Tag Archives: goth metal

A HALLOWEEN CHILL … A CELTIC FROST

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A DESCENT INTO THE PANDEMONIUM

Early Halloween greets! Ready for a seasonal resurrection from the metal crypt?

Good – because Celtic Frost‘s 1987 meisterwork Into the Pandemonium is a dead cert Halloween enhancer. Here’s why. 

First, the artwork – that hellish extraction from Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymous Bosch – is pure badass badness that lays out the goth factor before you even hit play, especially if you’re eyeing the cassette artwork where the zoomed-in crop brings more proximity to flames, falling bodies and all-round damnation. 

Second, Celtic Frost always fits the ‘ween vibe and that’s a cold-bodied fact. But this album, when they went full tilt for orchestral strings, horns and operatic duets after To Mega Therion’s dabble, is a Halloween double-good. Avant garde was the descriptor of the day and whether or not that’s fully accurate, Pandemonium IS experimental and does smash genre orthodoxy and listener expectations so, for that, we salute. Art metal, progressive metal, experimental metal, maybe even death metal – as in, death hangs in its damp air – are all fair game, label-wise.

Looking at some reviews on Metal Archives though and we see that Into the Pandemonium isn’t universally loved. Lowest rating = 17%. Plenty of bile is hurled at One in Their Pride for its programmed beats, NASA samples and general non-metal spirit but it’s always sounded good to me, working like an oddball interlude where dashes of horror-suspense strings still manage to connect it to the rest of the record. Sure, it’s primitive tech-wise but this was 1987, FFS. What were electro-metal supremos Ministry doing back then? 

Becoming Ministry, that’s what. They sure as shit weren’t doing Stigmata. Not yet.  

Tom G Warrior’s voice draws plenty of criticism on the Archives – much bemoaning of the moaning. It’s almost a fair point but his style is essential to the Pandemonium mood and, surely, he’s gunning for an effect: the translucent nearly-dead. Hence the Halloween allure.

The first track is a cover of Mexican Radio (never checked the Wall of Voodoo original until today – decades of shameful oversight right there, it’s ace) and it rocks metally, but it’s the following Mesmerized that introduces the gothic undertones, un-thrash pace drag and wobbly spectrals that come to define Pandemonium’s tone. Claudia-Maria Mokri takes the backing vocals and Warrior’s guitar is, as ever, cloaked in mausoleum chill even when it flirts with 80s pop rock (anyone else getting a blinky flash of Steve Stevens’ pre-verse Rebel Yell riffing halfway through?). All the while, Martin Eric Ain’s rolling bass hollows the earthly life out of it.

Skipping past Inner Sanctum just for a sec, we get our first fully-fledged case of the non-metal avants. Tristesses de la Lune, all cold vapors and morose orchestration, is voiced entirely by Manu Moan and drips moonlit melancholy over dancing strings and buried buzzsaw grind.

But Rex Irae (Requiem) takes it further. This track, a full-on duet between Warrior and Mokri with an oddly groovesome meter, is the fullest realisation of orchestral haunt. String stabs, scrapes and accents alongside Warrior’s nearly-dead vox pitch into sweeping overtures that make it the goth standout of the album – and the first part of the Requiem triptych that took more than 30 years for Warrior to complete. If there’s one track to nab as a standalone Halloweener, this is it. Might as well add Oriental Masquerade while you’re at it, given that it shuts the album down with doomy ceremonial grandeur.  

So, there’s no shortage of graveyard atmospherics on Into the Pandemonium … but that doesn’t mean it lacks blackened metallics either. Inner Sanctum predates thrash metal’s move towards the mainstream four years before the Black Album but with more diabolus in musica, and I Won’t Dance (the Elders’ Orient) fucking MOTORS with anthemic cool and unbreakable beats.

Really, for Halloween, you could pick pretty much any Tom G Warrior record and it’ll fit. Sticking with Celtic Frost, Monotheist‘s bleak pitch-black brutality and To Mega Therion‘s gothic thrash energy are both right up there. But for seasonal spook in sound and vision, Into the Pandemonium just about has the edge – more wayward, irrational, mercurial and over-reaching.

It’s just that bit more vamp, don’t you think?

