OM - Gebel Barkal

First OM material since Amos' arrival. Starting with Gebel Barkal, with another simple theme (much closer to Pilgrimage one), and the minimal yet rich drumming of Emil Amos (which stands out to be as good as Hakius). Vocals are getting more and more softer and short.
The second part of the single is a much psychedelic song, because it is a continuum of the Gebel Barkal theme with the addition of some delay effects and the final explosion with the use of a keyboard (some sort of overdriven Rhodes piano), which sounds cool, works pretty damn well. OM haven't lost me so far, and they wont, at least I believe so..

They'll be releasing a new album, this here, stay tooned..



Tracklist:
1. Gebel Barkal
2. (Version)

Link: Gebel Barkal

OM - Live at Jerusalem

If you were right there, you could feel, the sound, the really low and slow sound hitting your stomach on a way that would make you physically feel the music change your body. As everybody knows the sound quality is not the best, but it gives you a pretty good idea of what is OM live, dont miss this one if you like OM.



Tracklist:
1. Flight of the Eagle
2. Bhima's Theme

Link: Live at Jerusalem

OM - Inerrant Rays of Infallible Sun (Blackship Shrinebuilder)

Given that OM has only laid down five songs in the course of two full-lengths, any new non-album material is a godsend. Fortunately their side of this split is one of their best tracks, starting as perhaps the most uptempo OM song yet before shifting back to their familiar lurching tempo about halfway through. It's only about 8 minutes long but it holds its ground against the best of their extended takes like "At Giza".
Unfortunately your enjoyment of the Current 93 side will probably depend on how much of a David Tibet devotee you are, because there isn't much going on here besides his lyrics. An incredibly repetitive (and increasingly annoying) fuzzy organ(?) line soldiers on practically unchanged for the entire 7:50 duration; any other instrumentation I lost in the morass. It seems as if Tibet was trying to match styles with OM, but his track feels paper-thin compared to OM's ribcage-rattling intensity.

This is still essential of OM fans, but Current 93 fares better on his own records.



Tracklist:
1. Rays of the Sun/To the Shrinebuilder (OM)
2. Inerrant Infallible (Black Ships at Nineveh or Edom) (Current 93)

Link: Inerrant Rays of Infallible Sun (Blackship Shrinebuilder)

OM - Split w/ Six Organs of Admittance

Somehow, this two bands, just thought of joining forces, and joining two "simple" songs, by each one of them.. and the result? This beautiful album, two well known songs from them, just joined together in one split. Nice piece of collection, there's not that much copies around the world, so ate least if you can't buy it, 'purchase' it right here, sit back in your couch, and listen to it loud.. because you will enjoy, the echo notes, entering in your brain.



Tracklist:
1. Bedouin's Vigil (OM)
2. Assyrian Blood (Six Organs of Admittance)

Link: Split w/ Six Organs of Admittance

OM - Conference of the Birds

Conference of The Birds makes for an apropos soundtrack of apogee and reverence. A clarion call sounding for rebirth ...seductive, liberating, a prayer framed within apocalyptic atmosphere. A brooding lullaby for the sun underscored with allusions to solar-object omens and seraphim arrivals. Respective to our time, the birds are - as is Om's sound - metaphors for the soul seeking transcendental freedom and ethereal resonance.



Tracklist:
1. At Giza
2. Flight of the Eagle

Link: Conference of the Birds

OM - Variations on a Theme

OM is a bass-and-drums duo from San Fransisco, CA, that makes some of the coolest music you will ever hear. After 7 years of not playing in a band, bassist Al Cisneros of Sleep joins his former music buddy, drummer Chris Haikus, to make a new band that focuses more on groove than assualt. For those of you unfamilar with Sleep, they were a stoner/doom metal band in the vein of Black Sabbath. Now, OM is born from the ashes of the previous band. Granted, this will bring back memories of Sleep's last album, Dopesmoker, but this is a definete improvement over that album. For starters, when OM jams, it's a lot more focused and interesting, and not as montonous. Al's monk-on-acid singing also helps the atmosphere of the record, and Chris's jazz drumming also helps too. For fans of Sleep, Neruosis, and Black Sabbath, this is for you.



Tracklist:
1. On the Mountain at Dawn
2. Kapila's Theme
3. Annapurna

Link: Variations on a Theme

Russian Circles - Station

Metal trimmings, minimal jazz primers, and cryptic riffs that hit out of nowhere with the pummeling impact of a comet. Their music weaves up an intense and cinematic albeit soothing clobbering that cannot be pigeonholed. Their lumbering layers of chiseled post rock and feathery psychedelic infusions have both revved and enticed listeners into mental orgasms the world over. They've shared stages with Tool, Dalek, Daughters, and Pelican. Catch them on tour beginning in late May.



