Yob - Elaborations of Carbon

Well, Swamplings, I apologize for the brief lapse in posting once again, but I have squeezed out the end of another wild week and I should note that I might not have endured without the help of Yob's new album Atma.  Yob is one of the longest running and most potent doom acts in the world, and remains a group of genuinely nice people amid a vast ocean of douchebaggery.  I'm not going to post Atma - you should just go buy it - but instead have this first LP, another album that simultaneously encourages spiritual reflection while pelting the listener with anvils from space.  I've been waiting all day to say this:
Take this Yob and shove it

Roky Erickson - The Evil One

Counting down to my 500th post and perusing the archives lately has brought to light some glaring oversights, albums I haven't posted yet that form the backbone of my musical taste.  Many of these (this one included) have remained un-posted because I listen to them so much that I can't imagine life without them.

The first one that came to mind was The Evil One, the most well known and arguably the best album by Roky Erickson.  I have posted many Roky albums here before and casually assumed that anyone perusing my little Swamp would at least have a passing familiarity with the man.  A huge percentage of albums on here are directly influenced by him, and many others have a spiritual kinship in their themes of paranormal phenomena, struggles with madness, and weird gibberish.

Lyrically, Roky draws from vintage horror movies and urban legends as much as he uses early rock n' roll's predilection for mantra-like refrains and cribbed blues motifs.  Musically, it's basically Buddy Holly and Bo Diddley squeezed through a proto-punk meat grinder.  Creedence Clearwater Revival's Stu Cook played bass on and produced much of this album, lending a layer of cosmic hillbilly mystique to a record already doomed to obscurity.

Of course now Roky is known as an essential part of any rock fan's collection and he continues to produce new material, against all odds, but this is the pinnacle.

I Walked With a Zombie

Downer Rock Genocide

Here's another comp of British proto-metal, vaguely themed around an end of the world scenario.  I picked it up because I recognized a couple of bands on it: Necromandus, whose Lovecraftian "Nightjar"  is a staple on these sorts of compilations, and Bram Stoker, the spooky organ-heavy psych band responsible for the classic "Born to Be Free."  There's lots of other tasty bands here, like Red Dirt, purveyors of noisy blues-thud with a vocalist who sounds like a talking dog, and the cosmic weirdness of the Flying Hat Band.  This the perfect soundtrack for a cold grey day of whiskey drinking and teeth gnashing.

Long Live Man Dead

Colour Haze - Tempel

Sweet Merciful Crap!  What a week.  Posting may be sporadic until the first of the month, wee ones, as your old Uncle Abdul is doing double duty outside the Swamp - burning the brazier at both ends.  All that will fit inside my enfeebled ears tonight is this soothing mystical album from Germany's premier desert rock band, Colour Haze.  Inspired by the power trios of yore and the powerful unnameable forces of the space-time continuum, the cosmic yawn filtered through flange and fuzz, they coax the listener into an out-of-body voyage through the four elements of matter and the various states of consciousness. 

Ozean

Norrsken

Norrsken was the short-lived band primarily remembered today for the two groups who formed from their ashes: Witchcraft and Graveyard.  This ought to give you a good idea what to expect on this apparent bootleg - a heavy-lidded hybrid of Sabbath doom and thuggish psych rock in the Blue Cheer mode.  Contained herein are the "Armageddon/Little Lady" single and the Hokus Pokus demo, along with two comp tracks, covers of Blue Cheer and Trouble's "Psalm 9."  To make things more confusing, there's also another demo (not included here) called Norrsken with a whole different batch of songs than this.  "Little Lady," you'll note, contains an excellent passage of Joakim Nilsson's whistling skills, which were put to great use on Graveyard's killer Hisingen Blues from earlier this year.  There's a bristling, apocalyptic vibe palpable here, an ominous cloud of teenage hormones and pre-millenial dread.