Into hell, Into the Pandemonium

Cassette tracklist:

Mexican Radio
Mesmerized
Inner Sanctum
Tristesses de la Lune
Babylon Fell
Caress Into Oblivion
One in their Pride
I Won’t Dance (the Elders’ Orient)
Rex Irae (Requiem)
Oriental Masquerade

(Sorrows of the Moon does not appear on the original tape but does appear on other formats. Tristesses de la Lune features Charles Baudelaire’s poem in French. Sorrows of the Moon is the English translation but has different music. Running orders vary depending on release and format. Confusing, I know…)

Want a nightmare soundtrack? Try this Sunn O))) for size. Or search Halloween for old-school metal playlists, creepsome cover versions, Mike Patton, Type O Negative, you get the gist

MDOU MOCTAR – Oh France: TRACK OF THE MONTH

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JUNE REWIND: BLAZING TUAREG PSYCHE, GOTHIC BM AND CHICAGO LEGEND ALBINI LOST

This could be the last Track of the Month Rewind post for a while because the very fine bit of machinery that makes them happen has just died on me…

…the cassette deck. Bye bye Technics RS-HD350. And while this doesn’t stop the showcasing of new music in this digital age, it will stop these Rewinds – or at least pause them for a bit – because the act of taping is where they come from. Can’t rewind without tape.  

Technics tape deck
Various radio tape 69 - on pause
The Rewind: on pause

So, apart from the death of the deck, what’s happened in the last couple of months?  

Record Store Day 2024 came, went and whatevered. English Teacher packed out and wowed the Bullingdon in Oxford. Jesus Lizard announced a new album. But bigger than all those was our new-found reminder, for the absolute worst of reasons, of Steve Albini’s inimitable presence in the music world. 

Reading the tributes, and re-reading and hearing his own words in articles and interviews, it’s staggering to see just how much music he touched – music that will continue to inspire listeners for a long time. It’s a vast repository whose tally is now abruptly fixed. 

Like many music fans, I guess, my knowledge of him didn’t really stretch beyond the bands he was in, the headline bands he recorded, the headlines he himself made (good and bad) and the principles he brought to his craft and The Work. 

But you realise that even the shallowest of skims through the albums he recorded will make for a highly rewarding experience. It’ll be different for everyone but the inevitable shitload of slept-on gems in the Albini backlist means we surely owe ourselves a dabble. And with Shellac being on the cover of Wire magazine just days before he passed, his sudden departure was made even more unreal. RIP Steve Albini.  

OK then, onto some new-ish sounds worth a poke.   

MDOU MOCTAR – Oh France

The Tuareg firebrand played Glastonbury this very afternoon so Worthy Farm is now surely the proud owner of its very own patch of scorched earth. As you might expect, explosive guitar hits hard from the start of Oh France, bringing spice and attack to Saharan flow, and the rhythm section is killer. Together, they wind up the pace and set the scene for shamanic frenzy that’s built for an end-of-set blowout. Feel the heat.

SUNNATA – Wishbone

More spiralling hypnotic psyche, this time from Poland’s Sunnata. Combining droning Massive Attack Risingson-style vocals with an upbeat looping riff, Wishbone trips along nicely before the chorus switches to a lumbering post/stoner groove and a tasty breakdown sets the geological bass loose. Check it here. 

EDO – Radiant Structures  

‘Black metal with a healthy dose of goth post punk’ is how Brad Sanders described this on Bandcamp’s The Metal Show and from the very first bars, the goth tag is unerringly precise – it’s not atmospheric, lush, electro or industrial goth but UK Dank Inc. goth: the guitars draw from the Banshees et al with sheets of thick, intoxicating textures enveloping the BM shred over 8 ever-shifting minutes.

KEVIN ABSTRACT – Blanket

Punk slacker vibes abound in Blanket, a loose two-minute sketch that sounds almost too slight to stand up but is so damned infectious it’s impossible to resist – and there’s more going on than you first think. With a descending chord sequence that’s a distant, non-violent relation to I Wanna Be Your Dog – no wonder Iggy played this on his radio show a few weeks back – it’s the semi-whispered breakdown in the middle that brings the hushed cool. It’s a fleeting tease, but of what? Dense lo-fi? Collage rock? Whatever it is, Blanket will find a place in the sun on your alt-pop carousel.   

