The Rock Blogger

Radical drone, imploded wonder, insomniac trudge, clearing by fire, the blinding light of morning.

Birchville Cat Motel. Our Love Will Destroy the World . 2006. New Zealand

Harsh, dissonant noise coupled with pulse-pounding drums make for one of the most caustic and powerful albums of its kind.

Menace Ruine. Cult of Ruins . 2008. Montreal

Blackened drone, oppressive and mystical. Creative use of both male and female vocals, wailing from the dark tower.

Boris. Feedbacker . 2003. Tokyo.

A classic drone doom record. Long, stoned dirges that slowly build into monolithic walls of sound. The band’s most patient and celestial album.

Jesu. Infinity. 2009. The U.K.

The newest release from Justin Broadrick. One 45 minute track that encompasses both digital experimentation and guttural throwbacks to his industrial (Godflesh) days. Not nearly as gripping as Conqueror but still a finely crafted and hypnotic work.

Corrupted. El mundo frio . 2005. Osaka.

A tour de force, bringing togehter steady post-rock arpeggios, lumbering bass drones, gritty sludge guitars and a haunting, desert atmosphere. One mesmerizing 71 minute track that lurches menacingly across an arid landscape. A massive effort that rivals the best of doom metal.

To the Fates

Grant me just one summer, powerful ones,
And just one autumn for ripe songs,
That my heart, filled with that sweet
Music, may more willingly die within me.

The soul, denied its divine heritage in life,
Won’t find rest down in Hades either.
But if what is holy to me, the poem
That rests in my heart, succeeds —

Then welcome, silent world of shadows!
I’ll be content, even though it’s not my own lyre
That leads me downwards. Once I’ll have
Lived like the gods, and more isn’t necessary.

Friedrich Hölderlin

photos by Sorina Dragusanu

Forgotten Legends. 2003 (re-released in 2009)

Autumn Aurora. 2004.

My regular readers may be familiar with Drudkh, the obscure yet admired black metal band from Ukraine. Their music draws inspiration from the changing seasons, capturing nature in a constant state of becoming. Drudkh’s appeals to naturalism is less about self-preservation than self-enhancement, looking to their national landscape as a fierce source of perpetual transcendence and strength.

Invigorated by this outlook, Drudkh’s sound is densely textured and atmospheric, using extensive and distorted riffing to convey imposing forests and mountains. The epic scope of their first two albums is supported by misanthropic aggression and fluid, folk-inspired melodies that underpin their songs.

The intensity that flows from these efforts stems not from some blind impulse to loathe and destroy, but to mirror the violent transfiguration of the earth and sky. Drudkh’s music does not only revere nature, but also fears it. This is the emotive force that drives these long, relentless waves of guitar and rolling percussion. Given the uncompromising vision of this band, it may take some time to sink in. Once given that chance however, Drudkh’s contribution to black metal will likely stand as one of the decade’s most important and expressive.

Have a Nice Life. Voids . 2009. 4 stars.

Voids is a fan made compilation of demos and b-sides from last year’s stellar Deathconsciousness . This collection is split in two, with The Powers of 10 consisting of demos/remixes of older songs and What Came Next Was Worse featuring 5 unreleased songs. While the demos are a nice addition, they don’t compare to the raw, gritty energy of the "new" tracks, which is compelling.

"Human Error" is a catchy instrumental track featuring jangly shoegazing guitar riffs and stark percussion. "Trespassers W" is a punchy post-punk song driven by fluid bass lines and simple kinetic riffing, reminiscent of Joy Division’s minimalist dynamics. The urgent pacing of this track expands on the tense and claustrophobic feelings of Deathconsciousness with clearer direction and furor.

" Defenstration Song" follows along the same line, with dirty, distorted guitars and haunting vocals murmuring and wailing under the densely layered mix. The pounding percussion has become more sophisticated, and the crunch of guitars is also more ominous. With these two songs, Have a Nice Life seem to be following the punkish trajectory set out by "Waiting for Black Metal Records to Come in the Mail" and "The Future", showing a rougher and more immediate side of their complex sound.

"Sisyphus" is a cold, slow-boiling song that broods over droning guitar noise before leading in ethereal vocal harmonies that overlap and become ghostly ambiance (a la "Bloodhail"). It’s a long and patient song that shows off the band’s intricate use of layering to bring out deep and troubling emotions.

"Destinos", the final song, is the most distrubing, as it intersperses samples of a fundementalist sermon about Hell and Sin between forebodding acoustic strumming and drawn out synths. The echoing vocals build powerfully and capture feelings of resignation and defeat before crackling noise starts to rupture. Gloomy piano lines then hammer sparesly over the groaning distortion. The effect of these transitions is unsettling, evoking the vexing, demonic spirit that lurks within their work.

Overall, Voids is an intense and revealing collection that expands on HANL’s depressive atmosphere and shows hints at powerful things to come. While it is obviously not nearly as polished or detailed as Deathconsciousness , these offerings still cut like a knife. You can download it here .

Isengrind / TwinSisterMoon / Natural Snow Buildings. The Snowbringer Cult . 2008. 4.5 stars .

This two-disc album comprises three projects of Mehdi Ameziane and Solange Gularte, the French drone/folk artists that brought us Natural Snow Buildings. These incredibly lengthy movements share the same hazy, free-form structure as their main project, with some tribal percussion and drawn-out woodwind passages rounding out the Isengrind tracks. Wordless vocals move ethereally over the sparse instrumentation, as if caught in a deep, psychedelic trance. The entire affair sounds like a sample from some shamanic ritual, with each coo, chant and chorus exalting the slow, meticulous consumption of Psilocybin.

The TwinSisterMoon pieces follow the same ritualistic path, with a greater focus on sustaining a fluid, relaxing drone, as each layer of instrumentation bleeds in together. The vocals become more gentle and soothing, reminiscent of Vashti Bunyan’s sleepy style. The music moves like a dream, transient and indefinite, as the dense wall of sound oscillates into pure ambiance.

The two projects then converge into Natural Snow Buildings, the album’s concluding side. The drones here are flatter and more stretched out, sprawled out like some distant alien landscape. The atmosphere here is harsh, icy and strange, with haunting pulses of noise looming somewhere on the horizon. Percussion rears its head again towards the end, evoking the tribal circles of the north, extended tributes to the Aurora Borealis.

While the sounds on this collection can be bizarre and unsettling, they also carry a deep-seated wonder, an appeal to the frozen abyss. It’s daunting length, experimentation and meditative effects make this a challenging, and certainly rewarding work. While NSB’s Daughter of Darkness overshadows this effort in terms of scope and consistency, this three-way split is still notable for its eclecticism and Inuit lore. A gem for wanderers.

Evening

The sky puts on the darkening blue coat
held for it by a row of ancient trees;
you watch: and the lands grow distant in your sight,
one journeying to heaven, one that falls;

and leave you, not at home in either one,
not quite so still and dark as the darkened houses,
not calling to eternity with the passion
of what becomes a star each night, and rises;

and leave you (inexpressibly to unravel)
your life, with its immensity and fear,
so that, now bounded, now immeasurable,
it is alternately stone in you and star.

- Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Pictures