Sleep - Dopesmoker Remastered 2012

because eat a dick, this is still the best review of anything ever:

"Listening to Sleep makes you realize what a stupidly over-detailed language English is. I'm trying to collect my thoughts as I'm listening and all I can muster are shouted newspaper headlines like "BACKWARDS ECHO SQUELCH GUITAR INTRO OCCURS". Sleep take English and strip it down and streamline it into a form of pure meaning, perhaps only rivaled by Ramglish (if you know what I'm talkin about then you know what I'm talkin about).
This album kicks off with said squelchy-backwards-echo-guitar before a ridiculously long (which is probably the perfect length) guitar intro, in which the guitarist manages to repeat 2 cycles of the riff in over 2 and a half minutes. (Even though their names are on the front of this page I’ve made no attempt to learn them, incase they’ve got shitty normal-bloke sounding names like Steve, instead of righteous-superhuman-mystikal-Zen-motherfucker names of which I can’t think of right now) After this intro, you could be forgiven for forgetting what drums and bass actually sound like, which is great, because the rhythm section soon crunches in, and shave my knees and call me Mary if they aren’t the all time-greatest rhythm section you’ve ever heard. The band churn on, slowly fucking with this monolithic-fuckin-enormo-riff until 8mins 30, at which point, in the most ridiculously sub-human, drawn out voice you’ll ever hear, SLEEP-GLISH IS BORN, MOTHERFUCKERS.

“DROP OUT OF LIFE
WITH BONG IN HAND”

Is this the fucking greatest opening line to any song/album/anything ever or what? I mean seriously, stop and read that again. There isn’t a fuckin syllable wasted on this whole album. It takes him a whole 16 second to sing that one line, and it’s a further 17 before he launches himself into the even more ridiculous second line;

“FOLLOW THE SMOKE
TO THE RIFF FILLED LAND”

Then, just to emphasize the no-frills-attached no-bells-and-whistles form of pure meaning he’s just unleashed, he sings both lines again. After which, it’s heads down for another 5 or 6 minutes of outrageous stoner-rock (hahahhaha, this HAS to be about the only band on earth that probably wouldn’t mind the “Stoner-Rock” label) before OH JESUS, BENDY BASS LICK INTO 3 MINUTE FUCKING VOLCANIC META-SOLO. This is the first absolute stone-cold genius moment on this beast. This is the point when you realize they’re not “sub-humans” like I said back there, they’re super-human-7-foot-tall superior beings, fucking with our feeble minds and preconceptions. Honestly, most men would kill for this solo and they way they built it up.
I think the entire album up to this point was designed to knock to you the fuck out so that they could ram your shell-shocked mind with further pure meaning, mostly about weed, but (I like to think) also about a million other things that, if we keep listening, we’ll slowly start to understand. The band churns on for a fucking aeon, while the singer delivers his absolute-knowledge directly into your helpless brain. Your mind is outwardly thinking “WHAT THE FUCK” and in doing so, takes in absolutely everything.
The band stumble on, pausing now and again as if to say “yeah, we might finish here”, but of course they don’t, they career headlong into the next stupidly simple but effective riff, the singer’s wisdom forever delivered in this agonizing 1-note melody. At about the half hour mark the band start to jam on what’s effectively a 1-note riff until you’re begging for something, anything to remind you what you thought music was until 30 minutes ago. The band, amazingly, relents, fuck, I’m listening right now and all I can say is

FUCKING MOLTEN GUITAR SEEPS FORTH PURE BOILING WISDOM
SURGING SOLO PINES INTO ABSOLUTE
BUBBLING GUITAR EXCURSION TAPS TO UNDERCURRENT OF TIME, PERHAPS

Before this all subsides into the calmest, fuck, maybe even most MELODIC piece on the whole album. The chorus-ed up guitar picks a weird semi-melody over some of the most restrained and down-fucking-right TASTEFULL drumming and bass playing I’ve ever heard. This bit is fuckin unreal, honestly. The bass and drums are absolutely perfect, they’re hardly even there. I wish I was there the day they made up this part, just so I could soak up the genius. QUITE GOOD, IT IS.
The next part, no shit, is EVEN FUCKING BETTER. The band launch them selves headlong into the BIGGEST, INSANEST, GOODEST riff maybe in the universe, the bass actually lets the guitar play the bass while it does this relentless 2 note lick, just so that when he decides to join in the riff it pummels you 2-fold. Goddamn, this is the best bit. This album is the tits. I just listened to that whole section, the solo up until now, 4 times while writing this.
Then, they decide to prove that they’ve taken this whole Black Sabbath-stoner thing to its logical conclusion by blatantly ripping off the Iron Man riff, fucking with it for a few minutes, then discarding it and pummeling you until just after the hour mark, when they FINALLY stop. When you hear the end of this album it’s weird remembering that there was a reality when this music wasn’t playing. No wonder the band never did anything again after this. It could never be topped. It’s THAT intense.
And long, of course.
VERY, VERY LONG."