‘til next time! (TBD by tape deck resurrection)

Monthly rewind
The monthly music rewind

THE SCRATCH – Blaggard: TRACK OF THE MONTH

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DEC/NOV REWIND: THE SCRATCH PLUS SPARSE SCOTS BEATS, JARMUSCH ODDITY, RUDE FUNK AND CHELSEA’S WHISPERS

Last-ditch scramble round a couple of new sounds before Christmas hits, even though we’re pretty much in the thick of festive mayhem already … no-one REALLY spends time digging brand new music two days before Christmas, do they? But these tunes have been lurking a wee while and are way too good to miss so let’s just get-the-f**k on with it and keep them on a low-lit back burner, eh?

LORD OF THE ISLE (feat Ellen Renton) – For a Burning World

Lapping waves and luscious Boards of Canada ambience form the hypnotic backdrop for Scottish poet Ellen Renton to speak her words and pull you in. It’s a gentle start but gradually, the beats emerge – nothing manic – and start to break. Electronica washes surge then retreat while a darker keyboard riff makes the hook. Could be a mood piece for the season, as remote or intimate as you want (or don’t want) it to be. Winter explorations abound.

SQURL – Funnel of Love

Hazy, supernatural Western vibes here (not a brand new track either), venturing way out west Americana-style with an unwavering boom-rat-tat beat anchoring satellite guitar fragments. With Jim Jarmusch at the helm, would you expect anything less than exquisite production? No. Check the deft distortion touches and all-round movement and orchestration. The spirit of Dylan Carlson passes by early on but really, Funnel is all about the lightly intoxicating space in which to create your own pictures.

CHELSEA WOLFE – Whispers in the Echo Chamber

Nine Inch Nails always did a good whisper. So does Chelsea Wolfe in this subzero hiss ‘n clank of midwinter gloom. Delicate yet far from broken, it’s a ghostly creep-crawl through Portishead’s emotional machinery while the bent riff, corroded piano and rhythm pick-up are pure Reznor and by the end, Whispers in the Echo Chamber threatens to collapse under the weight of its own distortion. Unfestive but very seasonal.

DON’T THANK ME, SPANK ME! – Sandy

With a taut, garage pop-funk strut grooving over fat bass and pure-funk chords, this infectious jam for Grease character Sandy Newton (yep, that’s what they said) never forgets that space has its place – a !!!-meets-Chaka-Like-Sugar hit with a lick of dirt in the knocked-back guitar fuzz. Can you resist the Sandy strut? Surely no.

THE SCRATCH – Blaggard

Oh yeah, this is it. Tune of the month. A twisting, churning noise-punk riff tangled tight with tom-driven beats whipped through a noise-rock blender, Blaggard’s signature is a piledriving wall of rhythm that threatens mania yet stops just short of falling apart. There are light touches too, it’s not all shout and rage – but a fair slab really, really is.

’til next time!

Stitch
Sketch of Stitch. Because I needed a picture

EXTREME – Rise: TRACK OF THE MONTH (yes!!!)

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MARCH REWIND: EXPLOSIVE PSYCHE JAZZ ON STAGE AND A SUPERNOVA SCORCHER FROM NUNO

Didn’t see that one coming. Extreme, creators of one of the most hated ballads ever to many a 90s alt-rock post-thrash industrial-crossover Seattle head (like me), flew in from nowhere and slayed the long-standing prejudice right out of us (er, me again). Their new track Rise is a killer, partly thanks to a stupendous Nuno Bettencourt solo that could just be a Moment for mainstream hard rock virtuosity.

But we’ll get to that soon enough. First, it’s a little late write-up of live new-jazz action that set a serious bar for all live music in 2023.

RUN LOGAN RUN – LIVE @ TAP SOCIAL, OXFORD, FEBRUARY 15

When you check Run Logan Run online, you’ll see the band listed as a duo of tenor saxophonist Andrew Neil Hayes and drummer Matt Brown. You’ll see they’re from Bristol and you’ll see tags like experimental, jazz, punk jazz, all that stuff.

