Ultraphallis - Sowberry Hagan

On Riot Season records, Liege, Belgium's Ultraphallus' Sowberry Hagan comes out January 24 and is...

...something...

...you should pick the motherfuck up.

Ultraquick version: an experimental cross between Sloath and Portishead.

Less quick version: it's got "typical" Riot Season production, like Sloath: a lot of bleed between tracks, making a single lumbering, massive doom metal sound, rather than several tracks overlaid each other. Frankly, it's a sound I really enjoy, and one that sounds great whether at (my fave) jet engine volume, or through good headphones. It's an organic monster-- the Swamp Thing coming into your ears (literally?).

Track shortlists:

"The Red Print": includes the (almost certainly improvised) vocals by Oxbow's Eugene Robinson, in a remixed ambient-rock track, all the while managing to sound like a metal version of Leon Thompson and his work with Pharoah Sanders. Soooo nice.

"Torches of Freedom": ambient, noise: spoken word about Bush administration... "The Loss of Their Teeth" is beautiful, almost lullaby-like; "Golden Fame" is riffy and introspective, and most easily encapsulates how Ultraphallus hits: a doom metal Portishead....

"The Crumbled" is banjos and birdsong (did I mention Ultraphallus were experimental? See this link about Eric Dolphy and birdsong... it sorta hits at where they're coming from, baby)....

"Cinghiale" includes increasing tape hiss and saxophone, and seems to me to be the perfect cross betweeen the love of "sound" and the love of Doom (like Preslav Literary School)...

I"ndians Love Rain": brooding, complex, mysterious (and does the title make more sense in Belgian French...?).

"Right Models" and "River Jude" are easily the most rocking tracks of the album, like a slow rock version of Kylesa's "Scapegoat"... or a combination of the Descendents and Sloath meets L7....

Album opener, "Pathological Freemind Verse" is (intentionally or not) an homage to Merzbow, all noise and intent....

Ultraphallus rocked a shitton of new sonorities: banjos, alto and soprano saxophones, noises and samples and field recordings-- as much as someone as abstract as Eric Dolphy-- and blends them all into a stew of sound, so much so that I, who plays soprano, alto and tenor sax, couldn't tell which sax was which.

Maybe that's the most apt description of Sowberry Hagan: an attempt to blend, without regard for the listener, pretty much every genre that comes into their minds....

The album title is a Mark Twain reference, and an obscure one at that: it's referenced once in Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 6, (about a man renowned for his cursing).

Musically! ...Myriad elements: doom, ambient, noise, sampled sounds, Kate Bush, Swans, death metal, Portishead, crushingly heavy alternative....

Engineering! ...Overall what I'm calling a "dusty" sound: Sowberry Hagan was "remixed with low frequencies," including sub-mixed samples, hidden noise, and other Interesting Sonic Oddities....

Overall? The haiku* review?

Oppressive
Scary and reassuring
Like warm grave soil



--Horn


Riot Season Records: http://www.riotseason.com/news.htm

Ultraphallus Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/ultraphallus


*I know this is not Haiku form.

Running Wild – Branded and Exiled

During one of our recent phone conversations, Racer made mention that he played Armored Saint’s Delirious Nomad and was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t steer him wrong with said recommendation. As the conversation progressed, he asked me about Running Wild and all the jolly pirate shenanigans that were encapsulated within their swarthy and swaggering tunes, to which I had to plead the fifth . . . for, I hadn’t spent much time aboard that musical sailing vessel bearing plundered goods from across the Seven Seas. However, I was aware of Running Wild just prior to them embarking on this journey through the ruffled shirt realms of metaldom. So, with the little reminder from my writing mate, I practically fell over myself to dig Branded and Exiled out of my collection for a long deserved spinning.

Running Wild through Branded and Exiled was a power metal/thrash group from Germany that played a darker version of Accept-styled metal or Destruction. This album came along just before Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, et al made thrash metal the popular movement that it became. Once again, we have a fringe band that really didn’t achieve any success away from the underground during that pivotal mid to late 80’s time period. The production on this album is great in that the recording captured sounds raw and aggressive, maybe on par with the early Venom recordings. The mix is a little crazy . . . the guitars are way up front, the drums sound huge and the echo is turned heavily to the right, and the vocals have been baked in a casserole of reverb and garnished with distortion, which gives them a heavier, more menacing tone to them. It’s like Running Wild was flirting with the demonic spectrum of heavy metal, kinda’ like they were peering into the abyss of early death metal, intrigued long enough to put their thoughts to tape, and then ran away screaming in the opposite direction. It was all of these great little elements that made Branded and Exiled one of my cherished childhood memories.