Tracklist:
1. Campaign
2. Harper Lewis
3. Station
4. Verses
5. Youngblood
6. Xavii

Link: Station

These Arms Are Snakes / Russian Circles - Split Vinyl

Hailing from different cities, having different styles, one is instrumental the other is not. Both can reach their highness by just touching you in every note played, in any brutal part played. These Arms Are Snakes, comes with the usual inovative stuff, "Trix" and "Camera Shy" takes you to an electrified screaming running land, where you can stop and listen the breaks, the slow parts, you know.. everything that TAAS can give you. On the other side you have Russian Circles with "Philios", a evasive ambient music, with the brutal parts in the end, I'll no longer further myself, 'cause you know, if you know Russian Circles, you dont need any more words.



Tracklist:
1. Camera Shy (These Arms Are Snakes)
2. Trix (These Arms Are Snakes)
3. Philios (Russian Circles)

Link: Split Vinyl

Russian Circles - Enter

Hailing from Chicago, Russian Circles is one of those bands that comes completely out of nowhere and blows everyone away. Enter, does exactly this! Perfectly blended "Instru-Metal" is RCs talent, and is also a rapidly rising movement. A merger of typical Indie Rock mixed with other forms of Hardcore and Metal. If you like Pelican, Red Sparowes, Isis, Godspeed you Black Emperor, or even Explosions in the Sky, you need to check this record out.



Tracklist:
1. Carpe
2. Micah
3. Death Rides a Horse
4. Enter
5. You Already Did
6. New Macabre

Link: Enter

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Yanqui U.X.O.

U.X.O. is unexploded ordnance is landmines is cluster bombs. Yanqui is post-colonial imperialism is international police state is multinational corporate oligarchy. Godspeed You! Black Emperor is complicit is guilty is resisting. The new album is just music.' Recorded by Steve Albini at electrical audio in Chicago. Mixed by Howard Bilerman and Godspeed You! Black Emperor at the Hotel2tango in Montreal. Stubborn tiny lights vs. clustering darkness forever ok? Gatefold sleeve.



Tracklist:
Side 1:
1. 09-15-00 (Part One)
1. 09-15-00 (Part Two)

Side 2:
1. Rockets Fall on Rocket Falls

Side 3:
1. Motherfucker=Redeemer

Side 4:
1. Motherfucker=Redeemer

Link: Yanqui U.X.O.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven

Canada's Godspeed You Black Emperor raise the ante on their already ambitious orchestral rock by releasing a double CD of material as their second full-length album. The group combines the drums and guitar of typical rock-band instrumentation with horns and strings to create a music built around drones and slowly evolving melodic figures. It rises and falls from delicate introductory passages to unabashed grand climaxes. Their juxtaposition of drums with violins and lush romantic tonality brings to mind Rachel's, but their compositional scale and the pounding repetitive intensity of their dynamic peaks evoke Glenn Branca's The Ascension. Although the two discs are indexed at only two 21-minute tracks each, the package includes a handy road map to the movements into which each is subdivided. The opening piece starts with five minutes of a 15-beat circular melodic pattern that is gradually embellished as the volume swells to an ecstatic roar. The release drops down to a pastoral drone that rebuilds to support an acid-etched guitar solo, which in turn yields to a unified 4/4 kraut rock pound that eventually explodes, leaving behind field recordings of public announcements mingled with wandering late-night Swell Maps piano. The other pieces use a similar set of sonic building blocks to take the listener on comparable journeys. Fans of Godspeed's previous work will be very happy, and the curious might want to hop on board as well.



Tracklist:
CD 1:
1. Storm: Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven / Gathering Storm / Welcome to Barco [sic] AMPM...' [L.A.X.; 51400] / Cancer Towers on Holy Road Hi-Way

2. Static: Terrible Canyons Of Static / Atomic Clock / Chart - 3 / World Police and Friendly Fire / [...+The Buildings They Are Sleeping Now]

CD 2:
1. Sleep: Murray Ostril '...They Don't Sleep Anymore on the Beach...' / Monheim / Broken Windows, Locks f Love Pt. III.

2. Antennas To Heaven: Moya Sings 'Baby-O' / Edgyswingsetacid / [Glockenspiel Duet Recorded on a Campsite In Rhinebeck, N.Y.] / 'Attention...Mon Ami...Fa-Lala-Lala-La-La...' [55-St. Laurent] / She Dreamt She Was a Bulldozer, She Dreamt She Was Alone in an Empty Field / Deathkamp Drone / [Antennas to Heaven...]

Link: (CD 1) / (CD 2)

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada

Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada may last only half an hour, but in that time it imparts an internal experience akin to that of watching a cast-of-thousands Hollywood epic. Godspeed You Black Emperor! are a Montreal-based nine-piece ensemble that uses massed strings, ringing electric guitars, and martial drums to evoke endless vistas and stir strong emotions. "Moya" opens with a solemn drone overlaid with resonant violin overtones, then builds to a crashing, unapologetically melodramatic climax. The CD's second (and final) selection, "Blaise Bailey Finegan III," is more ambitious. Like a director who grabs his audience's tear ducts with both fists, the group inserts field recordings of a ranting paranoiac between sweeping spaghetti-Western passages that rise to exhilarating multiple crescendos, then fall away to ghostly, echoed violins.



