Negative Plane - Stained Glass Revelations : Photo by wkimagery.com *

Splayed Ass Masturbations

Why do I write reviews at silly hours in the morning when I should be going to my pit to have a danger wank versus the dark closet monsters. Fuck knows. All I can say about this band Negative Plane, is that they are fucking incredible. Take the best bits of Celtic Frost, all the reverb from every 90s Black Metal band & a fuckin’ massive church organ. What’s not to like?

A wee bit of history about the band, they’re from the USA, which is somewhat bewildering as most US bands of this calibre sound like a fat American eating a packet of children’s legs. They started in 2001, released a few demos I’ve never heard then released Et In Saecula Saeculorum in 2006 which is another slab of fucking reverberating spermgasm. The members go by the titanic pseudonyms of Nameless Void (Vokills and Guitars) and Bestial Devotion (Artillery).

You would expect that this band would be another ridiculous, bestial kvltgasm of an outing but it goes above and beyond. The wanks who blow their over-sized allowance buying everything on vinyl will make Mummy start up the Range Rover immediately for a lift down to the local indie store to buy this for sure but it’s  not be limited to, or stopped by the fact that they believe Negative Plane chose them. Stained Glass Revelations is above these kids who are, strangely enough, all under the age of 21 & think they are music’s first & foremost.

I hate to use this phrase but Stained Glass Revelations is one of those albums that’s an instant classic. From the word go, you are just submerged in a mass of occult Black and Roll with mental choirs & organs making the experience similar to blasting a load over a fresh child or fat chick. That’s something I highly recommend, give it a go. Immensely satisfying. The production is brilliant. They’ve recorded pretty much everything bar the drums in a big fuck off toilet or something. Despite this, it sounds vast, old & grim as fuck. Collectors would probably benefit by getting this on vinyl. When they’re old & the house stinks of shit because it’s smeared across the walls as they have spent their life hypnotised by Negative Plane’s amazing albums, this will still sound timeless.

I can’t think of a favourite track because all of them have ridiculously good riffs & a piano or an organ with a slut draped over it. The songs have length but they never get tiresome. Some clocking in at the 10 minute mark so this may NOT be the record to use as your rapage sacrificial soundtrack as your fellow kvltists may get a bit impatient & want a shot of your unwilling victim, THUS leading to some petty squabbling & by this point the kid has managed to escape the bonds tied by Clement because he is ALWAYS useless at securing the tarts. Fucking cunt.

Now these amazing cunts Negative Plane are coming to play Bannermans in Edinburgh & fuck knows where else but I highly suggest you check them out and get down to their shows. I’m away to my fucking scratcher. Work in 5 hours.

* Photo credit goes to the extremely talented wkimagery.com. Go check them out.

Anaal Nathrakh

Passion (for teenage black metal vagina)

It’s 2:30 in the morning and I’m listening to the new Anaal Nathrakh record entitled ‘Passion’.

Anaal Nathrakh are your local cheeky chappies with a penchant for writing naughty blackened core riffs, that are ridiculously fast for no apparent reason. They have been spewing out more records in the last decade than the average teen mother fires out abominations. If you don’t know who Mick Kenney is, just leave it at that. Let’s have a wee listen and see if the Passion is there.

It’s immensely slick produced and highly triggered, more so than an NYC cop about to have a show down with some Hispanics of the local drug cartel. I hate it. It kicks off pretty sharpish, with a short clean intro before the mayhem of toilet fun consumes my ears and my mind encourages me to reach for the stop button on the stereo. I persevere. There are some great Emperor-isms in the music, but I can’t for the life of me think that this is complete generic nuggetry by the numbers and the evidence of any Black Metal influence is non-existent let alone grindcore.

There ARE some good points though, this is a great family record of course. The riffs are well executed and well played. The vocals are hilarious, sometimes sounding like a domestic abuse scenario. The song titles are you usual evil pish, I can‘t particularly distinguish each song because the vocals are continuously fucking tragic/laughable. ‘Post Traumatic Stress Euphoria‘? I‘ve taken a shite that is more appropriately titled than this garbage.

