A promising omen of things to come, one hopes. Finland's colorfully monikered The Wandering Midget unravel the fabric of space-time with sheer cosmic doom. Fully aware of their tiny insignificant place in the monstrously vast universe, these three monks cower in fear and chant for mercy out into the unknown. Doom metal, notably generally for its atavism rather than its love of progress, requires much subtlety and finesse for a band to stand out from the howling pack. The Wandering Midget specializes in atmosphere, primarily expressed through the wail of frontman Samuel Wormius, and especially his evocative ESL lyrics, which are crammed with gleefully repugnant details and haunting images.
That title, of course, loosely translates as "Tips for Suicide." Even by the standards of the Swamp this record is extremely far out. Heady Krautrock sung in Latin and German, Necronomicon's sole album propels itself along nicely on a black magic carpet of organ and slashing guitars. It is as pretentious as music can possibly aspire to be but still sounds like the angsty drug freakout of thuggish teenagers, despite the occasional operatic choir or Slavic folk strain. A bleak worldview tempered by dark humor and bold imagination, this album perhaps sounds best during a thunderstorm or natural catastrophe.
Well, horrid ones, today brings us the documentary film The Eldritch Influence, an exploration of the Old Man's impact on society and culture. While boasting many famous talking heads of varying relevance (Stuart Gordon, Ramsey Campbell, Neil Gaiman, ST Joshi, etc.) this work often pads itself with Blair Witch-style tomfoolery (made most unconvincing by a laughable papier-mâché Cthulhu) and interviews with nebbishy LARPers and other nonentities. Still, this will be of great interest to the converted and the already-damned.
Greek symphonic death metal, pompous and menacing at the same time, like a foppish dandy in a toga who has you chained in his torture garden, pruning bansai and sharpening his implements of persuasion. I decline for now to make a judgement of this album, as I may be a easily persuaded by the odd hints of Lovecraftian cheer in any record, and it's no surprise to see some boil up to the surface here: each song pertains to a different set of myths, from Norse to Egyptian to possibly some sort of UFO cult. Lacking the grand sweep of a massive string section and presumably black-robed choirs, this might be a forgettable death metal album with no clear worldview. Likewise, were the actual death metal band this was framed around less precise, this could be a formless blob of muddled theology and hubris. Where on this bizarre scale the album lands may depend upon the listener, so I invite you to judge for yourself.
Good evening, precious ones, and pardon my brief absence from the Swamp - I was called into the loathesome fringe of civilization on some unfinished business. Fear not, though, for I return with gifts! I present to you the first and most startling album by Post-Apocalyptic Libertarian Sci-Fi Soul Brother Swamp Dogg, the aptly titled Total Destruciton to Your Mind. The wild-eyed futuristic alter-ego of soul producer Jerry Williams, Swamp Dogg stood out from the hordes of 70's musical hustlers and players in a number of ways: first, in his disdain for consumerism, expressed here in the track "Synthetic World," a dystopian shopping fantasy on par with X-Ray Spex or the Clash's "Lost in the Supermarket." Secondly, in his vocal and active opposition to both the Vietnam war and the domestic war on drugs, which earned him a high-ranking spot on Nixon's enemies list. Thirdly, his strict self-reliant ethic - he lives and publishes his own albums to this day, in addition to producing hundreds of albums for other artists (most of which were primarily comprised of songs he wrote). Fourthly, his eerie visions of the coming apocalypse, which pepper his albums up until the end of the seventies, but most succinctly and jaw-droppingly on this album's centerpiece, "The World Beyond." Swamp Dogg continues to fight the war on greed, hypocrisy, and unfunkiness. Join him.
