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Showing posts with label Bergraven. Show all posts
Faith Turner-Coloccia (Mamiffer, Everlovely Lightningheart, Pyramids)
Mare - s/t EPCD, MP3
When I heard this record I felt like I was hearing something perfect. Every note and change and harmony makes sense and resonates within me. I wish Mare would make another record someday. I also wish I could sing like Tyler, and I also wish I could play drums like Caleb. I heard that Tyler had a toothbrush in his back pocket while they were playing in Toronto...what can I say?
2xLP, CD, MP3
This is one of the saddest and most lonely records I have ever heard, sad and lonely without being dramatic. It sounds very honest, like a twisted version of Fovea Hex. I really appreciate the space the music has, and the time period and personalities of the musicians the recording captures. You can appreciate James Plotkin's exceptional hearing and mastering skills. I tried to make a funny joke about Jodis, but you CANT joke about Jodis, and everyone knows that. This record deflects joking.
BERGRAVEN - Til Makabert VäsenCD, MP3
When I heard this record I was walking in the rain, it was before the record came out (thanks HHR!). I was listening to it on broken ipod headphones. I listened to it with two bi-polar manic depressives in my car driving in traffic, and all these times I only noticed the music. This is an amazing record. I think this is the most "listened to" record for me of 2009. This record is also not really funny or joke-able.
MP3
This record is so fucking awesome, it sounds haunted and it sounds like a bunch of guys were trapped in a recording studio in Salem during a snow storm. In my dream world if I was a dude and I could growl and yell really loud and play electric guitar like I just couldn't stop being influenced by The Dead Man soundtrack, then I would be in this band and I would play live shows and be tired and sweaty afterward. I REALLY wish Old Man Gloom would make some more records...I heard they are going to soon...just saying.
LP, CD, MP3
I don't even need to describe to you my excuse for loving this record. But there are so many good things you can do while listening to Khanate. You can drink coffee early in the morning with your Khanate mug, you can cut the sleeves off of your Khanate shirt and go hiking in the mountains, you can sharpen the Khanate hunting knife you have near your bed while living in the woods, you can drown out your roommates irritating folk music by listening to Khanate really loud, you can appreciate James Plotkin's exceptional hearing and mastering skills, and you can play with your cat by dragging him around with an afghan on the floor while you both listen to Khanate.
Aaron Bradford Coloccia-Turner, Hydra Head Honcho (Mamiffer, Greymachine, Jodis, Old Man Gloom, House of Low Culture, Drawing Voices, Twilight, Lotus Eaters, Isis, Hollomen, Unionsuit)
BOHREN AND DER CLUB OF GORE - Dolores2xLP, CD
Midnight "doom-jazz" played at a crawl. Far and away one of the most beautiful records i've ever heard. This is one of those albums so perfect it's hard to believe it was created by human hands.
BERGRAVEN - DödsvisionerCD, Digital and Til Makabert VäsenCD, Digital
Criminally underrated blackened prog-metal from Sweden. On par with the works of Deathspell Omega,Virus, Lurker of Chalice, etc, possessing some of the same qualities as the aforementioned but with a very clearly defined persona of their own. Devote some time to these songs and you will be richly rewarded.
Nihill - KrachCD, Digital
A perfect alchemical blend of structured song form and scorched abstracted textures. Many have tried this approach and few have succeeded. Nihill have done so with clearly evident conviction and created a bleak masterpiece in the process. Yet another unsung gem.
Oxbow - The Narcotic StoryCD, Digital
This is a lesson in brutality, restraint, beauty and menace of endless suspense doled out in equal but unpredictable measure. While musical artists of all stripes regularly feign emotional energy through the mode of song craft, there are a slim few who have so purely channeled the human experience so tenderly and so forcefully as Oxbow have on The Narcotic Story. This is also the first and likely last hydra head release to be nominated for a Grammy. No shit.
Mare - s/t EPCD, Digital
The tragedy of Mare's short lived existence is amplified when experiencing the greatness of this debut and wondering what the hell might've come next had they stuck around. A mixture of beautifully orchestrated choral vocals, piercing shards of guitar and obtuse but memorable riffery. Truly unique and sorely missed.. Please come back guys. Please....
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I haven't consciously decided to create a new sound, but I wanted to get away from the common tired attitude of metal riffing, you know chugging the E-string, melodies in fifths. I don't look for the same things in metal as most other listeners do, I think; the power, the force and omnipotence is of course there, but it's not what I'm after. I had this idea to create something that sounded old, eerie, uncanny - these ideas were present on Dödsvisioner as well, but other things got in the way. My idea of the old rural/agrarian society - not focusing on the misery and poverty, but the ghostly and superstitious, without necessarily sounding like a horror movie. Like the early stories by Selma Lagerlöf. I wanted to portray this not only in the lyrics, but in the music and the sound. I had to remove the distortion from the guitars - not clean though, but cracked; the Tubescreamer always sounds ghostlike.