1. Dopesmoker 1:03:34
2. Holy Mountain (Live, 1994) 11:36

http://uploaded.to/file/nc6oir0s/Sleep-Dopesmoker-Remastered_Digipak-2012-DGS.rar

Cold - 2. Anger

sludge, crust, core-stuff, post-stuff, wanky old shit i used to listen to a lot, RIFFS

posted 11/7/11

1. We Lost The Sea Balaklava Cold
2. Skitsystem Apokalypsens Svarta Änglar
3. United Nations O You Bright & Risen Angels
4. Defeater The Red, White and Blues
5. Kowloon Walled City Turk, Taylor and Jones
6. North Ghosts Among Us
7. Celestine Coroner
8. Rye Wolves Frank Miller
9. Rapture Gallows
10. Katatonia Rainroom
11. Opeth Demon Of The Fall
12. The Psyke Project Winter
13. Swarm Of The Lotus Snowbeast
14. The Secret Intoxication
15. Nun Slaughter Raid The Covenant
16. Saprogenic Dripping Metaphilia
17. Watchmaker Failing Upwards
18. The Black Dahlia Murder Funeral Thirst
19. Light This City Like Every Song´s Our Last
20. Kalmah Cloned Insanity
21. Raunchy Drive
22. Departures The View From Below
23. Tombs The Great Silence
24. Black Sheep Wall Lamb...Gayyy
25. Agalloch Dead Winter Days
26. Pelican Last Day Of Winter

26 songs, 1:55:04, 150.3MB

http://www.mediafire.com/?2h8555p82fiigqx

LOLZ I fucking love the transition from All The Lighthouses into Balaklava Cold. I was gonna have Skitsystem first, but man it just sounds too good to pass up.

For the record, I dont really recommend linking between parts, because it's not gonna work. That being said, if you are bored, stick Balaklava Cold at the end of Part 1 and then listen to the whole thing. Man that's rad.

anywho

Gonna be less to say about each of these, because I never really feel as compelled to explain why I like sludge and metal and such songs as I do with ambient/drone. Dunno why. A lot these are bands I really like, if they had a winter- or cold-themed/titled song I usually picked that one.

Balaklava Cold has the word cold in the title and sounds insane stuck right at the beginning. For some reason, I cant really get past the simple change they have in the main riff (kind of the only riff) from 123412341234 to 123-123-123- at the end. Fucking christ that sounds so great.

Skitsystem was going to be the beginning of this mix, hence why I picked skitsystem's real good beginning song, but it's just so rageful and cohesive and that buildup! that I kept it instead of using Vald.

United Nations, Defeater, and Departures are all here for the same bleak, desperately melodic tone. In particular, the gang vocals in O You Bright..., the entire Red White and Blues (I briefly thought about using Dear Father instead, for the reference to the 'cold white ground', but this song is the best thing theyve made), and the end of The View From Below (MELODIES DO THINGS TO ME SOMETIMES, IM NOT SORRY).

Kowloon Walled City because they are retard heavy and I used to listen to this at full volume while interacting with customers and bourbon when working outside in blizzards at target.

North are fucking beastly. I think they are from Arizona? Something like that. They came through BlastOMat or Kingdom of Doom a bunch a long time ago but I never got to see them. Also I think they played with Adai BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Whoever mixed their record is a goddamn hero. This is one of the loudest albums I have, and I don't know exactly how they did it, but it's just so much fucking louder than anything else. Lots of things sound crunchy, but this is LITERALLY FLAKING OFF EVERYWHERE IN COLOSSAL SLABS. Really high bass and mids I think, and then really loud vocals...It wouldnt work if they sucked, but they dont at all, so its just fucking heavy as hell like the bottom of a kelp forest. Fuck. I need to listen to more North.

But not as much as everyone in the world needs to listen to Celestine. From Iceland, not very prolific. I dont know if they have lyrics or his igloo just burst into flame while seals ate his family, but this is messy, atonal supersludge. The whole album kind of flows like this; there'll be like some insanely-timed and toned riffs that just trip all over themselves and then little bits of melody to remind you it's a song. The best part of coroner is the fuuuuuucking part where everything stops but the palm-muted guitar. You'll know it when you hear it. It just chugs away for a while and THEN THE VOCALS COME BACK! AND THEN THE GROOVE!

