REVIEW: SERVANTS OF THE MIST - SUICIDE SEX PACT

Tampa, FL may not seem like the doom capital of the world, with their sunshine and delicious oranges and all that, but then a band like Servants of the Mist comes along with Suicide Sex Pact, an EP so bleak and filthy that it blocks the light traveling from dying stars and rots fruit from the trees.

From the opening uneasy clean singing of a passage from “Jesus Loves Me,” which captures the same creepy melancholia as Harvey Milk’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s “One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong,” Servants of the Mist create a world where light is long-extinct and hope’s been violently snuffed. Album opener “Absence” introduces their scorched funeral doom, which sounds like the aural equivalent of finger painting with urn ash on a canvas of stretched skin torn from a dead priest’s back. This sort of pitch-black doom inspires thoughts of Bongripper and Cough, mixed with the drama of early My Dying Bride.

“Behind the Curtain” continues the band’s glacial determination with uncompromising heaviness. I wasn’t able to truly conceive of canyons being carved by icy structures until I heard the riff in this song. It feels a little like Evoken, if their songs were trapped in endless hallucinogen-fueled night terrors. The lead guitar in this song and album closer “Suicide Sex Pact” didn’t feel totally committed, with wavering hints of bluesy groove that fizzle instead of sizzle. This is the only aspect of the latter two songs that make me question if they totally earn the song length (none of the songs are briefer than 9 minutes). Fortunately, I’m willing to forgive 2 minutes among 30 when the rest of the album features guitar fuzz thicker than a blanket used to smother plague victims in their sleep. Richard Smyth Jr.’s vocals could scrape muscle from bone like an autopsy instrument, with curdling shrieks and meaty growls that give way to a no-wave gothic chant about 25 minutes into the album for a brief reprieve from ferocity. The breakdown of slow motion death rock slams back into relentless tomb-smashing doom before the feedback lifts like smoke and dust, revealing a pile of lifeless nude bodies.

With audio collage work reminiscent of Eyehategod’s more experimental passages and a muscular, bass-heavy attack that invokes Primitive Man and Conan, Suicide Sex Pact should interest fans of the loud, mean, and ugly. Maybe those aren’t adjectives I’d use on a dating profile, but when it comes to extreme metal, that’s love at first sight.

Go check out Servants of the Mist on Facebook and follow their updates as release information surfaces for Suicide Sex Pact:  https://www.facebook.com/servantsofthemist

Check out a preview of the title track over here: https://soundcloud.com/hbnbm/servants-of-the-mist-suicide

REVIEW: MOURNING CLOAK - NO VISIBLE LIGHT

Hat tip to Headfirst! Records for pointing my crusty ears in the direction of Mourning Cloak, who have one song available over on Bandcamp called “No Visible Light.” The title is apt, because this track is an ominous cloud blocking the sun, raining down charcoal dust, black mud, and infant ash on us all.

Their Facebook page refers to their music as “funeral doom/punk,” but I only hear the former in this track. But this song doesn’t sulk through the cemetery, it grooves hard enough to split the catacombs in half, releasing the crypt bats into the air. After the quickly dissipating opening ambience the guitars crawl from open graves and shake the rust off their bones with godless black-and-blues riffs. There is suck a thick layer of slime and sludge on this song that it reminds me of that barrier of grime and giant centipedes Indiana Jones’ love interest sticks her hand through in Temple of Doom. If you don’t get that reference, here it is in non-geek language: This song is nasty and unpleasant in the most sadistically delightful ways possible. The vocalist sounds like he’s plummeting into a bottomless pit, shaking hands with the devil to make a pact to finally break his fall. The song concludes with a (slightly overlong) cacophony of mayhem and sirens, which sadly just sounded like the usual Brooklyn madness outside my window, home of serial-arsonists and fisticuffs. I’m really anxious to hear more from these guys from Greensboro, NC, especially if upcoming songs mix in the punk influences they mention as well. I’m not sure if they named themselves after the butterfly species (Latin name: Nymphalis antiopa) but I did notice that the pre-butterfly larvae form looks exactly like the type of creature who would jam out to this music: Mean, dressed in black, dotted suspiciously with red stains, and covered in spikes. This is some seriously bleak stuff that fans of Bongzilla and Cough should feverishly inhale.

