#Topon Das

[metalshockfinland]

DEFORMATORY: Shares Making of Video For New EP “Harbinger”

DEFORMATORY: Shares Making of Video For New EP “Harbinger”

From their destructive 2013 debut “In The Wake of Pestilence”, on through to their crushing 2016 follow-up “Malediction” and into the vortex of insanity from their 2021 masterpiece “Inversion of the Unseen Horizon”, Deformatory unrelentingly summon their creative darkness to deliver another slab of ferocious Canadian death metal. Without acquiescing to the weakness of modern metal, they reach…

[rocknightmare1]

THEY GRIEVE Release Somber, Doomy Sophomore Drone Album “To Which I Bore Witness” – Produced by Topon Das (F*ck The Facts) – Rock Nightmare

[infraredmag]

Streaming Now! THEY GRIEVE Release Somber, Doomy Sophomore Drone Album “To Which I Bore Witness” – Produced by Topon Das (F*ck The Facts)

NEWS RELEASE Montreal, QC – February 23, 2022 ​ Streaming Now! THEY GRIEVE Release Somber, Doomy Sophomore Drone Album “To Which I Bore Witness” New Album Out Feb 24th, 2023 via Silent Pendulum Records Produced by Topon Das (F*ck The Facts) Photo Credit – Nick Shaw “To Which I Bore Witness” both lyrically and musically, tries to capture the uncomfortable juxtaposition between weakness…

[doomedandstoned]

They Grieve Unearth Frosty Post-Metal Hymn, “Wither”

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.

                                        --J.R.R. Tolkien

THEY GRIEVE is a two-piece post-metal act hailing from Ottawa. Grim and dire, but with a bright misty atmosphere that hints of hopefulness, the band's latest offering is titled, 'To Which I Bore Witness' (2022). It's their first full-length following a 2016 EP debut, six tracks in all. We're about to hear the album's opening number, "Whither."

The song opens with simple mystical statements on the synth. Other instruments are added to effect layers of feeling, meaning, and intensity. Guitar chords crackle and swell, enveloping us in ionizing radiation. Vocals are gruff and raspy; you have a feeling they've been through a lot, seen too much. As we inch closer to minute five, drums bounce jubilantly and a torrent of scratchy riffage erupts like the blinding winter wind. Gradually, the swell is calmed and we return to the strange solitary cries of the keyboard.

Failure knows no bounds and makes its home here within me Endless is the night of its becoming Nothing returns Cower, collapse, whither

They Grieve's To Which I Bore Witness bubbles to life on February 24th c/o Silent Pendulum Records (pre-order vinyl here and digital here; pre-save the single here). Pair it on a playlist with Thou, Bell Witch, and Cult of Luna.

Give ear...

LISTEN: They Grieve - "Whither"

SOME BUZZ

'To Which I Bore Witness' (2023) is the second release from Canada's post-metal duo They Grieve. Intended to be an introspective journey, it is meant to be depressing. The listener will be confronted with sad, loud music that’s not meant to cross into anger. The latest single is “Wither,” the album opener, which happened to be written twice. The band explains in detail:

“The decision to scrap the original version in its entirety was anxiety-inducing at first, but clearly feels like the right decision now that everything is said and done. We spent a lot of time fine-tuning the last half of the song, and the ending was one of our favourite parts to write -- in fact, it is still one of our favourite parts to play live. Writing this song really forced us to get more comfortable with not only using samples in a live context, but also with blending and balancing tones and dynamics at the same time to ensure everything hits in the right place. Without our electronics, we would need 5 or 6 guitarists to pull this off on stage.”

The band’s first EP was written quickly out of excitement for their new project. At first, they didn’t quite know what the band would end up being. Since then they have honed their sound and that is reflected in this new offering, which listeners will find more refined and nuanced.They slowed down, got heavier, leaned more into their drone, minimalist, and doom influences, and steered away from the colder, noisier moments on the first EP.

They also note that the production level is much better thanks to Topon Das (F*ck The Facts) at Apartment Two Studio along with mastering done by Dave Williams at Eight Floors Above and additional tracks recorded by Alex Jakimczuk at Uppercut Studios. The album artwork was done by Pascale Arpin.

