TITLES: V

VAE VICTUS Ugly Reflection LP $9.98 Back The Draft

Out of print. Brilliant Reno darkcore brutality! This combines the fast paced discordant epic crustcore of the Nashville sound (HIS HERO IS GONE, TRAGEDY) with tweaked,damaged sludge (think DYSTOPIA), and head banging chaos a la RORSCHACH. Complex, and explosive. Features members of GEHENNA, REDRUM, IRON LUNG, and CRUCIAL ATTACK.

VAMPIRE CANT Key Cutter CD $12.98 Load

A brilliant flash of improvised heaviosity recorded in 2005, Key Cutter is the squealing mutant offspring of a meeting between Vampire Belt, a long running Western Massachusetts duo of Chris Corsano (also known for his collaborations with Jandek, John Olson, and Paul Flaherty as well as his current stint as Bjork's touring drummer!) and Bill Nace (of X.0.4.), and Can't, aka Jessica Rylan, the homespun electronics sorceress whose discs on RRR I've been fawning over for a couple of years now. When these people teamed up, it was to create maximum skull implosion, with 10 tracks that run the gamut from spiralling columns of coked-out percussion free-for-alls and fried-out, FX-splattered feedbacking guitar squelch, to Rylan's fragile, organic-feeling homemade electronics fluttering up against Nace's writhing guitar like tiny alien insects, and cacophonous, burly and totally improvised HARDCORE fronted by wailing cyborgs, delivered in short minute-n-a-half bursts of overmodulated chaos. The riffier, more "solid" moments of Key Cutter come close to Harry Pussy style free-noise-rock, and when the trio completely erupt into blasts of all-instruments-on-overload insanity like on 'Soft Canary' and 'Five Eyes', they actually cross over into total noisecore reminiscent of stuff like 7 Minutes Of Nausea, Deche-Charge, and Sonic Disorder. They do break up the squalls of electronics, percussion, and guitar noise with some "softer" passages of droning, bubbling glitch, parking lot lamp hum, and subdued bleating feedback, so it's not all total destruction, and the 11 minute closer 'No Strings' is a largely subdued scrapescape of playful bug tronix and Jessica's quivering, distorted lullabye singing flying around a swirling vortex of barking guitars and hypnotic drumbeats. Very cool. Comes in a jewel case with retina-slicing cover art by Matt Brinkman.

VAMPIRE CANT Key Cutter LP $13.98 Load

A tasty LP edition of this killer free-noise-core orgy, on black wax!
A brilliant flash of improvised heaviosity recorded in 2005, Key Cutter is the squealing mutant offspring of a meeting between Vampire Belt, a long running Western Massachusetts duo of Chris Corsano (also known for his collaborations with Jandek, John Olson, and Paul Flaherty as well as his current stint as Bjork's touring drummer!) and Bill Nace (of X.0.4.), and Can't, aka Jessica Rylan, the homespun electronics sorceress whose discs on RRR I've been fawning over for a couple of years now. When these people teamed up, it was to create maximum skull implosion, with 10 tracks that run the gamut from spiralling columns of coked-out percussion free-for-alls and fried-out, FX-splattered feedbacking guitar squelch, to Rylan's fragile, organic-feeling homemade electronics fluttering up against Nace's writhing guitar like tiny alien insects, and cacophonous, burly and totally improvised HARDCORE fronted by wailing cyborgs, delivered in short minute-n-a-half bursts of overmodulated chaos. The riffier, more "solid" moments of Key Cutter come close to Harry Pussy style free-noise-rock, and when the trio completely erupt into blasts of all-instruments-on-overload insanity like on 'Soft Canary' and 'Five Eyes', they actually cross over into total noisecore reminiscent of stuff like 7 Minutes Of Nausea, Deche-Charge, and Sonic Disorder. They do break up the squalls of electronics, percussion, and guitar noise with some "softer" passages of droning, bubbling glitch, parking lot lamp hum, and subdued bleating feedback, so it's not all total destruction, and the 11 minute closer 'No Strings' is a largely subdued scrapescape of playful bug tronix and Jessica's quivering, distorted lullabye singing flying around a swirling vortex of barking guitars and hypnotic drumbeats. Very cool. Comes in a color sleeve with retina-slicing cover art by Matt Brinkman.

VANCOUVER The Moment CD $11.98 Deepsend

This debut full length from Swiss band Vancouver delivers some crushing sludgecore with post-rock elements...yeah, it’s not too far removed from early Isis and Knut and older Cult Of Luna and Neurosis, but for those of you (like us) who can’t get enough of that Godflesh -inspired megariff with pretty melodic parts interspersed and screaming vocals and uber-ominous guitars, you can’t go wrong with the 9 songs on this album.The Moment is definitely on the heavier end of the indie-metal spectrum, but there are enough meaty riffs and heaviness tempered with chiming melodies to satisfy any fans of the aforementioned bands. The last song "The Portrait", though, is a real standout, like some long-lost early 90’s CURE song, all morose,dreamy Brit-pop, but with a crushing guitar riff that briefly appears and flares out...sort of reminds me of Koma’s more subdued moments. Awesome! Features members of Impure Wilhelmina, Unfold and Iscariote. Excellent design/layout as well.