None of this is untrue. Except that, on stage, there’s a guitarist and bassist too (don’t know the names of the players, sorry) so any mild trepidation you might have had as to whether drums and sax alone can hold your attention gets fully obliterated by the trance groove, transcendent voodoo and rock-band physicality served up by a four-piece. And they LOVE what they’re doing up there – improvising, smiling and connecting with each other while locked on free-flowing psychedelic trips.

Points of reference? You need someone better versed in this field than me, but if you’re partial to Colin Stetson/Ex Eye, Melt Yourself Down and the outer limits of Robert Plant’s Sensational Space Shifters then you’ll find much to like. A couple of tracks – Silver Sun was one – feature Annie Gardiner on vocals, who did the night’s opening set. Billy Fuller plays on Annie’s latest album so that’s even more evidence of a deep Bristol/Beak/Plant continuum at work.

Tracks played tonight include Give Me Back My Slippers, Project Pigeon Missile, Caveman Disco and a storming Searching for God in Strangers’ Faces. Whether or not listening to their recorded music matches up to the on-stage incarnation is something I’ve yet to check, but the live show is without flaw. Adventurous, highly proficient musicians fully immersed in the moment, Run Logan Run pull you in to the eye of their creative storm. And it’s a thrilling trip.

And now for something completely different …

AUTHOR & PUNISHER – Drone Carrying Dread

Slow, luscious, machine-beats metal mixing doom tones with euphoric splendour – think Type O Negative hooking up with Deftones or Chino Moreno solo and you’ve got the mechanised bones of this goth fix, chilled by 80s ice (but no Vanilla). It’s been out for a year so it’s not brand new but never mind, we’ve saved it for a gloomy day. Check it here.

HOLY FAWN – Void of Light

Enter the world of atmospheric post-metals, made for cold grey skies. Slow, soft beginnings mark this out as an atmospheric venture, and it absolutely is, but a change of beat brings an attitude shift. Voice harshens, rhythm skitters, layers amass. No rocking out to this, not that way, because it’s not riff music. It’s mood music: nature’s bleak call. Listen here and file somewhere near Cult of Luna.

ELDER – Catastasis

Heavy ecstasy from Massachusetts’s Elder. Catastasis packs an album’s worth of hardened prog and hypnotic riffage into a 10-minute joyride that’s both free-flowing jam and crafted orchestration. There’s an airy propulsion that adds 3D-space to knotty riffs and ground-level bass – check those spiralling, looping motifs at the start – as do the Yes-alluding vocals and fleeting keyboard cameos. Classy stuff. And while we’re in the company of Elder, let’s not forget about Delving either.

OK, then. Shock of the year:

EXTREME – Rise

I’m sure we’ve all got an opinion on Extreme. Or a physical reaction to More Than Words, a tune that undid the exuberance of Get the Funk Out and positioned Extreme as a permanent Musical Enemy of the early 90s.

But this new tune, Rise, is something else. It’s a beast.

Kicking off with a straight-into-it riff that could easily be the opening bars of a 2023 Metallica track, it hooks you and you keep watching. The band’s in great shape, turning in one of those old-school performance-style videos and Gary Cherone’s voice is in top shape. Tonnes of energy and a Tool-ish riff fragment lurking under the chorus. So far, so unexpected, so good. And then…

…and then. Nuno Bettencourt’s solo.

And that’s where it all blows up. Honestly, the drop-jawed shock that comes from seeing and hearing this for the first time is enormous and it could be a re-defining hard rock moment. Then again, I’m no musician and maybe it’s a generation thing I’m feeling, wowed off-guard by a critical underdog. But something feels unexplainably BIG about this – some combination of nostalgia, big-name comeback, timing, viral potential, Eddie Van Halen tribute and Nuno showcase that lands like a celebration and a challenge. It’ll make a lot of others look tired in comparison. It’s exciting, it feels like it was needed. No wonder people like Rick Beato are all over it.

If you’re gunning for guitars and showmanship in a song you can sing along to, Rise delivers. Over and over.

Not convinced? Watch the video and see. I’m all in.

’til next time!

amplifier wordsmith: the monthly rewind
amplifier wordsmith: the monthly rewind