Posts Tagged ‘post rock’

Album of the day: Cloaca – Lassitude

Posted on Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

Praise for Cloaca‘s Lassitude from San Francisco’s aQuarius Records: Lassitude is the very first release from the just launched UK label Lone Vigil, and is the debut of black industrial post metal doomlords Cloaca. Both the label and the band are fronted by Chris Naughton, he of doomsludge masters Atavist and neo pagan black metallers Winterfylleth, but Cloaca is a whole different beast than either of those two outfits, and while most descriptions peg Cloaca as ‘experimental industrial doom’, that might be a bit misleading.

It might have you picturing a churning avant Godflesh or some sort of machinelike downtuned Swans, when in fact, the sound of Cloaca is much more organic, and much closer to the slow build post metal of groups like Pelican, Neurosis, Cult Of Luna, Snowblood, and Isis, the guitars lush and warm, the songs sprawling epics, with spiralling melodies, and dense tribal drumming, brooding and majestic, like a blackened Godspeed, building to explosive howled churning ultra metal blow outs, that transform into roiling chugging grooves, heavy and motorik and mesmerizing.

The songs spend much of their time drifting dreamily, spidery guitar melodies draped over loping post rock rhythms, and when they do get heavy, it’s not always explosive crescendos, the band can lock into a riff and ride it out like some sort of black doom post metal Hawkwind, extended psychedelic cosmic metal jams that destroy, heaving hypnotically, thick sonic swells that churn and roil and eventually do explode into some serious heaviness, but it’s not just big chords there either, the band get super dense and complex, start stop rhythms, mathy arrangements, thick and convoluted and so so heavy.

Throughout the record, Cloaca deftly flit from moody drift to soaring majesty, to metallic crush, wrapping impossibly hooky melodies and strange disembodied sampled voices around thick slabs of metallic hypnorock, a sound that’s definitely hard to make your own, but these guys have definitely staked their claim on this chunk of epic brooding heaviness, that we would imagine few would be able to challenge.

Definitely essential listening for fans of Rosetta, Baroness, the Body, Grails, The Ocean, Angel Eyes, Tides, Souvenir’s Young America, Mouth Of The Architect, Irepress, Indian, Conifer and other post metal alchemists…

At 40 years old, Aquarius is the oldest independent record store in San Francisco. We try to only carry music we love, and we’re always searching for more new, cool, weird and wonderful music. All of which we then share with you, our loyal customers.

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Pelican: 10-Year Anniversary Box Set

Posted on Thursday, August 12th, 2010

Pelican is celebrating their ten year anniversary in the coming months with a pair of shows in Chicago and LA (the band will join forces with legendary doom-metal overlords Goatsnake on October 30th to play the Troubador in LA). In addition, the band will release a limited-to-500 box set that ...read more

Album of the day: Year Of No Light – Ausserwelt

Posted on Monday, May 24th, 2010

Lovingly pinched from Stereokiller.com: I realized two interesting facts whilst doing this review for Year Of No Light‘s sophomore release, Ausserwelt. First, that France has been putting out amazingly talented and rich sounding releases as of late and secondly that my stereo does NOT go up to 11. (Though I ...read more

Album of the day: Mouth of the Architect – The Violence Beneath

Posted on Thursday, May 20th, 2010

Praise for MOTA‘s The Violence Beneath from San Francisco’s Aquarius Records: We’ve been digging these guys for a while now, one of those bands who take the downtuned metallic crunch of bands like Neurosis, and add all sorts of post and math rock to the mix, a combination that when ...read more

Isis Call It Quits

Posted on Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

ISIS have decided to call it quits, the band have offered the following statement regarding their decision: ISIS has reached an end. It’s hard to try to say it in any delicate way, and it is a truth that is best spoken plainly. This end isn’t something that occurred over ...read more

Album of the day: Red Sparowes – The Fear Is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer

Posted on Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

Lovinly pinched from Popmatters: L.A. post-rock heroes return with their third full-length release. It starts with a whisper: A heavily delayed guitar fills the sonic floor, swells and echoes and reverberates, and soon the room is filled with crashing, triumphant drums and double-tracked guitars aiming for the heavens. But just ...read more

Album of the day: Thee Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra – Kollaps Tradixionales

Posted on Sunday, February 14th, 2010

Lovinly pinched from musicOMH: With Godspeed You! Black Emperor seemingly no more, or at least missing presumed lost, Silver Mt Zion are now the main outlet for former GYBE main man Efrim Menuck. Kollaps Tradixionales is the band’s sixth album, and the first under this variation of their name. It’s ...read more

Russian Circles confirmed to play Roadburn Festival on Thursday, April 15th

Posted on Thursday, February 4th, 2010

We are very pleased to report that Russian Circles has been confirmed for Thursday, 15 April 2010. Chicago’s Russian Circles will be returning to Europe in support of their latest album Geneva, which has garnered praise from longtime fans and new converts alike. The band’s third LP combines a clean, ...read more

Terrorizer Band of the Day: Omega Massif

Posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Find out why our good friends over at Terrorizer picked Omega Massif as band of the day: Three months away from Roadburn 2010, here’s a memory from last year’s edition: when Scott Kelly finished the fourth song of his set at Roadburn 2009, as his haunting acoustic darkness was still ...read more

Album of the day: Necro Deathmort – This Beat Is Necrotronic

Posted on Monday, January 11th, 2010

Lovingly pinched from Cyclic Defrost: Necro Deathmort are a London duo comprised of Matthew Rozeik and AJ Cookson, and this debut album release on Distraction This Beat Is Necrotronic apparently their first ‘proper’ record easily represents one of the most intriguing and unexpected genre collisions I’ve encountered over the past ...read more

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