Argus - Demo 2007

This is a bloody brilliant demo that I discovered amongst the jewels in the Doom Metal Demo Pack torrent that I downloaded a while ago because it featured my good friends Sabazius'
Terror Is They Name. There's some really great stuff in there, including demos from Grand Magus (a personal favourite amongst the stoner/doom genre) and the mighty Sleep. Not entirely sure of the legal situation for this torrent however, though I know that Sabazius at least were willing participants. As far as I know you can't actually buy most of these demos, and many of them are available for free from the bands themselves, as is the case with today's offering from Argus!

Argus, of Franklin, Pennsylvania (which seems to be a rather doomy state at the moment!) mix elements of doom, stoner, sludgecore, traditional and viking/battle metal to produce an upbeat but still heavy and somewhat melancholy fusion of the slower metal genres. Of course there's plenty of higher-tempo chugging in that traditional-metal galloping style, but lots of slow, groovy riffs as well. The vocals are melodic, often harmonised and quite viking metally, a-la Grand Magus. If you're into stoner or doom, and particularly if you liked the Electric Horsemen EP I posted here last week then I highly recommend you download this demo right now!

The tracks are available individually from this page of Bland Hand Records' site at 320Kbps, unfortunately untagged and without track related filenames. I'll link to the individual tracks by name in case that makes it easier for you to download and sort them.

320Kbps Mp3 via HTTP from Bland Hand Records
1. Beyond (Part 1 - Eternity)
2. The Damnation Of John Faustus
3. Bending Time
4. Sleeping Dogs
5. The Effigy Is Real

Argus at Myspace

Sabazius/Dröne Split EP

Got some more awesome doom for you today, once again from my mates Nev and Steve of Sabazius (hopefully soon to be my bandmates in Funeral Hag, if things work out well at practice on Saturday). Today's offering is their newly released split EP with Dröne from Aberdeen, Scotland, available on Black Winter Recordings.

This split has been in the works for a long while and there has been a 3 minute clip of Torah, the Sabazius track featured here, on Sabazius' Myspace player for quite some time! A nice preview, but not a patch on the full 22:24 glory of the whole track. More slow and heavy riffage with Steve reading some mystical religious texts with loads of reverb. Eeeexcellent. I must confess the Dröne tracks, Far Beyond The Night and Methodone, aren't exactly my kinda thing, but I did manage to listen to both of them the whole way through. Some nice sounds, pretty mellow, and does what it says on the tin - i.e. is nice and droney.

VBR192/128Kbps MP3 via HTTP from Archive.org

Sabazius at Myspace
Dröne at Myspace
Black Winter Recordings at Myspace
Black Winter Recordings Official Site

Dr. Zilog - Malevolent Necropolis

Right, today's offering is something rather strange. Spotted the .torrent on Demonoid and was so intrigued by the name alone that I had to download it! This is some pretty awesome chiptune stuff, but in a metal style. That's right, metal tunes but played on an NES style synth. The sounds themselves are pretty traditional 8-bit fare, but the songwriting is amazing. There's some pretty complicated stuff going on here. If this was played on guitars instead of synths it would probably be one of the most awesome metal bands ever! The following description is from Dr. Z's myspace page:

Out from the sound processor of a mutated Nintendo Entertainment System comes Dr. Zilog, part machine, part transient thought. His esoteric frequency patterns and decibal rates enter the auditory canal fabricating the euphoric illusion of music.

So there you have it. Check this out right now!

256Kbps MP3 via HTTP from Mediafire
256Kbps MP3 via BitTorrent from Demonoid.com

Dr. Zilog at Myspace

Bombadeal (The Green Man) - Songs From The Wood

Time for something a little bit different! Some Brighton hip-hop with a twist; the beats are made up from sampled folk music. Discovered in my wanderings through the tangled webs that make up the internets, on the recommendation of a certain Professor Elemental, whose work I have very much enjoyed, I decided to check out the works of Tom Caruana, the man behind the beats for The Menagerie (see 19th December post). It seems his works are quite prolific, and you can find more of them on his website Tea Sea Records (see what he's done there? Clever eh). Haven't listened to much of it yet as there is much there! However, I am very much enjoying Bombadeal and the Green Men of the Mythical Forest and recommend everyone to go download it and listen in! The description from Tea Sea Records website follows:

Tom Bombadeal was conceived in 2004 while I lived in Forest Row. I started work producing new tracks sampling folk music and rapping as the merry fellow that is Bombadeal.

The story is set in a mythical land where Bombadeal and his friends live in a woodland village. All is good for the villagers until they hear word that their village has been targeted for a violent rampage for the precious crystals that lie beneath the village.

In the run up to releasing the album I have put out 'Songs From The Wood' which is free to download!!!!
It's a collection of bits n bobs I've done since 2004.

The main album has all been made in the last 2 years and features Tom Caruana as Tom Bombadeal, Sadie Jemmmett as Goldberry, Flake Brown as the Scene Setter, Longusto as Longfellow the Blacksmith, Vecks as Jack Lumber, Elemental as Papa-Quar, Dizraeli as Goo, See as Agur The Seer, Baba Brinkman, Joncept, Mole (character names unknown).

192Kbps MP3 via HTTP from Tea Sea Records

Bombadeal and the Green Men of the Mythical Forest at Myspace

Electric Horsemen - EP

Been a while since my last update, so here's a particularly good one for ya! Electric Horsemen are a sludge/stoner/doom band from Lancaster County, Philadelphia in the US. This is some seriously awesome heavy shit! Heavy, crunching guitars with some nice guitar ornamentation that is reminiscent of Cathedral in their more stoner days. Vocals range from High On Fire/Crowbar style semi-melodic through to full on Iron Monkey screaming. This EP was given away on their Myspace page. Check it the fuck out, this is some crushingly heavy yet mightily groovy shit!

~192Kbps M4a via HTTP from Megaupload

Electric Horsemen at Myspace