VED BUENS ENDE Written In Waters CD $13.98 Candlelight

A classic blast of inventive, esoteric post-black metal weirdness, Ved Buens Ende (which translates into 'At The End of the Rainbow' in English) released this album in 1995 on the now long gone label Misanthropy, which ended up being the only album they ever released. The band featured musicians that either had been or would become members of black metal heavyweights Arcturus, Aura Noir, Ulver, Cadaver Inc., Satyricon and Dodheimsgard, but their music was far from anything being done in black metal circles in the mid-90's. This new re-issue of Written In Waters features all new packaging (with awesome new artwork that reminds me of Ralph Steadman's trademark ink scrawl), and a complete remix and remastering. Even listening to this album today, this stuff seems way ahead of it's time, as surrealistic and bent as anything from Deathspell Omega, Solefald, Arcturus, and Fleurety, but even more outside of the parameters of black metal than any of those bands. Ved Buens Ende had a completely unique sound that was at it's core black metal, complete with buzzy tremolo riffing, blastbeats and the occasional raspy blackened shriek, but out of that core blossomed a twisted mutation of Norwegian blackness with weird guitar chords that have a dissonant quality somewhat like Voivod's, but jazzier, and clean-toned guitar melodies that are more comparable to post-rockers Slint than anything. Drummer Carl-Michael Elde delivers loose, jazzy rhythms that flow with bassist Skoll's intricate, serpentine basslines. They sort of sound like a jazz-informed art rock outfit possessed with a demonic black metal spirit. Elde's singing also contributes to the weirdness of Ved Buens Ende, a kind of dramatic, gothy croon/chant that fits nicely with the album's otherworldly, forlorn atmosphere. Indeed, Written In Waters veers more towards Don Cabellero - grade math rock and King Crimson than anything resembling trad black metal, an outsider BM masterpiece that has remained legendary in the realm of post-black metal for over a decade now. Absolutely recommended to fans of Ulver, the early Fleurety albums, Arcturus' weirdest stuff, and the newer psychedelia-tinged stuff from Enslaved.
MP3 SAMPLE: "It's Magic" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Rememberance Of Things Past" (excerpt)

VENOMOUS CONCEPT / 324 split CDEP $12.98 HG Fact

New split CDEP featuring 3 hyperviolent grindcore jams from super unit VENOMOUS CONCEPT, featuring Shane and Danny from Napalm Death, Kevin Sharpe from Brutal Truth on vocals, and Buzz Osbourne from the Melvins. These tunes PULVERIZE, channeling all-out thrashcore war circa early 90's Earache Records destruction and piling on their own unique off-kilter dementia and Sharp's patented throat obliteration. 324 are probably our fave Japanese grind unit, and their 2 songs on this EP are the perfect match for VC's blowout. "Black Hill" and "Ansokuchi No Tenbin" both shred broootal dark grind destruction, wiring apocalyptic hardcore punk to thick gobs of grindcore heaviness and seriously fucking fast blastbeats. Five tunes in all.

VENTURA Pa Capona CD $11.98 Get A Life

This young Swiss trio follows up their split vinyl releases with CORTEZ and DISCO DOOM with this full length CD, which holds some beautifully constructed post-rock/indie rock that morphs into crushing waves of sludge riffage. At first, VENTURA's songs channel the sort of soft/loud dynamic of early 90's indie rock, with soft sparse melodies intertwining with brooding bass work and expressive drumming, somewhere between CODEINE and SLINT with raspier singing and weird childlike lyrics. When the band shifts into the loud sections though, it gets really loud, and heavy, sometimes slinging out sludgy metallic MELVINS riffs, sometimes pounding out huge swirling noisy passages that sound similiar to the current crop of heavy post-rock bands like TIDES and MOUTH OF THE ARCHITECT. There are songs like "Let Yourself Go" where acoustic guitars are situated prominently alongside roaring heavy guitars in a way that reminds me alot of DINOSAUR JR.'s Green Mind, and the general way that the melodic indie rock parts are structured with the heavy parts is really cool. Pa Capona definitely feels like a combination of the heavy-edged post-rock of SHELLAC, SLINT, PINEBENDER, and CODEINE, mixed with HUM's volume eruptions and eruptive metallic post-rock. Comes packaged in a beautifully designed, cardboard Arigoto-pack style box that folds open to reveal the disc, insert, and poster art. Limited to 1,000 copies.