Listen to “No Visible Light” over at Bandcamp here: http://mourningcloaknc.bandcamp.com/

And follow them on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/mourningcloaknc

REVIEW: FULL OF HELL - RUDIMENTS OF MUTILATION

Don’t be afraid, be very afraid. Full of Hell’s new album, Rudiments of Mutilation, is what all those fairy tales were warning you about. All the ugly, cruel, dangerous elements of the world have packed their bindles and trekked across broken glass and glowing embers to join the sonic fray in this release. While quotes from the band suggest that the album is simply about “meaningless suffering” I created an entire narrative of a tortured soul recounting violent deeds and troubling experiences post-mortem, waiting for the revelation of what exists when our pulse ceases, and finding nothing. In the street-wise words of Blood for Blood, “What have we got? We got nihilism.”

Full of Hell blast pitch-black, grinding crust’n’doom at their audiences like they have a lifelong grudge against anyone in shouting distance. After “Dichotomy” lures the listener in with howls from a bottomless pit and eerie scattershot drumming, “Vessel Deserted” taps into the hardest core of crust punk before slipping into the abyss for one of several funeral sludge passages, where Dylan Walker’s vocals trail away like smoke from bodies burnt to destroy evidence. Full of Hell rip through a few grinders before pounding out “Indigence and Guilt,” a vicious hardcore song with stop-and-start riffage over a grimy wall of tremolo noise. When Full of Hell muscle up and aim to maim there is no place safe to hide. You don’t want to have an arm wrestling contest with Rudiments of Mutilation. Remember Jeff Goldblum in The Fly? Compound fracture just waiting for you, son.

The middle of the album opens up into a gaping pit of despair as “Embrace” features lifeless, droning musing over feedback and a swampy, groovy bass line. The song bleeds over into the doom track “The Lord Is My Light,” whose dissonant opening chords dive cranium-first into a pool of coagulated blood. This portion of the album is the harshest, scraping along on its belly like a dying snake trying to swallow its last rat-meal before it stops breathing. Then it’s back to the daily grind, with “Bone Coral and Brine” and the title track cranking out crusty, savage hardcore punk with barbed-wire texture. The album closes with “In Contempt of Life” marching bleakly to a halt, with barked vocals reverberating restlessly through a purgatory of ash and bone dust that I assume looks frighteningly like Wyoming. In Full of Hell’s nasty reality there’s never a moment of silence, just the shrill ringing in your ears after a speaker explodes or a gun goes off.

This release is exactly what makes A389 Recordings one of the most important labels in aggressive music. Full of Hell has a versatile and downright scary sound that needs to be celebrated and appreciated by fans of sonic extremity. The Dude was totally accurate, even in jest, when he suggested being a nihilist is exhausting. So even the most dedicated nihilists should take a break and seek out Rudiments of Mutilation, because this album will make you believe in nothing except the lasting power of a musician with a bad mood. Full of Hell are also touring extensively through June, so support these bad mofos on the road. Can’t wait to catch them in Brooklyn with Trap Them and Seven Sisters of Sleep, that sounds like the best excuse for a concussion I’ve ever heard.

Check out the album streaming NOW at:  http://www.terrorizer.com/2013/04/23/full-of-hell-rudiments-of-mutilation-stream/

And though vinyl pre-orders are sold out, get a CD/Shirt combo over at A389:

http://www.a389records.com/site/

GUEST REVIEW: EVOKEN - A CARESS OF THE VOID

Editor: So this is the first guest review from a non-metal fan, an occurrence I hope to make a bi-weekly staple. One of the reasons I created this site was to share heavy metal with a wider, reluctant (or maybe even suspicious) audience. I could have easily assigned a more approachable record (think: Baroness, Anciients, Mastodon), but our first guest writer encouraged me to give him something challenging and relentless. Jude Gullie is a corporate stooge, medicine man, John Candy connoisseur, and extremely talented chef. He was a vital part of the now-defunct folk crooners The Holy Crows and was one-third of the vaudevillian performance team The Broken Banjo Boys. Here is Jude’s take on A Caress of the Void, the latest album from New Jersey funeral doomsters Evoken. - MG

GUEST REVIEWER: JUDE GULLIE

When I heard that Mr. Growl wanted non-Metal fans to review albums for his blog I jumped at the opportunity.  I had been wanting to listen to some Metal ever since I had the pleasure of watching a gentleman (who was listening to what I believe was metal) violently air-drumming next to me on the L train.  Why should that guy be having all the fun?  

My first assignment was to review the “Funeral Doom” band Evoken’s A Caress of the Void.  I had never heard of “Funeral Doom” prior to this experience, but I will say that it piqued my interest.  If I have ever talked with you more than a few minutes you would probably know that I have a morbid fascination with the character of Pallbearer from 1980s and 1990s WWF fame. (Editor’s Note: R.I.P - MG) I was really hoping that the music might invoke images of that fat man with white caked on makeup holding an urn.  I was sorely mistaken.

