New Releases

Creepoid

Creepoid

No Idea

***NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! "Their self-titled sophomore LP has more in common with '90s slowcore bands like Red House Painters or Low than it does with most of their labelmates. They can still get intense, but in a different way. Clean guitars and dreamy vocals make up most of the album, pulling you in via entrancement rather than full-throttle attack. And though they can pile on the distortion in some parts (like the psychedelic-sludge drone at the end of ‘Tired Eyes’), it's more of a rare secret weapon than their main tool to fall back on." —Brooklyn Vegan. LP pressed on colored vinyl and includes a download.

Pitfall

Scapegoat

Deranged

***PITFALL was started back in 2010 when the original members of PUNCH IN THE FACE kicked around the idea of starting an older punk and Oi influenced band for fun. The band was worked on for a while but due to personal tragedy, major illness, and other factors it never got off the ground. Eventually, three of the members got together and recorded the songs in 2012 in their practice space and released them as a cassette. This 7" EP is six songs from that 2012 recording. Features ex members of LOS CRUDOS and CHARLES BRONSON. Incldues an insert and download.

Old Man's Will

S/t

Riding Easy

Old Man's Will, as the name insinuates, brings back the instrumental feel of bands such as Deep Purple, Sir lord Baltimore, Cactus, Black Sabbath, mixed with soulful vocals from the Byske descent Benny. With the ambition to bring something new to the rock scene yet maintaining the elements of classic rock, Old Man's Will focuses on spreading their music through strong live performances. For fans of GRAVEYARD, LED ZEPPELIN, DEEP PURPLE, SIR LORD BALTIMORE, CACTUS, BLACK SABBATH.

Bronze

World Arena

Not Not Fun

The West Coast’s weirdest hidden-treasure trio, Bronze, has plied their molten composite of serpentine metro-gnomic drumming, oscillator raga, hash-oil free verse, and pendulum bass patterns for seven shaded years, but sonic documentation remains sparse. The new decade, thankfully, has seen them reversing this deficit, first with 2011’s Copper LP, and now with World Arena, which unfolds another octagon’s worth of their signature spellbound, smoke-ringed, psych-fusion explorations.  Tracked at their Trojan Cavern studio / bunker in San Francisco and mastered in Amsterdam by Ruud Lekx, the record freewheels from tranced, polyrhythmic sequencer meditations (“Played,” “Quality”) to burnt chrome post-punk electronic experiments (“Almost”) to jazzy, decadent mystery rituals (“Dulcinea,” “Golden Handcuffs”). The way they weld home-wired circuitry modulation with lofty poetics and intuitive, live-band dynamics feels finessed and fully-formed—and unusually liberated in today’s world-gone-solo landscape. Live, they’re even more baffling, seesawing from fluid, fog-machine narratives to mesmerizing electro-modal jams, owning all zones. Future intercontinental tours should further bolster their standing in metallic arts communities. The Bronze Age is dawning.

Ketamines

Stay Awake

Mint

The final installment of Ketamines’ four-part 7-inch series finds everyone’s favorite spaced-out punks straying from the garage, discovering amphetamines and taking that swing into the sunshine of romance and power pop. Along the same gracious lines, B-side “Always Small” is self-affirmation in sugar-pill form. Parts one through three of the series were released by Pleasence Records, Leaning Trees Records and Hosehead Records, and are available individually from those labels in frighteningly small quantities. Collect all four to complete a grand, mind-bending image of magic by artist Felix Morel.  “Ketamines have found the delight in the details, adding to their pop-tarted tracks with fuzzed-out blasts, cartoon-indebted backing tracks, moody guitar washes and synth stabs that all seem pulled from their personal obsessions, then melted, sewn and stapled together into music that feels as personally seamless as it is aesthetically schizophrenic.” —Raven Sings the Blues “Ketamines are nearly impossible to pin down: lo- / no-fi garage rock that’s occasionally poppy / catchy, sometimes glittery, often ass-kickin’ and always, at the very least, engrossing.” —Gumshoe Grove “Lots of sound effects like when a person materializes in a He-Man cartoon.” —Vice