Let us celebrate the first day of nuclear summer appropriately: with a generous helping of awfulness topped with mushroom cloud! Perhaps you have shed your protective garment and exposed the pasty flesh of your upper arms and neck to the unmerciful sun. If so, you may need to protect your translucent, fragile shell with this lead-lined blast door recovered from the sunken highway to Riyadh during the first Gulf War. This impenetrable concept album, released long after it could have possibly been relevant, even after all the half-baked sarcasm and echo-chamber dickery, perhaps remains the most honest document of a supposedly righteous police action that, a decade later, proved to be pure manifest destiny, at least until is was shortly disproved. Nonetheless, this stands as a remarkably prescient artifact of a peaceful Clinton-era prosperity that predicted the great buzzkill that was the Aughts. That an entire decade of hope-crushing paranoia can be foreshadowed by an intentionally moronic LP of doggerel and random bleeps seems fitting, but listen to it now that spring has dawned on the last decade of mankind and tell yourself we didn't deserve it.
The last chapters of Revelations retold through Twin Peaks styled jazz, played at a tempo comparable to an ancient elephant's last staggering footsteps towards its communal graveyard. Certainly not intended for listening on the porch while sipping fruity drinks, at least until the black ashes begin to drift down into them.
Armies of gender-fluid, steel-booted but fabulously dressed warriors march into battle with the evil forces of oppression, discrimination, and grumpiness. Thrash metal driven by both the fierce female singer's snarling rage and the propulsive, frighteningly complex drums (by the maniac who later played drums for Jazz/spazz/core band Ahleuchatistas), this brief demo is another case of birthing pains and death rattle being one and the same, as the band promptly imploded after an aborted tour where all of their equipment was stolen. Queer-friendly and apocalyptically morbid, winkingly funny but thoughtfully composed and executed - the songs flow one into another on warm beds of guitar grind and ringing gongs.
Lo, faithful cultists! Almost 48 hours since we last spoke and so many things have gone horribly awry! Only one solution presents itself to make up for it, and promises some sort of horrible revenge later: The Lamp of Thoth's new album, Sing As You Slay. Fans of Arkham Witch shall be delighted with this complex, unpretentious non-sub-genred heavy metal record, as it is primarily the same set of fishy sub-humans. Greek myth, Lovecraftian dread, Tolkien swashbuckling, Viking rage, sinister voodoo ritual - something for everybody. Another functioning musical ensemble, they, and I have soul-searched somewhat deeply as to whether I shall aid or hinder them to just hand the damned thing out like loaves and fishes, but no answer comes, only vengeance.
A rare gem in a sea of slime, the lamented Tem Eyos Ki, Little Rock's reigning champions of twin-guitar sorcery, produced this forgotten and seemingly disposable cdr to accompany their tour of the United States in 2001. At one time this was playing constantly out of cracked windows and crackly boom boxes up and down the streets of our little hamlet, but, as is the nature of such materials, all copies were seemingly lost or worn down to translucency within a year. Imagine a female-fronted Iron Maiden writing songs for 8-bit video games and broadcasting out of a low-hanging UFO, hovering above the Tigris and Euphrates - this was Tem Eyos Ki, and they are missed.
I shall not post this musical ensemble's new full-length record album containing their chilling interpretation of Lovecraft's "The Outsider," as they are a small self-sufficient unit who could surely use the filthy money no doubt lining your pockets, screaming to be burnt. However, since they have since made this demonstration recording available gratis, I hereby pass it along to you as temptation. Many of the same compositions extant on said LP are present here in cruder form, lacking only the refinement and rumble they would apply in time. Traditionalist heavy metal in its galloping doom shape, sixteen black hooves trampling the surrounding hills into dust in their wake. A tome of addictive, intelligent composition defined by its sharp wit and riffage.
Here the truism holds that horrid people make the most sublime music (if indeed this can be called "music"). Future members of a hipster false metal band who shall not be named, Nyarlathotep eschew their eventual narcissism and quest for fame by releasing two unhealthily fattened blobs of sludge anonymously and sans cover art to a seemingly miniscule audience in 2001, well before the outbreak of vile shrieking peacock metal they would be osmosed by shortly later. One detects the hand (or tentacle) of larger forces at work in their rise to notoriety and awaits the inevitable gory comeuppance.
