Ygolonac - Strange Aeons

Apologies for the unexplained absence for the preceding fortnight, gentle ones, but rest assured that posting will resume with gusto upon the arrival of the new year.  In the meantime, share with me this horrid lump of coal that I found in my inbox.  Another mad one man metal band in the mode of Brown Jenkins or Aarni, this Ygolonac seems fixated on the fictional grimoires of the Mythos, from what can be deciphered from the song titles and the band name.  Ygolonac is the lord of the perverse and sadistic, the only Old One outside of insidious Nyarlathotep capable of taking human form, and notorious for the ravenous mouths screaming for blood from his palms and groin, traditionally cast in the role of curating the library of suppressed tomes which tend to drive mundane minds into madness.  Ramsey Campbell's brutal and bitterly funny "Cold Print" is perhaps the finest Lovecraftian story produced in the seventies, and while the retro vibe of this nasty debut is probably meant to transcend time and space, I can sense a little disco cokestache under all the noise, maybe just slowed down 800x.

Down at the Bookstore

Rudimentary Peni - Cacophony

Well, we arrive at the 500th post and so I give you Rudimentary Peni's aptly titled Cacophony.  Notable as not only one of the most vital and well known works of Lovecraftian music but also as one of the most insane, terrifying things ever committed to wax, it is largely responsible for my fascination with the Mythos and therefore for the existence of this Swamp.  A sharp departure from the band's bleak anarcho-punk sound and long held to be an account of Peni frontman Nick Blinko losing his mind, these songs seem like random fragments stitched together and pasted to a padded wall inside a cell.  

There a hints of punk and hardcore, shimmering instrumental exploration, drinking songs, collages of mad noise, multi-tracked gibbering, morbid story-songs, threatening doggerel, and references to (and jokes about) nearly every facet of Lovecraft's work.  Much of this is driven by Blinko's horrific vocals, which range from cheeseball operatics to metallic growls, from snotty punk taunting to inhuman gurgling, often simultaneously.  Famously, one interlude is composed of a choir of clacking, gnashing teeth; another is a melange of wheezes and death rattles.  It's hard to believe it all came from one man.  The album is overstuffed, impenetrable, and baroque, in sharp contrast with the minimalist path the band followed afterwards - it's as if all the horrid knowledge in the universe flooded out from between Blinko's jaws.  

Dead Death Dead Death Dead Death 

(fixed link)

Deicide - Legion

Another crucial piece of your narrator's youth - Deicide's Legion is a classic or crazy, evil death metal merging cartoon Satanism, Lovecraftian cosmic horror, and a level of heaviness heretofore unheard.  The track "Dead but Dreaming" is an important piece on the map of Lovecraftian metal, one of the best known and earliest.   Legion clocks in at just under thirty minutes, but packs more brutality and nihilism into that short time than a dozen albums by lesser bands.  It's easy to forget in light of later shenanigans, but at one time Deicide was the evilest, hardest band in the world. 

Revocate the Agitator

The Old Ones - Manfred

I've been sifting through the archives this week, spurred on by sickness and cabin fever,  eventually arriving at a pile of poorly tagged, low quality mp3's of The Old Ones. Downloaded years ago from the baffling 9 Productions website ( seemingly a relic from 1994 but sporadically updated with new information, despite being 90% perpetually "under construction"), The Old Ones are a classic example of a one-man project driven by sheer love and madness, content to languish in obscurity and bereft of shame or self-awareness.  Existing for years on the same fringes of doom populated by Aarni or Brown Jenkins, this anonymous Czech fellow continues to make music under this moniker - there is another album and multiple singles, and a sequel to this semi-full length is promised sometime this year.  This one is a bit of a mess - I corrected the incoherent tags as best I could, but the volume is wildly erratic, the guitars are tinny and muffled except for the occasional solo, the vocals are too loud, and the drum machine is laughable.  Still, crazy-eyed ambition and enthusiasm go a long way in bands like this, and The Old Ones have no shortage of either.  

I Remember

The Nameless Dread

 

Well, the gateway to Mediafire seems to be closed temporarily, so I must improvise tonight's entertainment.  I thought this timely with the passing of Bil Keane, creator of the widely loathed Family Circus.  Though numerous parodies of his maudlin creation existed, often with his blessing, only the now-defunct Nameless Dread was actively suppressed, presumably after touching some dark nerve in Keane's soul.  Fortunately I have many of them preserved in my private archive and now I shall pass them along to you, dear ones.  Presumably normal transmissions will resume tomorrow. 