Rye Wolves - Frank Miller actually does almost the same thing, come to think of it, but much more subtly. I dont remember what genre to throw them at, but its like intronaut and russian circles combined with the male kylesa vocals. And Supercontinent, if yall have heard them.

Rapture, Katatonia, and Opeth because HIGH SCHOOL

Psyke Project for 'Winter', Swarm of the Lotus for 'Snowbeast' (conveniently one of their raddest of songs).

The Secret, Nunslaughter (oh man this song. this fucking song. i think at one point in calculus, i had programmed my graphing calculator to marquee scroll all of the lyrics ad nauseum. i think cam and paul both memorized them also? hilarious shit. "WHERE YA GOIN', SISTER?"), Saprogenic, and Watchmaker for DEATHGRIND.

BDM and Light This City because metalcore winters are great, Kalmah and Raunchy because I listened to a shit ton of them both in Individual Sports (also Norther, but they didnt hold up as well), Departures discussed above, and Tombs for Winter Hours and severe metalneck.

Agalloch belongs in this mix more than any other, I suppose, and filesize prohibited me from using In The Shadow of Our Pale Companion, so the one with winter in the title had to suffice. Pelican because it's Pelican, and when the song collapses in the middle....shit. Amazing beginning, middle, and end, kind of weird it's the first song on Fire In Our Throats, or maybe Ive just been conditioned not to stack the beginning of your album. Actually, that's probably it, because all of Fire In Our Throats is flawless, so they didnt really stack anything.

Blah blah blah put it in the right order, black metal cometh.

http://www.mediafire.com/?2h8555p82fiigqx

Slabdragger - Regress 2011

do you like electric wizard? sleep? elder? abdullah? bongzilla? weedeater? ramesses?

think those, but with the occasional torche-like bomb tuned riff wall (see: 1:52 in splice the mainbrace). its fucking big.

and look, its yet another song with the network monologue.

1. Bab el-Mandeb [9:36]
2. Erroneous Maximus [2:24]
3. Splice The Mainbrace [4:10]
4. Iron Vulture [9:47]
5. Regression [4:36]
6. MurkyFen [4:35]
7. Woe Betide [6:20]
8. Trichome Oddyssey [8:10]

http://www.mediafire.com/?q6waap41bar97d4

Pelican - EP 2001

there's a reason that, if this is your band's first release, a lot of people sit up and listen.

that reason is mammoth. it is the most gloriously, full body-headbangable song there is. it is also one of the most concise and pure songs there is. nothing is wasted, there's about a riff and a half, and maybe 8 seconds of a sleep-like part where the bass rises to prominence and sluggishly bends to the harmony note through the guitar wall. mammoth is the pinnacle of good-day music. the opening kind of questions what tone the song will crush it's way into, and then it repeats, but with a soaring, delayed upper layer (where suddenly the entire tone shifts into sunlight), and then IT HAPPENS. there is no way to listen to mammoth quietly.

if i know you, and you listen to this today (friday), and somehow collect evidence that you listened to it today, i will give you a dollar. but you will probably be in such a glorious, powerful good mood that you will refuse to accept it BECAUSE YOU ARE HEADBANGING SO FUCKING HARD. no one doesnt enjoy mammoth.

also i have an absurd affinity for The Woods, because the second time i saw them play, they ended with a 20 minute version that just ground itself into oblivion as the last riff looped and looped until no one was playing anymore and they walked offstage.

aaaand, it never hurts to mention that the other two songs are perfect. this ep is like hearing EITS for the first time. it is just awe-inspiring and revelatory. a harbinger of things to come.


1. Pulse
2. Mammoth
3. Forecast For Today
4. The Woods

https://rs390dt.rapidshare.com/#!download|390l32|235670480|Pelican__EP_.rar|42247|R~B015860BF3BED48C0ED416E0845C22ED|0|0

Dark Castle - Surrender To All Life Beyond Form 2011

wish i could see them live. this one is a little different from priors, and really really sounds like the body playing kylesa covers, and it's fucking batshit crazy and awesome and beautiful and i highly recommend it. also its heavy and all over the place, like TJ with a broken computer.


1. Surrender To All Life Beyond Form
2. Stare Into Absence
3. Create An Impulse
4. Seeing Through Time
5. Heavy Eyes
6. Spirit Ritual
7. To Hide Is To Die
8. I Hear Wind
9. Learning To Unlearn

http://www.mediafire.com/?yf8sn1wgm6opu35