VENTURA / CORTEZ split 10" $9.98 Get A Life

Here's one of two killer split 10" vinyl EPs that feature the Swiss heavy indie/noise rock outfit Ventura, a young trio whose Pa Capona album was well received here, delivering a mix of quirky indie rock informed by the glory days of Touch And Go/Amphetimine Reptile and occasional bursts of metallic heaviness. Great stuff that we've been listening to alot, and since then we've tracked down two 10" EPs that Ventura also released on Get A Life: a split with the dark QOTSA-meets-Cure fuzzrock of Disco Doom, and this split with the crushing Swiss trio Cortez. Ventura's side has two songs: "Trains" is a full-bore rocker, in the spirit of Naked Raygun, Jesus Lizard, noisy 90's post-punk, with Ventura's weird crooning vocals and strange but memorable lyrics; and And "I Keep Starting" is a ridiculously catchy, moody indie rock song that ends in a whiteout of screeching feedback and malfunctioning instruments, like early 90's Louisville mathrock/postrock with a dose of Am Rep heaviness. Excellent songs from these guys, as usual.
Cortez is another Swiss band that I've raved about in the past; their Initial CD on Radar Swarm was one of my favorite releases on that label, and delivered a powerful hybrid of majestic epic rock and intricate, crushing grind/metal/post-hardcore, like a strange mix of Pig Destroyer, Mono, and Botch. Their appearance on this split offers another two songs in their unique style; the first, "M.T.v." starts off with a weird loop of electronic noise over an offtime drumbeat that surges into epic, noisy post-metalcore with ferocious vocals and twisted angular riffs. The second, "A Bout De Souffle", is the catchiest songs I've ever heard from Cortez, starting off with a grinding, melodic dirge with ultra distorted riffs, corroded and crumbling, thick spasms of distortion pulsing over the drummer's mathy workout, that finally culminates in a monstrous sludge-pop crescendo that closes the song out in a storm of distortion and white noise.

VENTURA / DISCO DOOM split 10" $9.98 Get A Life

Here's one of two killer split 10" vinyl EPs that feature the Swiss heavy indie/noise rock outfit Ventura, a young trio whose Pa Capona album was well received here, delivering a mix of quirky indie rock informed by the glory days of Touch And Go/Amphetimine Reptile and occasional bursts of metallic heaviness. Great stuff that we've been listening to alot, and since then we've tracked down two 10" EPs that Ventura also released on Get A Life: a split with the epic post-hardcore/chaos/sludge trio Cortez, and this split with another Swiss outfit, Disco Doom. Ventura's track on this EP is called "Issues", one of their more driving songs, with a moody, catchy central riff that gets heavier mid-song before breaking off into dissonant, DC post-Hardcore territory. Not as burly as their songs off of Pa Capona, but definitely a solid dose of Ventura's quirky rock. On the flip side, you get a lengthy song from Zurich's Disco Doom, whose "Captain Petal + Mr. Scar" is a sort of heavy, droning gloom-pop that sort of reminds me of Queens Of The Stone Age meets early Cure, really catchy, but dark n' driving indie rock moodiness; if the rest of their stuff is in a similiar vein, I'd be surprised if this band didn't become huge. Packaged in a regular 10" jacket with some very strange Tyrannosaurus Rex artwork.

VERDE Vuoronumero CD $11.98 Musically Incorrect

We just stumbled across this cool little album from the Finnish one man band Verde, the handle for Mika Rintala, who had previously played with C-Blast faves Circle as well as with Ektroverde. Since he went solo, Rintala has been busying himself by inventing homemade "synthesizer" instruments and building them out of cast-off, everyday objects like sewing machines and vacuum cleaners, and creating amazingly weird and spaced out music like that on Vuoronumero. The disc is a wild, dreamlike affair, a 73 minute long collection of gorgeous, and often quite creepy pieces that range from messed up mutant jazz to creepy abstract minimalism to cosmic drones; at any given moment, you're surrounded by an unearthly assortment of random field recordings, alien sci-fi electronics, jazz trumpets and heavy distorted psychedelic guitars, strange tribal chants and damaged Delta blues stomp, fuzzbomb skronk guitar a la Sonny Sharrock, the clatter of unseen objects and machine shop drones, sometime propelled by Krautrock drumming and tribal rhythms, other times floating on a cloud of ambient confusion. Almost all of the guys from Circle appear here, and parts of this definitely remind us of Circle, if they were combined with deranged avant-rock, music concrete, and hallucinatory sound collages.

MP3 SAMPLE: "EU" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Paskaralla kolmen metrin kulmakarvat" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Plussakortti" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Timattikiiltohuulet" (excerpt)

VERSE AND RADIATION Along The Celestial Ruins CD $11.98 Acerbic Noise

The Acerbic Noise imprint wows us again with this debut album of mutant thrash from Alabamiods Verse & Raditiation. Rooted in a heavy duty 80's thrash metal foundation, these guys then spiral out into a whole other realm of art-damaged weirdness with one of the most alien sounding thrash albums we've heard since Voivod dropped Nothingface on us back in '89. Seriously. Along The Celestial Ruins features nine blasts of crucial thrash metal power infused with an otherworldy, progressive oddness that reminds us alot of Voivod, but also flexes some mighty chaotic metalcore muscle via their crushing breakdowns, and also factors in a healthy Am Rep/noise rock influence. One of the best debuts we've heard in ages, and the only band besides our very own Microwaves that can dish out this sort of brain blasting sci-fi thrash metal. Gorgeous icy synths underpin sideways math guitars breaking pipes over your head. Demented robo vocals share headspace with total aggro roar. Reference points could include crossover thrash era Corrosion Of Conformity colliding with Dazzling Killmen and Voivod, splattered with art punk chops. Way recommended!

