Jodis - Black Curtain

Review by Aaron Sullivan.


A supergroup of sorts Jodis features Aaron Turner (Isis, Old Man Gloom, Mamiffer), James Plotkin (Khanate, OLD), and Tim Wyskida (Khanate, Blind Idiot God) and their second Ambient Drone album called Black Curtain

Sparse. That is the word that best describes this album. An economy of notes. Plotkins guitars are like subdued sonic waves. Chords struck and allowed to resonate into the darkness. Wyskida’s drumming adds texture with deliberate strikes meant to accent the songs as opposed to simply keeping a beat. Turners vocals are made of quiet melancholy in a way I have never heard from him before. In fact his vocal approach on this album is a big step forward from their first album. Jodis’ sound have much more in common with Khanate or Jesu than Isis. In fact if you crossed Khanate with later era Earth, this may very well be how the music would sound. Songs move at a snails pace and envelops the listener with a feeling of floating in isolation. While Turner’s vocals are your guide through it all.

As many know, Hydra Head is closing it’s doors. And while that is sad news. If this is one of the last albums they release before doing so, then they are going out with a bang. Let’s just hope that the end of Hydra Head does not mean the end of Jodis. Because with their second release it really feels as if this band is hitting it’s stride and has much more to say musically.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Nihill - Verdonkermaan

Illustration man: Aubrey Beardsley

Nilhill's Verdonkeerman is available on their Hydra Head Records Bandcamp page. This is the last part of a trilogy, the first being Krach from 2007 and the second Grond from 2009. This is not your typical black metal stuff, thematically it deals with Gnosticism, philosophy and death. Musically it switches between extremely blackened doom/drone, densely layered and dissonant black metal, and harrowing ambient passages. Cheryl Primes's review from Cvlt Nation states that

Nihill celebrate the annihilation of life with sickening melody and chaos. Verdonkermaan ravages with grimy riffs and powerful walls of noise

The music is matched by screeches roars, moans and whispers from the vocalist. He also delivers some spoken word passages that are really out there, as Thom Jurek mentions in his AllMusic review of Grond:

Strange dynamics from utterly in-the-red distortion, crackle, and hum give way to repetitive bits of ambience and hypnotic single-string guitar patterns (not solos), and noise that feels almost like Merzbow ("Antimoon"). The strange wandering nightmare that is Grond is unlike anything else in metal. The spoken word bits ("Antimoon" and "Pulsus"), rather than sounding corny or affected, come across as extremely serious, disturbing, and poetic. This is the bleak void of black metal.

Here's a review of Krach from The Metal Archives, and a review of both albums from Global Domination.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Old Man Gloom - No

By Natalie Zina Walschots. Old Man Gloom are a sludge/doom metal/post-metal super-group currently based in Boston, MA. Formed by Aaron Turner (Isis) and drummer Santos Montano (Zozobra) in 1999, the band now include Nate Newton (Converge)

By Natalie Zina Walschots. Originally published by Exclaim.


Old Man Gloom are a sludge/doom metal/post-metal super-group currently based in Boston, MA. Formed by Aaron Turner (Isis) and drummer Santos Montano (Zozobra) in 1999, the band now include Nate Newton (Converge) and Caleb Scofield (Cave In, Zozobra). No is their first album since 2004's Christmas and its release marks the continuation of a new productive period for Old Man Gloom, who just played several dates in the U.S., their first live performances in years, at the beginning of May. Instead of fanfare and triumph, however, Old Man Gloom have marked their return with flamethrowers and anthrax.

No is a sick, angry album that allows itself the time to wallow, like an infection swelling under the skin until it must be lanced. The sound is incredibly bright and metallic at the forefront, with a deeper, anguished thickness in the background. The guitars buzz like a robotic hornets' nest while the cymbals crash against each other like a fistful of gleaming knives. The sludge element comes via the pacing, crawling along like angry magma. The vocals are so harsh, so poisonous that they're capable of raising welts, causing blisters to fill with blood. The emotion that drives No is one full of backlash, of counterpunch and reactionary fury.

This record stands against, denies, defies and negates. It strives to be the opposite of positivity, acknowledges and gives a voice to those moments when rejection and revulsion are the only response, when rebuilding is impossible and it's time to strip and scourge, give up and burn to the ground.

Natalie also interviewed Old Man Gloom.