Black Metal used to be dangerous or at least scary sounding (ish), I’d get more thrill giving Ian Huntley my children for the weekend. The detuned dirge of this record is like playing with marshmallows in your lovely Costa hot chocolate. Tunes like Ashes Screaming Silence are more like gentle tickles on the ear rather than sonic devastation.

I really don’t like this record. It’s about as necro as the local Glaswegian graveyard filled with solvent abusers and vampires. Fenriz would not approve. If this is modern day extreme metal then we are extremely fucked, straight in the bum bum. There isn’t any passion (Irony eh!?) behind this record, there’s no attention to detail with the little things, everything is compressed to a flat line and the fucking vocal levels hitting the red to make it sound more extreme isn’t cool and just makes it all sound severely rushed. The snare is repetitive and sound replaced, cut and pasted, slapped, buggered bashed and sodomized into the utter shite it sounds. I’d take St. Anger’s drum sound over this.

Picture an extreme metal guidebook, they have covered nearly everything with this record. An album that isn’t needed, take a 5 year hiatus Anaal Nathrakh and come back with something more captivating. Cradle of Filth covered this stuff a decade ago, as did Emperor with the operatic stuff. Mick Kenney needs to burn a church or something. Death/Fiddler/Chunk core bands are writing better music than this utter fudgey poo, of course, there will be a bunch of folk saying, ‘Aww this is rapid, pyoor fuckin’ extreme and amazing’. They are cretins, don’t listen to them.

The Blood of Christ

Edinburgh is in for a fucking treat this Sunday (24th October). Bannermans & Eilean Dubh have put together an outrageously good gig featuring:

• Lazarus Blackstar – www.myspace.com/lazarusblackstar
• Ghast – www.myspace.com/souldustgrave
• Volition – www.myspace.com/volition666
• Burial – www.myspace.com/burialtheband
• Battalions
• Haar – www.myspace.com/haarsounds
• Jackal-Headed Guard of the Dead – www.myspace.com/headofthejackal
• Of Spire & Throne – www.myspace.com/ofspireandthrone
• Parole – www.myspace.com/parolecov

Tickets are only £8 & it kicks off at 3:30. See you there!

Tickets will be on sale from the bar, Tickets Scotland, or from any of the local bands.

Haar

Haar’s About That Then

From the outset it is clear that this 2 year old Edinburgh band are not your typical bullet belt clad blasters, as a cursory glance at the CD player shows 3 tracks on clocking in at a weighty 26 minutes. With long songs comes a great responsibility to diversify, as anything featuring 9 minutes of wall to wall trve kvlt biscuit-tin drums recorded on a mobile phone in Gandalf’s corrugated steel garden shed would have me eating my laptop with rage. Luckily for me Haar paint a rich musical picture, using the time to conjour desolate landscapes where raw speed is balanced with doomy, progressive parts that occasionally bring to mind Agalloch’s heavier moments.

The EP begins with Whisper Serenities Eve (Mike Akerfeldt will be kicking himself he never came up with that name first), which nails their colours to the mast from the beginning, opening with a dirty great hulk of a riff before unleashing the blackened mist, but also featuring some nice technical flourishes that successfully manage to raise it above 92% of other black metal.

To Forgive An Enemy is an epic track that features far more expansive atmospherics and despite its length, is probably the most traditional sounding black metal song on the EP, the spacey refrain being a nice focal point that carrys the song along as the instrumentation twists and turns around it.

Without Form Or Void begins with a discordant riff, upping the grim factor another notch, yet amongst the spiralling tremolo picking and diminished chords it features the most melodic passages of the entire EP, which balance out to create an outstanding track.

