What's the best remedy for two days of rather unspectacular finds? Going out CD hunting and scoring big the very next day. Due to the sheer variety of good stuff, I'm tempted to rank this as one of my top 5 bargain bin hauls of all time. A lot of more underground titles in a bigger concentration than I normally see, and lots of nice collection fillers to round out the haul.
A dollar each:
Anagnorisis - Overton Trees
This one was brand spankin' new--no shrink wrap, but it still had that barcode sticky strip across the top. The first half of the album is fast-paced black/death with occasional keyboard use. Well-played and fine for what it is, but nothing particularly special that makes it memorable. For the second half, by no means do they abandon the black/death ship, but there's more of a concentrated effort to add atmosphere and depth to the music beyond the keyboard use. Some slower tempos, slightly progressive parts, and short acoustic/piano parts are used, and the music becomes less monotonous than in the first half of the CD. However, the title track and one other song utilize very Opeth-like clean vocal sections...the mellowness didn't really bother me, but I felt since they were used so sparsely they felt a bit out of place and tended to overshadow everything else. Indeed, a couple minutes after listening to the CD, I could not have remembered a specific riff to save my life, but the style of clean vocal passages sort of stuck with me. So a comparatively minor element of the band's sound was all that really stood out, although that's more than I can say for many bands.
Ironically, when I saw this I felt a weird sense of familiarity even though I was sure I'd never heard the band before. Then I realized I had previously read Teeth of the Divine's bargain bin review. They scored it for 99¢, which I was mildly envious of at the time, so it was oddly fulfilling to snag a cheap copy of my own.
The Autumn Offering - Fear Will Cast No Shadow
Metalcore. Very melodic death metal inspired, but unfortunately they dilute things with breakdowns. The main vocals are growly with additional raspier vocals. That's not so bad. But the band throws in quite a few sections of whiny clean vocals along with clean choral background vocals that would be a better fit for something more emo or in a mainstream modern rock band. I presume these parts are there to create musical contrast, but it's done in such a heavy-handed and awful manner. I wasn't exactly excited about anything this band had to offer in the first place, and the clean vocals just killed it for me. It's too little, too late to save the proceedings, but I'll also mention that Ralph Santolla and Carpharnaum's Jason Suecof do some guest soloing on the final track.
Black Arrows of Filth & Impurity - 1984 (Eternal)
The "real" material on the CD (well, at least the music that defines the band) is noisy, spastic death/grind. The last two super-long tracks are filled with droning, feedback-laden stuff.
Black Oath - Black Oath
Well, this one completely shattered my expectations, and in a great way. Based on the band name and Christophe Szpajdel logo replete with pentagram, horns, and hooves, I was fully expecting this to be black metal--probably of the generic sort. But it's classic doom metal! No stoner or drone crap to be found. I did look up their place of origin beforehand, but even if I hadn't, I think the vocals would have given them away as Italians...They have an obvious accent and high, almost mournful timbre...They reminded me of Black Hole's vocals to a certain extent, though I must stress the music has nowhere near the amount of Black Hole's creepy weirdness or '70s/psychedelic influence. There is an underlying dismalness to the music which may indeed be an Italian trait of sorts, seeing as it's shared by such disparate bands as Black Hole, Mortuary Drape, old Death SS, even some Necrodeath. What I like most is that the band avoid being monotonous thanks to something taught to us all by Trouble and Candlemass--the best doom metal is made by playing fast at times. The fast part of "Black Initiation" and the accompanying guitar solo (played by Mortuary Drape's Seeker of the Unknown) are excellent. Great little mCD, one of the best finds on this trip.
Fektion Fekler - From Here to Heaven
Electro-industrial stuff. Got this for the trade pile.
Grave - ...And Here I Die...Satisfied
I remember the days when bargain bins were a goldmine for early '90s death metal, but for the past several years those finds have been very sparse. So while it was nice to find this, I admittedly wasn't super excited since I've already owned this mCD for years (and yes, that copy was also a buck!). Otherwise this would have easily been the best disc from the haul.
In Ruins - Four Seasons of Grey
Mix of doom/death and gothic metal.
Iowaska - Vine of Souls
Got this solely because I saw it was on Alternative Tentacles and thought it would make good trade fodder. The label, anarchy circle-A in the logo, and abundance of dreadlocked bandmembers made me think this was going to be Crass-style anarcho-punk or crust, and certainly, that's an element in the music, but it also gets far weirder. The first couple of songs are very psychedelic and spacy-sounding hardcore punk; at times the punk element is overwhelmed and becomes minimal. Then starting at track 6, there are a couple of straightforward anarcho-punk tunes. Oh yeah, I should add that the frontwoman is female--her vocals retain her strong British accent but thankfully there are no "extreme" female vocals, which I usually loathe. For the purposes of this blog, it should be pointed out that there's some heaviness at times, but no more so than any regular anarcho-punk band (there's a sketchy Allmusic review that calls this metal. Huh.). Not a fan of this stuff.
