LP Review - "Born a Heavy Morning" by Ice Dragon

Ice Dragon are not just any old psyche/doom/stoner/heavy rock band. Not only are they one of the most prolific I've ever come across with 12 releases since 2010, and that's not including their releases under their alter egos Tentacle, The Mangled Dead and Qosmic Qey amongst others; they are also consistently fucking great and they just keep getting better.

Their Facebook blurb sums them up nicely:

Ice Dragon makes recordings in a basement near Boston, Massachusetts. Works include many albums, singles, and EPs, as well as numerous releases under various other names. New music is issued frequently and spontaneously.

This 12th release under their Ice Dragon moniker lives up to its title of "Born a Heavy Morning" and is some of the most experimental work that I've heard yet from them which makes this album a real mixed bag of sounds. Yes there are heavy riff work-outs with the inimitable Ice Dragon plodding stomps, maudlin words and deep blues guitar lickery but they are few on this album. What stands out for me most of all are the short skits between the main songs some of which serve as nods to my least favorite time of the day; morning.

The track titles on this album are sheer genius so chew on these for a moment if you will: "In Which a Man Rises, Washes and Eats Before Work" or "In Which a Man Daydreams About a Girl From His Youth" and "(I will) Watch My Hair Grow."
  
For the most part the main songs on this album are slow introspective numbers and sometimes they are quite twee, gentle even, much as an early morning in spring with a newly risen sun shining it's lovely rays through the gap in my curtains and informing me it's time to get the hell up out of my bed and start my day. I hit play on my player and this album fits perfectly with my first coffee and toke of the day; this is morning psyche-doom to go with your shit, shower, shave and cereal and it slays the sleepy eyes and shakes you awake enough to face the day ahead. I'd like call it "musical breakfast" so I will, even if it doesn't quite do justice to the fine work these Ice Dragon gentleman have done for us.

One wonders what else Ice Dragon have up their sleeves for their future releases but with the consistently great music spewing forth from these 4 Ice Dragons that dwell within a basement, you just know they are going to hit all the right riffs, all the right notes and all the right skins.

Thank you Ice Dragon for being you.

"Born a Heavy Morning" is out now as a name your own price download from their bandcamp where you can also pre-order the album on CD.

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LP Review - Ingot Eye by Tentacle

I have returned, and thankfully unscathed from my deep explorations of those doomed and sludgy caves carved out by those prolific men of heavy called Ice Dragon; but only just. My sanity is shaken and I fear I shall be forever plagued by nightmares having heard what I have heard and seen what I have seen; and for the second time in less than a year with Ice Dragon's slow and low and dirge filled bottom dwelling alter ego.

What started with "Void Abyss", a sinister portent of a dark chronicle; I had discovered that this black creation had recently been followed by another even more gruesome selection of slithering and slimy songs, or terrible curses to be more exact. And so it was that I chose to once again plumb the depths to discover what these high priests of the low had buried deep within their blackened chamber.

In my explorations of the deep I soon found that I was pursued, hunted if you will, by a sprawling loathsome Tentacle that had me all at once by its suckers and proceeded to fill my mind with unimaginable horrors; horrors that came to me in 4 sinister and black meditations collectively named "Ingot Eye" and each with an odious title and each a sonorous dirge of filth; a veritable drone of hideous vibrations and ominous deathly drums of doom, over which a high priest of the deep chanted incantations to those long forgotten gods of old. Those things which should remain forgotten, buried as they are in some slimy subterranean tomb or in the very deepest depths of some primordial ocean.

The first of these curses was titled, "The Blackness of My Soul Will Be So Great as to Make the Night Weep" and it was a herald to my certain doom where my sanity was shaken to blackened bits. My senses reeled with the stench of sludge that dripped upon me and which was smothered all along the cave like a foul mucous that gripped me and that is when I heard the Tentacle approach me from behind, aided by the tortured screams and howls of the Cthulian high priest. For over 11 minutes I was subjected to a soul devouring terror the likes of which no man should have to witness and expect to be the same man again.

For a brief moment there came the relief of silence only for the high priest to sing a disgusting drawl of tortured madness whilst a slow oozing riff of grimness and pounding deathly rhythms threatened to bring the cave falling down upon me, crushing me with the heavy weight of a curse named "Dull Ache (I hate Myself Today)". All of my worst fears were realised in an instant, all hope was lost as the Tentacle loomed over me and threatened to seize and trap me deep down within the bowls of the earth. Brief was this black lament until again a breath of silence before the third curse was laid upon me.

"(Revenge) Dust for Blood" was spat at me in a crawling mass of sickness for over 12 minutes. The high priest howling, the deep reverberations and the thudding ritual drums gave power to the Tentacle as it slimed its way through the maze of caverns. A lurking fear of grimy muck entered my ears and swilled about my mind, squeezing my brain with a hateful pressure. A ponderous, sickening ode to a deep dwelling beast that should never see the light of day.

Then the final curse of "Our Serpent Mother's Kiss" saw the Tentacle grip me and tighten its foul suckers around my body, crushing me with its filthy sludge, eked on once again by the mad chants of the Cthulian high priest that brought me to a dark meditation. The filthy dirge squirmed on with a pounding of the earth to drive it forward, my sanity shattered then whilst the Tentacle claimed me for its own.

I am forever haunted by my experience, dear reader. I do however urge you to plunge yourself into the depths where the Tentacle resides, so that some of my burden may be shared. That way I shall find comfort in knowing that I am not the only one to be driven insane by the loathsome curling slime of the Tentacle that lies deep below, waiting and dreaming.

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