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

Törr - Armageddon

Behold, Swamplings!  Tonight I bring you another classic from the first wave of black metal, Törr's Armageddon.  Unsurprisingly there is a large debt to Venom, from the primitive stomp of the music to the horny cheeseball sense of humor.  All of the lyrics are Czech, but it doesn't take a genius to tell what they're singing about: Sex, Satan, and Doom.  A wide variety of songs, abundant sampling and experimental noise, and a lecherous leer give the album a distinct personality, and the thrashy heaviness it counterbalanced with catchy songwriting. Its' the kind of album that makes you want to sing along, even the if the words are in a foreign language and probably terrible anyway.

Žal

Immortal - At the Heart of Winter

Just stopping into the Swamp for a brief moment, long enough to leave you my favorite album by the unkillable tyrant kings of the frozen fjords, Immortal.  The songs on this one are a bit longer and more varied than on their earlier material, and yet this is one of the records where Immortal's roots in thrashy first-wave black metal really shine through as well.  Plus, there's the all-time ESL classic "Tragedies Blows at Horizon."  I will attempt to remain among you until Halloween, but duty beckons...

Darkness with darkness you darkened me

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

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

Jag Panzer - Tyrants

This classic first EP from Jag Panzer contains a Nam-as-apocalypse anthem, two songs about the crushing power of heavy metal, a song about Conan battling iron statues come to hideous life, and another sword-and-sorcery romp about besieging a citadel.  The epic "When Metal Melts the Ice" is, without a doubt, one of the Most Metal Songs of All Time.  Musically, Jag Panzer would evolve into slick power metal, but this first release is raw, thrashy, and wildly over-the-top no-modifier metal from a time before sub-genres walked the earth.

I'm a vicious tiger Roaming across the land

Obituary - The End Complete

Greetings, Swamplings! Quickly, you must download this third album of apocalyptic early death metal from one of the pioneers of the genre, good old Obituary. The End Complete tends to be divisive for many fans - some see it as a watering-down of their early sound, while others see it as a bold step forward after the crucial Cause of Death. There are others, like myself, who maintain that it pretty much sounds exactly like the first two albums and those who overthink this kind of thing on the internet ought to get out more, which is exactly what I'm going to do right now.
We're terrified (What terrible fun)

Tight Bros From Way Back When - Take You Higher

Featuring past members of Karp and Behead the Prophet and future members of Big Business/Melvins and Nudity, the Tight Bros sounded nothing like any of that stuff. Instead they cranked out a sweaty mix of AC/DC and MC5, singing of fire and blood and rock and roll. This particular seven inch EP is included here for the apocalypse anthem "Chicken Little Lied," but I highly recommend both of their albums and split with The Champs as premier examples of hard rock/punk rock done right with zero cheese or smarm.
I'm in luck

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

Pagan Altar - Lords of Hypocrisy

Skirting the doomier edges of the NWOBHM, Pagan Altar played a stoic, dead-serious brand of heavy metal drawing influence from the first Black Sabbath album's graveyard shuffle and Paranoid's war-pig politicism, while delving further into the realm of mystic lyricism. Right off the bat, the title track comes stomping out of Stonehenge decrying the evils of war and greed, immediately followed by the doomsaying "Satan's Henchmen," arguably another war parable. This relentless pace eases up a bit as the album progresses - the b-side is more expansive and subdued, but the closing number fulfills the promise of Armageddon. Terry Jones's instantly recognizable, haunted vocals are another huge draw here - full of fear and anger and sadness, they really elevate the album above the legions of bands playing in this style today. Alas, the man will probably never be spoken of in the same reverent tones as your Ozzys or your Dios (or Halfords, Dickinsons, etc.) but in my mind he really is in their league as a frontman.
Strangely, Pagan Altar never managed to release a proper album during their initial run as a band, but a late-nineties reunion managed to produce a stellar crop of albums, of which this is the second. The gods of doom may move slowly, but sometimes they reward the faithful.
Death will come to even the righteous
Only the good die young

Armageddon

Not to be confused with the chubby nazi black metal band, this nutty German psych group gleefully grooves along in a Captain Beyond/Atomic Rooster style, cushioned on a cloud of hockey rink organ and distinct because of the singer's hilarious/creepy croon. You can practically hear he mustache slithering all over the microphone. Lots of varied tempos and Dust-like mood swings, and hey, a version of "Better By You, Better Than Me" several years before the Judas Priest cover so awesome that suicide pacts were the only logical response. Plus we have the killer instrumental "Rice Pudding" and, y'know, armageddon - that's what we're here for!
Oh Man

H.C. Minds - The Beginning of the End

Like many of you, I have been basking in the dark radiation of the new Yob album repeatedly for the last several days. I'm not going to post it, but I will unleash this monstrosity from H.C. Minds, for which Mike Scheidt and Travis Foster of Yob once played. While HCM trades in a crusty doom style not dissimilar to Yob, it is nonetheless more filthy, nasty, and preoccupied with apocalyptic matters, making it right at home here in the Swamp. Elements of the nastiest Amebix-worship hardcore creep in around the edges too, lending a particular stink to the proceedings. Lots of ugliness, nihilism, and pessimism here, oh joy.
Land of the Wargoat

