Antonius Rex - Zora

While we're on the weird outer rims of heavy metal, let's stop over in darkest Italy, home to many truly bizarre bands of all sub-genres.  Antonius Rex, the brainchild of Jacula leader Antonio Bartoccetti and vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Doris Norton.  Of their many simultaneous projects, this is the darkest and most explicitly occult, enough so that they were dropped by their label and forced to self-release it in limited quantities some years later.  Mixing the baroque organ fugues and jazzy psych of Jacula with a cinematic adventurousness influenced by Goblin and Morricone, with the pair's sometimes distracting vocals and breathless narration kept to a minimum.  This version is a recent reissue containing the extended track listing of later versions but with the original, suppressed cover art intact.  One can hear influences on occult rock modern bands, especially Blood Ceremony, but nobody has the freeform batshit wildness of this monster.

Morte al Potere

Make Love

After the first night of real usage of my new ridiculously loud tube-based amplifier, my weary ears can take no music, so we must make do with this hilarious audiobook from the hammy king of b-movies himself.  A combination of standard memoir and hyperkinetic radio play, Bruce and a legion of his associates take you on a dark, boozy journey through the various rungs of Hollywood life, from straight-to-VHS hackwork to the smashing up of Richard Gere's antique vases.  Slapstick, romance, self-reflection, fear and loathing, and of course piles of corny jokes all weave seamlessly into the narrative, brought to life with sound effects and broad caricatures of the many people Mr. Campbell has crossed orbits with over the years.  A sight for sore ears.

Part 1 and Part 2

Rapture

Disappointed?

Don't Be!

Blood Ritual - At the Mountains of Madness

Portland's meat-and-potatoes death metal group Blood Ritual releases an album about every ten years, which means the next one will probably arrive after the Apocalypse. This, their solitary long player from the 90's, is a solid Deicide-influenced blast of filthy riffs, doubled growl/wail vocals, and occult lyrics that betray a slight black metal influence as well. These lyrics tend to be of the more traditional Jesus vs Satan school rather than the more esoteric matters promised by the title, but there's enough talk of strange rites and forbidden tomes of horrible truth to satisfy the Lovecraftian as well. This is stolidly neither of the "brutal" nor "progressive" wings of modern death metal - just straightforward blurry Florida worship whipped up into a bloody froth and poured down the front of your pants.
Sweet Suffering

John Zorn - Magick

In this first post of the new year, we find the furthest mystickal and alchemical explorations of jazz misanthropist John Zorn, primarily situated around a five-movement suite based on the Necronomicon. This work ebbs between Zorn's characteristic frenetic scribbling and some moodier ambient moments, at times verging on a sort of Spaghetti western starring Aleister Crowley. Entrancing and repellant.
Thought Forms

Machetazo - Sinfonías Del Terror Ciego

Day Three of Blind Dead Week brings us a nasty little slab of grind sickness from countrymen of de Ossorio and his eyeless Templars, the mighty Machetazo. This album is a front-to-back dedication to the movies; every song elaborates on the central concept in raspy, slobbery Español. It's impossible not to be charmed by this band, especially if you're a fan of their compatriots on Razorback Records - it's filler free but with a few choice samples, it mixes up their death-grind style with doom flirtations and grim galloping, and it's simultaneously dead serious and cheekily off-the-cuff. They make it look effortless, in other words. Do check out the rest of their extensive discography for songs about wendigo and organ harvesting and other delights.
Sin Ojos

Unaussprechlichen Kulten - Wake Up in the Night of Walpurgis

Crusty Chilean ESL death metallers Unaussprechlichen Kulten sing entirely within the orbit of the Cthulhu mythos, and are obviously well versed and fervent. I haven't but precious moments to type, so I'll not mince words: this album is crucial to your understanding of the universe. Further growth will simply cease until you absorb this precious nourishment, for your minds and many wriggling tentacles.
The Black Goat of the Woods With a Thousand Youngs

The Devil'z Rejects - Necronomicon

A collaboration between Jus Allah of Philly's notorious Jedi Mind Tricks and Boston rapper Bomshot (yeah, I've never heard of him either), The Devil'z Rejects is an aggressively nasty affair, alternating between seemingly deep meditations on heady esoteric topics and homophobic/homoerotic genital torture scenarios. Must of this is the work of Jus Allah, notorious for anti-gay lyrics so cartoonish and obsessive that they seem like thinly veiled come-ons from that sweaty guy in the men's room at the Greyhound station (he also repeatedly threatens to give your moms AIDS). Likewise, his aspirations toward intellectualism are belied by the song seriously dissecting the Da Vinci Code (which, charmingly, features a guest rapper named Evildead). A third blow to its credibility is the constant referencing to the eponymous Rob Zombie movie, a steaming turd of mediocrity. Still, the album throbs with a malevolent life of its own thanks to the bluesy samples and scratchy, 36 Chambers-style layers of needle hiss, and some guest spots by less anti-social MCs.
I'mma turn everything man makes to pancakes

Necronomicon - Tips Zum Slebstmord

That title, of course, loosely translates as "Tips for Suicide." Even by the standards of the Swamp this record is extremely far out. Heady Krautrock sung in Latin and German, Necronomicon's sole album propels itself along nicely on a black magic carpet of organ and slashing guitars. It is as pretentious as music can possibly aspire to be but still sounds like the angsty drug freakout of thuggish teenagers, despite the occasional operatic choir or Slavic folk strain. A bleak worldview tempered by dark humor and bold imagination, this album perhaps sounds best during a thunderstorm or natural catastrophe.
In Memoriam