Trin Tran

Far Reaches

Castle Face

Trin Tran: The one-man band without a plan, hurtling through the songiverse without a map or compass. For years now, Trin Tran has been creeping out from deep space (America’s Midwest) and bouncing songs off satellites. These transmissions are a testament to his lovely weirdness.  This new EP is an injection of strange-pop—less garage than his recent full-length on Ty Segall’s imprint God? Records and more the bastard child of Duran Duran and Bruce Haack. Riskier vocal delivery, heavier synths. Stronger, swifter, silver-er. Mute Records would have licked their glossy lips over this meal in the early ’80s.  Recorded by Eric Landmark of San Francisco scrap-synth alums Numbers and Ricky Reimer of Madison, WI, angularities Transformer Lootbag, mixed and mastered by John Dietrich of Deerhoof, Far Reaches truly harkens from the 6th Dimension. It’s a new era for the mask and its one-man armada.

Damaged Bug

Hubba Bubba

Castle Face

Recorded at home in the fall of 2013 with a variety of synthesizers, drum machines and assorted handmade electronics, Damaged Bug is Oh Sees mastermind John Dwyer’s latest bit of cracked pop alchemy.  The project is the cure to the ailment of too much guitar for too long. Fizzing and sputtering like a glowing, temperamental cockpit control panel, Dwyer bunkered deep in a blinking laboratory, penning songs about the long arc of our travels across space and time. Propulsive beats and synthetic veneers coat laser-guided melodies reflecting off shiny metal surfaces while instrumental interludes pop in and out like breaks in the asteroid belt.  A far-out side of our main man—nocturnal, hard-wired, and chrome-plated. Hubba Bubba features original artwork by Deirdre White.

Sparhawk, Jesse / Carbonara, Eric

Tributes & Diatribes

Vhf

Tributes & Diatribes is the lovely second set of tracks from the entirely unusual duo of Jesse Sparhawk (38-string lever harp) and Eric Carbonara (22-string upright Chaturangui guitar, banjo, nylon string guitar).  The four tracks here are restrained and unhurried, letting the elegant string flow breathe and build over each cut. Like on their debut Sixty Strings (also on VHF), there’s plenty of virtuosity, but it’s not showy and crass. These guys are more mood-builders (deep, cosmic, meditative) than doodlers. Even though Tributes & Diatribes is immediately graspable by those of us who like “our kind” of music, it really doesn’t sound like anyone else—a rare achievement.  Along with the main dialogue between the two players, the arrangements are filled out with percussion by Peterson Goodwyn, giving some of the tracks an overt groove that cuts against the spiraling string notes. Beautiful.

Psalm Zero

The Drain

Profound Lore

Received a 7.7 rating from Pitchfork. Psalm Zero is a new band comprised of respected avant-garde rock musician Charlie Looker (ex-Extra Life / Zs / Dirty Projectors) and Andrew Hock of Castevet. Considering the artists’ differing outputs, one might imagine a collaboration would result in an unresolvable musical clash; however, the duo crafts intriguing experimental metal with Looker’s distinct vocal style providing the perfect counterpoint to Hock’s harsh delivery. Pounding rhythms complement melodic arrangements, while programmed synth and electronic beats also find their way into the mix. The public got its first taste of what Psalm Zero had to offer in 2013 when the band performed a handful of local shows in the New York area; in November they released their debut 7-inch Force My Hand on Looker’s Last Things imprint. Their debut album The Drain, recorded by legendary producer Martin Bisi (Swans, Sonic Youth, Helmet, Bill Laswell, John Zorn, etc.), is one of the most unique heavy music albums of 2014 and will introduce the band to a worldwide audience.