I don’t know if it gets easier to understand this kind of music if you listen to it often, but I spent the majority of this album (all the parts with vocals) with my hand to my ear like an elderly man trying to listen to the soup specials being listed at a Friendly’s Restaurant.  I could understand words like “me” and I think I heard the phrase “delicious skittles” at one point, but I wouldn’t put money on my being correct.

The more I listened to the album the more the mental image of the lead singer burping into a microphone while trying to form words popped into my head.  That is how this type of music is made, right?

By around the fifth song “Descend the Lifeless Womb” I felt like I was in the groove of listening to the album, but the next song was thirteen minutes long!  I found myself getting distracted and watching an “Easter Toys” ad on the side of the Grooveshark website. I did end up listening to the whole album, but I would say that I was not swayed to start listening to more metal.

Editor: NOOOOO! We were one 13 minute doom opus away from claiming the soul of another non-metal fan! Here’s hoping Jude will sign on for another review in the future. Maybe a grindcore album with 15 songs in 13 minutes is more his (hyper)speed? Thanks again to Jude for participating and being a good sport. Next time we will capture your soul and keep it in Paul Bearer’s urn for eternity.

Form your own opinion by finding Evoken on Spotify and learn more about them at their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/evokendoom

REVIEW: USNEA - S/T

For those of you unfamiliar with lichens and herbal medicine, usnea is an algae/fungus also known as “Old Man’s Beard” that grows on a vast number of trees in the Pacific northwest. It’s also a natural immune system tonic safe for pets and children. I can not say the same about Usnea’s music. This is savage music with enormous depth that would use pets and children as bear bait.

Usnea released their self-titled debut in Portland, OR on local DIY label Orca Wolf Records this past January. I’m convinced after a few listens that hearing it now, in the second week of March, is the perfect timing. This album, composed of four ten-plus minute tracks, feels like a bog thawing as winter passes, where the nights are still long and dark but the creeks start to gurgle beneath the snow. I hesitate to call this music “funeral doom” because to me it feels like something dangerous waking after hibernation, coming to life instead of crawling into a casket.

Opening song “Chaoskampf” offers a microcosm of Usnea’s dark, tangled world. From the chilling, plodding riffs clawing up the muck to the strikes of black metal lightning, there is a dense, deadly landscape that Usnea takes their time cultivating. “Brazen Bull of Phalaris” leads you down a different animal-tracked path through similar terrain. Whatever animal left the tracks is horned, bloodthirsty, can sense the fear in the tremors of every footstep, and probably sleeps beneath an Usnea band member’s porch. Beginning with hissing feedback and ending with fragile, clean guitar, the band’s stringed instruments explore every monstrous possibility in between. The vocals are similarly varied, from a somber bellow to a mid-range shriek that could split a sycamore in half.

While the introductory riff on “Monuments to Avarice” kept me engaged as it offered sunlight breaking through the clouds, even while Joel Williams’ howls and bass thunder in the background, the rest of the track did test my interest. My mind wandered a bit as the song started to feel its length, hoping for a few lighter brush strokes on the sable canvas. Usnea stole me back as soon as the mid-tempo (up-tempo, compared to the rest of the album) stomp of “Empirical Evidence of a Deranged God” splashed me with black pond scum head-to-toe and left me smiling through the grime. It’s a triumphant closing for a magnificently crushing debut album. Honestly, even mentioning it’s a debut album feels like a qualifying phrase. This is a  focused, grim, and truly great record, regardless of where it sits chronologically in a discography.

I will be following Usnea from this release forward, hoping for future gigs on the East Coast and guiding other musical marsh-dwellers into Usnea’s haunted swamp. If you play this album in an abandoned shack tucked in the belly of some secluded, wooded mudlands you can be sure the restless spirit of some old curse-casting hermit will be stirred. This music unlocked my macabre imagination and let it run wildly between the notes. While “Old Man’s Beard” is a name begging to be used somewhere in the metal world, Usnea is the name we should all remember (and learn how to pronounce) going forward.

Listen to Usnea’s album NOW, streaming for free and available for download for only $4 at:  http://usneadoom.bandcamp.com/

Or better yet, buy the beautiful vinyl LP for $10 over at Orca Wolf Records: www.orcawolf.com

And check out their Facebook page for more information at:  https://www.facebook.com/usneadoom