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Cult Of Luna’s epic 2008 album ‘Eternal Kingdom’ is one of the most compelling and fascinating concept albums of recent times (with the grand exception of Fall Of Efrafa’s peerless Watership Down trilogy). When the band were scouting for rehearsal space in the run up to recording, they chanced upon the site of a demolished mental hospital. Sifting through the relics leftover from the days of the active institution they discovered the journal of a man named Holger Nilsson, who, far removed from his ‘Everybody’s Talkin’ namesake, was a far more troubled soul. Nilsson was committed to the asylum after murdering his wife by drowning her under the command of a malevolent Owl Demon known as the Näcken.

The album is allegedly drafted entirely from Nilsson’s journals and regardless of the amount of truth behind the story, it makes for a great enticement to familiarize newcomers with the bands epic soundscapes and dense rhythmical patterns.

The lyrics are oblique but enthralling, with tracks such as Ghost Trail drawing the listener into a false sense of security before brutally pummeling them whilst screaming;

‘The king, with beak and talons. The king, in the form of man’ in one of the most beautiful breakdowns this side of Neurosis.

It is with great joy that I recently heard that Cult Of Luna have released a hardback book based on the aforementioned journal, with stunning illustrations by highly talented artist Joris Vanpoucke. The book, entitled ‘Eviga Riket’ is a bi-lingual publication (Swedish/English) and is accompanied by a spoken word CD featuring new material by the band and readings by Anna Guthrie. The first printing sold out almost immediately, but the good news is that a second is currently in production. This promises to be a coffee table must have for any discerning fan.

Keep an eye on Cult Of Luna’s official website for more information HERE

For more of Joris Vanpoucke’s work, click HERE.

Sick Tonight

dan le sac Vs Scroobius Pip | MySpace Music Videos

Wow. As Dan le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip draw to the end of their European tour (promoting new album Logic Of Chance and Scroobius Pip’s new book ‘Poetry In (e)Motion) They present to us, like benevolent viral video gods, a new promo for album opener (and instant live favourite) ‘Sick Tonight’.

Above is the cover of Scroobius Pip’s new collection of illustrated poems, entitled ‘Poetry In (e)motion’. It is released in a week or so by Titan books and you should most definitely all buy yourselves a copy.

It features work by yours truly.

Yes, I can finally announce that I was selected alongside several other artists to have my work represent the words of Mr Pip.

This is a massive honour and I am greatly excited about it all (I haven’t seen the finished product yet!). Many, many thanks to Scroob for deeming my doodles appropriate and worthy enough to include in this collection.

You can pre order the book HERE.

I can’t wait to read the  introduction by Nick Frost as well. ^_^

Screen Based Frivolity.

Get Your Greasy Mitts Stuck In.

An hour of brilliant selections from Movies and Tv, tenuously linked by an internal narrative that will be lost on the rest of the world. Oh well.

Click HERE To Download

Tracklisting Is As Follows:

1: ‘Welcome To Lunar Indistries‘ : Clint Mansell ‘Moon’
2: ‘The Rainstorm‘ : Bernard Herrmann ‘Psycho’
3: ‘Summer Overture‘ : Clint Mansell ‘Requiem For A Dream’
4: ‘Alvin’s Theme‘ : Angelo Badalamenti ‘The Straight Story’
5: ‘Suspiria‘ : Goblin ‘Suspiria’
6: ‘Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles‘ Captain Beefheart ‘The Big Lebowski’
7: ‘I’ll Be Your Man‘ : The Black Keys ‘The Big Come Up / HBO’s Hung’
8: ‘Fast Shadow‘ : Wu Tang Clan ‘Ghost Dog: Way Of The Samurai’
9: ‘Jaan Pechechaan Ho‘ : Mohammed Rafi ‘Ghost World’
10: ‘Tony’s Got Hot Nuts‘ : Faye Richmonde ‘A Dirty Shame’
11: ‘Brand New Key‘ : Melanie ‘Boogie Nights’
12: ‘Only A Woman‘ : Trey Parker ‘Team America World Police’
13: ‘Bad Things‘ : Jace Everett ‘True Blood’
14: ‘Wave Of Mutilation‘ : Pixies ‘Pump Up The Volume’
15: ‘Vessel In Vain‘ : Smog ‘Dead Man’s Shoes’
16: ‘In Dreams‘ : Roy Orbison ‘Blue Velvet’
17: ‘Let It Be‘ : Nick Cave ‘I Am Sam’
18: ‘Chariots Rise‘ : Angelo Badalamenti and Lizzie West ‘Secretary’

I may have missed it by a few minutes by the time this uploads, but I have been running around waiting tables for sullen looking couples all day.