Baizley, John / Nate Hall / Mike Scheidt

Songs Of Townes Van Zandt Vol. 2

Neurot Recordings

Although highly respected by his peers and other songwriters, Townes Van Zandt never reached significant fame during his lifetime. The mood and atmosphere of his music, coupled with his sometimes dark and sarcastic nature, was not suitable for the commercial country industry of Nashville. Van Zandt’s songs did, however, reach popularity in his day through other artists; within his circle of outsider singer-songwriters, he was adored, though ultimately depression and alcoholism overshadowed his life. Van Zandt passed away in 1997, and the fact that artists as diverse as Robert Plant, Mudhoney, Norah Jones, Lyle Lovett and Bob Dylan have kept his songs alive and vital is a testament to the influence and impact of his music. Neurot Recordings presents the second installment of their homage to this great artist, following 2012’s Songs of Townes Van Zandt from Saint Vitus / The Obsessed’s Scott “Wino” Weinrich and Neurosis’ Steve Von Till and Scott Kelly. Praise to the great artist and his brokenhearted love songs and gloom-ridden tales now emerges through John Baizley (Baroness), Nate Hall (U.S. Christmas) and Mike Scheidt (YOB, VHÖL), in another beautifully dark tribute: Songs of Townes Van Zandt Vol. II.

Sir Stephen

Sanctuary

House Of Silk

French Quarter diva-house decadent Sir Stephen explores fresh palatial terrace party terrain on Sanctuary, a six-song rosary for SILK streetwear subsidiary House Of Silk. Seemingly inspired by that short-lived (and culturally off-limits) stylistic intersection of 90's club music and devotional New Age – think early Enigma, deep house PM Dawn white labels, wind chime samples, etc – the EP glides between moods of self-reflection and celebration, often in the same track. Vocals rise through synth-swells of incense and candlelight, tag-teaming with sub-currents of tribal percussion, trumpet, sax, software warble, piano stabs, and acid-jazz flute. An absorbing and sensual resurrection collection by New Orleans' foremost dancefloor defibrillator. Hand-stamped white label 12 inches mastered by Marshall Jefferson in Chicago, IL. Edition of 175.

Forms

Danse Macabre

Web Of Mimicry

“Mighty Wurlitzer Pipe Organ -plus- SC3 rhythm section renditions of Saint Saens’ “Danse Macabre” (heard live lately) and Spruance’s “Apocryphon of Jupiter” (never heard). Features the Golden State Theater Mighty Wurlitzer in Monterey, CA, augmented by the band’s live magic organ rig, all played by the just-mentioned cast of «Mausolée Mécanique» mannequins. Photo collage artwork all from shots at House on the Rock taken/assembled by Spruance.”

Ur / Forms

Split

Web Of Mimicry

“The UR piece, “Medium Aevum” is the original of a song Ishraqiyun has been covering for many years, familiar from SC3 live gigs (but never recorded). Here it is heard in its radically different *original* fuzzed-out format. The flipside is FORMS' energetic and comprehensive piano-roll band organ rendition of the Sousa masterpiece, “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Faithful in all details to the original composition, the tune gets a temperamental update according to the mood of the times. It's all done on the decaying early 20th Century devices of the FORMS Mausolée Mécanique, which here are manipulated by Matt Lebofsky's decrepit fingers, William Winant and Kenny Grohowski's dusty beaters, Timba Harris' rat-chewed piccolo bowings, and Spruance's endlessly cobwebbed weavings.

Constrain / Fenian

Rapid Decline

Angry Island

***KEVIN MCELENEY and MATT PURSE aggregate their respective harsh noise incarnations for five tracks of up-close Airbus-fuselage impact disintegration and junk-sprung mutilated harsh noise. The cassette is a split c20, with CONSTRAIN’s “The Other Side of Hell” on one side, and FENIAN’s “The Last Remains of Papal Superstition” on the other.