Shub-Niggurath Please

Vader - Out of the Deep
Morbus Chron - Red Hook Horror
Necromandus - Nightjar
Arkham Witch - Dagon's Bell
Briton Rites - A Meeting in the Woods
Orchid - Eyes Behind the Wall
Noctum - The Seance
The Wounded Kings - Return of the Sorcerer
Innsmouth - The She-Goat Quandary
Portal - Omnipotent Crawling Chaos
Abgott - Book 3-The Eye of Yog-Sothoth
Vasaeleth - Wrathful Deities
Necronomicon - Dreaming of the Old Ones
Thergothon - The Twilight Fade

Happy Halloween

Arkham Witch - On Crom's Mountain

At last, a new release from Arkham Witch!  I'm breaking my own no-new-releases rule once again here due to my excitement over this album.  Straddling the line between the old-school Lovecraftian doom of Simon Iff's other project Lamp of Thoth and the NWOBHM-informed approach of like-minded bands such as Christian Mistress, On Crom's Mountain isn't deep or particularly dark heavy metal.   Instead, it's a fairly upbeat, joyous drunken celebration of crusty rock n' roll, ragged and righteous.  Of course, there's the requisite Lovecraft/Howard lyrical leanings, along with some witch and viking-related material, and some more cryptic sentiments.  It's still gestating in my ears, as I've only listened to it a scant handful of times, but even now I must go crack another beer and loosen up the old neck muscles - It's tough to headbang and type at the same time.

Through Arkham madness, and lunacy

In gibbous frenzy - we are free!

Vader - The Beast

Poland's unkillable death metal O.G.s  Vader put out a tough-as-nails album this year, Welcome to the Morbid Riech, which I highly recommend.  This record, from 2004, finds the band in a more eldritch mood than usual, with a pronounced Lovecraftian bent to the lyrics and an obsession with the black abyss of the sea.  The music, of course, pretty much just sounds like Vader always does: thrashy first-wave death metal with Piotr Paweł Wiwczarek's hoarse throaty bellows booming over the top.  You can't go wrong with a Vader record, unless you're an asshole.

I Shall Prevail

Abgott - Artefacts of Madness

Proving the old adage about the weirdest of metal coming out of Italy, Abgott's complex, mathy black metal is thoroughly constructed and precise.  There's hints of that Meshugga-derived irregular chug, Enslaved's epic sweep, and the sheer nuttiness of early Voivod, combined with a Lovecraftian lyrical bent.  For all the clinicism of the playing, there's still a nasty heft here, a mad whirl of rage usually absent from today's technical death metal scene.  Abgott are no theoreticians or hipster music school dropouts - this is the real deal, and it is scary.

Diabolical Surgery

Throng of Shoggoths - Nauseated and Terrified for the Future

Well, this is certainly destined to end up here sooner or later, so let's just go ahead and get it on! Throng of Shoggoths is a sludgy doom monster from Alabama, dedicated to the Lovecraftian and the foul. Leaning heavily towards the obscenely slow but occasionally erupting into fierce and nasty hardcore, this unpredictable beast of a demo splits the difference between Buzzov*en-styled drug sludge, Swedish death/doom, and crusty crossover metal. Truly impressive; I have high hopes for these gentlemen in the future.
Buy here.
Ftagn here.

Ythogtha - False Faith

Named for Lin Carter's son of Cthulhu, as presented in "The Dweller in the Tomb," Arizona's black metal monster Ythogtha serves up ten tracks of awful scraping madness (including the most fucked up Black Flag cover of all time) in thirteen minutes. Fans of Bone Awl and the like will enjoy this but frankly their horrid sound is entirely their own. Further pushing the boundaries of taste and listenability, False Faith is a sure-fire way to end Thanksgiving early!
Opener of the Way

Methuselah - The Sleeper in the Abyss

I was initially quite overjoyed to discover this obscure slab of funereal doom based upon several lesser-known Lovecraftian works, but upon opening my mind to its dark whispers the horror of my situation was thrown into sharp relief. Paced as slowly as the passage of aeons, littered with cruel, unintelligible voices calling obscenities in forgotten languages, framed by seemingly random notes plucked out on dusty, detuned piano, and hinting unsubtly at a universe of more horrid things, The Sleeper in the Abyss is the last recorded testament of British hermit Methuselah. As to his whereabouts I cannot speak, but surely he must've been in the final stages of syphilitic insanity by the time of this recording, for it contains nary a shred of human warmth or sympathy. A cold, bleak void yawns outward from my headphones and into my ears.
Ecce Lex

Morbid Angel - Gateways to Annihilation

Sadly, swamplings, I have little time to expound the virtues of this album at length. Alas, I shall be content to say that Morbid Angel's underrated sixth LP palpably oozes Lovecraftian dread from every pore. Much of the doom-leaning music concerns itself with forms of summoning and transcending thresholds and that sort of thing. Prime Swamp material, rest assured.
Humans, I shall feast upon your ignorance.

