Ufomammut - Godlike Snake

I haven't posted any metal for a while, so here is some uber-heaviness. Ufomammut are an Italian 3 piece, augmented live and on record by tapes of theremin, synth drones and movie samples. They specialise in a kind of pounding psychedelic stoner sludge, which is most effective live. I would say they were the second best live act I saw last year - a close second behind The Master Musicians Of Bukkake. They achieve their superb effect with repetition, tightness and dynamics, as well as the aforementioned atmospherics; but they also have a mean guitar sound - ultra heavy and bludgeoning. Their grasp of dynamics is becoming more consummate with every album, as far as I can tell: the last album 'Eve' is basically a suite of tracks that don't deviate a great deal from the main blueprint, but it works fantastically as a whole, and is thoroughly recommended. This one is their debut from 2000, and is out of print - it's a good place to start, and a brilliant slab of mammoth spaced-out sludge groove.

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EDIT: Ufomammut are playing in London on Thursday October 6th - the Purple Turtle in Camden. I highly recommend this gig if you like all things heavy and psychedelic!

Phantomsmasher - Phantomsmasher

Phantomsmasher is the pet project of avant guitar master James Plotkin, who has collaborated with a large and fine array of weird-beard musicians, including harrowing mega-doom merchants Khanate. This album couldn't be further from Khanate's crawling, crushing music: it's often hyper fast, with the beats ranging from metallic blast beats to splattercore drum & bass style, played by grind master extrodinaire Dave Witte. It's severely ADHD, manic and brilliant. Smeared across the top are harshly edited and scratched vocal loops, and Plotkin's spangly clanging guitar and bass - often heavily processed, playing queasily grating riffs, and chords that tremble like metal pylons in an electrical storm. It's pretty harsh, and totally unhinged, but is great fun. Plotkin's level of invention on his instruments, and the crazy range of noises and brilliant editing keep up the interest, although the music can be challenging.

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Salaryman - Salaryman

1996 album on City Slang by this bunch of geeky-appearing bods (I saw them live), that seems to have disappeared into a historical crack. Sumptuous psychedelic grooves abound, with a plethora of overdriven synth lines and a heavy, over-arching sci-fi ambience. Live drums are the driving force, with a backdrop of whispered speech loops, but the trippy looped synths are the stars - pulsating blips and burbles alongside moody throbbing tremelo waves. A live band feel adds a sense of urgency to the sci-fi paranioa soundscapes, and indeed they were pretty good live. It's all good, but closer 'Hummous' is a highlight, with its squalling harmonics and heavy drone dirge; bettered only by the magnificent 'Voids And Superclusters', which lives up to its stellar title: a swirling black hole of churning synths, that has an almost Electric-Wizard-heavy moment as the pounding bass kicks in to glorious, stomping effect.

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Bardo Pond - Set And Setting

I love Bardo Pond - a fuzz/drone/psych/space ensemble, heavy on the bongtastic distortion and wasted atmospherics. Their particular formula is a lush, sludgy, hedonistic sounding one that especially appeals to me. Isobel Sollenberger's drawled vocals aren't too dissimilar to Kim Gordon's, and perfectly fit the super-loose, bluesy psych-fuzz riffs. First track, the 11 minute 'Walking Stick Man' sets the tone in wonderful fashion: a swaying groove churns along, with perfectly damaged vocals, and a wall of glorious fuzz, helped along by Sabbathy harmonica: it's a woozy worshipful hymn to the power of distortion and the guitar. Actually, the whole album is. 'This Time, So Fucked' steps it up a notch, with some wailing wah fighting off feedback. There is a bit of variation - the disembodied and detached 'Datura' is on the verge of descending into shaking-eyed psychosis, and is following by the chugging and thunderous rock out of 'Again', before the 9+ minute 'Crawl Away' returns to the meandering, head nodding fuzz waves. If you like this, check out 'Peri' and 'Amanita', although all their albums I've heard are pretty good.

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Korea Soundblaster - Korea Soundblaster

From 2003, this album is a wild blast of completely acid-drenched mayhem. It's a full-on, saturated melting pot of metal riffs, deranged warbling vocal samples, bombastic organ, stumbling drums, outrageous dub echo and distorted noise. Not to mention the OTT moog-style burblings, atonal guitar leads, screams, bleeps and unidentified scary noises. All this is mashed together with little regard for niceties such as song structure or pleasing melodies, but it's such good fun to listen to that these absences are irrelevant. The songs tend to fade into each other, making this one long, crazed assault on your senses.
Thanks to Dimitri for this one.

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Terminal Cheesecake - Pearlesque Kings Of The Jewmost

Another slagheap of monolithic pounding industrial sludge dub, from 1992. Relentless bass, tons of reverb, drug references aplenty and some terrific samples - the usual excellent concoction. 'Satan Is Real' calls to mind Butthole Surfers, as does a lot of the album, which is of course a very good thing - with a blasting drum machine, and manic samples "I've got The craziest feeling all over my body" and "Satan!" hammering away at your senses, with some great grinding guitar that punctuates most of the album. 'Drug' is a superb psych-dub monster, smeared with delayed vocals and some space rock keyboards. It's all pretty great, really - there are some choice spoken word recordings from British TV news reports about various freakery, which only adds to the whole fucked up sense of abandon and joyous noise.
A shame that they can't reform for a few live shows, when there are so many unremarkable bands doing it these days.

Mediefire

Terminal Cheesecake - Gateau D'Espace

1992 EP of psychedelic industrial dub. A blend of pounding bass and drums, with heavily echoed shouty vocals, some grinding noisy bits, and primitive samples and loops forming a sludgy mass. Primitive is a great word for this band, as is monolithic. There is a kind of bloody mindedness that propels these cavernous grooves. I wish I'd seen this mob live, but I was too busy getting into techno at the time. I'm sure they would have been bowel-quakingly intense. Track titles give you a clue to their influences: 'Oily Bud', 'Herbal Alien Flavour', 'Extra Oily'. If you think they are heading into weed-nerd territory, they reveal the lack of seriousness with 'Blatant Drug Reference' and it's sampled chant of 'Marijuana'. Although they began as more of a noise rock band, I thought they really hit on a good formula with this relentless dub weirdness.
Excellent cover art is by Jim Sawers, who used to work at Tower Records when I did, in a different department. A top bloke - he's actually responsible for me owning the Bill Laswell album I posted a while back, too.

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Electric Wizard - Come My Fanatics

Time for some more metal, and who better to represent the genre than one of the heaviest bands in existence? Come My Fanatics is a monumental slab. If you like the sound of heavy guitars, you need to listen to this. Why upload Come My Fanatics, when Dopethrone is one of the heaviest albums ever? Because you should go here and buy it, that's why. Also recommended, the self-titled debut and Witchcult Today: all brilliant. And if you have the oppurtunity to see them live - do it. It's a near-religious experience.

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