Die Schacht

Halber Selbstbetrug

Siltbreeze

This contemporary Berlin outfit’s musikalische klänge is so perfectly informed by the bare-knuckled scrappers of the Neue Deutsche Welle fringe that one might half-expect to find a matrix for Pure Freude, Rondo or Moderne Musik Tontrager scratched into the runoff. But, no, it’s here, it’s now, and it’s the first German release ever on Siltbreeze.  If the frenzied staccato of S.Y.P.H., Das Name or Mittagspause is what helps goose the lederhosen up the legs, then Die Schacht’s gurgling oink is the perfect lube to slap them around the hips. Pressed in an edition of 300 copies.  “... a solid chunk of head-shrieking metronomics smothered in bassy transits and overwrought in thirsty shards (or should that be barbs) of pylon guitar. A rhythmically sharp and feisty beast, with that transistorised megaphone of vox hooking you into to some uber-addictive rockstar mimicry... intimately lit and full of quirky angles ending on a screamed abruptness.” —Rottenmeats blog

Cold Cave

Black Boots / Meaningful Life

Heartworm Press

BACK IN STOCK!!! Electronic neo-wave recorded and performed by WESLEY EISOLD in Los Angeles, 2013. “Black Boots”— cool nihilism. Existential, groovy, psychedelia. “Meaningful Life”—a sombre ballad. Organ, flute, vintage drum machine, and intimate declarations.

Cold Cave

Cremations Picture Disc

Heartworm Press

***NOW AVAILABLE AS A PICTURE DISC!!!! Cremations is a collection of early demo/live/and unreleased tracks from COLD CAVE. From the projects isolated beginnings to the recent full band lineup the development of this singular musical entity is documented here in its icy electronic glory. From Cold Cave's infancy sexual identity and oblique existentialism have been expressed through biting lyrics and electronic minimalism. Rarely has the human condition been exposed so brazenly as in "Sex Ads." Melodies, noise and rhythms clash as stories from below the surface are retold. From the demo LP Coma Potion, which featured a rugged stripped down distortion, to the suggestive Electronic Dreams tour cassette. Cold Cave has developed its own brand of genre defying electronic music, without ever betraying its dark roots. Love and pornography, Industrial music and traditionalism, poetry and profanity all mix together in a hedonistic, cocktail of nihilistic nights and mournful mornings. Cremations collects all this work for the first and last time. Edition of 500 copies.

Abigail

Sweet Baby Metal Slut

Nuclear War Now

***BACK IN STOCK!!! ABIGAIL have returned with their fourth album. Entitled Sweet Baby Metal Slut, this album continues in the style Abigail began exploring on Forever Street Metal Bitch and further refined on Ultimate Unholy Death. Playing a style that sounds like a syphilitic union of Bathory, G.G. Allin, and Destruction, Abigail reach new lows of perversion and degeneracy.

Abigail

Ultimate Unholy Death

Nuclear War Now

***REISSUED!!! ABIGAIL's fourth studio album. Ten brutal tracks of alcoholic satanic street metal perfected by the ancients like Bulldozer, NME, and Motörhead.

Anatomia

Decaying In Obscurity

Nuclear War Now

***Contorted and anguished. Blissed-out and serene. Spasmodic impulses forcing irregular lurches and twitches. There are infinite shades and varieties of death, and yet its certainty and mystery terrify the human soul to its core. Anatomia breathes in the foul stench produced by this final state of human existence and spews it back at the listener. The band’s Death Doom sound captures perfectly the cold immobile grip of mortal expiration. Having evolved out of the decrepit corpus of TRANSGRESSOR, a band that is highly regarded yet rarely mentioned.

Black Witchery

Desecration Of The Holy Kingdom

Nuclear War Now

In 2002, Black Witchery were just beginning to establish themselves in the underground. Likewise, NWN! had just completed its first two vinyl LP releases (Blasphemy’s “Live Ritual” and Morbosidad’s self-titled debut) and was still in its embryonic stages. It was in this context that NWN! released the vinyl version of Black Witchery’s “Desecration of the Holy Kingdom.” (Although licensed from Full Moon Productions, the vinyl version of the album was conceived and executed by NWN!.) At the time, “Desecration of the Holy Kingdom” represented the most morbid necromantic invocation of Blasphemy and Sarcofago and others like them that had yet been summoned forth. No other band fully captured these bands’ intense and ritualistic sound with the same violence and dedication to chaos. And yet, while the influence of these bands is undoubtedly found within their work, Black Witchery defined their own sound relying upon their mentors merely to establish a stream in which to create their own dark current. Black Witchery’s sound on “Desecration of the Holy Kingdom” is furious and focused. The instruments are so carefully connected to one another that the sound is an almost mechanical. And yet the songs are not driven so much by the frenetic riffs and blast beats but by Impurath’s maniacal vocal performance. These characteristics made Black Witchery’s sound distinctive, and in this way, the band’s purpose was immediately clear. Black Witchery was not out to emulate the bands by which they were influenced; instead, they embodied the very essence of the genre....

