Asilo - Comunión [Full length] (2014, Self-released)

Turmoil breeds frustration and anger, which in turn breeds outlets for that frustration. South America has had a rich history dating back to the early 80s of metal bands expressing their anger through their music and lyrics, and like those legendary and trendsetting bands from the days of yore, the four-man group Asilo from Argentina presents a lyrical universe revolving around themes such as politics and the suffering it can bring, set to a soundtrack of furious and often dangerously calm mix of doom-laden drones drenched in grimey sludge.

Pure aggression is one of the mainstays of Asilo's music, of that there can be no doubt. In a hardcoresque style, lead singer Manuel Platino practically screams his lungs out to the sounds of harshly distorted bass and thunderous percussion. Comunión's structure as an album is also one of the strengths that underline the band's style. The way it fluctuates between insane cacophonies and inky pools of fragile pianos - or even saxophone at one point - is what makes listening to Comunión as an album interesting.

However, aggression necessitates some kind of structure and form. Were it not for the disciplined interludes of classical piano set regularly throughout the album to provide some sort of contrast, Comunión would appear to be a harsh collection of discord. There are a multitude of examples of bands that do this unhinged, rambling musical lunacy all too well, but Asilo lack the intensity and groove that those bands utilize.

The vocals, though wholy authentic and honest, come off as a bit too immusical to me. In grindcore, the gratingly raw vocals are an essential part of the whole expression, complete with that intense wall of distortion. But in Asilo, the vocals take up a lot of space in the mix, and needlessly so. Coupled with that is a lifeless overall sound which so lacks that concentrated emission of sound. This isn't the first time I've had the (dis)pleasure of listening to guitarless music, using instead a fairly driven bass. But to be succesful in that endeavour, you better make damn sure the bass has drive and punch enough to take the guitar's place.

The main highpoint of Comunión was, to me, Miedo y Curiosidad from the latter part of the album. This track feels somewhat out of place, although not entirely. It features the same harshness as the rest of the album, but is graciously garnished with the haunting sounds of a well-played saxophone, adding a thick atmosphere of eerieness that the rest of the album sorely needs. Elaborating on what I mentioned earlier, Asilo's first actual album since their spawning in 2010 is an honest affair where they stay true to their own values - Something that many bands could learn a thing or two from. But that particular style does nothing to me, other than fill me with a wish of listening to something else. The saxophone melodies in Miedo y Curiosidad committed that last shred of reason to the insanity that made it a more easily digestible portion, but the rest of the album remains a bothersome clutter of confusion. 4/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Geografías
2. Pichiciega Fe
3. (epidemia mundial del desencanto)
4. La Paciencia del Cuchillo
5. Arquitectura del Silencio
6. (anti voz)
7. Dinámica del Cambio
8. Mideo y Curiosidad
9. (no a la vida)
10. La Ultima Voluntad

The music of ASILO is available on Bandcamp
Visit ASILO on Facebook

0 The Experiment - Simplifying A Demon [Full length] (2013, Self-released)

Whenever I see a band or project labeled as drone my warning bells start ringing. Much too often drone has been used as a cloak for lazy songwriting, blaspheming against great acts like Boris or Sunn O))).
Supposedly the idea behind 0 The Experient is seeing how far you can take music with just a bass. Apparently the answer to that conundrum is "not very far", because most of what Simplifying a Demon presents is a mimic of what you might as well do with a guitar in much the same manner. Disguised in a veil of treble distortion, sometimes accompanied by pseudo-jazzy bass fiddling, the bulk of the work presented might as well have been a regular bedroom black metal band. Add to that the weak nature of the vocals, and you've got yourself a long, boring album.

0 The Experiment affiliates itself with tags such as drone, black metal, minimalistic and experimental. Indeed, there are tracks that are veritable feasts of reverb and distortion delivered in an appropriate wall-of-noise manner. And black metal too has an obvious presence among the seven tracks the project's first album. It's all presented in a very minimalistic and simple manner. What I don't see is the experimental part - Experimental for the practitioner perhaps. But there's hardly anything progressive, avant-garde or otherwise experimental in nature about a guy rubbing out some mostly mediocre basslines to unengaging lyrics and unending wads of boring drone. Simplifying a Demon is really basic stuff, and "The Experiment" simply lacks the ritualistic ambience that makes black metal and drone great, without adding anything else to take its place.