Rest in Space

Hawkwind - The Chronicle of the Black Sword

Finally, a quiet night in the Swamp with which to gather my thoughts.  At the end of another week of madness I must alter my state of mind with the aid of The Chronicle of the Black Sword.  Few people have love for mid-80's Hawkwind, but I am one of those few - at least for this album.  A concept album grounded squarely in Michael Moorcock's Elric cycle, the tone matches that of its source material - brooding, expansive, iconoclastic, and unrelentingly grim. Moorcock's albino swordsman was a loner anti-hero, an alien among his own people;  by 1985 Dave Brock was the only original member, a relic from another era.  

Still, the album sounds fairly in line with the times - as heavy as contemporary records by the crop of aging first-wave metal bands inspired by Hawkwind back in the day, and mercifully mostly free of cheesy eighties production.  Granted, there's a bubbly synth here or there, or the occasional too-long guitar noodle, but it's not like the group were ever particularly known for their restraint and focus.  Brock's vocals sound a bit strained and haggard, too, but this adds a weight and world-weariness to the proceedings, fitting with its downbeat lyrics and bleak worldview. 

Interestingly, the band performed the album in it's entirety on the tour, with an elaborate stage production and Moorcock himself narrating.  I haven't watched the recently released DVD, but there's some wild and hilarious videos out there for perusal.  They're a million light years from 1969, but the interval has only made them weirder.

I heard a murmuring in the night

Bruce Dickinson - Chemical Wedding

Here's an esoteric gem from Bruce Dickinson's uneven solo career, a mixture of prophetic and allegorical material based on the writing and painting of William Blake, and Rosicrurianism's secret rites and alchemical preoccupation.  On top of being a world class fencer, aviator, novelist, and heavy metal singer, Mr. Dickinson is a serious student of the occult, and he explains the album in depth here far better than I could.  Many of the lyrics are cryptic and abstract, though, allowing one to come to one's own understanding and relationship with the album.  Musically, it's pretty straightforward and solid Maidenism (Adrian Smith is the primary guitar player) aside from a few excellent cameos from Swamp veteran Arthur Brown and the occasional modern screamy vocal accent.  The patient disciple will discover multiple layers of meaning and depth, and the casual headbanger will find a bunch of kick-ass heavy metal.  

This is the river of space 

This is the river of time

Max Frost and The Troopers - Shape of Things to Come

Max Frost and The Troopers were the fictional rock band from the early psychsploitation picture "Wild in the Streets."  There is some mystery regarding exactly who play on this album, as the members were credited to match characters in the movie, but it is widely believed to be the work of pioneering psych/surf band Davie Allan and the Arrows with lyrics and vocals provided by Paul Wibier (of biker movie soundtrack fame).  The title cut will be instantly recognizable to fans of the Nuggets series, and the other songs generally follow that formula: three minute snatches of psychedelia-infused garage pop with soaring harmonies and concise structure.  There's actually quite a bit of variation among the songs, though - one can feel Wibier playing around with various styles and ideas, perhaps assuming that the album was more of a novelty than a genuine artistic endeavor.  This seems to be his approach in general, now that I think about it, but it's not without merit: sometimes studio musicians and professional songwriters, liberated from the need to write actual hits, can come up with some soulful, mind-expanding stuff.  

Let your mind run free

Briton Rites - For Mircala

 

Greetings, dearies!  I have once again returned to the Swamp, and am back among you.  Today I have for you one of the great unheard doom albums of the last year, the debut album from Georgia's hirsute Briton Rites. Effortlessly evoking the dark history of doom metal without sounding artificially retro or atavistic, For Mircala is a loose concept album centered around vampirism and Lovecraftian dimensional bleedthrough.  I have a particular weakness for metal bands with literate and diverse sources, and these chaps certainly deliver on that front: the title cut is based on a pre-Dracula vampire novel; "The Right Hand of Doom" is grounded in a Robert E. Howard short story starring his demon-hunting Puritan, Solomon Kane; several other are grounded in Hammer Horror flicks and pulpy supernatural melodrama.  Musically, it owes a heavy debt to the doomier side of NWOBHM, like Witchfinder General of Pagan Altar, with killer vocals from Phil Swanson (of such Swamp favorites as Hour of 13, Seamount, and Atlantean Kodex) and guitars by Howie Bentley of legendary Georgia metal band Cauldron Born.  More importantly, every song is memorable, catchy, and tough - no pretty stuff here, just doom and blood and haze.