Morbosidad

Profana La Cruz

Nuclear War Now

***On December 25, 2007, the notorious TOMAS STENCH assembled his horde of maniacal priests of darkness to desecrate the day the bastard Nazarene son was born unto the whore of Bethlehem. Recorded in Mexico with a new line-up, the third MORBOSIDAD album is heavily influenced by Brazilian deathrash masters such as the mighty Sarcofago, Sextrash, and Holocausto, yet is still undeniably Morboso Metal.

Morbosidad / Perversor

Perversor / Morbosidad

Nuclear War Now

***This new split marks the return of the mighty MORBOSIDAD and a new set of unholy hymns by Chile’s PERVERSOR. The Morbosidad side constitutes the most aggressive tracks that the band has conjured in years. On this release, the putrid vocals of TOMAS STENCH are accopanied by the devastating fury of members of HACAVITZ. The production on these tracks is more refined and the songwriting is more severe than on other recent Morbsidad recordings making it a triumphant return to form for the Morboso demon.

Sect Pig

Slave Destroyed

Nuclear War Now

***Slave Destroyed is the debut MLP released by the obscure and previously unheard of SECT PIG. Steeped in hallucinatory dissonance and unsettling imagery, the backbone of Sect Pig’s sound is reminiscent of Von in its tendency toward hypnotic repetition and sinister chord progressions. Perhaps the most distinctive and pronounced element of the music, here, is the vocals.

Thou Art Lord

Regal Pulse Of Lucifer

Nuclear War Now

***Over the past two decades, THOU ART LORD has released just a handful of albums. Veterans and pioneers of the Greek Black Metal scene, the current line up consists of members previously or currently involved in such seminal projects as NECROMANTIA, ROTTING CHRIST, MORTIFY, NERGAL, and many others. On this new album, entitled The Regal Pulse of Lucifer, Thou Art Lord resurrect the rich atmosphere and occult ideology for which the band has been heralded through the years.

DOA

To Hell N’ Back

Sudden Death

***Sudden Death proudly presents punk legends D.O.A.’s new live DVD To Hell N’ Back. It’s 90 minutes of amazing punk rock action from the Godfathers of Hardcore. D.O.A.’s expert crew documented the band at home and on tour in western Canada between June 2011 and January 2013 with four cameras a night and top notch recording gear and picked the best footage and came up with To Hell N’ Back. Led by Canada’s punk rock Godfather JOE SHITHEAD KEITHLEY, the band charges through 30 D.O.A. classic punk anthems. The result is a gritty, fun and exciting look at the band that has influenced everyone from Henry Rollins, to Jello Biafra to The Red Hot Chilli Peppers to Green Day to Rancid to Nirvana. Included in the package is a free CD version of D.O.A.’s highly acclaimed 2012 studio album We Come in Peace. Bonus footage includes a cool tour inside the studio, as D.O.A. are recording We Come in Peace.