Greetings, mindless horde! Today's feast is imported freshlike from Japan, a raw slab of re-animated super-lucky eel carcass in a sticky syrup of triple happiness. Twelve songs about zombies, each containing the word "zombie" in the title. No variations from the theme, no pretty parts, no slowness, no clean vocal, no sober.
A wonderfully disturbing compilation of jazz, country, blues, pop, etc., celebrating that great orver-arching metaphor of the twentieth century, the mushroom cloud. These songs in turn celebrate, satire, decry, and learn to love the bomb. Other sub-categories include the Cold War itself, UFOs, the Red Menace, the Space Race, the Korean and Vietnam wars, espionage, and preparedness for the looming apocalypse. Delightful celebrity public service announcements punctuate the proceedings as well, from Groucho Marx to Boris Karloff. Big musical names such as Doris Day, Wanda Jackson, Hank Williams, The Commodores, Tom Lehrer, and Bo Diddley crop up alongside many other acts. Still frighteningly topical, this box set radiates nostalgia and dread in equal parts.
Another seemingly forgotten work of great beauty and darkness returned to light only yesterday (or was it the day before?), after considerable time in limbo, poking its serpentine head out from behind of mound of cobwebbed bones in a dank corridor long hidden from daylight. Memento Mori, appropriately named and ephemerally renowned, seem to have vanished into the netherworld of digital refuse: a relic of the time of the compact disc but predating the advent of obscuritan internet scribes, whiling away the weeks in darkened rooms thrown into sharp relief by the malignant glow of the monitor. Lo, give thanks that my monk-like scholasticism has brought forth tangible results, and then repent your ignorance as I wield this black-crusted lode of precious metal ore to bludgeon your feeble brain to a pulp. Winding sheets of thickly-woven guitar, wailing anguished vocals, and the rumble of elephantine stampedes shall echo in your numbed ears as you awaken into a new, hideous understanding.
A long-forgotten tome, suppressed for millenia, recently returned to the realms of the known and occupying its own special niche in this collection. The story of a cult of devotees to the Invisible Old Ones located in pre-colonial Mexico; it seems the stars are right and the nameless are able to exert influence in the spheres of Man. This madness spread with the conquering Spaniards back to the Old World and into the history that followed. This is a remarkably complex work, requiring many repeated listens to absorb all the layers, the hidden meanings. 
Arcane and pleasingly atavistic instrumental music composed on primitive rhythm machines decades past their prime and sound-wave bending synthesizers from the remotest plateau of Moog, this is a concept album based on At the Mountains of Madness, a soundtrack to a movie remembered but never made. Eerie signals from another time, inscrutable hieroglyphics carved by an alien hand, widely shunned as somehow namelessly evil.
As I ponder, weak and weary, many quaint and forgotten volume of justifiably obscure prog-rock, my internal symbolic raven croaks threateningly for decades of yore. Widely derided for fusing early Beatles bowl cuts with mid-period Beatles foppery, as if that would phase any old simpleton with a bedroom neo-post-prog audio diary in 2010, doomed psych hopefuls Glass Prism lay the gnarly poetry of Edgar Allen Poe upon a soft bed of Deep Purplish proto-pretentious organ rock. Poe isn't exactly known for his romantic poetry, and Glass Prism isn't exactly known for their groundbreaking sound or bold fashion choices, but this record nonetheless remains a throbbing heart buried 'neath the floorboards, eating away at your conscience.
This howling horrid night finds your humble narrator in foul temperment, and uncharacteristically bereft of adjectives. All manner of equipment failure, human error, spiteful weather, and morose cabin fever have put unsightly dents in both the unflappable facade and the scarce supply of spirits. Perhaps this soul-flagellating winter shall never end.
