a ton of cassettes from Ramleh, Controlled Bleeding, Total, Con-Dom, and many others. One of these Broken Flag cassettes was the "Christ Knows" tape from a band called Toll, a sort-of Ramleh side-project that featured Mundy, Matthew Frith, and Tim Soar. The cassette would eventually also be released on LP through the label in 1986, and part of it's word of mouth mystery over the years is due to the additional players on these recordings: two of the tracks feature a pre-Stereolab Tim Gane on electronic percussion, and avant/industrial legend Paul Lemos (of Controlled Bleeding, Skin Chamber, and freakout-prog unit Breast Fed Yak) contributed electronics to some of this material as well.
Toll's music stood out from the largely free-skronk/destroyed electronics of the Broken Flag roster, blending weird, post-punk style hooks and wiry guitars with washes of psychedelic electronics, heavily affected layered downer singing and haunting chant-vocals, eerie industrial drones, heavy low-frequency ambience, caustic fried electronic noise, pretty, minimalist casio melodies and basslines that remind me of old Cure songs, grinding machine rhythms banged out of thunderous sheet metal, guitar drones, violin, heavy spacey dark dirge riffs, and a dark and weird sense of humour mixed together into an eerie twilight dream fog. Their sound evokes a similiar sort of hallucinogenic, urban paranoia that is found in 80's UK power electronics/noise/skum, but Toll's approach is more surreal and subdued, like Nurse With Wound mixed with dark 80's post-punk and grim, grinding Industrial fear. There are parts of this album that even sound almost like an instrumental early singles-era The Cure jamming with the ripping early power electronics of Ramleh. This is a pretty strange, amazing album, the original LP has been out of print for years, but Cold Spring recently re-issued this legendary album, along with three additional unreleased tracks. Kudos to them for resurrecting this creepy dose of 80's post-Industrial gloom and sparing me the wallet demolition of trying to obtain the original LP! Recommended.

TOMOGRAFIA ASSIALE COMPUTERIZZATA Splintered CD $10.98 Small Voices

This is the 12th release from the Italian trio of Monica Serra (vocals and electronics), Simon Balestrazzi (electronics, guitar, and psaltery) and Corrado Loi (bass, guitar, electronics). Apparently this outfit has been around since 1982, but Splintered is our introduction to their avant-pop / weird/avant-folk take on Projekt Records -style darkwave/goth pop (or vice versa) fused with clattery free improv, nervous, minimalist drum & bass and IDM , and neo-psychedelia. On paper, that sort of sounds like a trainwreck, but we totally fell in love with this album the first time we played it. I don't think the "folktronica" label is really appropriate for T.A.C., it's so much weirder and creepy and simultaneously ancient/futuristic sounding than that tag would suggest. On some of these tracks, peculiar, polyrhythmic glitchy-yet-tribalesque IDM pops and clicks and electronic drones serve as the foundation for that dreamy, eerie, vaguely "gothy" pop, which reminds me of VOLTAIRE or something along those lines, but with an odd, witchy folk element... elsewhere the trio engages in a sort of THUJA-meets-AMM free improvisation with skittery violins and percussion and strings, and eldritch folk reminiscent of Comus or Black Forest/Black Sea surrounded by creepy whispers and muttering. So weird and ghostly, but surprisingly accessible and catchy. Comes packaged in an austere white digipack with cool abstract, fractalized art on the inside and back. Another great avant-pop release from Small Voices.