Branded and Exiled opens with a monstrous guitar riff akin to Judas Priest and then with the sound of a gong, the whole band drops in and rolls into a classic anthemic metal, quasi-thrash, headbanging beast. The speed of the tune is mid tempo by today’s standards, but back in the day, this had an immediacy to it that definitely got the listeners attention. The little double bass drum flourishes are nice pieces of added texture, and the heaviness of the guitars, the palm muted chug-a-lug of power chords, creates a welcome sense of brutality to an otherwise potentially cheesy riff. The lyrics are all about the hordes of metalheads banded together, unified by their cause and alienated from society’s norms. Yeah, the kind of lyrics that the teenage kids at that time ate up like those special brownies passed around that one dude’s party.

“Realm of Shades” is actually a proto-thrash tune that stands up remarkably well twenty five years later. Remember, in 1985, thrash hadn’t quite become what it would, and the power chord was the most powerful chord of them all. Running Wild captured a great sense of dark and dastardly emotion on this one. As the song opens, that guitar riff is accented nicely by the cymbal crashes and short burst of distorted guitars. The song has a good flow to it, from verse to bridge to chorus and back again, the band did a great job of keeping the song moving. It has that terrific emotional build up in the music and the tension breaks at the perfect moments, getting a physical reaction from the listener to start rocking out with flailed arms and upraised knees. It has a mosh-able quality to it though there is no drastic tempo shift or disconnected riff to power the song in that way.

The second side of the album gets really anthemic with songs like “Fight the Oppression” and “Chains & Leather.” The former is straight up speed metal made popular by Motorhead. In fact, listen real close and you’ll hear the influence of “Ace of Spades” littered throughout this track. The speed of the tempo, for certain, harkens back to the godfathers, but the guitar riff sounds like it came from the hands of Fast Eddie himself. Despite these similar characteristics, the song has a great palm muted, hyper picked break before dropping into the guitar solo, and the guitar harmonies with the double bass flourishes coming out of the solo are an excellent NWOBHM touch. Throw in the high pitched vocal screams and you’ve got a heavy metal classic!

“Evil Spirit” is a slow, chugging, doom laden beast that may have been an early catalyst to Running Wild becoming the champions of buccaneers young and old. The riff has that early metal galloping quality, and oddly enough, it sounds detuned to embrace the darker, heavier tones and the guitar solo isn’t flashy or all that technically brilliant, but the tones and string bends are tasteful and make the piece shine. The lyrics have something to do with a gnome riding a sailing ship or something, though the subject matter may be lost in translation. In all the song is freaking awesome!

The final track, “Chains & Leather” is . . . really silly, but I can’t help but love this track! Running Wild is just singing the praises of metal garb and there’s nothing wrong with that. Good for them! The blue ribbon winning line from this track is, “Even Satan wears leather, our souls to it forever!”  C’mon! How good is that!?!?!?! The song is a pretty steady mid-tempo number and doesn’t deviate its pace . . . it just cruises along as the ode to all metalheads around the world. Chains and leather forever, indeed!

After Branded and Exiled, Running Wild simply got too campy for me, not that all of the music was bad . . . I just wasn’t interested in hearing about pirates buried booty in my metal. Branded and Exiled was one of those albums that I stumbled on and picked up without ever hearing a note, a completely blind purchase, and remarkably, the album has remained in my collection for all of this time. I like this album because of its darkened qualities and overall unpolished and rough sound . . . any cleaner sounding and there’s no way that it could be taken serious, any rougher and it becomes unlistenable. I would never call this a perfect album, but it’s a good example of the fringe, proto-thrash underground that was clamoring for fresh ears to assail. Now, I gotta’ dig through my collection and see what other mid-80’s gems are lingering around here . . .

Pope

Buy here: Branded & Exiled
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Celtic Frost - Into The Pandemonium

An album title should give the listener an idea of what they’re getting into and very few albums have as fitting a title as Celtic Frost’s second full length studio release from 1987, Into The Pandemonium. From the album cover and Hieronymus Bosch’s interpretation of Hell to the sonic mélange infused within the grooves, Into The Pandemonium is the full package of chaos, ominous despair, and overwhelming persecution of the senses. In the mid to late 80’s, metal bands simply weren’t supposed to incorporate anything other than guitars, bass, drums, and vocals to a mix. Eh, you might get away with a few sound effects, but no one . . . absolutely no one mixed in violins, operatic female vocals, techno beats, and electronica over the fundamental instruments, nor orchestrated all of the sounds to such epic proportions as Celtic Frost.

If you’re not familiar with Celtic Frost, you need to know that this Swiss outfit is viewed as one of the godfathers of the modern death metal/black metal circuit, so that should give you an idea of the extremity of the music. Though the band is traditionally metal, Into The Pandemonium crosses boundaries into various other genres. They use terrifying imagery and menacing tones to convey their messages of doom, but in the case of Into The Pandemonium, they pushed the experimental envelope and fused the aforementioned musical elements into their sound. Used as pieces of textural intrigue or sonic special effects, these added vocals and untraditional instruments are used tastefully to enhance the music and are not the true basis of the songs . . . the songs are still rooted in detuned, sludge-y, and dark heavy metal. The textural embellishments act more like visual effects to enhance the story of a movie like Star Wars rather than the sole purpose of the song. They’re the color of a spectacular painting.