VESTIGAL LIMB / TEETH COLLECTION split CASSETTE $5.98 Epicene Sound System

Argh! I'm getting pretty addicted to these Epicene tapes, which is kinda painful as they keep cranking 'em out by the bucketload every few weeks or so, and since most of them are released in super small batches, alot of the titles that have really had me panting in anticipation are already long gone by the time I get back to trawling the label's site. We did pick up a handful of this killer tape recently issued by the Epicene Sound Replica wing, loaded with close to 40 minutes of crushing, leaden low-frequency drone and thoroughly psychedelic black syrup. The Teeth Collection side is a sprawling nocturnal scrapescape alive with the piercing screech of blood spattered lead pipes being scraped across concrete factory floors while unseen machine engines rumble and groan in the void, deep, super-heavy bass pulses ripple through the blackness, and percussive sounds echo through long, empty hallways. Another rich, evocative doomscape from Matt Reis. Vestigal Limb (I fucking love that name) were new to me, but their side turned out to be a crushing blat of rhythmic bass oscillations, ultra-heavy low-frequency rumble, and brutal, fast-paced splats of distorted feedback mangle produced by vocal noises run through a vicious chain of effects. Heavy shit. We've got the last copies, this is totally sold out of the label, and is hand numbered out of 50 copies. Of course, it's the music is what bugs me out about all of these killer Epicene tapes, especially stuff like this split tape where total Industrial creepout achieves lung-flattening levels of low-end dub crush...but man, I'm a sucker for the Epicene design style, too. The tape itself is as minimal as it gets, just an unmarked opaque black cassette, but the j-card is a killer looking peice of dystopian cartography, spray-paint splattered across abstract cosmic grids, all silver metallic gobs and pink glaze.

VIKI s/t CD $11.98 Animal Disguise

Viki's stark, urban electro-noise is pretty much our ideal vision of mutant dance pop. Using some trashed out drum machines and other hand-modified instruments and processors, she creates these killer dance-scuzz eruptions with her icy spoken-sung vocals and weird lyrics that sound like old school 80's hip hop and electro being filtered through the urban decay and blown speakers of Wolf Eyes and Suicide. This new CD on Animal Disguise is a killer collection of 15 industrial/electro/trash pop numbers dating across 1999 thru 2004, including the Vixen Hott and Full Time CD-Rs, the Triple X cassette, 7" tracks (including the terminally catchy "Perfect Strangers"), and a bunch of unreleased jams.

VIIMEINEN KOLONNA Aistien Juhlaa CD $9.98 Hardcore Holocaust

23 tracks of Finnish hardcore perfection influenced by the early Terveet Kädet ('82) sound. Short, fast & simple. Total Finnish hardcore hell! Their ferocious speed and mean, dark edge draws heavily from early Finnish HC, yet is packed with an assortment of international influences, creating perfect jacked up HC thrash for fanatics. Slightly metallic, with awesome vocals. This is their 1st full length after the Onnellisuus Ahdistaa 7"ep & split 7"ep with NAILBITER (uk). Also worth noting, VK members are from bands such as UUTUUS, AMEN, AGENDA, WASTED & FORCA MACABRA to name just a few. All of the songs are in Finnish, with English translations provided, and the content is incredibly brief and actually a lot more abstract than most of the genre tends to be. Definitely grab this, this isn't your average generic Scandinavian hardcore band by any means. Total nightmare Scandithrash destruction.

VILLAGE OF DEAD ROADS Dwelling In Doubt CD $11.98 Meteor City

With all of the bands exploring the nuances of post-rock inspired heaviness these days, it's refreshing to hear a band that can lay on this sort of dissonant, metallic post-hardcore, and create such an atmospheric downer of an album at the same time. Village Of Dead Roads do just that with their second album, a 12 song collection of gargantuan, atonal riffscapes and subdued instrumental passages that references the mechanistic droning riff-minimalism of Godflesh and early Isis, weird detours into Sabbathian stoner-doom that sound like a more spacious Electric Wizard, and sections of uptempo noisy riffing and emotive singing that comes straight out of 90's post-hardcore like Engine Kid. Dark, negative lyrical visions are embellished with doomy, pummeling guitars and powerful drumming, interjected with quieter, melancholy moments and eerie processed samples. VODR's progressive sludgecore has also garnered comparisons to YOB and early 90's Neurosis, references that you can hear more in the manner in which the band focuses on textured, complex riffing and monstrous dynamic shifts than in their actual sound; as lumbering and unrepentantly heavy as this album is, the band keeps it interesting with lots of psychedelic delayed guitar noise, sounds of chanting monks under laser fire, electronic effects, etc. A great album that's been getting alot of play over here, and is recommended to anyone into the more progressive sludginess of bands like Cable, Isis, and Cavity, and the atompsheric riffscapes of bands like Conifer and Mouth Of The Architect.
MP3 SAMPLE: "Between Grace And Delusion" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Fugitive" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Hemingway Solution" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Professing To Be Wise" (excerpt)