Till Makabert Väsen goes further down this path. Now the melodies are elongated and spidery. Their off-kilter dissonance suggests a quieter Deathspell Omega. Slint playing black metal might sound like this. Gustafsson doesn't forget to step on the distortion pedal, though. After wandering through funhouses of skewed high end, songs return to big, rocking riffs. Fellow Swedes Lifelover similarly mate black metal and pop, though they are more tongue-in-cheek. Katatonia on hallucinogens also comes to mind. Some passages suggest Opeth's ornate prog, though much spicier. Pop music often compresses huge worlds into small structures. Bergraven does the opposite. Song start small, then grow tendrils, teeth, and fur. Five minutes later, they're roaring and hissing. Then the shoots and leaves return to the ground. They leave behind an aroma with many notes: black metal, rock, pop, studio weirdness. The smell is unmistakably Bergraven's.
Black metal has always been about individualism and not being "one of the sheep, " yet more and more albums seem to be coming out of the woodwork with the obligatory forest scene artwork, indecipherable band name, buzzing lo-fi guitars and tortured screams. Sweden's Bergraven -- aka sole band member and multi-instrumentalist Par Gustaffssons -- has shunned such cliches to make some of the most evolved, compelling and expressive extreme music we've heard in a while. In a sea of misanthropic music makers, Bergraven stands alone as a band that truly adheres to the black metal ideology. Ironically, Par rejects the black metal tag entirely.
On June 23rd, of 2009, Hydra Head will be releasing the third full length (second for HHR) from Sweden's BERGRAVEN. The album has been an office favorite for months, so to mark the festivity, we have launched a new BERGRAVEN t-shirt to coincide with the preorder of the album proper. The shirt is pretty smooth, so check out the image I stole above from our webstore. You can order the shirt here.
Bergraven piece from Brandon Stosuy at Pitchfork.
Drawing Voices is reviewed at Pitchfork and Tiny Mix Tapes.
Big Business is reviewed at Pop Matters.
Oxbow on Pitchfork
Pelican at Stereogum, and Download.
Drawing Voices is reviewed at Pitchfork and Tiny Mix Tapes.
Big Business is reviewed at Pop Matters.
Oxbow on Pitchfork
Pelican at Stereogum, and Download.
Each dude from that band called Pelican pick a track to review for paperthinwalls today. Although the one guy who works for us and also plays in Pelican was wise enough to avoid reviewing his own band, he does get the "Shamelessly Sorta Self-Promoting" award of the day by reviewing another of our bands, Bergraven...we'll have to pull the other 3 guys a side and have a talk about how they need to think of family first next time.
Bergraven's main man, Pär, turns the traditional blast-and-flay aesthetic of “frostbitten grimness” on its ear and comes at us with sweeping riff dirges, winding cinematic passages, melodic guitar interludes, tortured-yet-vaguely-authoritarian & Germanic vocal overtones and—get this—ambient pedal steel excursions. All of which is enough to make your fucking head spin, especially if you (like us) are down with weirdness that transcends weirdness merely-for-the-sake of being weird and comes out on the other side looking like a total fucking destroyer. What we’re saying is this: Dödsvisioner is not your typical black metal experience, and Bergraven is not your standard Swedish killing machine.
Bergraven’s Dödsvisioner is Hydra Head's second collaborative work with Sweden's Total Holocaust Records. Rife with complex dirge riffage, bleak and haunting melodies, and traditiondefying rhythms, this black metal record is as torturous as it is wholly engaging. File in line with other black metal visionaries like Deathspell Omega, Ondskapt, and Leviathan. You may not yet have heard of Bergraven, but we guarantee you Dödsvisioner is already of the elite.
Bergraven’s Dödsvisioner is Hydra Head's second collaborative work with Sweden's Total Holocaust Records. Rife with complex dirge riffage, bleak and haunting melodies, and traditiondefying rhythms, this black metal record is as torturous as it is wholly engaging. File in line with other black metal visionaries like Deathspell Omega, Ondskapt, and Leviathan. You may not yet have heard of Bergraven, but we guarantee you Dödsvisioner is already of the elite.
CLICK HERE to preorderBergraven's main man, Pär, turns the traditional blast-and-flay aesthetic of “frostbitten grimness” on its ear and comes at us with sweeping riff dirges, winding cinematic passages, melodic guitar interludes, tortured-yet-vaguely-authoritarian & Germanic vocal overtones and—get this—ambient pedal steel excursions. All of which is enough to make your fucking head spin, especially if you (like us) are down with weirdness that transcends weirdness-merely-for-the-sake-of-being weird and comes out on the other side looking like a total fucking destroyer. What we’re saying is this: Dödsvisioner is not your typical black metal experience, and Bergraven is not your standard Swedish killing machine.
Bergraven’s Dödsvisioner is Hydra Head's second collaborative work with Sweden's Total Holocaust Records. Rife with complex dirge riffage, bleak and haunting melodies, and tradition defying rhythms, this black metal record is as torturous as it is wholly engaging. File in line with other black metal visionaries like Deathspell Omega, Ondskapt, and Leviathan. You may not yet have heard of Bergraven, but we guarantee you Dödsvisioner is already of the elite.
Track Listing:
- Döende
- Av saknad släcker jag ljuset
- Ondkall
- Känsla av livets nästa skede
- Den svarta angstens essens
- Det man med själen...
- Ekot av bikt
- Döende (en avslutning)