Category Archives: Music

AJ Froman – Phoenix Syndrome

by Deidre House
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“Retro” is a term that to some, applies solely to bands that are derivative, stagnant, unoriginal, uncreative, and too mired in the past to produce anything of value, like your dad’s bar band. I must say that retro psychedelic progressive rockers AJ Froman prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this is not true at all on their latest release, Phoenix Syndrome (well, not necessarily true, anyway).

Everything here sounds like it could have plausibly been written and recorded in the 1970s. The riffs, bass lines, and synths wouldn’t sound out of place at all. I mean no disrespect by that … Read more

OSR: February 15th, 2016

by Dæv Tremblay

Last week was very slow, but only today I got 4 new albums so I guess it makes up for last week!

Out March 11th, Mithridatic‘s debut album is a ceaseless discharge of blackened death metal that only France seems to be able to craft. It’s a solid and oppressive slab so remember the name. The newest release from Art as Catharsis is Australia’s 苦しみ　(Kurushimi), a free jazz and grindcore melting pot that reminds me strongly of Japanese improvisation noise-grind band Schreckwürmer, but with softer passages. This is yet another stellar album on AaC’s ever-growing list of releases!… Read more

Cetacean – Breach | Submerge

by Dæv Tremblay

Front-Cover-FINAL_122815_1400X1400Cetacean is a band from Los Angeles, California, that came to being in 2015 under the direction of David Sais, with members from well-established bands, such as Black Sheep Wall and Horse the Band, and other musicians. The result is a progressive blackened doom sextet and a 35-minute EP called Breach | Submerge, which was released on January 29th on CD, and will see a vinyl release on March 27th. The designation of EP for a piece longer than half an hour is quite unusual, but understandable given the lengthy nature of doom music, where slow and atmospheric riffs … Read more

Doom Salad – Sunscreens and Aerosols

by Dæv Tremblay

coversunscreensI’ve been a fan of Doom Salad for about a year or two now, just listening to their mind-bending experimental math rock compositions gave blisters to my fingers and cramps in my hands. However, instead of meticulously written and thoroughly thought about pieces, their newest EP, Sunscreens and Aerosols is four improvised tracks with titles drawn from a Twitter non sequitur spam account.

The songs stem from five recorded improvised tracks that were edited to keep the best parts and leave the bad ones, what resulted is fifteen minutes of music split into four distinct parts. The proficiency of the … Read more

OSR: February 6th, 2016

by Dæv Tremblay
Dead River Runs Dry‘s Hierophants of the Storm is a brutal assault of blackened death metal, or is it deathened black metal? Anyways, it’s a very good, fast, and bleak record! Fake Jokes is so much better than Belief in Question, Carpadium‘s first album. They seem to know better where they are headed with their sound, which is some sort of math rock with some noise influences. I hope they continue down this road. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (Shrug) is, despite its innocuous name-oji, is an aggressive post-hardcore band from California, and ???? successfully convey their musical message. Emulated music… Read more