Hesper Payne - Titans Of The Northsea

This EP comes from the mighty Hesper Payne of Newcastle. Proper heavy stuff, nice bit of doom mixed with some death metal, sludge and all sorts. Seems they've had some struggles along the way, but this EP is freakin' awesome. Go download it now, and indeed buy a copy off them if you like it. Apparently they have another EP/demo that was available for download at some point but I really can't find it on their Myspace page. Ah well...

192Kbps MP3 via HTTP from Rapidshare.com

Hesper Payne at Myspace

Greg(o)rian - Dormancy Of Our Omniscient Masters

Greg(o)rian are an experimental doom band from London/Essex. They describe the album as "Gregorian’s debut full length, 43 minutes of Lo-Fi, atmospheric, sludge drone doom, influenced by My Dying Bride, Jesu, Sleep, and Sunn O)))." I'd say that's probably about right. The album's kinda post-rocky sounding, in that the guitars aren't ridiculously heavy all the time and there's a whole slow buildup vibe going on. The vocals remind me of Godflesh 'cause they sound kind of like a pissed bloke shouting at you down an echoey corridor, which I quite like. Anyways, it's free so go download it!

VBR MP3 (roughly 128Kbps) via HTTP from Mediafire

Greg(o)rian at Myspace

Moloch - Demo

Moloch are an awesome sludgecore band from Nottingham. Not a lot of info on their Myspazz, but they're fuckin' awesome! Got their EP on 10" which is very nice and shiny (also available on CD, see their myspazz) and also an awesome baseball shirt. Nice guys! Also they're playing at the Hobgoblin in Brighton on the 22nd June. Go check them out, I will sure as hell be there!

MP3 @ 256Kbps via HTTP from Rapidshare.com

Moloch at Myspace

Sabazius - Devotional Songs

Second album from my bandmates in Funeral Hag, Steve and Nev of Sabazius. This is some more proper doom, four tracks totalling 2:32:32 of grinding heaviness and lightswitch solos. Yes that's right, apparently this album features the sound of Nev's lightswitch. Think I'm listening to that bit right now. Of course, two of the tracks are intro and outro so really it's 2 massively long doom tracks! I wouldn't suggest listening to Sabazius if you're feeling impatient as they take quite a while to get going... well if you ever consider doom to have got going. I guess the fact that it doesn't is kinda the point!

Anyways, go download it doom fans.

VBR (approx 192Kbps) MP3 via HTTP from Mediafire Part 1
VBR (approx 192Kbps) MP3 via HTTP from Mediafire Part 2
VBR (approx 192Kbps) MP3 via HTTP from Rapidshare

Sabazius at Mypsace

Elemental Vs. Digital Midgets Mixtape

Elemental's having an album launch party at The Hope tonight for his new album with Tom Caruana, Rebel Without Applause, which you can buy from the Tea Sea Records website store for the bargain price of £8.50 within the UK. The album features 18 tracks, a bonus track and high quality copy of the infamous Cup Of Brown Joy video. Either come along to the Hope to see what all the fuss is about tonight from 8, or go buy the album from Tea Sea, 'cause it's awesome. I can't stop listening to it!

Anyways, in celebration of Elemental and TC's album launch party thing, I'm going to post a nice free Elemental mixtape he did with Digital Midgets. The mixtape features loads of Elemental tracks, some solo, some with The Menagerie, some of TCs stuff and some other Brighton hip-hop artists. Please excuse the dodgy artwork, it didn't have any so I made some myself. Check it out!

160Kbps MP3 via HTTP from Mediafire

Elemental at Myspace
Tom Caruana at Myspace
Elemental official website
Tea Sea Records official website

Talbot - Tundra EP

Here's some nice Estonian doom from Talbot, a two piece drone/sludge band. Apparently they've been going since 2003, though I first stumbled accross them the other day. Their Tundra EP is available for free download from their website. They have an interesting take on the doom genre, with a bass heavy sound that's vaguely reminiscent of industrial doom, but with a more organic beat provided by live drums instead of drum machines. The vocals are an interesting mix of more melodic stoner metal lines with some traditional doom screaming thrown in for good measure. The EP is also seeing a re-release on Consouling Sounds as a limited run of 100 CD-Rs, featuring two bonus remixes not featured on the downloadable version which can currently be listened to on their Myspace.

