Author: D Morris

Album Review: Khanate — “To Be Cruel”

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Few things carry as much anticipation and dread as the words “band reunites.” At this point, band reunions are less a question of “will it happen?” and more “when does it happen?”.  These reunions tend to be preceded by a lot of PR, followed by album and tour announcements building that anticipation and dread. In the year of our Lord 2023 though, Khanate surprise released a new album, To Be Cruel. This is the first album since 2009 from the doom metal supergroup comprising OLD’s James Plotkin and Alan Dubin, Sunn O)))‘s Stephen O’Malley, and Blind Idiot God’s Tim Wyskida. No build up. No PR blitz. To Be Cruel is only available digitally at the moment, and both the tour and physical releases will come. For now though, this is four people getting together to make truly exciting minimalist doom music.

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Album Review: Sleep of Monsters — “ΓΓΓ”

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Everyone knows the origin of Batman. Bruce orphaned as a boy by a random criminal, dedicates his life to fighting the scourge of crime. He travels the world and trains himself in a number of skills to meet this goal. One night, as he thinks of ways to disguise himself and strike fear into the hearts of criminals, in flies a bat into his study. He declares “I shall become a bat!” Thus, Batman is born. Listening to ΓΓΓ, the latest from Sleep of Monsters, one can imagine mastermind Sami Hassinen has a similar origin. As a young boy in Finland, he dedicates himself to forming a band. By the time he can form one, he sleeps night after night restlessly dreaming of himself as a monster. One night a random copy of Bauhaus’ In The Flat Field flies through his window and wakes him up. He then stands up and declares “I will create a gothic, occult rock band called Sleep of Monsters! Also, we’ll have a lead singer with a deliciously rich baritone!” 

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Album Review: Kanaan — “Downpour”

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When we think of stoner metal and psychedelic metal at this point, the element most likely associated to those genres is smoke. Stoner at this point equates to marijuana usage. People sitting around smoking joints or hitting a bong. Huge clouds of smoke billowing out of whatever room someone has hotboxed or smoke coughed out of a mouth after smoking a joint. Think of the huge cloud of smoke following the stoners as they leave their van in Fast Times At Ridgemont High. Sleep’s Al Cisneros bellows about following the smoke to the riff filled land. At this point, it’s a cliche. But does Kanaan break that on Downpour…

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Album Review: Necronomicon — “Constant to Death”

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It’s safe to say we are far from the creative peak and hey day of the Thrash Metal genre. This is neither a criticism nor judgement. Genres have a natural lifespan for creativity. There is only so much artists can mine creatively before new artists come along and take art into another direction. For a certain generation of metalhead though, thrash is a genre that is very much an audio form of comfort food. It happens when you grow up in the era of Metallica and Megadeth’s commercial peak. Thrash might not be where one goes to find the avant-garde music in metal, but few things excite like a great thrash tune. When the combination of punk intensity and the technical prowess of NWOBHM hit your ears, it brings a smile to the face like nothing else. Listening to Constant to Death, the twelfth album from Germany’s Necronomicon, brings that type of joy.

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Album Review: LO! — “The Gleaners”

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David Lynch’s 1986 film Blue Velvet famously opens with an image of sublime beauty juxtaposed with hellish ugliness. A shot of a white picket fence with red roses segues into a kingdom of hideous, writhing insects.  Black and gold shapes burrow and writhe through moist dirt. Lynch films the insects as abstract shapes struggling for dominance. Lynch wants his audience to know that under this surface beauty lies unknown horrors. The two live in symbiosis and neither can thrive without its opposite. Because it’s David Lynch though, this uncomfortable scene also holds beauty in it. A frightening beauty the viewer cannot ignore. The Gleaners, the latest album from Australian sludge mongers LO!, thrives in similar imagery.

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