They Grieve took a long time to fine-tune these songs. Several of them were completely finished and even performed live before they eventually re-wrote them from the ground up. They actively collaborate on each song leaning into their individual strengths.

Self-described as tense atmospheres and sad riffs, “To Which I Bore Witness” and the single “Wither” is recommended for fans of Bell Witch, Thou, and Year of No Light. The album is being released on February 24, 2023, via Silent Pendulum Records.

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[zaturk]

DEFORMATORY Shares Making of Video For New EP “Harbinger” Produced By Topon Das (F*ck The Facts)

DEFORMATORY Shares Making of Video For New EP “Harbinger” Produced By Topon Das (F*ck The Facts)

From their destructive 2013 debut “In The Wake of Pestilence”, on through to their crushing 2016 follow-up “Malediction” and into the vortex of insanity from their 2021 masterpiece “Inversion of the Unseen Horizon”, Deformatory unrelentingly summon their creative darkness to deliver another slab of ferocious Canadian death metal. Without acquiescing to the weakness of modern metal, they reach…

[don-vito-sottocultura]

Merula .... Nera.... Azz s'è SCASSAT.... Ma quella di lucky music blu che ho è molto più figa eheheh tutte e due uso per tenere friskas dei gatti.... Oh ora vi spiego cosa è U SFLAZIN lo sfalzino barese.... Coloured versione zoccola del Mc... Ma un topone gigante.... Sono al quarto Sasso come da Tradizione uno per giardino... Servono per lapidazione degli steli dal settimo Giorno in poi dell Hajj.... Questo gesto ricorda Abramo che mentre costruiva la kaba nella. Valle di bakka (mecca, libro della genesi) veniva disturbato da satana e gli tirò delle pietre e da allora misero li degli steli in pietra e li lapidano come simbolico lapidati satana, shaytan ar rajim il lapidati appunto... (at Don Vito's Cats Bar Home) https://www.instagram.com/p/CfaYnyEol3N/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[ferrugnonudo]

Io amo l'autostima di chi si fotografa in continuazione e si dice: wow che topone/a sono! Amo anche chi si ama e non attiva mai alcuna riflessione autocritica preferendo chiudersi a riccio e schernire il prossimo, eccetera. Al tempo stesso credo che il mondo sia decisamente meno interessante per questa selfcosa continua su se stessi che non aiuta  l'avanzamento della specie e ci rende tutti tanto più soli e sbiaditi. Resta il fatto, per quel che mi riguarda, che  credo di sembrare più stupida di quello che sono perché non rispondo più quando qualcuno mi fa una domanda. Sorrido da sola sotto la mascherina e penso, E chi me lo fa fare adesso di rispondere (a questo o a questa)? Se penso alla mia immagine di adesso del mondo, intendendo per mondo la mia relazione con gli altri, mi viene subito in mente Malick il regista. Quella scena in cui si vedono sagome umane confuse all’orizzonte in una luce abbacinante e controsole. La mia versione è in realtà meno cinematografica e illustre. Io le sagome le vedo grigie e opache come quando mi tolgo occhiali e lenti e non vedo niente ma faccio finta di.

[dustedmagazine]

Fuck the Facts — Pleine Noirceur (Noise Salvation)

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Fuck the Facts — since 2015’s dour, scathing Desire Will Rot, to be precise. That five-year gap in productivity was especially apparent, given that in the previous five years, the band released ten or so EPs, LPs, split records and compilations, and even an experimental narrative film. Fuck the Facts is best known for its masterful manipulations of grindcore’s blistering speeds, but even for a grind band, that was a tough pace of creative output to sustain. Of course, the music of Fuck the Facts has always exceeded grindcore’s rigorous stylistic constraints. They refer to their music as “bastardized grindcore”; see especially their terrific 2011 LP Die Miserable, with its idiosyncratic hybrids of grind, hardcore, tech death and passages that skew toward the rhythmic complexities of jazz. Not surprising, perhaps, for a band that named itself after a track from Naked City’s first record. Even when they grind, Fuck the Facts find ways to be multivalent and complex.

Now into their third decade, the band’s new LP Pleine Noirceur feels reinvigorated, the work of mature musicians who are both on top of their game and as adventurous and aggressive as ever. Album-opening track “Doubt, Fear, Neglect” spends its opening half tuning into the negativity of its titular terms. After a brief and fairly melodic set of introductory gestures, the song explodes into urgent, stringent riffs and battering textures. Just past the two-minute mark, it shifts tactics: Mathieu Vilandre’s drumming and the song’s rhythmic structure adopt a sort of grand gallop, rather than the maniacal sprint they had been pursuing; band founder Topon Das’s intricately dense guitar playing crunches with greater focus, riffs cohere with more concentrated force. In another minute, the song downshifts again, opening the way for an unexpectedly moving guitar line, which soars, brightly livid — it’s nearly beautiful. Over it all, longtime vocalist Mel Mongeon does her thing, shouting and yelping and fuming with desperation and a seemingly bottomless reserve of energy. She sings, “Lost in my days and out of breath / Yet I feel worthless when I allow myself to rest.” 

Mongeon’s indefatigable performance puts the lie to any appearance of being out of breath — goodness knows how she does it, pushing her feral vocals through song structures that frequently move well beyond four minutes. That’s unusual territory for a grind band. But one can imagine additional reasons why her lyrics for a number of Pleine Noirceur’s songs (“Sans Lumière,” “Everything I Love Is Ending,” “A Dying Light”) thematize exhaustion. Mongeon is a mother, her bandmate Das is the kid’s father. The demands of conducting the creative and logistical life of a D.I.Y. band (Noise Salvation is the band’s own label; Das produces the music, and Mongeon does the art and design) likely run counter to the responsibilities and emotionally intensive pull of parenthood. Both enterprises require near-total commitment, unflagging work. 

It’s always a risky business, equating a lyric speaker’s words with the circumstances and experiences of the real artist, the person writing the words, or playing the instruments. But knowing that there’s a kid in Mongeon’s and Das’s life freights some of the songs with even heavier weight. “Dropping Like Flies” is a hardcore anthem for our COVID-19 afflicted times. Mongeon sings, “The infection is spreading / Like a field infested with insects, with pests that multiply / Unable to treat the infection, it’s becoming larger.” At the time of this writing, in November 2020, the bug is traveling with unprecedented speed. An even more dire tone is struck by closing song “_cide,” in which Mongeon sings, “Doomed at birth / Born in the wrong place, the wrong time.” Musically the band saves the record’s doomiest dirge for the end, underscoring the lyric’s dread. These are hard times for a lot of folks, and parents bear the additional burden of worrying over the coming world their children will walk. Fuck the Facts’ songs are pissed off in the ways one might expect, given the politics that typify grindcore: leftist indignation, anti-capitalist rage, ecological anxiety. But the band’s antipathy is grounded by the real stakes of their concern for the earthball’s future. They have skin in the game. This record emphasizes that Fuck the Facts will continue playing, with spirit, in the name of righteous struggle. 

Jonathan Shaw

[m3t4ln3rd]

Eclipser to release debut LP, Pathos, this September via Noise Salvation

Photo by: Anndy Negative

Official press release:

Canadian blackened death newcomers Eclipser will release their full-length debut this September via Noise Salvation Records.

A name derived from the all-obscuring sound they produce, Ottawa, Ontario’s Eclipserspews forth a foreboding polarity of soaring melodies and nightmarish dissonance, coiled together to create a dreadful malaise of…

[sometimesalwaysmusic]

OBSIDIAN WILL

We caught up with the members of Obsidian Will (OW: Liam, Lloyd, and Justin) to discuss successes, challenges, favourite tracks of their own, and their most influential records. Check them out at one of their upcoming shows and witness their artwork for yourself! (Photo: Natalie Jeffery)

VITALS

Facebook: www.facebook.com/obsidianwill 

Web:  www.obsidianwill.com  

Instagram: www.instagram.com/owmelammu

Upcoming shows:  May 25 - Drone Day, Ottawa, ON June 20 - L'Ordre de l'Infiniment Nada, Obsidian Will, Transmit vs. Intangerines, Bar Robo, Ottawa, ON.

SA: How did Obsidian Will first start playing music together? OW: OW started in 2013 in the office of the Carleton University archives and rare book room, where Liam used to work and Lloyd still does. We were both in other bands, Liam’s was ending as his band mates moved out of town, and Lloyd’s was still going but winding down. We discovered a mutual appreciation for classic heavy metal and various metal sub-genres: black metal, folk metal, witch house, etc. and both came across funeral doom while poking around bandcamp and itunes. It was also around this time that Lloyd started experimenting with making soundscapes on garageband and integrating lyrics. Liam also went to see Merdaratha, which incorporated pre-recorded ambient loop tracks that could be played over by a live band. Liam thought it would be cool to layer some guitar over the soundscapes Lloyd was making, and Lloyd could provide the rhythm. That’s sort of, but not quite, what we ended up doing.

We decided to jam together and booked some time at the rehearsal space under Irene’s called Noise Annoys. The room was great but the shortest amount of time you could book was four hours. Four. Hours. It ended up being a lot of time but allowed us to work for long periods and figure out what our version of funeral doom would be. Originally, all of our songs were between 12 and 20 minutes long. The tightened-up versions of the songs we wrote at this time - like Ghost Acres and Marked Hands - are still part of our sets and are notably slower tempo and sparse-sounding. Eventually, we would move away from trying to fit into the funeral doom genre.

We got lucky somehow and booked a few gigs as a duo, including opening for Topon Das, Greylights, Black Oak Decline and Empty Vessels. We also did our first out-of-town gig at a nudist colony in Vankleek Hill. After we had played our original set list a few times, we decided our sound was a bit too sparse and thought twice about always having a pre-recorded backing track to break-up the silence. Luckily, Lloyd met Justin in an esoteric/occult reading group he started. Their conversation quickly turned to music and Lloyd invited Justin to join with the band to play violin and be the “live loop track” that would replace the pre-recorded one. A few weeks after Justin came on board, we had our first gig with him. We didn’t really have time to prepare, so we just told him to improvise as we played through our set list. Justin eventually purchased an electric violin and now an electric cello, and is integrated more fully into the songs and overall sound of Obsidian Will.

SA: What bands or musicians would you cite as the biggest influences on your sound? OW: At the beginning it was certainly Doom bands like Skepticism and Nortt, as well as folk metal bands like Wardruna. Merdaratha was a huge initial local influence as well, as was Gates from Toronto. We are individually and collectively influenced by many different bands and styles of music and sound art, and as we have continued to work together more of our influences outside of the metal genre have crept in like The Mars Volta, Laibach, Lustmord, and many of the artists on the Cryo Chamber label.

SA: Thus far in your career, what has been the band’s biggest success? OW: It’s all a success. Every time we get to play a show is an extreme privilege and it’s wild to us that we get to share the stage with some of the most exciting bands we know. It’s still a total novelty that we can contact bands that we like, or, even crazier, get contacted by rad bands out of nowhere, and have them agree to/want to play a show with us.

Picking out a few specific examples though, doing an Ottawa-Montreal show swap with Le Pélican Noir is a definite highlight. We are super glad to have met Sylvain and Maxime and are excited to collaborate with them in the future. Being asked to play the Ottawa Experimental Music 5 year anniversary show is also huge for us, and it’s kind of unbelievable that we got to be on the same bill as amazing local bands we admire like Novusolis, Clavius, Deathsticks, RAAS, and Forgotten in the Woods Again. Also, having an album and EP recorded by Topon Das at Apartment 2 Studios is like a dream come true, and, thanks to his production skills, having them turn out wayyy better than we thought possible was an added bonus.

SA: Conversely, what is the biggest challenge you have faced, and how have you dealt with it? OW: Obsidian Will doesn’t really fit into any one genre, or at least one of the genres you can pick from a scroll-down list on bandcamp/soundcloud/spotify etc. Our sets can range from quiet drone/ambient to a crushing doom-infused wall of noise. A blend of those two extremes isn’t always an easy sell. This might make us a bit more challenging to put on a bill, because we’re not really a fun high-energy band that would get booked for your usual bar or festival gigs - we have a tendency to bring the mood down. That said, we’ve managed to find a core group of local bands and artists we are similar to and that we work well with. We are still working to build our audience and find other artists to collaborate with. Having the ability to disseminate our music online helps when your project is more niche, like ours.

SA: How do you guys approach the song-writing process? OW: We’re still working on figuring this one out. Our older approach, when we were a two-piece of drums and guitar was to kind of work independently and rely on visual cues from on-another, mostly nods and looks. Essentially, it was the law of the jungle, but we made it work.

Once Justin joined the band, and now that Lloyd is incorporating synth, we realized we would need to work on coordinating. Right now, we’re working on a new song that will require a lot more structure and coordination between the three of us. We’re currently building a structure based on a few variations on the central theme.

Usually one of us has a concept or an idea we want to explore with the band. We sit and talk about it and then see if we can translate that narrative into sound. Occasionally we will also bring a riff or soundscape forward and work with that.

Also, we usually write lyrics first and try to build a song structure around them, or, for less structured and more ambient songs, pre-record the lyrics and play them over what we’re playing. For these less-structured songs, we end up doing our own thing to a great extent, recording it off the floor, and listening back to it to make sure everything we’re doing fits together. The tricky part is remembering what you were playing!

SA: What are your thoughts on the Ottawa music scene? OW: There are positives and negatives. We recognize that we are a niche project and our music/performances don’t appeal to everyone; that’s totally fine. As a result of this, though, we had a hard time finding shows at first and are still working on building a local audience. Maybe this is commonplace and not exclusively an Ottawa thing, but it seems like crowds tends to follow specific promoters, and promoters tend to focus on specific genres, which totally makes sense. This can just make it a bit difficult to do something different and still play locally. That’s probably more on us than on “the scene” though.

That said, we’ve been super lucky to get support from other bands and locals. One of our earliest supporters was Topon Das. Not only did he record, mix, and master our self-titled album and the Night Sky EP at Apartment 2 Studios, he headlined our first show and also got us on early bills with bands we were amazed to play with like Black Oak Decline and Empty Vessels. We are super appreciative of all the help he’s given us and feel privileged that he’s been involved in the band’s development.

Another huge help to us is Adriana Ciccone (AKA Baba Ganoush). Finding the Ottawa Experimental Music facebook page was extremely helpful for promotion and finding shows. Adriana has been very supportive of OW, plus she’s a super talented musician herself that is contributing a lot to the Ottawa music scene as a performer, community radio host, writer, organizer, and show promoter. We consider her a very positive force in the Ottawa music scene and are extremely grateful to have met her and to have shared a stage with her. Check out all her stuff if you haven’t already! Forgotten in the Woods Again, Constellation 425, Ottawa Experimental Music, Hexon Bogon on CKCU. She does so much that is no doubt an incomplete list.

Ottawa Drone Day has also been a big help as well (full disclosure: Liam has helped organize Drone Day for the past 3 years). It’s always encouraging to see that there are so many local performers doing very different styles of music than you would normally see at shows, and it is great to be a part of that. Overall, though our niche is specific we are very encouraged that we’ve been able to find local bands to play on the same bill with and that like our music, and likewise, we like theirs.

SA: From Tamtu in November 2016, all the way to Night Sky, in November 2018, what kind of progression has there been in your music? Or, has it rather stayed constant over time, in terms of theme and expression? OW: Over time, we have played with the idea of structuring our shows and recordings as ritual spaces. As the ones creating the experience, we are guides bringing the listener on a sonic journey. We have structured our sets and albums to do this, trying to be conscious of what’s being communicated overall and being sure to open and close the ritual space of the performance before and after. This idea developed early on and has been a through-line throughout our performances and recordings... most of the time.

Similarly, we consider our songs, with and without lyrics, as meditations. We are often trying to explore things that inspire awe through their ineffability or by the contradictions they embody. Sometimes we borrow from classical mythology to do this, like in The Mother of Eleven and Marked Hands, and sometimes we look to the present like in Teratogenesis or Salvage. We are often writing songs about forces beyond our control and the feeling of powerlessness.

As far as recordings go, we’ve alternated between more structured songs and more improvised, noisy, and experimental “songs” (calling them songs would be kind of a stretch). Tamtu, Hollow Witch, and Night Sky are all less structured experimental pieces we recorded for Noisevember. For these, we try to tell a story through sound and sometimes incorporate pre-recorded lyrics. For Hollow Witch, we stayed at a friend’s house deep in Lanark County and recorded the songs in various parts of the house as well as one outside. We ritualized the session overall as well as each recording, and in the end, the album ended up being an ode to the house itself. Our self-titled album and Melammu are recordings of some of our more structured songs and is a bit less consciously organized overall. The elements are still there, but the songs are more able to stand alone.

Also, in the time we’ve been playing together we’ve all grown as musicians. We’ve also grown in terms of gear. We started with drums and electric guitar and now we have drums, baritone guitar, electric violin, electric cello, 3 or 4 synthesizers, and collectively we probably have 20 pedals. This allows each of us to shape our sound to better reflect the stories that we set out to tell with our music. As we grow as musicians our sonic vocabulary grows along with the amount of gear we have to load-in.

SA: Thus far in the band’s repertoire, what is your favourite track, and why? Liam: My favourite tracks are some of our earliest: Marked Hands and The Gestation of Homunculi. They are very simple but I never get sick of playing them when we are going through the set list. They are probably the most emotive songs in our repertoire.

Lloyd: My favorite track to play is Teratogenesis basically because it’s fun to smash through the song. My favorite song to listen to is The Mother of Eleven. For me the song is an invocation of the dark reaches of mystery. Each time we play it I treat it as a personal ritual.

Justin: The Gestation of Homunculi is awesome! This was the first song I wanted to learn and play when I joined and I still love playing it.

SA: If you had to choose, what three records would you cite as most impactful on your sound in this group? Lloyd: Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

Liam: Skepticism - Stormcrowfleet

Justin: Type-O-Negative - October Rust

SA: What comes next for you guys in 2019? Good luck this coming year! OW: We are working on a couple new songs and will most likely be playing Drone Day on May 25th. After that, we are playing June 20th with L’Ordre de l’Infiniment NADA and Transmit vs. Intangerines at Bar Robo - this show is so new there isn’t even an event to link to yet! We’ll probably also do another crazy noise recording for Noisevember and other stuff, stay tuned! 

[kunstsprechen]

Papaflap

Jönuls pabikön. Pabs flitämaflapön. Pabs lul topon in. Lilol-li flitäms kvilas? Obas lomänabimagodemas!

jönul = Raupe -s = Plural pab = Schmetterling -ikön = zu etwas werden flitäm = Flügel, Schwinge -a = Genetiv-Marker flap = das Flattern -ön = Verb, Infinitiv lul = fünf topon in = am Platze Lilol = Du hörst (-ol Verlaufsform Verb, Du) -li = Fragepartikel kvil = Adler obas = Unser (Wir-Genetiv) lomän = Heimat bimagödem = Film

[infraredmag]

Minimalist Drone Collides With Dreary Doom In “Wither” Off THEY GRIEVE’s New Album “To Which I Bore Witness” Out Feb 2023 via Silent Pendulum Records

NEWS RELEASE Montreal, QC – January 25, 2022 ​ Minimalist Drone Collides With Dreary Doom In THEY GRIEVE’s “Wither” New Album Out Feb 2023 via Silent Pendulum Records Produced by Topon Das (F*ck The Facts) Photo Credit – Nick Shaw “To Which I Bore Witness” is the second release from Canada’s post-metal duo They Grieve. Intended to be an introspective journey, it is meant to be…

[shujoy-sketches]

Campus Diary | Topon Da

[doomedandstoned]

BIIPIIGWAN Classic ‘God’s Hooks’ Still Rocks ‘n’ Roars

~By Shawn Gibson~

Photos by Damien McLean (You Can Only Imagine)

BIIPIIGWAN is Ojibwe for a "battle whistle" or "battle flute" played before right before an attack -- and true to form, this music will attack you!   God's Hooks was released March 15, 2010, written and recorded by band members Miskwaanawad ("Musky") Rice, Michael Shrives, and Steve Vargas, who also plays in The Great Sabatini. The album was mastered By Topon Das of Fuck The Facts.

God's Hooks by BIIPIIGWAN

I was first introduced to the Ottawa trio through David Hall and his Ontario-based record label, Handshake Inc.   I gave God's Hook's a listen and, well, I was hooked!   God's Hooks is where "gadzooks" comes from -- the nails that held Jesus to the cross.   This and a bunch of other random facts came from me emailing back and forth with Musky, Michael, and Steve when they were working office jobs.

From opening track, "Beaches" (which might be like landing on the beach of Normandy during WWII) to the last track, "B'il Sabab," BIIPIIGWAN dish up seven songs of raw, dissonant carnage.   There is some heavy-ass groove in the music, as well.   "Vegemite" will get your head banging and your body thrashin' in no time.

Proceed to the pit when the title track comes on!   Searching my emails and interviews, I came across my first with Musky.   I tell him about playing "God's Hooks" in my car, even with my kids in tow!

I go on to tell the lead singer he's going to blow his vocals!   Musky finds it amusing when I talk about him taking "lead" on vocals, since all of the members of BIIPIIGWAN contribute to the singing.   Musky himself roars like the polar bear on album cover of their second release, the EP 'Nibaak' (2012).

Film by Dylan Baillie

When I finally saw BIIPIIGWAN perform live, there was that "oh shit!" moment when I realized just how thunderously heavy these guys really were.   God's Hooks is an amazing example of seamlessly blending subgenres: sludge, doom, and grind.   A balance, an atonement, is reached here.   In my eyes, I’d say BIIPIIGWAN is underrated, but definitely have a steadfast following...and growing still.

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Shawn "The Bandit" Gibson of Mountains Moved hails from Asheville, North Carolina. His cat can eat a Whole watermelon. Seriously. This is his first piece for Doomed & Stoned (Shawn, not the cat, though one wonders what else this felonious feline is capable of.)

[deantess]

“Hubieron mejores días… eso está claro. Luego de vaciar la última lata de cerveza, me vi obligada a evitar el vacío que surgía entre las risotadas de los amigos… El anonimato que da la ciudad siempre será el mejor escondite para las acciones más bajas, y en esta ciudad indiferente que nos desangra a diario es aún más fácil… caer en sus brazos, ahora que faltan los tuyos… ahora que la distancia pinta de colores vivos cada momento que compartimos, cada circunstancia en la que nos vimos envueltos, cada palabra que nunca nos atrevimos a decir… echarse a andar por la ciudad es fácil… escupir asco a las vitrinas y a los bancos, al capitalismo insolente que liquida mierda mientras la gente se caga de frio por las noches, a la interperie… a los oficinistas apresurados que caminan raudos, descargando su frustración en leves topones con el resto de la masa inerte que transita por Ahumada… Estado… Bandera… da igual… esto parece un carrusel del que es imposible bajarse… Hubieron mejores días… no era necesario refugiarse en los antros más horrendos con gente de dudosa procedencia… no era necesario caer en los brazos de las ninfas borrachas tan seguidamente… no era necesario nada de esto, pero tampoco era necesario lo nuestro… ahora que lo pienso, sentada junto a viejitos que alimentan a las palomas y ven la muerte tras sus últimos días. Levantarse, andar sin rumbo… años atras esta ciudad tenía más colores… o mis ojos tenían más colores ante tu prisma… da igual… los periódicos siguen anunciando la misma mierda de siempre y el carrusel sigue andando, rutilante pero seguro en su inseguridad. Los días se suceden, nada cambia, nada aparte de que ya no estás acá… en serio, podría contar las veces que juré verte doblar una esquina, tomar locomoción o perderte entre el estruendo de bocinazos y muchedumbre… da igual, lo cierto es que nada puede sacarte de mi cabeza;a tí, Galatea, que poco a poco te fuiste volviendo la estatua inerte que siempre fuiste.” 

[m3t4ln3rd]

Culted detail Vespertina Synaxis - A Prayer For Union & Emptiness EP, stream first single "Dirt Black Chalice"

Industrial doom group Culted will be releasing a new, three-track EP titled Vespertina Synaxis – A Prayer For Union & Emptiness on August 30th through Season Of Mist. An audio stream of first single “Dirt Black Chalice” is now streaming and can be heard below. Pre-orders are also available now through the label’s webstore and iTunes.

The effort was tracked at Blood In Blood Out Studios, with…