Root - Live In Brno '93

Morbid ritual of Root band ano 1993. Vid not from this concert, but give's good insight into early Root in concert, back when Big Boss was still rockin' the Jerry Garcia look.

Live In Brno

Head East - Flat As A Pancake

Sausage biscuits...Harleys...Flapjacks...Schlitz...strawberry wine...funk organ

If any or all of these things appeal to ya, you're going to love this album right here.

Flat As A Pancake

Beelzeb - Misanthropes Aurora

As an addendum to that Shroud post I offer up Mr. Lug Beelzeb's solo onslaught (joined on drums by Phaul Bokrug).  Sometimes mystical sometimes furious, always fucked up, this is a pretty great album.

From their website: "An identification with BEELZEB's prose means that "you are really in trouble", -to the effect that this art compels the listener to the recreation and enjoy with different forms of sinking-. So there is no middle point - or it's meant to be so-.
Sites and dimensions which one is driven to, run in the manner of a seducement towards a point of no return; - one won't be back being the same, for will have fed his soul with visions and evocations whose nature impregnates the self in such a way )perhaps like an intimate whisper) that the focussing on emotional universe is deeply altered-."

Oh and come on these glamour shots, goddamn!

Misanthropes Aurora

Shroud - Chamber of Suicide

Grim Spanish black metal. For the longest time I thought this album was called Thamber of Suicide which intrigued me very much.

Shroud's sound reminds me of very early Darkthrone, like Snowfall era Darkthrone...Very cool (cold) riffs that inhabit an emotional depth lacking in nowadays black metal. If the cover art and band pictures don't hook ya, the music certainly will.

Thamber of Suicide

Sculptured - Embodiment

Awesome prog metal that breaks the barriers between art rock and death metal while still kicking ass and taking names. Imagine a drunken jazz hall brawl between King Crimson, In Flames and Lux Occulta refereed by Emerson, Lake, and/or Palmer. As a medical illustrator, I thoroughly enjoy the images...I think one John Haughm is responsible for the layout.

Embodiment

Joyless - Without Support

Damn, a new Joyless?! This really was a nice surprise, and a fucking strange one! If you thought Wisdom & Arrogance was off the wall, hang on to your bicycle shorts cuz this one bounces between depressive coffee house ballads and surf rock record scratching to banjo solos galore and off the cuff warbling. I'm still reminded of the Cranberries (the chick's voice), but there is something undeniably Japanese about this; like a mixture of Cornelius and the less aggro moments of Melt Banana. Gonna be a favorite of mine I can tell already.

Without Support

Eric Friesen - Friesen Hell & Friesenberg Concertos

Neoclassical shredding spectacular. Beautifully bestial interpretations of Vivaldi, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart by one half of Twin Peaks fanatics Windham Hell. Read a very cool interview with Mr. Friesen right over yonder.

Friesen Hell

Friesenberg Concertos

Death Axe - Demo '85

What happens when a bunch of 12 year old Danish kids get together buy a 4 track and press record?
The answer, of course, is absolute maniacal mayhem and brilliance!!
I must admit that I have listened to this primitive little curiosity waaaayyy too many times, enough so that these songs have sunk into my consciousness.... I will catch myself humming "Night of the Slayers" on the subway and singing "Dark Eyes" in the shower. You better be careful, or this might happen to you too. Where the fuck were these kidz' parents anyway?

Dark Eyes

Threshold - Within the Expanse

This isn't the British Progressive Power metal band.  This one is French and it is nasty.

Within Her Expanse

Steel Mammoth - The Kingdom Of The Golden Hammer

This record has been described as a mixture of "The Cult, Manilla Road, Voivod, uh, Dire Straits, the new Darkthrone, and Judas Priests's earliest, more psychedelic stuff (Rocka Rolla)." and I'm gonna go ahead and add ZZ Top into that casserole as well. Bake on high with the right ingredients and you'll be glowing like a radiated coyote in the clear desert night.

The Kingdom Of The Golden Hammer