VILLA VALLEY Cycles CD-R $9.98 Audiobot

Originally stumbled on these capacitor-blowing knife fighters accidently via their page on the ubiquitous MySpace, and was summarily brainfucked by Villa Valley's brand of razor feedback brawls and shitstorm gurgle. This is straight up Midwest shit, the kind of mega harsh amplified tantrum that ruins familys and causes pineal glands to burst out of your forehead. Brutal skree battle sorta like Prurient's high-frequency hate and Scutopus' infernal Feeding CD-R from a few years back,combined into an explosive wave of piercing feedback shriek, then blasted with Wolf Eyes/Hair Police vomit troniks. Wow. Some of the really sinister shit happens when Villa Valley nail heavily distorted but super melodic little figures to their wall of hyperdistorted filth, like Skullflower's IIIrd Gatekeeper being blasted out of a blown transistor radio amidst a napalm storm. And the more turbulent numbers sound like someone tape recorded a particularly brutal Am Rep-worshipping noise rock band on a super crappy boombox three rooms down from where they are jamming. Totally blown muck. Highly recommended. As a matter of fact, we dig this shit so much that we're releasing Villa Valley's forthcoming Massive Amounts Of Deadness as part of the Crucial Bliss series. Packaged in a full color fold out sleeve designed by the band, with an insert card. Limited edition of 80 copies, so don't snooze.

VIOLENT STUDENTS s/t CD $13.98 Parts Unknown

Philadelphia really seems to be spawning one hell of a noise rock community lately; recent releases from Clockcleaner and Pissed Jeans have totally ruled me, dredging up the sort of Am Rep/Brainbombs/scum rock/basement sludge attitude that we freaking thrive on around here. With Violent Students, the Philly skuzz sound gets even more fucked. Dressed up in some of the skankiest, coolest cover art in some time courtesy of Hawk Krall, this full-length crusher from Violent Students vomits up a huge blob of acid-gorged Hardcore damage, drawn in out-of-tune guitars, blown amps, and moaning vocals rendered an inpenetrable wasteoid smear through a millions effects boxes, all gobbed together into a lumbering, sweaty, brain damaged ball of sludgy punk noise. The album starts off with the Students cribbing a Cro-Mags riff and riding it into the ground in a crushing psychedelic thug nod-out, which sets the tone for the remainder of this 42 minute drug feast: brutal hardcore riffs are thrashed out over spastic, pummeling drumming and neanderthal basslines that spend just as much time wandering off on their own as they do bashing out some righteous NYHC style riffage, as those mongoloid vocals drool and howl insanely over the din, lost in a swirl of digital delay and other effects. Improv drug 'core does not get any heavier or more heinous than this carwreck of Siltbreeze style free-noise, Hardcore, and sludgy basement metal...like a mutant hybrid of Flipper, Skullflower, Locust Abortion/Sweat Loaf-era Butthole Surfers, and the last part of Siege's "Grim Reaper" when the band gets all wigged out...or a beer-haze vision of Brainbombs and Bunny Brains hijacking Cro-Mags ‘Seekers Of The Truth’. In a word, brilliant. Highly recommended !!!

VIOLENT ONSEN GEISHA The Midnight Gambler CD $9.98 RRRecords

This is the cult 1996 full length of crazed psychedelic noise collage from Japan's Violent Onsen Geisha, released as part of the essential Pure Series by RRRecords. Violent Onsen Geisha was always somewhat unfairly lumped in with the likes of Merzbow, Hanatarash, Masonna, etc., even though VOG mastermind Masaya Nakahara's 60's kitsch/ambient found-sound-meets-stand up comedy routine with rabies-meets-earsplitting distortion and feedback cut-ups are situated on an entirely different brain-damaged planet. This stuff ranges from super surreal sound events to brutal feedback shriek, a neverending stream of epileptic noise seizures and ultra spastic tape-splicing insanity that is sort of like Boredom's Yamatsuka Eye screaming over Negativland cassettes that have been left by the radiator for way too long. Sounds like heaven to us. Also includes killer live material. Comes packaged in a black wallet sleeve sealed with a junked multicolor label, Pure Series style. Get this, get fucked.

VOG s/t CD $11.98 Shifty

A primo dose of hulking psychedelic sludgemetal here from this Virginia outfit, who enigmatically call themselves Vog. This self titled debut is a crusher, grinding out seven burly jams of gnarled sludge somewhere in between Goatsnake and Eyehategod, with a hefty dose of Today Is The Day's psychotic metallic noise rock and loads of awesome Hawkwindesque space rock FX! Vog's singer embellishes these cosmic tarpit beatings with layers of intense yowling screams and deep monstrous roars, but then he also kicks in with some killer clean crooning vocals a la Daxx Riggs from Acid Bath or Pete Stahl from Goatsnake. Killer stuff, blending together megaheavy sludge/doom metal with vicious bursts of hardcore punk, Southern rock swagger, and noisy psychedelia all splattered with those spacey electronic effects into an evil bad acid trip atmosphere. Anyone into mindbending sludge metal should definitely be checking these guys out.
MP3 SAMPLE: "Like the Sky Above" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Odin's Will" (excerpt)