The doom evoked by the words he spoke, as the hand began to crawl

No Heavy Petting

Another under-heard gem from the Schenker era of UFO, No Heavy Petting may be in fact their strongest long player and contains multiple songs that stayed in their live set for decades, as evidenced on the fabulous live album Strangers in the Night. Opening with the one-two punch of riff-steamroller "Natural Thing" and schizoid "I'm a Loser," and following with the Motörhead/Stooges-uppercut of "Can You Roll Her," side A is a bleak tour through England's seamy rock-n-roll underbelly. That's a song about addiction (presumably dedicated to the woman on the cover with a monkey on her back), a song about couch-surfing, and a song presumably about sketchy blacked-out sex, right in a row. The rest of the record goes off on a few wild tangents, including the moody, proto-stoner street rumble "On With the Action" and the cosmic homesickness of "Martian Landscape," perhaps betraying a longing for UFO's past as a hippyish, happy-drug space rock band. That's not to say there's no filler on this - the junkie love ballad "Belladonna" and the throwaway cover of "A Fool in Love" could've been trimmed, but how many 70's albums are free of fluff? None!
Home taping is killing the bullshit industry

The Ventures - Super Psychedelics

Well, here at the exhausted end of a long day I find myself with little to say. Let's wind down a bit with this killer psych-sploitation platter from the might Ventures. A few killer fuzzed-out originals mixed with a few hippie-dippie covers, this cheap cash-in is an under-appreciated gem from deep within the Ventures catalog, reviled by snobs but beloved by you humble host.
1999 A.D.

Orthodox - Amanecer En Puerta Oscura

Spain's Orthodox plays a curious hybrid of hypnotic drone-doom, bass-driven bop jazz, and liturgical chant informed by the folklore of their native land. For those skeptical of that description, know that they sound completely unlike any other metal band, and have been one of my personal favorites since their first release. This year's Baal is an instant cult classic, but this second album is perhaps the strongest and most coherent statement. Equally influenced by Mingus, Morricone, and the Melvins, this strange and slowly unfolding flower rewards careful and repeated listening. The vocals take a distinctive tack too, warbling and ululating like one of Edison's wax cylinders, a transmission from beyond
time and reason. Frankly, I'm surprised I haven't posted anything by them yet - this is the kind of thing that keeps the Swamp florid.
Templos

In the year 3030

A classic of dystopian hip-hop, a peak album in a tiny sub-genre that soon spiraled into self-parody and cheap commercialism, an Orwellian prophecy of end times, and a hilarious send-up of corny sci-fi movies, 3030 is a must for any student of The Apocalypse. This album is a distinct product of the waning of the happy-go-lucky Clinton era and the approaching of the turbulent first decade of a new millennium, heralded by Y2K paranoia and a radical rightwards swing in American politics. 9/11 was over a year away when this was released - I find it odd that this record can stand as a nerdy bit of weedian self-indulgence and simultaneously as a bold premonition of war.
Madness

Far East Family Band - "The Cave" Down to Earth

Another heap of Japanese strangeness on the slab today, children! Far East Family Band, the OG spacerock band of the land of the rising sun, released this wild album in 1975, and it has become arguably the peak album of the genre. Heavier than Hawkwind, more hypnotic than Tangerine Dream, more soulful than, uh, Pink Floyd - all wrapped up in some esoteric philosophy and tons of flange. Koto and bamboo flute give it an exotic sheen, but the wild rock is a universal tongue.
Transmigration