Zombiehamster Mixtape #14 is a special selection of songs that make me think of my Lady P, who this is for. However, there is a distinct possibility that they will appease some of you as well.

Ours is a tale that goes back almost a decade now, and I wouldn’t change a day of it for the world. I haven’t really seen her today and she is working the night shift tonight, so I won’t until about 8am tomorrow. Even so, this is for you Paula, Happy Corporate Love day. ^_^ You are still the only thing that keeps me sane.I love you.x

This has now used up my yearly quota for mentioning my ‘feelings’ in the public domain. Midgets and Boobie Movie reviews resume as normal forthwith.

Click HERE To Download

Tracklisting is as follows.

1: Joe Tex ‘Hold On To What You’ve Got‘
2: Lovage: ‘To Catch A Thief‘
3: Radiohead: ‘I Might Be Wrong‘
4: Elliott Smith : ‘A Fond Farewell‘
5: Portishead: ‘Sour Times‘
6: Julian Plenty: ‘Only If You Run‘
7: Tool: ‘Schism‘
8: Nine Inch Nails: ‘La Mer‘
9: Lou Reed & Antony: ‘Fistful Of Love‘
10: Rufus Wainwright: ‘Chealsea Hotel No2‘
11: Tom Waits: ‘Come On Up To The House‘

Happy Monday Everybody!

Here is a new Mixtape for you all.

Play it LOUD!

Click HERE To Download

Tracklisting is as follows:

1: ‘Jennifer’ : Pig Destroyer (Prowler in the Yard)
2: ‘Cheerleader Corpses’ : Pig Destroyer (Prowler in the Yard)
3: ‘Orange Ball-Peen Hammer’ : Mudhoney (My Brother The Cow)
4: ‘Roadbull’ : Melvins (Stoner Witch)
5: ‘Piss Virus’ : Amen (We Have Come For Your Parents)
6: ‘Waiting For The Turning Point’ : Superjoint Ritual (A Lethal Dose Of American Hatred)
7: ‘I Against I’ : Bad Brains (Banned In DC)
8: ‘L’angoisse du veilleur de nuit d’autoroute les soirs d’alarme à accident’ : Year Of No Light (Nord)
9: ‘Hexagram’ : Deftones (Deftones)
10: ‘Divinations’ : Mastodon (Crack The Skye)
11: ‘Rollin’ And Tumblin’ On Satan’s Rotisserie’ : The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza (Danza II: The Electric Boogalo)
12: ‘Scum’ : Napalm Death (Scum)
13: ‘Bury Your Dead’ : The Haunted
14: ‘Reap What You Sow’ : Converge (Axe To Fall)
15: ‘And You Will Live In Terror’ : Necrophagia (Black Blood Vomitorium)
16: ‘Cut Throat’ : Assjack (Assjack)
17: ‘Behold The Face Of Death’ : Arkangel (Dead Man Walking)
18: ‘Blood And Tears’ : Danzig (Danzig II: Lucifuge)
19: ‘Ghost Trail’ : Cult Of Luna (Eternal Kingdom)
20: ‘Last Caress’ : The Nutley Brass (Misfits Meet The Nutley Brass)

Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip released their new video today; it’s for ‘Get Better‘, which is really bloody good. It’s taken from their upcoming album ‘The Logic Of Chance‘ Lyrically, it is reminiscent of Pip’s early stuff from his ‘No Commercial Breaks’ era, socially aware and intriguing wordplay placed within clever vocal structures. Dan le Sac’s work on this is fabulous, it’s such a subtle little beat that really works its way inside your skull and repeatedly permeates without you realising it. I’m not going to start saying ‘It sound’s like…’ because that’s lazy. It sounds like Dan le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip, and we should be thankful that they are here to provide us with an alternative to the deluge of rubbish that’s currently out there.
DLSVSP are touring this spring, take the opportunity to go and see them if they are anywhere nearby, I know I will be.