VOICE CRACK Kick That Habit VHS VIDEOCASSETTE $9.98 RRRecords

This 43 minute professionally filmed videocassette (produced in the late 1980's, I believe) collects a series of live performances, studio experiments, and conceptual scenes from the legendary Swiss duo of Andy Guhl and Norbert Möslang, aka Voice Crack. Guhl and Moslang formed Voice Crack in 1972, and for thirty years the duo has created a singular aesthetic based on their concepts of "cracked everyday electronics", using homemade noisemakers and handmade instruments to explore and form new sound combinations. Compelling stuff, and to be able to see the pair create their unconventional sonics visually is quite revealing. The sounds on this tape range from massive subsonic drones summoned from bowed metal cables, to mini-symphonies of freeform clatter and environmental sounds and field recordings,to driving rhythmic industrial pulses, to magnified everyday household sounds, to titanic electro-acoustic blowouts. An excellent video document of an important force in the field of modern DIY free improvisation and a fascinating visual essay on the power of sound. Comes in a hardshell plastic case.

VOID Posthuman CD $9.98 Candlelight

Ripping blackmetal and...breakbeats? The hybridization of electronica and black metal isn't anything new; Aborym, Satyricon, Thorns, Dodheimsgard, Manes (their amazing Vilosophe, especially) and Thee Maldorer Kollective have all fused the two to varying degrees since black metal began flirting with electronica in the later half of the 1990's. What sets Void's Posthuman apart is the intense drum and bass element, making this more like a bizarre, dystopian jungle/black metal soundtrack. Void's music and programming is the work of just one man, Matt 'OCD' Jarman, who debuted in 2001 with a two-track demo and went on to contribute remixes for Zyklon, Red Harvest, and Aborym. Assisted by vocalist Ionman (a.k.a. Matt McNerney), the duo would release just this one album in 2003, a grimly futuristic breakscape of complex drum and bass rhythms, epic dirges and convoluted complex riffing, icy factory ambience, and ripping progressive black metal. The beats are awesome blasts of stuttering drum n' bass, and Ionman's vocals range from depraved slit-throat rasps to alien vocoder chants, but then there's the heartbreaking melodic breakdown in the middle of "Pathogen Bombshell" where he suddely evokes the weary, gruff croon of Tom Waits! Then there's all kinds of production fuckery, abrupt time changes, starts and stops, layers of altered samples, moments where the whole CD seems to be skipping but then kicks back into a savage blackened breakbeat assault, and other weirdness. The closest coordinates I can come up with would be the intricate frosty black metal of Emperor and Satyricon fused to Neurosis/Godflesh dirge armageddon, the futuristic techstep of Photek, and Ministry's A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste. Highly recommended.

VOIVOD Katorz CD $13.98 The End

By now many of you will have heard the tragic story behind the latest album from the legendary Voivod; how trailblazing Voivod guitarist Dennis "Piggy" D'Amour passed away from colon cancer in August of 2005, but not before writing and recording his guitar parts for their next album, which he wanted the other members (Away, Eric, and Jason Newstead of Metallica fame) to record their parts around. The result is Katorz, and it's one of the band's best albums of the post-Nothingface period, not to mention a bittersweet testament to Piggy's amazing musicianship. The songs on Katorz are a continuation of the punky, jagged hard rock that made up their previous self-titled album, with huge riffs and fast paced rhythms and Piggy's signature atonal n' heavily textured guitarwork that accompanies the massive grooves the rhythm section locks in on. While we are definitely huge fans of Voivod's earlier sci-fi avant-psych-thrash-metal, we also really like the heavy, quirky futuristic metallic hard rock of Katorz. Heavy, crushing, and dissonant, but with some remarkably catchy and melodic songs.

VOLUME ELEVEN Kotadelic Cytex LP $10.98 Witching Hour

Here's another obscurity that came out a couple of years ago that we're just now getting around to checking out; we were immediately hooked with this band's way-bizarre mashup of psychedelic sci-fi tronix and freaked out, chaotic thrashy hardcore. Volume Eleven were a short-lived project in the late 90's/early 00's that featured former members of 90's chaos core legends Honeywell, and for this LP summoned eight songs that shift from ultra psychedelic deep-space sci-fi noise a la CCCC and Astro and old school Dr. Who theme music to rocking, catchy as fuck Gravity/Antioch Arrow/Angel Hair style hardcore, and even dropping in some spacey, drugged out dub! It's a weird mix, but it works freakin' great. The b-side even sports a cover of Pink Floyd's "Careful With That Axe, Eugene". Freaked out avant-hardcore that fans of Man Is The Bastard and post-powerviolence mindbenders Gasp, Tarantula Hawk, and Suffering Luna will dig. Comes in a striking bright orange DJ style 12" jacket with a center hole, and high contrast abstract white artwork and song titles printed onto the jacket. Recommended.