!T.O.O.H.! (!TOTAL OBLITERATION OF HUMANITY!) Pod Vladou Bice CD $14.98 Plazzma

This was an awesome warehouse find that we just stumbled across, as I have had a really difficult time tracking down this Czech import CD.We only have four copies of this in stock as well, so move fast if you want to get your hands on this progressive psychgrind masterpiece.
!T.O.O.H.! (which stands for !TOTAL OBLITERATION OF HUMANITY!) hail from the Czech Republic, which should immediately clue you in that this is going to be pretty fucked up, hyperspeed grindcore. For some reason, the Czech grind scene consistently produces some of the most bizarre grind bands possible, such as like mongoloid techno-tinged splatter grinders Mincing Fury and The Gutteral Clamor Of Queer Decay, and the ridiculously heavy electro/grind/funk squad Contrastic, as well as a ton of other equally quirky, genre-blasting bands. We dig pretty much all of the bands from that scene, but !T.O.O.H.! are one of our favorites, and their second full length album Pod Vladou Bice is a high water mark in the realm of impossibly complex, psychedelic deathgrind. One thing that sets !T.O.O.H.! apart from most of the other Czech grind bands we've listened to is that the members are really talented musicians. Now, that's not a dig at any other bands, we love raw, blazing, sloppy as fuck grindcore...but the music on Pod Vladou Bice is on another level, almost comparable to a technical deathgrind band being composed by Frank Zappa, with a fusion of metal, psych, jazz, punk, and even pop elements in their music that doesn't devolve into simple genre-hopping, instead melting all of the different elements and sounds together into a dizzying mindfuck of spastic technical deathgrind and virtuoso baroque-classical guitar and soaring melodic solos, classic heavy metal and awesome rocking riffs, vicious high-pitched shrieking vocals that remind us of Corporate Death from Macabre with lyrics delivered in the Czech tongue, intertwined with confounding yet melodic jazz and fusion interludes. Imagine a mutant metalbeast grown from chunks of Cephalic Carnage, C.S.S.O., Iron Maiden, Macabre, Pink Floyd, Unholy Grave, and Frank Zappa and blasting out impossibly melodic and intricate psychedelic deathjazzthrashfusion armageddon. The album art is just as amazing and bizarre, with a series of acid-trip illustrations and collages spread out across the foldout poster-style booklet. Highly recommended.

TORCHE Torche CD $11.98 Robotic Empire Records

TORCHE's debut has been one of the most eagerly awaited releases of 2005 for us...We've been huge, and I mean HUGE fans of singer/guitarist Steve Brooks' previous band, Floor, for years, and when we heard that Floor disbanded, man, those were grey days. But almost immediately word came of TORCHE, Brooks new outfit , signed to Robotic Empire, sporting the bomb-string and sweet indie-pop vocal harmonies, and continuing the awesome monolithic pop-sludge that Floor patented. Does this debut deliver? Definitely, but it's taken many listens to really absorb everything on this album. It breezes by, 10 songs at right around 29 minutes, and the songs are short affairs that thunder in, drop a mega-anthemic hook or chorus, and get the fuck out. But these songs are also much more varied than Floor's self titled album - the band incorporates some fluid, feedback-drenched psychedelic pop and way uptempo crushers amongst the brutal downtuned bruisery. Fucking awesome stuff. It's not a Floor clone, but these 10 songs have everything that we Floor devotees loved. And just like the JESU debut from January, this album takes the catchy,noisy indie rock we grew up on (Dinosaur Jr., Cell, Sub Pop, My Bloody Valentine...) and mutates into this insanely heavy , awesomely anthemic, sludge/pop indie-metal juggernaut.

TORCHE self-titled (re-issue) LP $14.98 Robotic Empire

Now available on clear swirl vinyl, in a sweet gatefold jacket, the remixed, remastered re-issue with a bonus track ("Make Me Alive")!!!
TORCHE's debut has been one of the most eagerly awaited releases of 2005 for us...We've been huge, and I mean HUGE fans of singer/guitarist Steve Brooks' previous band, Floor, for years, and when we heard that Floor disbanded, man, those were grey days. But almost immediately word came of TORCHE, Brooks new outfit , signed to Robotic Empire, sporting the bomb-string and sweet indie-pop vocal harmonies, and continuing the awesome monolithic pop-sludge that Floor patented. Does this debut deliver? Definitely, but it's taken many listens to really absorb everything on this album. It breezes by, 10 songs at right around 29 minutes, and the songs are short affairs that thunder in, drop a mega-anthemic hook or chorus, and get the fuck out. But these songs are also much more varied than Floor's self titled album - the band incorporates some fluid, feedback-drenched psychedelic pop and way uptempo crushers amongst the brutal downtuned bruisery. Fucking awesome stuff. It's not a Floor clone, but these 11 songs have everything that we Floor devotees loved. And just like the JESU debut from January, this album takes the catchy,noisy indie rock we grew up on (Dinosaur Jr., Cell, Sub Pop, My Bloody Valentine...) and mutates into this insanely heavy , awesomely anthemic, sludge/pop indie-metal juggernaut.

