Satanhartalt - Forscr​í​fan tape

Fuck yes new Satanhartalt tape after like 5 years and it's still as ominous and cavernous as ever revolving around an unbelievable dissonant chord. Amazing shit, much better than all that sketchy and untalented bm, punk or whatever Legion Blotan does. 2022 tape on Legion Blotan.

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La Mancha Del Pecado / Xazzaz ‎– La Fetichista split tape

Yet another split between La Mancha Del Pecado and Xazzaz. Miguel Pérez offers two dense subterranean and Lovecraftian harsh drone/noise invocations, while Mike Simpson tortures his guitar and amp once more with layers of swarming feedback and disharmonics close to Skullflower's best. 2013 tape on Agorafobia Tapes and Molotov.

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Unkerd Wood - Demo II tape

 

Second release for this creepy doom/black metal North-East England project, playing subterranean crawling invocations with slow funeral-like drums and guitar/bass creating a thick foggy noise that cannot be escaped from. It's great that these guys can invoke such enveloping darkness just by playing live with three instruments and making good use of reverb, without any keyboards or studio tricks. Track three has this extremely spooky and depressive e-bow melody morphing into black metal arpeggio combined with heavy gruff caveman vocals-definitely a must hear. 2012 tape on Legion Blotan.

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Unkerd Wood / Pact Of Ash / Gammal Sed ‎– Northern Retaliation split tape

3-way split tape by three projects with overlapping memberships: Lee Stokoe's Pact Of Ash begins the program with a 9-minute instrumental slow barrage of black metal riffing and dead-slow drums that somewhat reminds me of that awesome Murmuüre album in 2010. Unkerd Wood consists of Mike Simpson (Xazzaz, Oppenheimer, Dark Bargain, and Satanhartalt - all of which have been covered here) on bass & vocals, Jamie Stewart (Wrest, Fuckin' Amateurs Records, Oppenheimer, Dark Bargain, and Satanhartalt) on drums, and George Proctor (Legion Blotan/Turgid Animal Records, Mutant Ape, Inseminoid, ex-Skullflower) on guitar & vocals. I already liked their ultra-lo-fi, dungeon-sounding, black-hole black/doom metal, but this track is just UNBELIEVABLE,. It's a 16-minute epic of slowly grinding drums and bass, wailing and dissonant guitars, and some of the most seriously scary vocals I've heard invoking terrible swampy creatures and seems to me like a more structured version of the ritual darkness of Satanhartalt. At the 9-minute mark, everything stops and an ominous ritual dark ambient drone takes over, only to give its place after 2 minutes to one of the best riffs black metal has ever experienced, a reverbed cacophonous arpeggiated anthemic thing sustained by crushing drums and noise and a blurry psychedelic doom/blues vibe behind it that simply crushes everything. I think that this tape must be bought/listened to even just for this track. Finally, there's Gammal Sed, a solo (I think) project of George Proctor, where he plays catatonic, depressive but loud and noisy black metal revolving around a great arpeggiated riff eventually morphing into a noisy industrial/ambient chaos. All three of these groups are great, and they have released other stuff on Legion Blotan and Matching Head that deserve listening/buying. 2017 tape on Legion Blotan.

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Xazzaz - The Candle Is Lit tape

Xazzaz playing "happy droneday to you" on the occasion of Lee Stokoe's birthday (as can be seen on the tape inlay). Having read reviews of his live appearances, I gotta say that they were pretty accurate in their raving: deadening/deafening drone with a more industrial-Throbbing Gristle vibe here, and as always with the greyness of NE England ever-present. Essential listening released in 2014 on the sadly missed Fuckin' Amateurs.

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Xazzaz - Smoke Jaguar/Ghost Wolf cdr

Over-the-top distorto-guitar noise on the first track, but all the money's on the second track, which is a wild psychedelic ritual drone with hazy electronics, guitar feedbacks and ecstatic percussion, quite reminiscent of Matthew Bower's Total. Superb. 2012 cdr on Molotov.

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Xazzaz / La Mancha Del Pecado ‎– La Esquina Roja Split cdr

On this superb split between two of the most notable guitar-based drone/noisers of the present, Xazzaz/Mike Simpson is at his most black-metal moment, combining sinister tremolo riffing with terrorist feedback in a buried-in-the-coffin sound, while La Mancha Del Pecado/Miguel Perez plays a heavy Culver-ian/Sunn-O)))-esque heavy static drone hymn that sounds like it also has a little bit of an organ. 2013 cdr on Oracle Netlabel

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Xazzaz - Untitled cdr

Damn me if Matthew Bower isn't proud of his disciples. This one could have been one of the greatest post-reunion Skullflower releases, with its combination of a menacing serpentine riff with psychedelic electronics and a buried sound. Listened to the riff and don't tell that this could have also been the drone version of Carl Orff's "Veris Leta Facies" from Carmina Burana. The sinister drone black metal evilness gives way to ten minutes of industrial drone stasis, a mix between a factory and a Sunn O))). The second track is an interplay between low-frequency electronics and bass drone throb, like Culver working on a spaceship. An essential release of the North-East English underground. 2012 cdr on Molotov.

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https://mega.nz/#!9b5WTIrK!MvH-6vg-J0L94lqyUpIj4sP52sCVXI4GwJp_hNtN-lI

Xazzaz - Black Hearts and Brittle Bones cdr

This one sounds deceptively quiet, beginning with a beautiful droning sound of what I think is accordion, sounding very similar to fellow spirit Culver, and around the three-minute mark a siren-like guitar feedback comes in, after which things become suffocating. For the remaining 9 minutes we are treated with harsh and miserable guitar improvisation, somewhere between Earth 2, Skullflower and oozing black metal, thereby sounding similar to Mike's dungeon black drone project Satanhartalt. Just great. 2012 cdr on Molotov.

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Xazzaz - Obit cdr

We've talked about Mike Simpson, Xazzaz, his label Molotov Productions with the great visuals and the bands he plays in (Gigantmæcg, Satanhartalt, Dark Bargain and Oppenheimer) before. Xazzaz is his solo project, in which he plays guitar-based deafening noisedrone with over-the-top bass distortion and swarms of feedback, under which sometimes you can hear a hint of riffing. 2012 cdr on Molotov Productions.

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Gigantmæcg ‎- Bone And Steel cdr

Swarming hellish, bad-trip noise and motorik drum rhythms buried real deep under the noise by Mike Simpson of Xazzaz and George Proctor of Mutant Ape, etc. 2013 cdr on Molotov Records.

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