5/15/2012: sick new aquarius review
brian oakley
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aquarius is my favorite online store. i would count armageddon but i just walk there. check out this sick new review they just gave the new vvltvre 2xlp
VVLTVRE Hang Me (Corleone) 2lp 22.00
Many of you probably remember a strange release from a group called Throne Of Blood, that we reviewed years ago. Beyond the music, the packaging was ridiculous and amazing, a rubberized dvd style case, with evil looking faces and vines and flowers and a unicorn, complete with a glass eye, all molded into the cover, Evil Dead Necronomicon style. At the time we thought no bad could live up to that crazy packaging, but somehow Throne Of Blood did. A furious grinding noise metal juggernaut with wild splattery drumming and shrieked vocals, short sharp bursts of fuzzy, fucked up lo-fi Melt-Banana like noiserock math metal which KILLED. And then to seal the the deal, the second half of the record was just the first half in reverse, which transformed the sound into a tripped out metallic psychedelia. We had often wondered what happened to ToB. And now we now what happened to at least one of them, they ended up in this warped, twisted outfit, a duo called Vvltvre, whose sound we had seen described as sludge/doom, and while much of this is, some of it is way more fucked up and far out, in fact, most of it is. Just check out the opening title track, which spends its first few minutes unfurling some sort of creepy ritual, all tinkling chimes, distant drum pound, weird breathing, seriously demonic vocalizing, the sound growing increasingly more agitated, louder and more caustic, the drums becoming more tribal, the vox weirdly processed, resulting in something that sounds like a way more damaged and demented and blackened version of No Neck / Sunburned Hand / Avarus, until about 7 minutes in, the song explodes into a churning blackbuzz dirge, the black buzz provided by what sounds like an insanely distorted bass, while the tribal drums pound away underneath, think The Body crossed with Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, a sort of blacknoise doom, or a noise rock sludge, when the band lock into these dense looped rhythms, it almost sounds like a Lightning Bolt 45 spinning at 16 rpm. The opening track gradually begins to revert to the opening, like some sort of doom sludge palindrome, the sound getting more abstract, the rhythms more spare, a death march pound, over rumbling crumbling low end, laced with some cool tripped out backwards effects.
The B side follows a similar pattern, beginning with some ritualistic ambience, chanted vox, soft focus chordal shimmer, barely there percussion, then the drums come in, and it remains hauntingly tribal, like some ancient sonic ritual, and then eventually, the track again splinters into some seriously harsh heaviness, reminding us a bit of Monarch for sure, but with a definite Whitehouse vibe, the sort of droned out buzz beneath near hysterically shrieked vox, which again eventually erupt into some pounding noise rock dirgedoom mathiness. The third side mixes things up by foregoing the heaviness completely, and instead offering up a sprawling rhythmscape, all abstract drum pound, gurgling low end, subtly employed effects, lots of dark drones and washed out thrum, a gorgeous bit of meditative abstract ambient doom minimalism, which gives way to the closer, the 15 minute D side, which is all bass drone for the first 6 minutes, super minimal and hushed, before the drums creep in, beneath clouds of cymbal shimmer, the bass growing more distorted, the final few minutes, a strange lurching, stuttering feedback drenched, super dynamic slo-mo math doom that ends WAY too soon.
WAY recommended for fans of Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Khanate, Moss, Bunkur, Gnaw Their Tongues, Monarch, Wicked King Wicker, Wolf Eyes, Otesanek, Habsyll, Human Quena Orchestra and other purveyors of slow, low sonic sickness.
Fantastically packaged in a deluxe gatefold sleeve, with some super striking artwork, while inside lurks a gorgeous handmade 32 page booklet, hand painted and glitter-ed, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. www.aquariusrecords.org
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