TORE HONORE BOE Suave Siesta CD $9.98 Purple Soil

Superb enviromental sound collage by one of Norways pioneers of experimental ambient / drone music. This release features detailed, engrossing collages of various sounds and field recordings that Tore has collected from his new home. Reissue of this side-project of Origami Republika, composed from environmental sounds, including 5 new tracks not found on the original "Siesta" release (2000). Delicate and minimal atmospheres, that are often calm but have some more brooding moments. Tore Honoré Boe (of experimental ambient masters ORIGAMI REPUBLIKA) creates a link between Dada, Merz, and the long collage and concrete music tradition: Boe creates a personal, crystalline and sparklingly clear series of sound narratives constructed out of microphysical elements of chance and risk by occasionally using amplified everyday objects and, in other instances, field recordings and processing of all these. The singular beauty of his music stems from this premises, but also from the emotional atmosphere of the spaces where his live interventions take place. Needless to say, this is musique concrete best explored on a righteous set of headphones, in order to truly immerse yourself in the intimate microaudio of these preserved and treated aural experiences. The Suave Siesta CD comes with a 16 page booklet of artwork. Highly recommended for fans of intense minimalism and environmental sound a la Francisco Lopez.

TORTURE CHORUS In The Land Of Lullabye CD $11.98 Charnel Music

Another bizarre one from the Charnel archives...Torture Chorus were a bizarre theatrical/noise/comedy/performance shock-theatre squad based out of San Francisco and led by artist/animator Stephen Holman and his partner Clam Lynch back in the early 90's. On In The Land Of Lullabye, which appears to be the only recorded work from thr group, they conjure up a nightmarish Saturday morning children's show infested with mutant cartoon music, cut-n-paste/recycled kiddie tunes, bizarre LSD-devouring comedy raving, and brutal slabs of noise sculpted by Trance (featuring Mason Jones of Subarachnoid Space) and Allegory Chapel Ltd. Imagine a sugar-overdosed hybrid of Mr. Bungle -esque chop up, cartoon music, and harsh Japanese style noise. This disc documents Japanese performances from Torture Chorus from 1992, as well as studio works from the same year. Intense/funny/brain liquidating stuff.

TOTAL Glassy Warhead CD $9.98 RRRecords

Here's the crucial 1995 artifact from Total, another killer project from Matthew Bower of Skullflower and Sunroof! Released as part of the classic 90's Pure Series on RRR, you get awesome seminal guitar/feedback noise that shakes buildings. This full length sports four LOOOONG tracks of sky rupturing freeform guitar noise and chunky ear-shredding amp feedback that swirl together into thick gobs of churning,blackened drones, dreamy hums, and harsh noise storms. This definitely ranks among Bower's more brutal jams, with much of the album sounding like a gang of massively distorted electric guitars battling mutant vacuum cleaners in a brutal,cathartic mass of crushing jet-engine roar. The first track, "Glassy Warhead", features violin from Philip Best. The final track sports some teeth drilling guitar skree over top of symphonic recordings for bizarre effect. Hypnotic, buzzing,endless axe splatter. Pure power. Glassy Warhead straddles the realms of the transcendental drones of Double Leopards,Vibracathedral Orchestra,and Burning Star Core...the earth shaking amplifier ooze of Sunn O))), Earth, and Boris...and of course, the incendiary interdimensional guitar explosions of Matthew Bower's other bands (Skullflower, Mirag, Hototogisu).

TOTAL LIFE s/t LP $13.98 Animal Disguise

Total Life is the side-project of Kevin Doria from Growing, where he fully dives into the ecstatic power of huge, crushing megadrone. This new self-titled LP is a vinyl re-issue of the first Total Life cassette that was released through Animal Disguise in 2005 as a cassette that was limited to 150 copies, here captured on black wax in a minimal blue jacket. Each side of Total Life is a single track, and each of the two epic pieces captured here are like extended versions of the heavy, ultra-distorted drones that appeared on Growing's His Return and their earlier cassette releases. Doria forges dense layers of textured distortion, feedback, shifting harmonics, and swirling meditative monoriffing, all recorded so in-the-red that the drones become immense, buzzing masses of white-hot metal. 'A Thousand Lights' combines the sparkling, grinding drone of Growing's The Sky's Run Into The Sea with slivers of incandescent guitar noise that recall Color Wheel, drifting in a sea of hissing static, a monolithic blast of distorto-drone that loops over and over. 'Peaks' follows, almost 20 minutes in length; the track reveals a similiarly monolithic drone that has less tangible riffing than the A-side, with soft bass pulses and electronic washes rising to the surface intermittently, and subtle transitions in the undulating waves of distortion. This is a killer slab of heavy drone, harsh and crushing but meditative and beautiful at the same time, certainly springing from the filthy buzz blast density of early Growing material but also connected with the transcendent electrical drones of Matt Bower's Skullflower. Released in a limited edition of 500 copies.