Vanquished - Habitual Severity

I can't seem to locate much information regarding this Canadian black metal act, but no matter: the music speaks for itself. Much of this album consists of fairly standard-issue black metal blasts, but the careful listener will discern subtle shifts in the chaos that slowly weave a tapestry of crystalline melody - it's like tectonic plates colliding underneath a glacier. In the absence of a lyric sheet, one must absorb the meaning through osmosis. Luckily the music is melodically evocative and clear enough to invoke images of chthonian beings encased in ice, of bending horizons and the whisper of the wendigo.
Amidst the Trees of Woe and Lament

Satanic Verses

1. Tech N9ne - What’s Yo Psycho?
2. Jedi Mind Tricks - Suicide
3. Geto Boys - Chuckie
4. Insane Poetry - In The Mouth Of Maddness
5. Gravediggaz - Graveyard Chamber
6. Esham - 666
7. Jay-Z - Lucifer
8. Brotha Lynch Hung - Dead Man Walking
9. Cage - The Soundtrack...
10. Bone - Hell Sent
11. Canibus - Layered Prayers
12. Ganksta N-I-P - Horror Movie Rap
13. Flatlinerz - Satanic Verses
14. NATAS - Like A Spirit
15. Big L - Da Graveyard
16. Ras Kass - Interview With A Vampire

Obligatory Halloween Mix

Cthulhu Coloring Book

Eyeball it here.
Buy a real one here.

Evil Damn/ Toxic Holocaust/ Chainsaw Killer - Blasphemy, Mayhem, War split

Madness, I tell you! Some days have passed since I have set hoof in the Swamp, and upon my return I can sense the malignant verdancy seeping slowly up my spine, bleeding out of my pores. Down to business: here we have a pleasingly repugnant menage a trois between two Lovecraft-leaning South American metal entities and the ubiquitous American carpetbaggers known as Toxic Holocaust. Peru's aptly monikered Evil Damn open the gates with a brief chant invoking Mighty Cthulhu before firing off several ferocious blackened wads of poison (including a Sarcafago cover). Toxic Holocaust in turn hand out a smattering of tinny-sounding rehearsal material. Rounding things out is sketchy-looking Colombian combo Chainsaw Killer, who turn in the most distinct and memorable section of the album with their low-budget Mercyful Fate/Motorhead hybrid sound and boundless enthusiasm (and delightful ESL song titles).
Death, Blood... Insane

Tyranny - Tides of Awakening

Greetings, Swamplings! I was going to throw together something special for this, our 200th post together, but as usual time has been short and your humble host extremely busy in his solemn scholarship. However, we shall post this fine Finnish album of funeral doom, which encompasses both kinds of music: Lovecraftian and dystopian. Similar to that Catacombs album posted some time back, this sludgy mound of plankton moves along at a glacial pace, gurgling and spewing sludge merrily, content to inhabit a plane seldom visited by ignorant humanity. Parts of this record distantly resemble traditional doom metal, but over time it descends into pure squall and squirt, undecipherable to the untrained ear. This slippery album can be difficult for puny minds to grasp, but attempts in that direction will surely stretch your consciousness enough to gaze into the yawning abyss without, perhaps, snapping your sanity in half.
Entreaties To The Primaeval Chaos

Rites of thy Degringolade/Portal - Our Dreadfull Sphere / The Sweyy

A somewhat strangely formatted split LP between Swamp alumni Portal and Canadians Rites of Thy Degringolade, and certainly a mouthful of a title. Portal, as you may know, are one of the most esoteric and bizarre-sounding death metal bands currently operating. Rites of Thy Degringolade, whom I know only from this split, seem to play a more straightforward style but offset this by having a different vocalist on each of their tracks - an interesting strategy, but their contribution simply doesn't hold the same faceless menace as the Portal side, which was soon released as a free-standing EP with live bonus tracks, also included here.
Drones Of Inequity
Servile Of The Manors Steer
Knell Of Antiquate Tide

Witch Hunt

Might as well go ahead and post this one while we're on the subject, eh? Witch Hunt is the loose 1994 sequel to Cast A Deadly Spell, another HBO production, starring the late Dennis Hopper and a few other recognizable names (notably Julian Sands of Warlock fame). Like it's predecessor, it is a noirish comedy that, despite the purported R-rating, is fairly light in tone and pleasantly unpretentious. Lots of sharp suits, fedora hats, cigarette haze, and Nina Simone. Also there is an undercurrent of sharp social satire aimed at both McCarthy-era "Witch Hunts" and the Reagan-Bush years that were just drawing to a close as the movie was released. Fun stuff, swamplings - take a lazy Sunday and let the tentacles wrap gently around your mind....
Here

As I noted yesterday, I am still hunting down the soundtrack for this one.