Mourning Cloak

No Visible Light

Vendetta

***Greensboro, NC’s MOURNING CLOAK, made up of members of TORCH RUNNER, GRAF ORLOCK and BRAVEYOUNG (GIANT). No Visible Light clocks in at just over 33 minutes of crushing riffs, devastating beats and thunderous vocals. No Visible Light—the title is apt, because this is an ominous cloud blocking the sun, raining down charcoal dust, black mud, and infant ash on us all. Their Facebook page refers to their music as “funeral doom/punk,” but I only hear the former in this track. But this doesn’t sulk through the cemetery, it grooves hard enough to split the catacombs in half, releasing the crypt bats into the air. After the quickly dissipating opening ambience the guitars crawl from open graves and shake the rust off their bones with godless black-and-blues riffs. There is suck a thick layer of slime and sludge on this song that it reminds me of that barrier of grime and giant centipedes Indiana Jones’ love interest sticks her hand through in Temple of Doom. If you don’t get that reference, here it is in non-geek language: This song is nasty and unpleasant in the most sadistically delightful ways possible. The vocalist sounds like he’s plummeting into a bottomless pit, shaking hands with the devil to make a pact to finally break his fall. This is some seriously bleak stuff that fans of Bongzilla and Cough should feverishly inhale.

Nadja

Queller

Broken Spine

** 2016 LP reissue of Queller from Broken Spine Productions. Limited to 300 copies, pressed on 180g vinyl, housed in a single sleeve incorporating a black and white version of the original artwork by Error Design.

Vantzou, Christina

No2

Kranky

***Developed over a four year period, and entirely funded by a part time job working as a SAT university entrance exam mathematics tutor, Nº2 was composed using synthesizers and a variety of unidentified samples that were manipulated beyond recognition. CHRISTINA VANTZOU then collaborated with MINNA CHOI of the San Francisco based MAGIK*MAGIK ORCHESTRA. Vantzou and Choi worked on the notation and arrangements and recorded the compositions with a 15-piece ensemble at Tiny Telephone studios in San Francisco. The chamber layer on Nº2 follows a similar pattern as her first record with the addition of bassoon, oboe, and an enhanced string section. Vantzou spent four months premixing the album before ADAM BRYANBAUM WILTZIE (Stars of the Lid / A Winged Victory for the Sullen) engineered the final mixes, as well as added some of his signature sound texture, at his studio in Brussels, Belgium. Perhaps a better title for the album would be “Symphony Nº2” as it was composed as a cohesive whole, much like her first album “Nº1”. Dense layers of strings are augmented by angelic voices, piano, woodwinds, & various synthesizers. Instrumental music, especially that which is scored with strings & horns, is invariably described as “filmic”. This is even more likely when the composer is a filmmaker such as Christina Vantzou. Welcome to the future, which luckily for us is filled by a womanʼs voice with a beautiful narrative. A recording that is a meeting of personalities is like the contact of chemical substances: if there is any...

Senyawa

Acaraki

Dual Plover

White Fence

Colored Vinyl - Cyclops Reap

Castle Face

***NOW AVAILABLE ON LIMITED MAGENTA VINYL!!! A whole new LP from TIM PRESLEY, will be sure to please fans of last year's Family Perfume Vol.1 + 2. Heavy on the warp, mellow to the yellow, with perhaps even more earworms this time around, shoe-strung together and laced with adenoidal whimsy as only Mr. Presley can pull off. Received a 7.7 rating from Pitchfork.

Rainbows Are Free

Waves Ahead Of The Ocean

Guestroom

***Waves Ahead of the Ocean is the follow up to RAINBOWS ARE FREE’s 2010 breakout album, Believers In Medicine. Their sophomore release heralds a unique interpretation of a bygone era of classic heaviness, setting them apart from contemporaries with whom they have shared the stage (Saint Vitus, High on Fire, The Sword, Pallbearer, Kylesa, Dead Meadow). WAOTO conjures up dark occult imagery and apocalyptic soundscapes that create an ominous portend of doom for all who listen. The band, fronted by the soaring and snarling nigh 7 foot cyclone of weirdness that is BRANDON KISTLER, continues to shock and amaze often jaded indie club audiences. This is achieved in no small part due to the guitar prowess of RICHIE TARVER joined by LUCAS WATSON on rhythm guitar, and the thunderous low end of bassist CHAD HOUGUE and drummer BOBBY ONSPAUGH. Rainbows Are Free continue to bring their brand of psychedelic proto-metal out of the southern central U.S. and into the beyond as they gear up to support the release of Waves Ahead of the Ocean.