As a little bonus here’s the boys doing a wicked Sugababes cover from their last sojourn to Ireland.

Wild Beasts‘ new album ‘Two Dancers‘ is getting a great deal of airtime around these parts, and deservedly so. It is one of the most exciting albums to be released this year. Hallucinatory and somewhat ethereal, howls and shrieks permeate intriguing lyrics. Their approach and execution is something brave and successful, removed briskly from the ‘quirky to be cool’ brigade for maintaining substance over style.
With the new album, developments have occurred since ‘Limbo, Panto’ (another personal favourite) allowing the band to experiment with a more completed sound, whilst maintaining all of the eccentricities that brought them to the initial attention of the astute listener.
Here is ‘All The Kings Men’ taken from the new album, the pagan imagery and occult references still running strong in their videos.

And for good measure, here is earlier track, ‘The Devil’s Crayon’ taken from the aforementioned first album.

Wild Beasts are touring in early 2010 and I strongly recommend that you take the opportunity to go and see them before they transform into an entity of Killers sized proportions.

Wow. That’s kind of something isn’t it? Tom Waits suits being an angry cloud. I wish that the angry cloud that follows me sounded like Tom Waits.

This is taken from the collaborative NASA (North America South America) album ‘Spirit of Apollo‘. What with the recent release of The Black Keys blues / garage rock / hip hop album ‘Blakrok‘, could this be a turning point in hip hop? Does this mean that there might actually be something worth shaking out of the old dying mare?

Who knows?

Who cares?

This is great though, let’s hope that the album holds up as well.

Among those of you reading this, I think it would be fair to estimate that a considerable proportion of you would have sat through the movie or read Richard Adam’s ‘Watership Down’ at some point. Either way, it is not a work that one remembers; it is a work that sears itself deeply into the mind. A heart wrenching assimilation of carnage and hope, of change and peril.

One band who have taken their appreciation of this novel to an unfathomable level, are Fall of Efrafa, who have recently completed their trilogy of albums which are said to ‘re-imagine the mythological and political overtones in the book “Watership Down“’

This is enough to grab the attention of any sane minded human, but when they elaborate on the fact that they do so by; ‘focusing our efforts in forwarding atheist/animal rights ideologies. We write very long epic, heavy, melancholic music, taking influence from post rock, post metal, ambient black metal, hardcore, punk etc.’ That’s the deal clincher right there.

Fall of Efrafa make their music available in two very distinct formats. All of their material is available for free download from their website, or alternately on limited edition vinyl (which can currently fetch prices well into the hundreds on eBay). This open policy towards sharing their music has certainly built them a loyal and determined assembly of followers. Once the albums are heard, standalone or in succession, it’s abundantly clear why.

In regards to the central motivation behind the work, the band has this to say:

‘As a band we encourage people to talk more openly about animal rights and strive for a future in which humanity ceases to be dependent on the exploitation and slaughter of non human animals. It is easy to label this as preaching or arrogance, but communication is how we learn. Debating such issues only helps us become more aware of our actions, be that for political and social change or an end to religious oppression.’

Musically, their amalgamation of styles serves to separate them from the majority of their peers, transcending through several genres often in the space of one track. Their socio political stance bleeds through each individual lyric with a sincere and guttural resonance.  If I was a particularly pretentious writer, I would begin throwing words such as ‘soundscapes’ and ‘depth’, but I’m not so I’ll keep it simple. Fall of Efrafa are fast, heavy and commanding. The albums draw you down an unfamiliar street and then proceed to beat the crap out of you and leave you shaken and in a state of disbelief. Multiple listens only serve to accentuate the magnificence of this band’s achievement.

Sadly, they are soon to be no more, as the band play their farewell gig on Dec 5^th at the Westhill Hall, Brighton. I have a strong feeling that just as their inspiration lingers and affects, their music will do something similar. It’s not always pretty, but something keeps sending you back.

‘Pity The Weak‘

For more information you can visit their website here: http://www.fallofefrafa.com where, as aforementioned, their albums are all available for legitimate free download. If you choose to acquaint yourself with this band, it will be a decision that will reward you in droves.

‘A Soul To Bear’