Tracklist:
1. Moya
2. Blaise Bailey Finnegan III

Link: Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F#A#

On first listen, Montreal collective Godspeed You Black Emporer sounds familiar, like sonic-landscape architects the Dirty Three. But pay closer attention to this debut full-length and you'll find something much more compelling: G.Y.B.E. mix found sounds, voices, lilting string sections, and musique concrète into structures that tell a story. With each listen, a new plot twist is unraveled, a new movie sample identified--you start to listen closely with headphones to pick up new subtleties you couldn't hear previously. Three tracks, a bit over an hour, of great music that defies categorization.



Tracklist:
1. The Dead Flag Blues
2. East Hastings
3. Providence

Link: F#A#

Cosmic Vishnu

What's up? I just recieved this video on my youtube account, from a friend from Texas. This a portuguese band, with some "pretty" Doom stuff, waiting for the release:



Check out their myspace: www.myspace.com/cosmicvishnu

Note: It seems they've changed their name to Aspen. Still the same band..

the Sword - Gods of the Earth

Strap on your armour and ready your weapons; it is time to do battle with the forces of evil, and The Sword’s second album Gods Of The Earth will be our call to arms.
Oh yes, make no mistake - The Sword’s much anticipated sophomore album is a tailor-made soundtrack to a night in front of World Of Warcraft, or round at a friend’s house with the latest edition of Dungeons and Dragons and an eighth of dodgy homegrown.
Gods Of The Earth is hair grown as long as your school rules will permit; Gods Of The Earth is sleeveless denim jackets with Sabbath patches; Gods Of The Earth is all the best and most endearing clichés of horror-fantasy heavy metal.

Hailing from Texas, the influence of the Southern metal sound is as inevitable as it is inescapable in The Sword’s music. But they’ve exchanged the tough-guy “don’t tread on me” aggression of their neighbours for glorious schlocky overstatement and an all-consuming worship of the Riff.



Tracklist:
1. The Sundering
2. The Frost-Giant's Daughter
3. How Heavy This Axe
4. Lords
5. Fire Lances of the Ancient Hyperzephyrians
6. To Take the Black
7. Maiden, Mother & Crone
8. Under the Boughs
9. The Black River
10. The White Sea

Link: Gods of the Earth

the Sword - Live at Roadburn ('07)

It sounds like "...a bunch of bison being pushed over a cliff."



Tracklist:
1. The Frost-Giant's Daughter
2. the Horned Goddess
3. Lords
4. Barael's Blade
5. the Black River
6. Freya
7. Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings (ZZ Top cover) / Winter's Wolves

Link: Live at Roadburn

Note: The sound quality is just awesome: 9/10!

the Sword - Live at Buffalo ('07)

If you know these guys, you know what you should expect.. so a massive review by me, would just bore you. If you like the heavyness, if you like the riffs, you will just enjoy this concert. With an excellent set list, choosing songs from both albums, and than you've the good thing of live shows, you can really feel their souls while they play.



Tracklist:
1. The Frost - Giant's Daughter
2. Barael's Blade
3. The Horned Goddess
4. The Sundering
5. Fire Lances of the Ancient Hyperzephyrians
6. Freya
7. Maiden, Mother & Crone
8. To Take The Black
9. Iron Swan
10. The White Sea
11. Winter's Wolves

Link: Live at Buffalo

the Sword - 12" split w/ Witchcraft

This is the split, it contains one of the best songs by Sword: "Sea of Spears", and a (obvious) cover, of a Led Zeppelin's song, wanna guess? The viking theme: "Immigrant Song", picture the brutal drum machine of this song, with two more heavy guitars and you've got your self the conquerors of the North!
Witchcraft plays some really cool songs too, but we'll get intouch with them later.



Tracklist:
1. Sea of Spears (the Sword)
2. Immigrant Song (the Sword)
3. You Bury Your Head
4. Queen of Bees
5. Sorrow Evoker

Link: 12" split Sword/Witchcraft

the Sword - Age of Winters

I love heavy music, but when you hear something that might strike up some interest and then the singer starts screaming his guts out, it's a complete turn off. What ever happened to good, hard, stripped down metal riffs and vocals. Finally a band that actually gets it. I heard The Sword a few months ago on a comcast music channel and immediatly went out and bought the cd. It's been stuck in my cd player ever since. Last night I drove 3 hours to see them live and it was worth every mile. Alot of people have complained about the vocals on this album, but for me this was one of the selling points. I'd love to cram the mic down the throat of some of these idiots that do nothing but scream through every song. To me that takes alot away from the music. Heres a frontman who dosnt try to overshadow the instruments with an annoying singing voice. Sure, they sound like Sabbath, but I'm in my 20s and thank god somebody from my generation wants to bring some Sabbath-type metal to modern times. Dont forget, this band released this album two years before their formation, and this is their first album, they're not rich, so to all of you leaving reviews complanining about recording and sound quality, maybe you should stick with bands that have been out for a while. Support The Sword and bring heavy music back to where it should be.



Tracklist:
1. Celestial Crown
2. Barael's Blade
3. Freya
4. Winter's Wolves
5. The Horned Goddess
6. Iron Swan
7. Lament for the Auroch
8. March of the Lor
9. Ebethron

Link: Age of Winters

Note: Highly adviced, my favourite album in about ten years..