Golden Donna

II

100% Silk

Madisonian synthesizer omnivore follows the trippy club-crunched double helixes of his recent split 12 on Atlanta's burgeoning CGI imprint with a 7-song skybath of breezy balcony themes, trap-flecked trampoline electronics, pale dream-pitched slow-rides, and diamond-headed aerodynamics for SILK's subliminal magnetic tape division. There's a consistent looking-glass curvature to the way he bends textures and percussion, giving them this lens flare plasticity, like a warped sheen of translucent plastic. Dense but dispersed, II pushes past his debut into higher altitude airspace, towards warmer climes. A uniquely hardwired hanging garden of hibernation strategies from a voracious jammer locked in the lair of midwestern winter. Mastered by Ghost Sounds. Hand-numbered edition of 100.

Sultan Bathery

S/t

Slovenly

***Slovenly Recordings is proud to present the debut full-length LP from Italian freakbeat swamis SULTAN BATHERY! A swirling, exotic blend of smoky, reverb soaked psychedelic garage-pop handcrafted in a fur-lined diamond mine, this self-titled album explosively expounds upon the complex yet catchy dynamics of their 2012 Fireworx EP. Euphoric waves of stomping subterranean rock’n’roll throb through your being on “Satellite,” and stinging fuzz lines cut through the pulsating fringe of your bubbly fudge mynd on “Flowers of Evil” and “Dead Leaves.” This is the raging, hyper-electric trip previously only available in ten strips and micro-dots, finally and fully realized on a hallucinatory bud of dark wax.

Saint Vitus

Lillie - F65

Riding Easy

Lillie: F-65 is the eighth studio album by the American doom metal band Saint Vitus, which was originally released May 22, 2012. This is the first Saint Vitus studio album since 1995's Die Healing and the first to feature Scott "Wino" Weinrich on vocals in 22 years, since 1990's V. It also marks their first album with Henry Vasquez on drums. Comes with a very cool EasyRider outer sleeve, limited to 300.

Survive

MF064

Monofonus Press

***BACK IN STOCK!!!  This much anticipated EP follow-up shows S U R V I V E evolving inside the increasingly crowded world of analog synth worship. While not totally abandoning the beat-driven sound that made their debut so great, we find them now much more willing to break out of the traditional song structure. Side A is 10-plus minutes of ambient composition that is a natural departure from their previous work. Side B is considerably more akin to their release on Mannequin, retaining the horror meets Knight Rider vibe. Side note for all you heads out there–this record features the classic sounds of the KR55 drum machine. This 12″ EP is packaged in a beautifully hand-pulled silkscreened cover and comes with a digital download code.

Eyelids

Seagulls Into Submission

Off

For a new band, Eyelids have quite a collective history with some of the most legendary indie songwriters ever. Not only were these longtime Portland, Oregon, collaborators the principal instrumentalists for Robert Pollard’s post-Guided By Voices band Boston Spaceships for over eight releases, but they have also worked in recent years with Stephen Malkmus, The Decemberists, Elliot Smith, Sam Coomes (Quasi), Black Prairie, Jason Lytle (Grandaddy), Loch Lomand, Damien Jurado and Peter Buck. For Seagulls Into Submission, Eyelids turned inwards to their loves of New Zealand / Flying Nun guitar buzz, teenage L.A. Paisley Underground obsessions, haunts of early Athens, and all things beautiful, lopsided, and rock. The 7-inch is just a hint of what the band is working on for their upcoming full-length recorded with Adam Selzer (The Gossip, The Breeders, Red Fang) as well as their head-swirling live shows. The single includes a non-album B-side “I Can’t Be Told” plus a download featuring an exclusive live cover of Gun Club’s classic “Sex Beat” performed with Jerry A. (Poison Idea) and Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate). Limited edition of 500 copies.

