ROTW: Metallic OK!

The latest solo album from guitarist Bruce Russell of New Zealand's finest, The Dead C, was recently released by resuscitated UK underground out-pop label Glass, or rather, Glass Redux. Bearing a title that nods to Iggy & The Stooges for reasons doubtless cool but not entirely obvious, it's a sprawling double cd set consisting in large part of two of our most very favorite-est things: feedback and field recordings!

Sure, sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between Bruce playing the guitar, and Bruce rummaging around in the shed; between Bruce playing the guitar, and Bruce mowing the lawn (perhaps – and it's quite possible he mows the lawn with his guitar), but it matters not. When given proper attention, the sounds here really draw you in, your ears curiously wondering just what's going on, and why and how it's all so noisily gorgeous.

And as Allan pointed out to Andee, well, we don't actually have to worry about selling any of them. So since we're both so psyched on it: ROTW, OK!

ROTW: Inferno!

Heck, a new Brainbombs LP on Skrammel just landed Stateside, so there's our ROTW right there. Another slab of misanthropic sub-Stooges-y squall from this long-running Swedish outfit, who believe they figured out a long time ago (circa 1989) what rock was really for (against?) and has been bludgeoning the rest of us with it ever since, bless their sick hearts.

Inferno, their eighth or so album, represents an impressive, continuing dedication to noise and nihilism. These eight new songs are typically plodding and distorted, and as always are kinda catchy too, with titles proclaiming such typically Brainsbombs-esque sentiments as: "They All Deserve To Die" and "Wanted To Kill You." Enjoy.


Midheaven has 'em.

ROTW: Sittandes I Sjön Med Vatten Över Huvudet!

Super duper in love with this, the lo-fi avantfolkmetal solo debut out on Nordvis from a Swedish guitarist named JoJöden (of outré black metallers Sorgeldom and Whirling).

In our estimation, Mr. J has composed, performed, and recorded a true, outsider-y masterpiece of “sensitive Viking” slash “forest troll” music here on this intimate and emotive album, much of it instrumental and often acoustic (at times also featuring electric organ and clattery drums).

While not without its harsh moments, ultimately this is just sooo very gorgeous and lovely, pastoral and melancholic – but also, equally, wonderfully woozy & off-kilter. Enough that it immediately made us think of the bizarre brilliance of Ved Buens Ende. One might also reference early Ulver and some Forgotten Woods, perhaps. We’re even hearing a smidgen of Bo Hansson.

Also, we'd be curious what fans of, say, Amps For Christ and Daniel Higgs might think about this – not that this sounds at all like either, but it could have some cross-genre appeal to those into wyrd folkster types...

ROTW: Nothing Valley!

For this Week's Record Of The, we've selected a slice of noisy, female-fronted indie pop that Andee thinks sounds a bit like The Swirlies if they were on Skin Graft. Kind of looks like a Skin Graft disc too, what with the comic strip cover art and all.

It's the first full-length, Nothing Valley, from Chicago's oddly/pleasantly named Melkbelly, which came out not quite a month ago on Wax Nine Records as that new label's premiere release.

Allan agrees with Andee's assessment, but if he had to provide his own 'band math' description, it would be that a lot of this makes him think of, like, The Breeders jamming with Lightning Bolt.

Solidly catchy and chaotic stuff, see (hear) for yourself...

ROTW: Primal Incinerators Of Moral Matrix!

Lately, in the realm of underground metal, it seems like Iron Bonehead Productions is kinda the current 'it' label. And their latest release is something we've certainly been eagerly anticipating – the debut full-length from Indian black/death/noise metallers Tetragrammacide. Totes ROTW material here, if ultra esoteric extreme WTF?-ery in both sound & concept makes for ROTW-ness, which it does.

The so-wrong-it's-right insane production strategery of this band's previous recordings is tempered somewhat here, but not to the detriment of the music; indeed the ante is upped regarding the levels of sheer crazed chaotic metal-kill proffered. Plus, the pseudo-scientific sanity-loss lyrical content is the sort of absurd occult poetry that would make for potential, completely cracked PhD thesis subject matter. Track titles include the likes of "Intra-Dimensional Vessel of Were-Robotics, N-Logics and Assorted Lattice Intelligences" and "The Prognosticators of Trans-Yuggothian Meta-Reasoning," reminding us a bit of the cryptic, abstruse, mythos-referencing work of Iranian writer Reza Negarestani or something. Mind-bending, neck-spraining, earhole-abusing stuff...


ROTW runner-up this week, if you're asking, would be another crucial title from Japan's defunct P.S.F. label, now brought back by the unbelievable Black Editions reissue campaign: the first Tokyo Flashback comp, now on vinyl for the very first time. Originally released on cd in 1991, it features exclusive tracks from such scene pillars as White Heaven, Fushitsusha, Ghost, and High Rise – representing out-rock stuff that served as an inspiration for over two decades worth of shades-sportin' heavy psych acts on that label.

And, also, if we'd been picking a "Sixteen Compact Disc Box Set Of The Week," Roland Kayn's A Little Electronic Milky Way Of Sound would have been a shoe-in for sure! A lovely, lengthy composition of droney electronic (or "cybernetic") music from this ex-member of the Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza.