all hail the infernal Lord
At long last, Southern Lord brings their catalog up-to-date on eMusic. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s what:
If you haven’t already read it, Dan Epstein’s Dozen on the label is a great place to start. He zeroes in on most of the biggies, and offers a bit of context on why you might like ‘em. There’s even more information on this hub.
As far as my personal picks:
Boris, Akuma No Uta: I know Pink is the reigning favorite, but I still prefer this one: from drone to doom to thrash, Boris brings the brutality. Wild and reckless and so, so worth it.
Wolves in the Throne Room, Two Hunters: Awesome, awesome — Goth meets black metal in a cell in the underworld. “Untitled” goes from beautiful bleak opera to holy shit impending doom with no warning.
Earth, The Bees Made Honey In the Lion’s Skull: Featuring cover art I find inexplicably amazing. Earth are like morphine-drip metal, brutal and slow. Where black metal bands stab once quick and yr dead, Earth (forgive the image) are a long slow tear with a rusted knife.
Very cool. Looking forward to next month so I can grab that Earth.
And see, I like Earth because they seem so — relatively — melodic and light to me. But I love your description of their music.
The older Earth album from No Quarter is worth checking out too:
http://www.emusic.com/album/Sunn-Amps-and-Smashed-Guitars-Sunn-Amps-and-Smashed-Guitars-MP3-Download/11148313.html
Not so melodic or light, but still really good and featuring a bonus appearance by Kurt Cobain. I can’t help thinking it would have been nice if he had joined Earth and disappeared into obscurity rather than . . .
Also Boris fans should try to track down the Japanese version of Smile. The Southern Lord version is good, but the Japanese version is gooooooooood.
I wonder if we will get another drop of some of the other albums we still didn’t get, such as Earth’s Hibernaculum, Black One from Sunn0))) or maybe even Probot? (which I have on CD but someone else was asking about).
I’m sure we will eventually, poreiux. I’ll be sure to ask as well.
Thanks Yancey.
Really digging Pilgrimage by Om. The first track is so totally Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, which is a very good thing.
Is it a stupid question to ask why some Sunn 0))) albums which are on Southern Lord haven’t come available, specifically Black One?
It’s not a stupid question, but I don’t know the answer to it. I will be checking today. Thanks.
Well there is plenty to keep us busy in the meantime
Hibernaculum showed up. It’s very cool. Remakes of some of their older songs but in the new style, which I can’t seem to get enough of. Thanks Yancey.
Just got back from holidays and got a eMu email plugging Southern Lord. I ended up downloading Boris’ Pink - which is absolutely awesome. Love it to bits, heavy, groovey, LOUD! – and also Wolves in The Throne Room which is quite an astonishing album. Most progressive and ‘new’ metal album i have heard since Mastodon’s Blood Mountain.
Great label, look forward to checking out more in the future.