Short and to the point 5

By Aaron Sullivan. Unless you’ve been living under a rock you may have noticed a huge influx of Black Metal bands out of Iceland recently. Bands like Svartidauði, Sinmara, Misþyrming, and Zhrine. But to be honest

By Aaron Sullivan.


Unless you’ve been living under a rock you may have noticed a huge influx of Black Metal bands out of Iceland recently. Bands like Svartidauði, Sinmara, Misþyrming, and Zhrine. But to be honest, none have really done much for me. With the exception of one, Ljáin. Jef Whitehead (Leviathan, Lurker of Chalice) posted them on his Instagram, and if he’s promoting them then who am I not to check it out. Glad I did.

The two albums are atmospheric and raw at the same time. Vocal deep in the mix adding the cacophony of it all. Shifting rhythms keeping things from getting stale. Reminds me of a less chaotic Skaphe (who is half Icelandic themselves). How these guys have not been signed yet is a mystery to me. So check them out before they are so you can say, “I knew them before they were signed to <label name here>”.

Artwork Daniel Obzejta

Out of my scene here in L.A. comes Wovoka and their album Saros. How would I describe this band you ask? Well imagine if you will Neurosis and YOB making sweet sweet love. Go on, do it. Good. Now the love child produced by that love making would undoubtedly be Wovoka. The atmosphere and vocals of Neurosis combined with the riffs and sheer towering tone of YOB. First time seeing them live was like being run over by a herd of slow moving elephants. Their sound fills your ears to maximum capacity. Glacial in movement and in weight.

From the windy city comes the artist J.R. Robinson. He is the mastermind behind the band Wrekmeister Harmonies. When it started it out the band was more of a collective. J.R. being the main guy and with each album bringing in a slew of artist from the Chicago scene and elsewhere. Names like Sanford Parker, Jef Whitehead, Bruce Lamont, Marissa Nadler, and many others. The songs, like on my favorite album of his You've Always Meant So Much to Me, were sprawling 30 minute plus slow burns of jammy rock ambience rising and rising until a giant crescendo. Combining elements of DOOM, and experimentation, post-rock, and drone. Like a darker Godspeed You! Black Emperor. He expanded upon this for the next two albums. But with his latest Light Falls, some things have changed.

For one he has a permanent band mate in the multi-instrumentalist Esther Shaw. Two, no more 30 minute plus songs. The album contains seven songs that are no doubt connected (as evidenced by the title track broken into three pieces) but can also stand alone. Having been fortunate to have seen him live several times I get the feeling it was these live shows that may have informed this albums shorter song lengths. They have a real live feel to them. But then what do I know. Maybe the man just needed a change. Either way this is still a worthy addition to an already great catalogue of music.

Wreck and Reference. A band that recently was listed in an article on Invisible Oranges titled, 10 of the Heaviest Modern Bands Without Guitars, I would agree. I first heard them on their second album Want. I was struck immediately. To be that heavy in mood, to be that aggressive vocally, drumming with such power, and while not a metal band, sure feeling like one.

Their evolving catalogue is well documented on this site. With their new album, Indifferent Rivers Romance End, the mood is still heavy but the music, not as much. Softer in tone perhaps but not in message. This album feels more open allowing the layers to be heard more. I know the word “mature” is sometimes seen as a bad word for some. But I think it describes this album well. They have honed their anger and depression. So instead of firing a shotgun that spreads their sadness anywhere and everywhere. They instead use a heat seeking missile to annihilate their intended target. Who ever that poor unfortunate person may be, even if it's pointed at the band themselves.

Last, but certainly not least, another band from my Los Angeles scene is Skyeater. Made up of former musicians of Crowhurst (they were on the self-titled album) and now going about it on their own. But don’t expect that type of Black Metal, this is atmospheric and ritualistic. They combine the atmosphere of Lluvia and the ritualistic feel of Merkaba. The drumming is top notch. The thing I dig the most is they have three vocalist with three distinctive vocal styles. One a guttural black metal style, another almost depressive suicidal, and the other black metal style with just a hint on hardcore style in it. Don’t think the rawness is only a result of this being a demo. It translates to the live sound also.

They are currently in the process of recording their full length at Earhammer Studios with Greg Wilkinson (Asunder, Lycus, Fórn) at the helm. To be released next year on Baneful Genesis Records.

The Flenser Part One: Mamaleek & Wreck and Reference.

By Craig Hayes. We’ve all watched an underground record label get off to a great start, only to then take a huge misstep, and buy into the hype surrounding their own success. Soon enough, that label is releasing a steady stream of sub-par albums, just to keep up the pace, and all too quickly

By Craig Hayes.


We’ve all watched an underground record label get off to a great start, only to then take a huge misstep, and buy into the hype surrounding their own success. Soon enough, that label is releasing a steady stream of sub-par albums, just to keep up the pace, and all too quickly, the trust we'd had in them to separate the wheat from the chaff on our behalf is destroyed.

Thankfully, on the other side of the coin, we have labels like Flenser Records to remind us that a rising profile doesn't have to mean any diminishing returns. Over the past five years, the highly respected San Francisco label has released a long line of riveting albums, including unquestionable classics, like Panopticon’s Social Disservices, crucial early releases, like Lycus’ Demo MMXI, or genre-shattering releases, like Botanist’s IV: Mandragora.

Flenser has always released compelling music, and it’s worth pointing out, those releases come stamped with integrity and ingenuity too. Many of the artists who've recorded for Flenser have experimented with cross-genre hybridisation, and while many have tapped into similarly gloomy and gothic atmospheres along the way, they've all had distinct artistic visions. That’s meant that Flenser is famed for hosting bands that often ignore the boundaries of their respective sub-genres, thereby challenging traditional notions of what metal is supposed to be.

Certainly, some of the bands that feature on Flenser’s roster wouldn’t identify as metal at all, but for open-minded fan of dark music, there’s a lot that’ll resonate in those bands sonic and emotional heaviness. Groups like Bosse-De-Nage, Skagos, Circle of Eyes, Palace of Worms, and many more, have ensured that Flenser has become a reliable and – here’s that all-important word again – trusted source of imaginative music. There’s been a number of engrossing additions to the label’s Bandcamp page over the past couple of months, and in this two-part Flenser feature, I'm going to take a look at recent releases from Mamaleek, Wreck and Reference, Have A Nice Life, White Suns, and Planning For Burial.


Details about experimental black metal band Mamaleek are scarce, but what we do know is that the band is made up of two brothers, who wish to remain anonymous, and they’ve recorded their past releases in San Francisco and Beirut. Anonymity suits the band well, because, like Sutekh Hexen or Wold (both masters of tenebrous noise), Mamaleek's sound also features as much mayhem as it does mystery.

Mamaleek’s latest release, He Never Spoke a Mumblin' Word, sees swarming avant-garde black metal collide with jagged industrial rhythms. Samples, effects and demented vocals rise from squalls of hallucinatory noise on the title track, and Mamaleek conjures chaotic nightmares on “My Ship is on the Ocean” and “Almost Done Tolling Here” too. All of those tracks contain plenty of madness and menace, and when “Pour Mourner’s Got a Home” sets off at a more ambient pace, opening with mournful female vocals, Mamaleek’s crooked melodies soon turn that song into a thoroughly disturbing ordeal as well.

He Never Said a Mumblin’ Word was recorded by the band, and is about as caustic as you can get. The production is the kind that'll strip skin from your bones, but its been mixed and mastered by Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Botanist, Wreck and Reference), so, for all of He Never Said a Mumblin’ Word’s corrosiveness – and everything here is über-distorted and packed with venom – it still sounds fantastic, and makes for a magnificently mind-melting experience overall.

He Never Said a Mumblin’ Word isn't the only album from Mamaleek to be supremely discomforting either. Mamaleek’s three previous full-lengths (all available on the band’s own Bandcamp page) are well worth seeking out. Each takes elements of drone, psychedelia, world music, shoegaze, electronica, and math and indie rock, and drowns them in storms of pitch-black, fuzz-enshrouded static. Mamaleek deserve a lot more attention for their ability to take those eclectic influences, slather them in monstrous eccentricity, and create mesmerising experimental black metal. He Never Said a Mumblin’ Word comes highly recommended. Although, perhaps not for those of a nervous disposition.




Flenser is known as a label that supports artists interested in reconstructing metal’s motifs. With releases from bands like Botanist and Bosse-De-Nage on the label’s books, trampling conventionality is definitely welcomed by the label, and no more is that apparent that on the Flenser's releases from Californian duo Wreck and Reference.

Wreck and Reference discards guitars and bass for electronics and death march drums, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that the band lack any devastating power. Wreck and Reference take darkwave and gothic, industrial, and noise rock, fuse that with facets of bleak and quarrelsome metal, and create nerve-shredding synthscapes. By any reckoning, Wreck and Reference’s music is emotionally devastating, bringing as much despondency as any funeral doom, and on the band’s latest album, Want, Wreck and Reference continue the same fearless journeying into the desolate realms exhibited on previous releases, No Content, and No Youth.

Tracks off Want, like “Corpse Museum”, “Apollo Beneath The Whip”, and “Stranger, Fill This Hole In Me”, bring as much unconventionality as they do nonconformity; seeing anguished vocals wound around heavy-weight frequencies, all layering on the tortured atmospherics. The ease with which Wreck and Reference bring suffering to the surface is impressive, and within seconds of pressing play on Want things are utterly bleak. However, as much as there’s a lot to admire in Wreck and Reference’s balance of technical prowess and dramatic lyricism, the band’s willingness to experiment is just as praiseworthy.

Like all of Wreck and Reference’s previous releases, Want defies genre restrictions. The band are following their own path, into the void, but much like fellow sonic explorers Locrian, Wreck and Reference aren’t just daring listeners to accompany them on journeys across apocalyptic terrain. The band is also demanding that those very same listeners question what metal is, or could be. In that sense, Wreck and Reference are unquestionably confronting. Exactly how all truly innovative bands should be.



The Flenser Part Two: Have A Nice Life, White Suns & Planning For Burial.

Wreck and Reference - No Youth

Review by Justin C.

Photography by Brandon Gehres

I'll admit my bias upfront: I've never been particularly interested in electronic music. It's not that I think the artists have cheated somehow by not learning "real instruments." I can appreciate the creativity and hard work that goes into doing what they do, but I miss the little touches you get from a person performing on an instrument, like the slight changes in accent and tempo, or even little mistakes. At the risk of sounding too much like a character from The Terminator franchise, I want to hear music performed by humans, not robots. Luckily for me, I listened to Wreck and Reference's album No Youth without having read anything about it. I was struck by the album art, and I knew The Flenser puts out good records, so I just dove in without reading anything about it. If I'd known it was created by two guys using nothing but drums, vocals, and electronic samples, I might have skipped it, but that would have been my loss.

The album can be a little daunting to dive into. The first minute of the opening track, "Spectrum," does indeed sound like construction equipment from outer space. But then a plaintive, clean vocal line begins, accompanied by a lovely melody line played on a stringed instrument that does not exist in the real world. The song builds and adds more, stranger not-real-stringed instruments and black metal-style screeches, but that sense of melody never completely leaves. This level of songcraft is what makes this album so addictive. Having listened to the album, I wasn't surprised to read in an interview that the duo originally wrote the cold, glitchy track "Winter" on guitar, and then transformed and mutated the song into an electronic soundscape. They haven't started with a collection of strange sounds and then tried to figure out what to do with them--they started with songs, and then figured out how to drape those sounds onto the songs. A lot of the music may be electronic, but somehow it still seems like it's being played by a band, not a laptop.

The overall ambience and vocal themes are bleak and sometimes disturbing. The track "Obedience" opens up with the lines, "Where was it that bone met blade / Delicately lowering / your foot into steel trap / Listening for the creak of the spring." The idea of willingly stepping into a bear trap, and perhaps even savoring the brief moment before it springs, is harrowing to say the least. Metal has never been afraid of the frightening or the ugly, but imagery like this can make even the most brutal death metal seem tame. In spite of this, I find the album to be strangely accessible. And at just over 35 minutes, it's not even particularly long, but listening to it is still a very immersive experience.

I could probably go on and on trying to come up with clever ways of describing this music, making up funny names for the non-physical instruments or trying to come up with some combination of subgenres that make sense to hang on this, but really, you should just listen to it.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Wreck and Reference - Black Cassette (Remastered)

A remastered version of Wreck and Reference's Black Cassette was added to the Flenser Records Bandcamp. This is experimental doom/noise rock, done without guitars, they use keyboards, synths, samples, and excellent drumming to provide the heavy sounds. The vocals and the almost "poppy" feel of some of the tracks makes it sound kind of like The Cure playing doom. Here are two reviews from Don't Count on it Reviews and Invisible Oranges and an interview from Cvlt Nation.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

The original (non-remastered) version of Black Cassette is available from Wreck and Reference's own Bandcamp