Eight Hands for Kali - Mount Meru

I had a dream last night that Sunn O))) released a documentary film about soup entitled, of course, Soupp O))). What does this mean? Hopefully nothing, aside from the fact that it's a bad idea to eat leftover enchiladas before bed, but it did remind me that I haven't posted anything by Eight Hands for Kali in over a year. Featuring Topo from El Natas and Tas from Electric Wizard, this Buddhist War Doom band creates smoky, sinister snake-charming metal as hypnotic and resinous as opium. Although this album is a scant half hour, criminally short for this kind of music, it nonetheless packs a serious wallop and may leave you drooling and soiling your drawers.
Apocalypse Love Hypnotized

Black Land - Extreme Heavy Psych

Yet another self-explanatory doom album, but keep in mind that the Italians tend to do it weirder than anybody. So, how far out are you ready to go? Some minimal research reveals a mysterious history of typical opaque personal weedian occultism:
"....at the beginning the band started experimenting by fusing sounds of stoner and heavy psychedelic rock with the typical reflexive mysticism of doom, and it’s from those atmospheres and by the convergence of each own personal background that Black Land’s songs took their origin.
The first “confused” exibitions took place mostly in squats, and other underground locations in Rome and in the rest of Italy (without producing any record or demo)."
Gibberish or genius? Remember that Italian metal is famous for both.
Holy Weed of the Cosmos

Babe Ruth - First Base

Today's special is another groovy slab of proggish proto-metal, from England's Babe Ruth. Staking their own unique little plot of sound with singer Janita Haan's Joplin-howl and some surprisingly pretty and lush strings in between more traditional bluesy skronk, this album is most notorious for the heavily-covered "The Mexican," but about every other song is a total killer rock number, and even the quieter ones tend to pick up steam towards the end. Plus, dig that crazy cover!
Have you seen a black dog's eyes
Staring in the fire?

Arena

We have what I believe is a Swamp exclusive tonight, my little ones: the sole recording by defunct two-man cosmic psych unit Arena. Theirs is a difficult sound to summarize, with parts of it variously reminding me of Chrome or Krautrock or Hawkwind with the occasional Nick Blinko or robot vocal creeping up low in the mix. Of course there are also hints of Goblin and John Carpenter soundtracks - in fact several of these tracks appeared on the soundtrack to the low-budget horror flick Wanderlost. Most of the proggish tendencies are sublimated to open up space for the yawning atmospheric void and groovy rhythms. All in all it's a shame this project ended so quickly, but at least we have this relic from beyond space and time.
Bastards of the Omniverse

Roger Miller - Golden Hits

Howdy goddamn do! Hopefully all of my wonderful little Swamplings easily grasp one of the over-arching themes we deal with here in the Swamp: everything you've ever been told is a lie, unless there's a country song about it. Roger Miller was an ambitious young hillbilly who swiped a guitar from a traveling country singer and tried to figure out how to play it, correctly assuming that it was his only ticket out of his little doomed bullshit town.

Sure enough, he got caught and, rather going to jail, chose to join the army, where he simultaneously discovered speed and honed his defense against adversity by perfecting his hilarious but complex brand of country music. After many years of struggle he became Johnny Cash's speed dealer and was thusly capulted into stardom, eventually resulting in the erosion of his sharper, amphetamine-induced edges and then his famous soundtrack for Disney's Robin Hood. One would think that he would've peacefully died when his head exploded while driving a tiger around in his big-ass Cadillac, but he lived long enough to pay for the fifteen packs of cigarettes he smoked every day for fifty years.

Not to belabor the point, but I don't normally traffic in "Greatest Hits" albums in the Swamp. However, every single song on here is awesome and the individual albums tend to be full of filler and covers. Just listen to this, and keep your eye out next time you go out looking for something to help you forget the shame.
Atta Boy Girl

Tapiman

I don't know a whole lot about these Spanish psych-thugs but I sure as hell know that this album is a flat-out scorcher. Hints of Blue Cheer power-trio blues, sweet harmonies that remind me of The Move, some tasteful piano boogie, and a few genuinely strange moments all come together into one tight, slightly ESL platter providing a soundtrack equally suitable for fucking, fighting, or spiritual exploration.
Gooseberry Park