TOTIMOSHI Monoli CD $14.98 This Dark Reign

Here's the follow up to the Mysterioso album released by yours truly on Crucial Blast, and it's a wholly meaner, heavier affair, but with bona fide pop hooks and some of the most memorable tuneage to date from this Oakland trio (well, barring their upcoming full length, the Page Hamilton-produced Ladron, which we have heard and which marks the bands finest hour, but you'll hear about that soon enough...). Monoli unfurls killer staccato aggro sludge that intersects Shellac and Melvins and old rock and roll (I'm talking fifties/early sixties rock n' roll!) with the band's Latin heritage alongside shots of improv rock blowout, quieter moody riffs, and mighty crushin' stoner riffage, complete with Tony's unique snarl/growl/croon that sounds totally unlike anyone else. Totimoshi are one of the most singular bands out there in the heavy rock cosmos, and you're missing out if you havent tuned into their peculiar/punishing crunch, especially if you're into the likes of Queens Of The Stone Age, Melvins, and Unsane, 'cuz these folks tap into the best parts of all three. Most recommended.

TRERIKSROSET Sexregler CD $9.98 Troniks

Never heard of this Swedish noise outfit before, but this CD reissue of a previously released cassette tape brings the heavy wall-of-crunch action like nobody's business. The tape came out in 2002 on Project Hat Commercial Enterprises, but it's now available in disc via the ever-faithful Troniks imprint, and features the single 46 minute title track that throbs with blackened distortion pulses, corroded low-frequency rumbling, and swarms of wormy electronic tone fuckery, sonic black gunk and concrete vomit oozing out of open sores in , feedback flutters like pestilent locusts moving through the air, heavy n' sinister. A bit more intricate and sculpted than yer typical "noise wall" effort, Sexregler actually comes close to Bastard Noise territory at times, with some great oscillating waves that slice through the muck like an interstellar scythe. Released in a limited edition of 500 in a jewel case with the original tape art presented in full from what I can tell, and rockin' a remastering job from Lasse Marhaug.

TRENCHER / CUTTING PINK WITH KNIVES The Process Of Burning Villages Down split 5" $7.98 Life In A Box

An absolutely gorgeous looking little EP on the infuriating 5" vinyl format, pairing up the toy-casio-driven grind destruction of Trencher with Cutting Pink With Knive's spastic hyperspeed grind-pop blasts. Trencher blazes through three covers that pay homage to Napalm Death, Godheadsilo, and the Exorcist film score, firing off some vicious Am Rep-meets-The Locust style muggings. On the flip, fellow Brits Cutting Pink With Knives offer three blasts of harsh, blown out digital grindcore/casio-pop mutations with killer catchy electronic pop melodies, snotty head exploding screams and jackhammer drum machines that bridge the gap between Genghis Tron circa Cloak Of Love and Agoraphobic Nosebleed's Honky Reduction, and exploring what Scum era Napalm Death may have sounded like if they had opted to pursue a career of scoring 1980's teen movies.
This might qualify for vinyl package of the year, which is totally absurd considering that the music itself is contained on the challenging 5" format. The record is packaged inside of a full color, glossy gatefold sleeve with striking, vibrant artwork and a visual design that ties in with the EP's themes of fire and arson. You can click on the thumbnail image to the left of this listing to see a larger scan of the package, it's that rad looking! Plus, the 5" is on red vinyl, and is obviously pretty limited, so move fast!