While I appreciate good lyrics, normally a band's beliefs have a pretty minimal impact on my opinion of their music. I wouldn't have minded had the band stayed in typical leftist punk pastures, and the disc does have some anti-cop and anti-war tunes on it, par for the course. But there are also some pagan and feminist lyrics that just take things to eye-rolling levels. One song mentions that there's no need from support from either a man or a bra, since both can be bought. Seriously? The last track is a spoken anti-war piece, and afterwards there's a hidden spoken word track describing African female genital mutilation. I found myself hoping music would start suddenly and it would turn into a grindcore song.
Opera IX - The Call of the Wood
Original Miscarriage press, without a doubt the prime find of the day. I will admit this is a case where I was more excited about finding something for just a dollar than the actual music (which is fine for what it is, though)--black metal usually makes up a relatively small percentage of my local bargain bin finds, so it's always nice to find some, especially older releases like this.
Ozzy Osbourne - Tribute
Older CBS press (I already have the 2002 reissue). Was a little surprised to find this--in all my years of CD browsing, this is the very first time I've seen a pre-Zakk era Ozzy CD in a bargain bin. Nothing wrong with it condition-wise either, so it wasn't put in there for being a beat up copy. It's just now after getting this I've realized that with the "Dee" outtakes, every song from the first album is on here. Huh.
Redencion 9-11 - 97-01
Hardcore punk from Chile. Trade fodder.
Serberus - Descension
Melodic black/death. I have their earlier CD so it was nice to find this for a buck. Well worth the dollar as collection filler.
Solarized - Driven
Stoner rock.
Undor - I
The very first disc of that day's soon-to-be rather sizeable stack. Truthfully, even if I hadn't found anything else at all, I would have been pretty happy just to get a Bestial Burst release for a buck. Based on the layout alone, I was fully expecting raw black metal. Instead, I get a single slow, plodding tempo for the duration of the entire single 27+ min. track, guitar feedback everywhere, and hysterical shrieking/howling vocals that tiptoe the line between demented and exaggeratedly comical. A very fitting comparison would be a lo-fi version (due to the lack of extra musical effects) of the first 2 Abruptum albums. The music itself is quite similar, and I would assume their goal is exactly the same--making cacophonous music on purpose to evoke a crazy, evil atmosphere. This largely succeeds, though there's one flaw--in comparison, Abruptum's music (heh) is much more unstructured as a whole, since they would often go out on weird tangents or segue into more ambient stuff (and I still find them tedious at times). With Undur, the same plodding riff and drum beat essentially lasts for the entire mCD-length running time, with spontaneity only provided by the feedback and vocals. That said, the band would probably be pleased that I found this monotonous after a while.
Vanderhoof - Vanderhoof
This is a side project of Metal Church's Kurdt Vanderhoof which I've wanted to check out for a while, and even came close to buying online a few times, but never did. Rather than metal, the bulk of this is '70s style hard rock with a Hammond organ, ala Deep Purple or Uriah Heep. Some songs sound more authentically '70s than others (there are some decidedly non-'70s grooves thrown in at times), and likewise, the heaviness varies--at times the guitars are quite heavy but there's not much here that can be unfalteringly classified as heavy metal. There is also a very well done cover of Deep Purple's "Burn" which is more interesting than any of the band's original material. There's nothing inherently wrong with this CD and I could praise them for being inspired to do music like this, but I can't see myself revisiting this. I'd rather just listen to an actual '70s band to get my fix of the style.
Waifle - And The Blood Will Come Down Like a Curtain
Expected this to be pissed-off hardcore, but it's more like some sort of dark and chaotic emo. The music itself isn't very metallic, but the first track had a sort of discordance that reminded me of black metal, especially with the vocals.
Various - The Heralds of Oblivion Vol. 1
Because one can never have too many copies...
Various - Infernal Gathering - The Second Chapter
A compilation of bands from Inferno Festival (bands that played at the fest, not actual live recordings from the fest). Ironically, the two tracks marked exclusive (by Dimension F3H and Pawnshop) are the two least metallic tracks here. The only reason I got this was for 1349's cover of "Haunting the Chapel," which I had no idea was even on CD or available somewhere besides the double-LP version of Beyond the Apocalypse (it's not listed as an exclusive track). Very good cover even considering the black metal vocals are a big step down from Araya's, and it goes without saying that I prefer the cover to any of 1349's original material.