VBR MP3 via HTTP from talbot-music.com

Talbot at Myspace
Talbot Official website

A Horse Called War - We Ain't Proud Of This

I don't know a lot about A Horse Called War other than that their music is pretty good and several members of the band like Warhammer 40,000. Originally came to my attention because they were supposed to be playing at the Hobgoblin in Brighton last Saturday. Unfortunately they couldn't make the show due to work commitments and transport problems, but I'm hoping they'll make it to Brighton sometime soon.

Anyways, their sound is very reminiscent of Iron Monkey, with lots of feedback, slow, downtuned, sludgy guitars and screechy screamed vocals over the top. They've recorded a demo, which I am posting here, and an EP, which you can buy from their Myspazz. One of the tracks from the EP is on the Myspazz player but I can't comment on the rest as I only just ordered the CD.

Anyways, I'd thoroughly recommend you download their demo. There's a link on their Myspazz or just click the one below!

128 Kbps MP3 via HTTP from Tiscali
A Horse Called War at Myspace

Goretorture - Cannibal Commando

Don't really know a lot about Goretorture, and can't even remember where I first heard them! Think I downloaded a torrent of their album from Demonoid.com back in 2004 or 2005, probably on the basis of the name alone. Whatever happened, I was certainly not disappointed!

The first of the Arnie tribute bands to come to my attention (though I think Arnocorps started first, but then they wouldn't call themselves an Arnie tribute band), Goretorture are definitely the heaviest. Whilst they lack the comedy and groove aspects of Arnocorps, they more than make up for it in sheer aggression and heaviness. Their in your face grindcore sound shits all over As I Gay Crying vocalist Tim Lambesis' Austrian Death Machine, despite the much cheaper production and lack of fancy cartoon-drawn artwork and merchandise. And best of all, they have some free music for me to post on my blog for you all to download (assuming anyone's actually out there reading this after I've not updated for like a whole month).

There are a load of tracks available from www.mikseri.net/goretorture including four tracks from 2004's Promised To Kill You Last... I Lied, their debut album and I think the only on you can actually buy (see info on the page for details), 2005's Cannibal Commando demo and a collection of unreleased tracks that weren't on either release. Too many tracks to link individually, so I'll let you go look for yourself. However, I did find a Rapidshare mirror for Cannibal Commando (192Kbps instead of 160 and also seems to have two of the unreleased tracks, Asshole and Sluts, in the .RAR) so a link for that will follow. Enjoy the Arnie-grindcore action!

192 Kbps MP3 via HTTP from Rapidshare.com
Individual Tracks at 160Kbps via HTTP from Mikseri.net

Goretorture at Myspace

Blood Island Raiders - 16-17 (Demo)

Some more vikingy stonery doominess today from the Blood Island Raiders! The Raiders are a London based metal band who play an interesting mix of stoner rock and viking metal. They first came to my attention due to their close relationship with Crowning Glory, who I have been following with interest having seen them supporting Orange Goblin a few years ago. They've done an EP, an album and a split EP all of which are available from this page of their website, and all of which are thoroughly worth getting your hands on. When I bought their EP from Amazon, it turned out the seller I'd selected was actually the band themselves so I got a load of stickers and stuff with it.

Today's offering is their demo from 2002, 1617. It's available from the sounds page of their website as individual tracks, unfortunately only at 112Kbps but at least it's tagged! I tried to upload a .rar file of my tagged and sorted copy with album art, but for some reason Rapidshare didn't like my password. So links to the individual tracks again like last time!

112Kbps MP3 via HTTP from bloodislandraiders.com
1. Arguments For The Abolition Of God
2. Circa 3
3. Demon
4. Closure

Blood Island Raiders at Myspace
Blood Island Raiders Official Site
Blood Island Raiders Facebook fan page

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