TRENCHER / ESQUILAX split 10" $11.98 Monotreme

A ripping new 10" EP featuring two of the UK's craziest electronically-damaged grindcore outfits, this platter offers seven new tracks from London casio-blasters Trencher that were recorded in 2004 for their Peel Session, and 13 bursts of hyperspeed nintendo grind from Esquilax. I've already been into London's Trencher for a while; their brutal bass/drums grindcore turned into a sugar rush of blastbeats and quirky melodies accompanied by a toy casio keyboard, a mix of bludgeoning noise rock dirge and pummeling grindy hardcore, snotty, gnarly shouts teaming with low death metal growls. The songs frantically start and stop, and there's a couple spots where Trencher seem to channel the sound of Converge being fused to 80's video game soundtracks, cyborg style. These jams are menacing yet catchy, some of the most powerful songs that I've heard so far from the band. This is also has a bit of historical significance as well, as apparently Trencher's Peel Session was the last one that John Peel broadcast before his death.
I wasn't familiar with Esquilax before hearing this 10", but their side might actually be my favorite. Their tracks are even more electronic based, heavy on the tinny bedroom dance beats and splattered with digital noise and fractured electronic glitches, shredding powerviolence riffs and super harsh barking screams, a bizarre and frenzied 8-bit cartoon dance blast assault that actually sounds like a more stripped down, low-fi, and hysterical version of Genghis Tron. They use keyboards to excellent effect here, with a couple songs having some amazing catchy hooks and textured melodies alongside the ADD afflicted Nintendo violence. Imagine a poppier Agoraphobic Nosebleed, or a more vicious, crusty Genghis Tron.
Pressed on thick, black-and-clear swirled vinyl!

TREPHINE s/t CD $11.98 Public Guilt

Baltimore's Trephine returns with this menacing collection of crushingly heavy post-rock/metal,with an additional percussionist who bangs out polyrythms on junk found on the city streets ! Purely instrumental math-rock with teeth, this plays like some rabid , Slayer-ized version of Don Cabellero...The Fucking Champs meet Mastodon...Clutch and Moe Staiano's Moe!kestra!... or something like that. These guys pull off some obtuse, angular riffage and jazzy beats but keep this firmly rooted in the HEAVY, balancing all of the abrupt shifts, propane-tank percussion, and complex shredding and abstract structures with some serious metalcore riffs, swaggering Southern sludge ,and over-all evil-sounding crunchiness. This is so good, and yet another excellent release from the up and coming Public Guilt label. Suitably creepy artwork from Stephan Kasner.

TRIAGE The Cessation Of Spoil CD $13.98 Glass Throat

Another collaborative release from members of RUHR HUNTER and GRUNTSPLATTER, The Cessation of Spoil draws from the styles of both respective projects, but ultimately sounds quite different from either. Combining clinical power electronics with humid organic drones, a pervasive dark ambience unfolds.

TROUM Symbiosis 3" CD $11.98 Transgredient

Five gorgeous, expressive tracks of guitar-based drone bliss from German duo TROUM (ex- MAEROR TRI) that float on a MY BLOODY VALENTINE -esque cloud of ethereal distortion, looped melodies, and fuzzy atmosphere. Entirely created by guitar, this twenty-two minute disc features solo material from each member that melts together while offering a different set of nuances from other TROUM material (hense the "symbiosis" of this release). Ranging from short fragments of heavenly guitar and feedback to majestic melodies and expansive fields of skyreaching ambience and eerie minimal sketches, Symbiosis delivers everything we love about TROUM !! We especially love the circular acoustic guitars. Comes packaged in a simple but quite attractive handmade sleeve from Transgredient.

TROUM Tjukurrpa: Part One – Harmonies CD $18.98 Transgredient

This first installment in the Tjukurrpa Trilogy is home to seven lengthy excursions into deeply submerged, yet richly textured dronescapes from German isolationists TROUM, who emerged from the seminal post-industrial outfit MAEROR TRI. These pieces are primarily constructed using electric guitar and bass that are blasted into dense smears of hypnotic drone through walls of delay, echo, and reverb effects, and as the title suggests, showcase repetitive and beautiful melodies that emerge from behind a fog of dreamlike swirling ambience. Majestic yet subtle drift from the masters of dronecore. The disc comes packaged in a simple but quite striking circular cardstock sleeve printed with full color art on both sides.

TROUM Tjukurrpa: Part Two Drones CD $18.98 Transgredient

Casting shadows across the droning bliss of Flying Saucer Attack and the sleepy pink overload of My Bloody Valentine, post-Maeror Tri outfit Troum resurface with this second installment in their Tjukurrpa trilogy, a reference/exploration of the "dreamtime" concepts of the Australian Aboriginals. Troum's soporific dream-drones are both grim and gorgeous, soaring twilight cloud-clusters of pulsating whirr and velvet feedback flowing fluidly through their primarily guitar and bass generated hum. Truly masters of the drone, investing massive harmonies and epic movements in what would otherwise simply be subsonic ambient movements. An aesthetic fusion of shoegazer beauty and the mighty rumbling amp drones of Earth and Sunn O))), the self-evidently titled Drones leans more towards the dark ambient and cavernous droneology of Lustmord,Yen Pox, and Sunn O))) compared to the other two installments in the Tjukurrpa triloy. Five extremely atmospheric and forbidding tracks that employ loops based on metal-sounds, percussion, mouth organ,choirs, and miles of effects. Comes in a special circular full-color cover/sleeve. Supreme drones.