Looks like the ol' warning bells were right. But then, in the midst of all this mediocrity comes the two last tracks, Demon and Ritual to Nothingness. The latter portrays a great entrancing feel of cosmic psychedelia while still maintaining an odious core of something a bit more sinister hidden away among the meldoes, while the former feels like a downright study in the bass' capabilities as a more analog counterpart to the synthesizer, bringing to mind some of Burzum's finer works in black metal and ambience in spirit. I don't particularly care for the lifeless black metal aspect of Demon, but there is still a bounty of quality to be found therein. And while the two works show great promise and showcase the diversity of the bass as a versatile instrument, the same cannot be said for the rest of the album. It baffles me that the rest of the album is such a mess of coma-inducing boredom.

Those two tracks that I have praised seem like they should be the main core of 0. With or without the help of computerized effects, the modern electric bass can provide astounding amounts of diversity... Something that is for the most part poorly expressed on Simplifying a Demon. 4/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Prophet In Blood
2. Black Elf
3. D.I.E. (Death Is Eclectic)
4. I, The River
5. Waiting for Something to Die to Eat
6. Demon
7. Ritual to Nothingness

Listen for yourself on Bandcamp
Visit 0 on Facebook

Nonsun - Sun Blind Me [EP] (2013, Breathe Plastic Records/Drowning)

Slowly, the ponderous, stoned out riff of Rain Have Mercy tunes in, accompanied by the soft yet intense sound of an organ. As the riff gains momentum the drums come in until finally culminating in a full-fledged clamor of heavy, sludgy, droning doom metal at the 4 minute mark. Goatooth's moribund vocals emerges from the shadows, and soon after the track slows down to a slower, jamming tempo until lurching into motion again, exposing the consortium of what could be a trippy organ piece or almost psychedelic guitar solo that has been lurking in the many layers of Nonsun. Alpha's drumming betrays a fascination for post-rock atmospheres that Goatooth's ethereal riffing over the originally heavy main course enhances. This is just one way to describe the alluring musical intimacy that emanates from Nonsun's music on Sun Blind Me.

I like drone. And for you to like Nonsun you have to like drone too, even if this isn't the main piece de resistance of the Ukranian duo's music. This group isn't a drone band in the same sense that Sunn O))) are a drone band. While there are long stretches of unmelodic drones followed by nothing but feedback for minutes on end, the duo presents a style with additional influences from sludge and stoner metal at times, resulting in parts that are essentially like incredibly slow and groaning sludgy doom metal, and this variation results in a less inert and inactive type of drone. Like described above, the entirety of Nonsun's music is not the well-known ambience-influenced droning that many other bands in the scene partake in. Vocals are a seldomly occuring thing on Sun Blind Me,but whenever they're there they are executed in a raw style contrasting nicely with the rest of the music.

Sun Blind Me is the second release from Nonsun, an EP of four tracks like the first one, Good Old Evil. However, the first two tracks have been re-used from the old EP, and as such the only new material on Sun Blind Me are the two parts of the Alphomega track, Sunlit Darkness and Upward Blindness. The interesting thing about the 2013 EP is the way it progresses deeper and deeper into drone territory. From the stoned, half-psychedelic Rain Have Mercy we emerge into a more nightmarish soundscape wtih Frogotten Is What Never Was, a track with funeral tones fit for a crypt or funerary procession. With the first part of Alphomega we descend into yet darker domains, bordering on dark ambient. The second part is the most droney part of the EP, the dark rumbling of a black hole underneath a cavernous guitar being the main foundation for the track before being substituted by a bleak guitar piece which rings out for the duration of the track. Upward Blindness is also the shortest track on the EP being only slighty over 8 minutes in length.

Liking Nonsun and Sun Blind Me took some time. You have to take the time to sit down and listen thoroughly to catch all the details. Sun Blind Me is kind of short for a drone doom release, and I suppose that's why the band classify it as an EP rather than a full length album. I originally felt that continuety was a weak point with Nonsun, but after having listened to the release a few times I came to appreciate the progression that I described earlier. If you're expecting mindnumbing heaviness and cosmic emptiness like in the music of Sunn O))) you will be disappointed, because this is not where Nonsun's strengths lie. The autumnal hymns and tenebrous canticles are a beautiful soundtrack to the fall, and I think fans of Om and Earth should be pleased. 8/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Rain Have Mercy
2. Forgotten Is What Never Was
3. Alphomega (Part 1: Sunlit Darkness)
4. Alphomega (Part 2: Upward Blindness)

Nonsun on Bandcamp
Nonsun on Facebook
Visit the official site of Drowning and download the EP for free
Breathe Plastic Records official site

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Morgue of Saints - Sleep/Death [Full length] (2012, Drowning)

From the vast nature of Canada comes Morgue of Saints, a band created by Elliot C as an output for his own droning, ambient doom tendencies. The album in question here is Sleep/Death, a three track conceptual piece that can potentially bear a rather large number of tags. Other written mediums aswell as Elliot C himself have referred to Morgue of Saints as both minimalistic funeral doom, drone doom, cinematic ambient, experimental noise and avant-garde.

