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

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

Sabazius - Sympathy For The Devil

Right, no updates for a while 'cause I been busy with Xmas stuff like watching all of Babylon 5 in a row (only got half way through the 2nd season and >1 week of 2 weeks holiday, things not looking good for this mission) and general festivity. Fortunately some of my friends have been less idle over the holiday period. Once again the kindly folks known as Sabazius (i.e. Nev and Steve) have released a free MP3 single for you all to download. This one's a cover of Sympathy For The Devil by the Rolling Stones. I don't know the original so no idea what it's meant to sound like, but I'm guessing it's not 25 minutes of doom! Anyways, message from the band follows:

Merry Christmas from Sabazius!

As a free gift, we offer our cover version of the Rolling Stones classic, 'Sympathy for the Devil', from midnight (UK time) 25th December 2008 as a free download!

The zip file also contains a front cover designed by our good friend Smudge (cheers mate)! Click here to download.

Have a great Christmas, and remember to spare a thought for Satan this time of year!!

So there you have it. Might be a while before I post anything else, lots of Babylon 5 to get through!

192Kbps MP3 via HTTP from Mediafire

Sabazius at Myspace

The Menagerie - Wild Kingdom

The Menagerie were a Brighton based hip-hop collective who now seem to have become somewhat defunct. They released this one album, but never managed to finish off their 2nd though there are 4 tracks from the sessions on their Myspace player. The album features Nick Maxwell on the decks and the lyrical stylings of Dr Syntax and Elemental. They were joined by Koaste shortly after the recording of this album, and he also features on the newer tracks.

I discovered these guys through Elemental after stumbling across his Cup Of Brown Joy video on Youtube. I would also throughly recommend checking out Elemental and Mr Simmonds' album The Gentlemens Club which is available from Rarekind Records in Brighton, or on iTunes if you will stoop to such levels.

Anyways, the music is pretty chilled out and groovy Brighton hip-hop covering a variety of topics. Was listening to it the other day and my housemate wandered in and commented that it was a bit jazzy for me, so take from that what you will.

160Kbps MP3 via HTTP from Mediafire

The Menagerie at Myspace