VOMIR Untitled CD-R $6.98 At War With False Noise

Fuckin' love this dudes' credo: "No hype, no ego, no message, JUST NOISE". Hell yes. Vomir is the main guy behind the French "wall noise" outfit Maison Bruit, and his solo stuff basically continues the fight with incredibly static slabs of churning heavy distortion. This untitled disc on At War With False Noise pours out nearly half an hour of relentless, virtually unshifting power rumble and cascading waterfalls of crunchy white noise. I've been listening to this on repeat for the past hour and I think I'm hearing slight shifts in movement and slight tonal variations, but what the fuck, my brain is completely rotted out at this point anyway from listening to so much harsh noise. What's really disturbing is the fact that I can listen to Vomir's disc and his grinding distortion loops totally lull me into an x-eyed trance. I think that this has to be the most austere, obsessive take on old school static noise that I've ever heard, put this disc on repeat and blot out eternity with a crushing Möbius strip of ultra distorted hypno-drone. It's an almost Zen-like approach to the harsh walls formed by likeminded artists The Cherry Point, The Rita, and Oubliette. Limited run of 100 copies in an oversize plastic hard case with ultranasty gore photographs.

VOMIT ORCHESTRA Macabre Paradigm 2xCD $11.98 Autumn Winds
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE AT THIS TIME. PLEASE DO NOT ORDER.

Out of all the weird, damaged, mind-melting underground black metal that weve been feasting upon recently, Vomit Orchestra has to be some of the weirdest, most gone black metal we've heard so far. This stuff is so out there and fucked up that it can barely even be called black metal, really, but the general aesthetic and philosophy at work behind these sounds are closer in spirit to deep underground black metal than anything else we can think of. And there's not a whole lot of information out there on Vomit Orchestra either, but from what little we could dig up, we learned that this is a one-man project that recorded and released a series of demos in ultra small editions in the first half of the decade. These small tape runs were basically just passed around to friends and fellow artists, and for the most part disappeared into total obscurity just as quickly as they were released. Luckily, for those of us that can't get enough of the most fucked up, bizarre black metal bubbling up from the sub-underground, all of these rare recordings have been gathered together on a fairly exhaustive double disc set entitled Macabre Paradigm, which collects all of Vomit Orchestra's demo tapes and unreleased studio recordings from 2002-2004, fully documenting the bizarre genius of VO's travels along the outer edges of dark ambient, outsider black metal, minimalist post-rock guitar, drone music, and martial industrial.
The first disc, "Makkabios: Public Demonstration Tapes", features all five of Vomit Orchestra's early demos, each one presented as a single uncut track. Normally this would be a huge source of aggravation, but when you realize that Vomit Orchestra's music isn't about individual songs, but rather the creation of a particular mental state through a series of disparate sounds, the sequencing on this disc makes perfect sense. Each track illustrates Vomit Orchestra's surreal, extreme outsider take on occult basement ambience, a twisted, schizophrenic series of grim, ragged improv-guitar pieces, depressive black metal riffs repeated endlessly in beatless space, martial industrial loops, and Striborg-esque guitar riffs played over super weird psychedelic gabba beats. Blasts of totally damaged black metal that sound like it was recorded in a trashcan shot into outer space collide with uncontrolled feedback and cable buzz, beautiful and haunting solo guitar pieces, and all sorts of weird, echoing vocal noises. It reminds me of a weird, super-damaged fusion of Xasthur, Striborg, Emit, Black Mayonnaise and some minimalist post-rock outfit, with some eerie industrial ambience thrown in. One of the greatest moments on this disc is the 4th track/demo, Drone, that has a fuzzy, raw black metal riff sloppily strummed in beatless space over and over again until it suddenly morphs into a gorgeous guitar melody that sounds like it could have been lifted from a Mono record. Amazing, baffling post-black metal weirdness.
The second disc, "Paradeigma", contains later studio recordings that, while having much higher recording quality, are even more abstract than the demos. "Fear" unleashes demonic vocoder voices over a rippling wave of drum machines and eerie clean guitars. "For Death Holds No Dreams" has another haunting guitar melody played solo over wretched, processed death gasps. The rest of the songs here move similiarly between ultra minimal piano pieces and jarring noise/drum machine/black metallish passages, almost like a more minimalist, avant-garde take on Striborg's interdimensional atonality. Aside from the occasional use of those juddering drum machines, there's little in the way of real rhythm or percussion in this material, and the general vibe on this disc is one of TOTAL DREAD.
Macabre Paradigm comes with a 16 page booklet loaded with abstract scrawlings, artwork, collages, and more, all of which perfectly evoke the grey dreamworld of Vomit Orchestra's music. This discography is an amazing collection of far out black metal that anyone into the weirder end of the BM pool, especially the contemporary USBM spectrum (Xasthur, Leviathan, Black Funeral) should be checking out. Highly recommended.

VOODOOMUZAK Brouillarta CD $11.98 Amanita

This is the sixth full length album from the long-running French post-rock band Voodoomuzak. Brouillarta delivers an intensely grooving mix of complex drumming and polyrhythmic interplay, extended live-action drum n bass workouts, and bewitching electronic ambience. The group are joined on the album by Eardrum's Lou Ciccotelli (also known for his work in Laika, Mass, God, and Ice), and Richard Olatunde Baker (Eardrum's percussionist). Dark, smoky urban-futuristic instrumental music summoned via double drums, african percussion, 6 and 4 string basses, and live sampling, that together intertwines and builds sort-of jazzy , but utterly trance inducing, complex melodies that extend sometimes to the 15 minute mark. Hypnotic.