In the strictest sense of the term "avant-garde" it doesn't fit Morgue of Saints. As it says in the liner notes some of the music is heavy influenced by early Earth, and I detect several other inspirations from other drone, funeral and ambient groups. Whatever you want to call it, Morgue of Saints primarily consists of droning guitars and ambient moods. The album contains the tracks "Death" and the two-part epic "Sleep". The two parts of Sleep are split by the lengthy drone track "Death" which is made up of nothing by a single guitar track. The bleak existance in the track so aptly named is underlined well by that sole, desolate guitar, but ultimately the track feels a bit too minimalistic and uneventful to justify being almost 24 minutes in length, and while drone has never been about grandios songwriting I feel at the same time that other bands have done this better in the sense that they still manage to create a feeling or atmosphere that the simplicity of the track emphasizes. One of the key elements in this type of music is depth, and the track "Death" simply isn't deep enough. The single guitar track and lack of any background ambience doesn't build up any tention, feeling, atmosphere or otherwise.
The track "Sleep" was split into two tracks - Sleep I and II - and is by far the most interesting track of the Sleep/Death album. The way the two parts contrast each other and at the same time feel so alike is astounding. Listening to the first part I can see where this "cinematic ambient" term comes from - The desolate mood part I sets for the album is very fitting and could well be featured on a soundtrack for a fitting movie. In the second part Morgue of Saints moves more into traditional funeral doom territory, and Elliot C does this rather well. His compositions on this track has a somewhat abyssal depth that fits so well together with the void-like intro to the album, Sleep I.

I mentioned that Death feels rather shallow. Sleep I and II are more or less the exact opposite in regard to atmosphere, and perharps this is the point of putting Death in between the two parts of Sleep. Starting the album out with the film-like epicness of Sleep I only to disrupt that mood with the simple drones of Death, and then finally returning to the mood set by Sleep I with Sleep II, only in a far more abrassive form. It's a bit far-fetched to be honest, and if this is the case I think the point will be lost to some. When judging the album as a whole I dislike that the middle track disrupts the otherwise great flow and atmosphere the other two tracks create, and I would much rather just listen to those two songs in continuation of each other and cut out Death entirely. 6/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Sleep I
2. Death
3. Sleep II

MORGUE OF SAINTS on Bandcamp - Free download available!
Download also available here

Kon Hex - Magnetic Sun [Full length] (2011, self-released)

Drone, the genre of the masters of patience. If you listen to drone you better be prepared for tracks in excess of 30 or even 40 minutes. To me drone is a genre best suited for background music like ambient, but I find that few bands play drone without any influences from other genres like doom metal, funeral doom metal or even stoner rock. Drone is mostly thought of as a monotonous and boring genre in which the musicians don't require any actual skill, but I disagree.

The Canadian one-man band Kon Hex is a young band with a number of releases up it's sleeve. With the release of the full length "Magnetic Sun" after the full length "Charge V" and the EP "Expanse", Kon Hex has aimed for a standard approach to drone but with a twist of the abovementioned influences from funeral doom metal and ambient. It seems the focus of this solo project has been on atmosphere rather than riffing, as is the case with much drone doom metal.

If you like drone with a twist, check out Kon Hex's material. The Magnetic Sun full length features classic drone with occassional drums, bringing with it a slight dash of funeral doom metal. With a total length of more than an hour there're lots of details to notice and explore in this interstellar journey known only as Kon Hex.

The material on Magnetic Sun, even if it contains only 4 tracks, has a wide range of atmospheres and feelings. From sinister and evil atmospheres like of an ancient grotto or cavernous cathedral to something out of this world, eldritch and lovecraftian. Kon Hex manages to really set the mood, in no small part due to the magnificent intro track that does exactly what an intro should: Set the atmosphere for the rest of the album. The crushingly dark focus of Magnetic Sun is the perfect soundtrack to deep space and is a fantastic example that drone doesn't have to be boring and uneventful. The sluggishly heavy chugging riffs have something utterly alien and intergalactic about them.

Some of the chugging parts of Kon Hex - Magnetic Sun even have hint of Tom Warrior's new band "Triptykon" about it. Magnetic Sun sets an example for drone as a vast, black monolith in a dark and desolate ocean. As proof that drone is easily combined with other similar genre. As an example that drone isn't necessarily monotonous. If you're a fan of Sunn O))), Nortt and Urna this is definitely worth checking out. 7/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Intro
2. The Uncharted Notice
3. In the Seas of Darkness
4. MSun

All Kon Hex releases can be downloaded HERE
Kon Hex - Magnetic Sun is available for free download HERE
Visit the band on their official website