Archive for October, 2011

Album of the day: Voivod – Dimension Hatröss

Posted on Monday, October 31st, 2011

Lovingly pinched from The Ripple Effect: When we last left our hero, the Voivod was surviving nuclear holocaust, technical dissolution, social anarchy, and an all around bad day. Where Killing Technology was a discordant chant of brutality and chaos, Dimension Hatröss takes the band’s sound one step closer to realization. Complex time changes and odd chord progressions still rule the day, it’s just that they’re performed with more deliberation, with more technical knowhow and experience.

Dimension Hatröss was the album where we see Voivod hurtling through the cosmos and entering another dimension of sight and sound. Elaborate and so far ahead of its time, this was the album I bowed to in high school. Where everyone else I knew was passing the collection dish in the church of Metallica, I was up the street and around the corner in a place where a mechanized creature gave sermons that captured the imagination of those in attendance. Ah, the future never looked so bleak and beautiful at one given moment!

Dimension Hatröss is an incredible tale of the Voivod character being immersed in a society of totalitarian rule where the citizens are brainwashed and forced to lose all individuality. Hhmmm . . . it doesn’t sound too far from where we’re at with our society now, does it? And this multi-layered story has a soundtrack that goes with it. Musical arrangements filled with tension to the point of bursting, emotions bubbling over, creating a maelstrom of moods, all conflicted with one another.

The guitar work on this album is otherworldly. Layer upon layer of effects help Piggy create the cosmos for the Voivod to wander. Snake’s vocals add a psychotic tone to the whole tale, lending credence to the mind rape the lead character goes through. The rhythm section of Blacky and Away lay down a low end menace to establish a feeling of dread.

‘Experiment’ leads off the disc, telling the technical tale of the Voivod smashing atoms and creating a new universe. High energy off time riffs with complex tempo changes set the stage for the entire album, which ultimately leads us to ‘Tribal Convictions’. The menacing rumble of Blacky and Away builds this beast of a tune and introduces the Voivod to the new dimension. This massive intro gives the tune an epic feel and I’ve often wondered why they didn’t lead the album off with this tune, though in hind sight, I know it wouldn’t convey the story in the same way. It’s an absolutely brilliant tune that questions blind faith and absolute power.

Continue reading: The Ripple Effect: Voivod – Dimension Hatröss .

Tags: Album of the day, Dimension Hatröss, The Ripple Effect, voivod
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Monday Song: Roky Erickson/Billy Gibbons – Two Headed Dog

Posted on Monday, October 31st, 2011

Every Monday morning we’ll post a kick-ass song to get your week going.

Album of the day: The House of Capricorn – In the Devil’s Days

Posted on Sunday, October 30th, 2011

Lovingly pinched from The Obelisk: Like last their debut in last year’s Sign of the Cloven Hoof, the second album from New Zealander doom foursome The House of Capricorn – titled In the Devil’s Days – is cumbersome. Surpassing that record’s 59 minutes with a full 72-plus, they stretch the ...read more

Album of the day: Oresund Space Collective – Entering into the Space Country

Posted on Saturday, October 29th, 2011

Lovingly pinched from Sea of Tranquility: The Oresund Space Collective are a very busy band and have come out with yet another release Entering into the Space Country, this one limited to vinyl. They have had no less than four releases thus far in 2011. The band has seen many ...read more

Album of the day: Preterite – Pillar of Winds

Posted on Friday, October 28th, 2011

Lovingly pinched from The Inarguable: Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard of Quebecois experimental duo Menace Ruine, whose two most recent full-lengths of droning, noise-drenched, sophisticated martial folk have caught the eye of metal, neofolk, and noise fans alike. Before reading about Preterite‘s imminent album release ...read more

Album of the day: Giant Squid – Cenotes

Posted on Thursday, October 27th, 2011

Lovingly pinched from Sputnikmusic: Giant Squid are a slippery bunch. They began as an indie-rock outfit with Monster in the Creek, hit us with the contemplative, doomy Metridium Fields, and then threw the playbook out the window on their wonderfully bizarre follow-up, The Ichthyologist. Attempting to pin Giant Squid’s sound ...read more

Church of Misery, Ancestors and Horisont To Return To Roadburn Festival

Posted on Thursday, October 27th, 2011

Making their fourth appearance in 5 years at the festival, it looks like Japan’s serial-killer-obsessed seekers of the almighty riff Church of Misery are poised to become the offficial Roadburn house band. All joking aside, Church of Misery were among THE highlights of the previous Roadburn festivals (even the main ...read more

Album of the day: Craft – Void

Posted on Wednesday, October 26th, 2011

Lovingly pinched from CVLT Nation: Sweden’s Craft are a pillar of modern black metal, whether you know it or not. Formed in 1994, Craft (formerly Nocta) brought a hateful, misanthropic quality to their sound that shared a kindred spirit with their more extreme pagan brothers to the south, while bringing ...read more

Album of the day: Russian Circles – Empros

Posted on Tuesday, October 25th, 2011

Lovingly pinched from The Obelisk: For their fourth album, Empros (first directly for Sargent House), the instrumental three-piece Russian Circles returned to producer Brandon Curtis of The Secret Machines, who also helmed 2009’s Geneva. The reasons why are fairly obvious: What the Chicago outfit was able to accomplish with Geneva ...read more

Album of the day: Sólstafir – Svartir Sandar

Posted on Monday, October 24th, 2011

Lovingly pinched from Metal Underground: The Icelandic heathens that make up Sólstafir continue to push past the boundaries of their origins, hitting a serious landmark in sound on their fourth full-length album, Svartir Sandar. A description like “post-black metal” doesn’t even begin to do the album justice, as these songs ...read more