Branca, Glenn

Lesson No. 1

Superior Viaduct

After cutting his teeth in the late ’70s no wave scene with bands Theoretical Girls and The Static, Glenn Branca made his first solo statement, Lesson No. 1, in 1980. The inaugural release on legendary post-punk / dance label 99 Records, Lesson No. 1 unveiled Branca’s visionary guitar concepts with two monstrous, side-long compositions that helped forge NYC’s downtown art-punk sound and acted as a massive influence on countless young groups, including Sonic Youth and Swans. The title track is easily Branca’s most accessible moment; its driving beat and interlocking patterns resemble German pioneers Neu! playing Phillip Glass. Never before (or since) has minimalism sounded so euphoric. “Dissonance” is the A-side’s polar opposite. Dark, skittish and unhinged, Branca leads his band (guitar, keyboard, bass, drums and sledgehammer) through block after block of industrial terror, leaving listeners drained in the process. Soon after the release of Lesson No. 1, Branca began to work on ambitious, long-form symphonies. “Bad Smells,” included here as a single-sided bonus 12-inch, was commissioned in 1982 as a dance piece for choreographer Twyla Tharp and originally released on a split LP with John Giorno. Featuring Sonic Youth guitarists Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore, “Bad Smells” is a thrilling multi-section guitar assault that foretells much of Branca, Ranaldo and Moore’s work for the next decade.

Guided By Voices

Motivational Jumpsuit

GBV Inc

Motivational Jumpsuit is the latest, bestest release by reunited indie rock (whatever that means) juggernaut (means an unstoppable force) Guided By Voices. It speaks in several silvery tongues, and like last year’s English Little League takes many routes to the same shimmery, elusive destination: rock greatness. Its 20 songs (in 38 minutes!) range from the shaggy, Who Sell Out pop-pourri of “Evangeline Dandelion” to the lurching, rifferific “Planet Score,” breezing briskly through every worthwhile rock ’n’ roll style sheet along the way. Robert Pollard and co.’s influences are by now so thoroughly assimilated that Guided By voices referents are mostly to other Guided By Voices songs / eras: “Save the Company” calls to mind the band’s Bee Thousand / Alien Lanes lo-fi glory daze, while “Vote for Me Dummy” could be from Isolation Drills. For instance. Recent intramural turmoil aside (Guided By Voices has a long history of members quitting / getting fired / posting private correspondence online / waking up in the gutter), the band has never sounded more cohesive. Tobin Sprout’s insanely catchy feather-light confection “Record Level Love” bobs up against the deeply purple spray-paint rock of “I Am Columbus,” which pinballs into the elastic, sprightly “Difficult Outburst and Breakthrough”—the pacing and variety always seem to make some kind of higher sense, if only as an appeal to the senses. Motivational Jumpsuit is gangly, wordy, heavy, lovely, catchy, rocky, complexly simple, and better than almost any record you’ll hear this year. This is the fifth record (in three years) by...

Slothrust

Of Course You Do

Ba Da Bing!

Note price increase. Led by singer / songwriter / guitarist Leah Wellbaum, Brooklyn’s Slothrust is a rock band of musicians from the jazz / blues tradition who sound nothing like jazz musicians playing rock. Beneath the know-how, their aesthetic is punk as fuck. How perfect, right? You get the zap without the Zappa, not a lot of Yes but a load of Oh Hell Yeah! Slothrust’s musicianship sneaks up on you, because the first thing that grabs you is how insanely catchy these songs are. Then you realize that it all comes down to the fact that they play fearlessly and full of tenacity. Rock ’n’ roll. Formed amid the ashes of Wellbaum’s solo project Slothbox (“The box rusted,” she explains…obvs!), Slothrust was forged with drummer Will Gorin and bassist Kyle Bann. With the added dynamics of a tight, powerful and funky rhythm section, Slothrust is a forceful trio as unsettling and capricious as their name. Of Course You Do is the band’s debut for Ba Da Bing and follows up to their 2012 self-released full-length, Feels Your Pain. With her deep, charismatic vocals, most reminiscent of Nico with the edge of Isaac Brock circa ’97, Wellbaum sings about alienation, awkwardness and absurdity, and damn if she doesn’t make it all sound kind of fun. “Crockpot” is a dark yet funny and irreverent take on the struggle for human connection in a society built to make us feel isolated; “Juice” is a paean to realizing the limits of self-improvement. She evokes feeling while...