TROUM Tjukurrpa 3: Rhythms and Pulsations CD $18.98 Transgredient

Post-Maeror Tri dronologist duo Troum close their stunning Tjukurrpa trilogy with this album focusing on loops and percussive mantras, rhythmic ideas that approach ritualism. Repetitive textures and mechanical loops are erected to summon deep trances. These seven expansive tracks build both smooth ambient pulses and ecstatic pounding harshness that threatens to overwhelm, organically created from raw & processed loops & handplayed percussion along with electric guitar & bass, balalaika, mouth organ, male & female human voice, flute, and accordeon. Troum's metal-crashing clamor on Tjukurrpa 3 approximates Test Dept and early Einstuerzende Neubauten over the course of the first few tracks. Then, as the duo introduces their effects-overloaded guitars to these mechanical pulses, this becomes a compelling fusion of My Bloody Valentine's maxed out shoegazer distorto-overload and Throbbing Gristle's percussive throb. Eventually the rhythms leave the foreground and melt into the guitars, rivalling the likes of dronecore titans Main, Boris, Earth, and Sunn O))). Hand drums close this album out alongside sweeping guitar drones and sublime melodies that recalls Rapoon and Muslimgauze. Breathtaking drone mastery. Comes in a special circular full-color cover/sleeve.

TROUM / CHRISTIAN RENOU Dissolution CD $19.98 Transgredient

An excellent collaboration between two vets of the 1980's post-industrial cassette culture, commisioned by French label Fario and released as a gorgeous oversized gatefold package. German drone duo Troum had of course previously recorded as Maeror Tri, and French composer Christian Renou is recognized for producing a swarm of cassettes under the Brume moniker during that era. Dissolution is the first collaboration between these industrial/drone masters, and is a grim meditation on death and flesh-transcendence. The disc is divided into three parts: the first consists of Renou's four-part solo series entitled "Himmelweg (le chemin du ciel)", which develops abstracted musique concrete and shimmering metallic textures into haunting melodic drones and rhythmic clatter. Then comes the two-part "Dissolution", which has Troum and Renou teaming up to create expansive fields of grim, blackened ambience, Troum's heavy, ominous guitar-feedback textures, accordian, and subterranean vocal gloom combining with manipulated source material taken from Renou's previous "Himmelweg" tracks and forming doomed melodies that drift through primitive metal percussive loops, a nightmarish flight through subterranean void. The disc closes with 'IN-GALEIKON" from Troum solo, the darkest track on the album, an incredible, monolithic, uber-bleak 28 minute drone trance, ritualistic percussion loops pounding away beneath an endless sky of heavy, saturated guitar drone that builds into a glorious crescendo of crushing, overdriven distorted melody and angelic white light. This last track by itself is one of Troum's finest moments. The disc is presented in a cool full-color gatefold sleeve that is similiar in size to an A5 book, opening to reveal track details and more.

TUMOUR Warriors Of The Wasteland CD $11.98 Last House On The Right

Anytime I throw on a Last House On The Right CD, I know I'm going to get an extremely heavy, extremely weird dose of splattery grindcorefrom the deepest possible recesses of the grind/gore/noise underground. It's a given. And this disc from the one-man Dutch outfit Tumour certainly doesn't disappoint in either the heaviness or the weirdness department. Loooking at it, you'd think it's a CD-ROM for a post-nuke zombie shooter, with computer graphic zombies on the cover and a general video game steez. It's pure sonic vomit, though, unloading a whopping 42 tracks of splattery, fungoid machine grind that barely cracks the 30 second mark. Like most exercises in extreme loner drummachine grind, Tumour (who is actually a guy named Roger, no last name given) is set for relentless, hyperspeed destruction, with machine blastbeats hacked straight out of the Agoraphobic Nosebleed mainframe, electronically processed vocals that are rendered as wordless gobs of bubbling, liquid psychedelic sub-sonic rumbles, and tons of zombie video game and splatter movie imagery and random samples. Roger has a cool arsenal of riffs, though, that make this a more interesting proposition than many of his fellow solo grinders; he trades off a mixture of primitive death-gore guitars and simple, melodic, four chord