VOODOO MUZAK Cartilage CD $11.98 Amanita

Cartilage is the fourth full length from VOODOO MUZAK, featuring more energetic and lengthy rhythmic post-rock jams, blending a mutant form of tribal jazz with dub and noise rock. Cartilage features a lineup of 2 drummers, bass, guitar, voice, and trumpet, with seven songs in close to seventy minutes.Intense,slow-burning (sometimes ferocious) percussive workouts backed by noise rock dymanics lock into repetitive and heavy loops, ambient improv, and dubbed-out beats. Cartilage sort of sits in a weird spot between SHELLAC, TORTOISE, avant-jazz, SLINT, dub, and african rhythms. Definitely what you might consider a "musician's musician" sort of band, with complex musicianship and technical performace overshadowing anything in the way of melody and hooks, but we have no problem getting ripped and losing ourselves in VOODOO MUZAK's winding avant-jazz-rock-dub. Another killer from Amanita.

VOODOO SHOCK s/t CD $11.98 PsycheDOOMelic

More excellent Doom metal from the pycheDOOMelic label. Germany's Voodoo Shock rise from the ashes of former Rise Above Records act Naevus. VOODOO SHOCK lay down the heavy , old school doom rock , with solid, sleepy clean vocals drifting over songs filled with bleary-eyed visions of "electric minds" and "rainbow skies". These guys nail the classic Maryland Doom style, a la THE OBSESSED, PENTAGRAM, INTERNAL VOID, etc, and fans of the old school doom sound will definitely groove on their big riffs and peculiar psychedelic, spacey/mellow parts . Generally the 10 songs on this disc range from slow to mid tempo, but are always melodic and ULTRA heavy. Think 80's/90's style traditional Doom - Terra Firma, Sheavy, Trouble, Spirit Caravan, these guys travel in that sort of company, but also with some of the SLEEP school of super slo-mo riff power. And the riffs ARE mighty.. And check out the stoned, CRUSHING cover of "Nights In White Satin" !!! Honestly, this album really reminds me of super catchy, ultra melodic, yet completely heavy doom rockers SLOW HORSE and GOATSNAKE...there is a similiar dichotomy between catchy depressive hooks, gorgeous guitar melodies, classy clean vocals, and sheer crush on this album. Great stuff.

VOODOO SHOCK Voodoom CD $10.98 Psychedoomelic

Here's some more slow n' low melodic Doom from VOODOO SHOCK. This disc features a SAINT VITUS cover ("Patra"), as well as some out of print tracks and other stuff to tide fans over until their next release. VOODOO SHOCK nails the melodic Doom sound with every release, and have pretty much become the European answer to GOATSNAKE. Not quite as solid as the 'SNAKE, but they pull out the big, SABBATH-ian grooving riffs, and singer Uwe has a similar style of soulful, clean vocals as Pete Stahl that works great for this sort of lumbering crush. Fans of Goatsnake, Grand Magus, and Saint Vitus would particularly dig their retro-Doom rock. Nothing groundbreaking here, but we love old school melodic Doom here at the BLAST, and VOODOO SHOCK delivers the goods. Heavy,hooky, resin-coated stuff!

VORKUTA Into The Chasms Of Lunacy CD $11.98 Paragon

Hungarian black metal band Vorkuta's debut full length Into The Chasms Of Lunacy comes to us via Paragon Records, who in the past have served up a couple of albums from cult deathdoom outfit Rigor Sardonicus. Vorkuta has only been around since 2002, but their brand of black metal is certainly rooted in the old school, fast and black as night and influenced by the likes of Burzum, Darkthrone, and Bathory, but the production is a bit better than what you might expect. Musically, Vorkuta keep things varied; about half of Into The Chasms... is harsh, blasting BM, with razor-sharp riffing and trebly guitars, a violent blast-heavy drummer whose blastbeats manage to sound like huge chains being pulled through an infernal machine at top speed when he's not grooving on a crushing midtempo blackpunk groove, and a singer whose croaking, demonic rasp sounds properly tormented. They do throw everything off-kilter pretty often with these weird, woozy slow parts that have a dissonant seasick doom quality to them, and on tracks like "Vorkuta", the band open with lush, dreamy guitars that sound more like The Cure or Cocteau Twins! Then there's the other half of the disc, the alternating tracks that are composed of grim, entirely instrumental ambient synthscapes, building layers of droning keys and subterranean electronic shimmer into an ashen atmosphere that reminds us of the ritual drones found on the Aural hypnox label. Definitely some very interesting, evocative blackness that'll appeal to fans of the more adventurous, atmospheric sounds of Xasthur, Leviathan, Lurker Of Chalice, Caina, and likeminded entities.

MP3 SAMPLE: "My Flaming Soul" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Within The Fortress Of Melancholia" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Gargoyle" (excerpt)
MP3 SAMPLE: "Stardust" (excerpt)