The album opens with a monstrous and brutal rendition of Wall of Voodoo’s alt-pop classic, “Mexican Radio,” and we, as listeners, get that opportunity to both raise our eyebrows in surprise and smile in pure joy. Full of Tom G. Warrior’s classic oooh’s and grunts, the Celtic Frost signature guitar tones, and thundering metal attack, “Mexican Radio” takes on a whole new vibe. There’s still an air of fun to the song, but there’s something a little more sinister in the background vocals at the chorus and when Warrior makes mention of eating barbequed iguana. Celtic Frost’s interpretation of the song is downright cool and I’m a little surprised that there wasn’t a bit more use of this song in cinema or some other media outlet.

After the intro of “Mexican Radio,” things get dire. “Mesmerized” kicks in with its huge waves of sustained chords and Warrior’s vocal approach is haunting as he sounds like he’s suffering some mortal injury. Over the dense guitar tones, this vocal approach is the kind of shit that freaked me out the first time I heard it, and odds are, it freaked out a bunch of other kids too. In time though, I’ve grown to appreciate this atonal croon and feel that without it, the song would be rather humdrum. Now, take all of this menace and these sounds of suffering, and mix in a subtle operatic female voice in the background . . . damn. It’ll make your blood run cold. The band does a great job of mixing up the dynamics of this one, as well . . . shifting from the heavy sustained portions where the music has the air to breathe to tighter riffs and polyrhythmic drum patterns to create a greater element of chaos.

“Tristesses De La Lune” is more of an interlude, but it shows the band using a healthy dose of violin, female vocals, and understated guitar riffs. Within seconds of this haunting tune fading out, the Celtic Frost that has laid down the groundwork to sonic decimation returns with what is quite possibly my favorite song from the album. “Babylon Falls” is a full on thrashing Frost classic. The intensity of this song is one that’s best experienced, but until you get the chance to do so, I’ll touch on a few of my findings with it. The opening guitar riff pretty much sets the tone with its gritty and dirty distorted tones, acting as the foundation for the rest of the band to do what they do best. The bass and drums crash in at the perfect times for maximum effect, and Warrior’s vocals spit with the most potent of venoms. The beat on this track is insane, falling somewhere in that off time category of prog, but still driving at the same time. Note how the band drops to the overpowering mid tempo riff at the chorus . . . it’s great example of dynamic use. Though “Babylon Fell” stands well on its own as a metal song, the inclusion of the crooning and textural elements does that much more to enhance the listening experience.

“Caress Into Oblivion” is an immaculate musical journey across desert wastelands. Introduced by a Muslim call to prayer, the song pummels the listener into their own oblivion . . . one moment oppressed by the overwhelmingly heavy tones, the next moment jettisoned across time and space by an up tempo groove and interstellar guitar solo. I absolutely love the polyrhythmic drum patterns that they incorporate throughout this track. They add an exotic element to the music that, with the aid of swirling smoke, takes me to an island within myself. Amazing song!

 Celtic Frost then does the genre crossing thing with “One in Their Pride” and “I Won’t Dance.” The former is a drum driven techno/electronica tune that features samples from various NASA space missions. Definitely another one of those eyebrow raising moments as most people are expecting more metal and not some quasi-industrial dance track. “I Won’t Dance” is about as accessible or commercial that Celtic Frost ever got. Well . . . with the exception of the disastrous Cold Lake album. But we’re not talking about that one right now. “I Won’t Dance” has a great melody to it and a very memorable chorus, but the band never sacrifices their metal intensity on this one. The riffs are still heavy, the vocals are still laced with agony, and the drums are explosive. In truth, it’s pretty fascinating that they were able to mix in such a melodic chorus within all the rest of the chaos thrashing about.

Into the Pandemonium is far and away my favorite album from Celtic Frost. Having listened to this one over and over again for the past twenty years, it’s become part of my being and despite it’s avant moments, it feels like a natural progression for a band who was so rooted in traditional heavy metal. Definitely the bands high water mark, Pandemonium is one of those albums that gets better with each listen, mainly because there’s so much going on that it’s impossible to pick up all of the intricacies on the first run through. I also appreciate this album for the fact that the band stretched themselves to the point of collapse to create a work of art. Sonically detailed and extravagant, listening to Pandemonium is like staring at a painting for hours on end, adjusting your eyes to pick up the subtle use of brush stroke, color, and texture. In this case, we’re not adjusting our eyes so much as our ears, keying in on the background elements that inspire the foreground actions. I hope that in another twenty years that I’m still finding something new buried deep in the mix of this album.  -  Pope

buy here:  Into the Pandemonium

www.celticfrost.com