The songs are well produced, providing enough warmth and depth to the songs to do the ambition of the music justice, without losing their raw black metal edge. From only this brief glimpse it is clear that Haar have real potential, and I look forward to hearing them further explore and develop the various progressive elements that make this release stand out (while maintaining their chilling black metal blast) in the future. Their total lack of spiky shin guard and corpse paint promo pictures taken in a snow-clad forest is a matter for another day, however…

Fornost Arnor

Escaping the Abysmal

Hailing from the world capital of atmospheric black metal that is Colchester, Greg Chivers has gathered himself a very talented group of musicians. Combined with a diverse sack of influences, the end result is a powerful & intelligent, if slightly bipolar debut that owes much to Scandinavian masters without ripping off their trademark styles.

Melodic passages bring to mind the progressive black/doom stylings of Agalloch & The Morningside. Certain parts, such as ballad Her Face in the Water, are too much for my heroic manly exterior but they appeal so much to my inner overweight, teenage goth girl that you can forgive them. That said, the vocal harmonies are so fantastic that I may just put on some eye-liner & light some candles.

Fornost Arnor are, of course, happy to break the mood with brutal black metal more reminiscent of Åkerfeldt at his most pissed off. The effects can be more jarring than a road trip with Nelson Mandela’s granddaughter but for the most part, play off well against each other. Black metal has never been one to shun those without musical talent  but the sheer ability on here is astounding as is the production which only lets us down with a drum sound that could have done with a bit less compression. Gravity Denied is a brilliant showcase for Chivers’ guttural growls & Will Hall’s outstanding lead guitar work despite some questionable lyrics. Strength of the Heart follows suit with more guitar wank of the highest order.

Culminating on the 13 minute epic, The Tragedy of Delusion, Fornost Arnor present their magnum opus. A demonstration of their talent at crafting both the beautiful & the brutal, the final track gives them the space to move from one to the other. Their ability to generate a real atmosphere without resorting to the usual tricks i.e. nicking something off the Lord of the Rings soundtrack, is refreshing. Further vocal harmonies are provided by Elle Torry of Imperial Vengeance which, unlike Kerry King turning up at the studio unannounced BC Rich in hand, is the kind of seal of approval that actually means something.

Their debut lands at a time when the UK black metal scene is teeming with great bands & Escaping The Abyss puts Fornost Arnor very much within the top tier.

Cormorant

Prog-tastic Contender For Album Of The Year

Pinning Cormorant down to a single genre would be about as productive & as easy as stapling a turd to the back of a particularly pissed off badger. However, if you really insist on having something to put in that tantalising “Genre” box in your iTunes, I’d say they play progressive blackened death metal.

Dark, crushing brutality mixes with beautiful melodic passages on pretty much every track. Influences range from Zao, At The Gates, Cynic all the way to Rush, Celtic Frost, Iron Maiden and a thousand other bands, yet each song sounds like something totally original & unique. Arthur von Nagel’s growls & screeches are reminiscent of the early black metal scene whilst his fretless bass work drives the whole album & really stand out in the production.

Opener Scavenger’s Feast builds from a slow intro up into a heavy Gothenburg sounding blinder before dropping into an epic hard rock solo then on to a classical guitar interlude before building again to more Slaughter of the Soul style savagery. One track that really stands out is Blood on the Cornfields which has an excellent NWOBHM melody & it tells the tale of Nat Turner’s 1831 slave rebellion. Rarely for an album this heavy, the lyrics are really intense, well-written epics on diverse subjects that fit perfectly with the schizophrenic styling of the music.

Its hard to believe that Cormorant aren’t signed to a label or that they put this out as a self-funded release, especially when you consider they got Billy Anderson (Sleep, Mr. Bungle, Cattle Decapitation) to produce it. The production is flawless. I’ve tried to think of more to say on the subject but it’s actually so perfect that anything I say superfluous wank-fluff. Just listen to it!

It’s rare that I get such an intense feeling from an album. It happened the first time I heard Cynic’s Focus, Zao’s Funeral of God & Mastadon’s Remission. Its a magical feeling that usually leaves me with a hard-on & a bit of shit in my pants. I think Cormorant might be the best new band to come out of the Bay Area in a long time. Trust me when I say that this is an extremely special album & a definite contender for album of the year.