Ancient Rites - Dim Carcosa

I present to you a fine slab of Lovecraftian cheese courtesy of Belgian black metallers Ancient Rites. Cheese, you say? Oh yes, my friends, this is black metal at its Bal-Sagothy nerdiest, neither scary nor kvlt. However, despite the innate goofiness of the "symphonic black metal" approach and the muddled viking/satanic/Lovecraftian potpourri of lyrical themes, we still have a solid album of catchy and strange music that doesn't sound like anybody else. Of note beyond the title track are the fish metal-leaning "North Sea" and the operatic apocalypse hymn "Götterdämmerung." Mercifully they also have the good sense to keep songs short and to trim the album to a fat-free 45 minutes, so as not to break the spell. Behold!
...And the Horns Called for War

Armored Saint - Delirious Nomad

Notorious these days mostly for being the band John Bush fronted before 90's-era Anthrax, Armored Saint kicked out some solid traditional metal back in the day, appropriating many of thrash's fixations on nuclear war and the apocalypse and encasing them in homemade Road Warrior leather and NWOBHM-influenced mid-tempo chugs. This album isn't perfect - far from it - but it does contain meaty end-times jams like "Aftermath" and "Conqueror." While the lyrics generally range from abstract to outright stupid, Bush's instantly recognizable hoarse bellow really sells it, even when the guitars are a bit underwhelming. What is it with 80's bands having to stick one stupid joke song at the end of every album, though? The unfortunate icky come-on "Released" drags the tail end of the record down into no-makeup Kiss territory, so be warned.
While the faces stare
At the hideous glare

Winds of Genocide

I have returned from beyond! Apologies for the unexpected interruption, but it wouldn't be properly Lovecraftian without a few mysterious vanishings from time to time, now would it? Anyway, I come bearing strange fruit: some brutal death/crust from the UK, exclusively themed around the collapse of civilization. There's a good bit of Discharge-styled d-beat and some Autopsy-like primitive gurgling, but I also get a nice Aura Noir/Midnight black'n'roll vibe as well - all in all a swirling black cloud of nihilism shot through with lightning bolts of doom.
In The Shadow Of The Scythe Of Death

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

Blind Willie Johnson

Ominous thunder and cold medication combine to cast an eerie pall over my evening, so I'll attempt to keep it brief. Blind Willie Johnson was a gospel street singer, possessor of a frightening rasp of a voice and razor-edged slide guitar, and the originator of songs as timeless as "Samson and Delilah" and "Nobody's Fault But Mine," who nonetheless led a short and brutal life. Legend has it that he started a riot on the steps of the New Orleans courthouse singing "If I Had My Way, I'd Tear This Building Down." His death is a particularly brutal story too: after his house caught fire while he was out busking, he was forced to sleep in the charred ashes of his bed during a monstrous thunderstorm. When he returned to the streets the next day he had full-blown pneumonia and died in a gutter. Of particular note to Swamp-o-philes are the delightfully Cthonian cautionary tale "God Moves on the Water" and the wordless wailing of "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground." Chilling stuff.
Everybody wept when the war was on.

Runemagick - On Funeral Wings

I was going to post something entirely different, something quirky and breezy, but as night descends and temperatures drop to an unseasonable chill, it resonates hollowly and I find myself returning to the realms of doom and death. Runemagick is a long-running player in the death/doom game, predating the current boom by two decades, yet they haven't quite received their due in my opinion. Nevertheless, they grimly soldier on, producing album after album of dense, occult misery reeking of Armageddon. This particular example, their eighth LP from 2004, is a sprawling and ambitious epic incorporating many diverse influences without straying too far from its plodding, elephantine gait. Preceded by the more straightforward Darkness Death Doom, and followed by the more funereal Envenom, this full length reflects a murky high-water mark from a band who has yet to produce anything of less than excellent quality.
Black Star Abyss

Wrong

Nothing but chaos on this end of the Swamp, tender saplings, which means I can only post during sporadic intervals. What this means for you, the reader, is several posts in a row refreshingly free of commentary (at least until we can gather our resources). Thusly, I leave you this album until normal gibberish is resumed. Wail amongst yourselves.
Hear the angels sing

Sodom - In the Sign of Evil

Straddling the razorwire line between first wave black metal and the burgeoning thrash movement, this early classic finds the band exploring purer Bathory/Venom territory than the nuclear-war-themed albums they would soon release, pure occultism. As much as I like those later works, and ignoring from the fact that they would fit better within the thematic orbit of this blog, I just love this one too much not to post it. Far more primitive than the sound Sodom would come into eventually, this possesses a croaky, echoing ambiance that whispers sweet blasphemies to my dark and mutinous little heart. Plus, we get a nuclear anthem at the end, the immortal "Burst Command Til War."
I turn the cross upside down
and read Satanic Bible with fucking grown [sic]