Quick Hit: ATRAGON - "I, NECROMANCER."

Yesterday's post was from the far south reaches of the UK in Bournemouth. Today we fly with the raven due north for over 400 miles, shedding the robe of grunge garage fuzz along the way in order to don a cloak of dingy, heavy, black molasses soaked doom, alighting in Edinburgh, Scotland where the smoldering heat of Atragon envelope us in thick elixirs of darkness and portent.

The sophomore album from this Scottish quartet is quite simply massive. It's ambitious and fearless, delving deeply into murky and primal psychic veins of ebon metal ore. It's an all enveloping assault on the psyche of devotees of doom, borne of the dark sonic distortions of amplified axes and black batteries of bass drum, the jagged, frenetic chanting of shadow art practitioners, and the evil genius of psychic melody makers deeply entrenched into oily, obsidian enchantments.

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Band Submission: The Nebulosity-Progressive/Psychedelic Space Metal From Scotland

Band Name: The Nebulosity
Genre: Progressive/Psychedelic Space Metal
Location: Scotland
Brief Bio/Description: We are the Nebulosity, a four-piece from Falkirk in Central Scotland. We aim to create fresh, heavy and fun music. We were first formed in 2012 and we have been trying to do something different ever since we started.

We like to describe our debut album "c" as "an exploration into the cyclical nature of the world we live in and experience everyday and the ones we live in but don’t”.

We recieved a review from The Metal Review and they described one of our tracks as follows: "There’s one epic track called Rain, in it’s entirety, all 11.53 minutes of it has no flat-spots, crammed with riffs, hooklines, tempo changes and excellent vocal ranges to complement the whole package. The track actually makes me think of what would happen if Rush teamed up with Trouble and Crowbar. There really is a lot of creative flow happening, you have to hear it to believe it."

Band Members:
Alex Urbanczyk - Bass;
Adam Hammond - Drums, Vocals;
Adam Dunbar - Guitar, Vocals;
Alan Costello - Guitar, Vocals
Links: Facebook | Soundcloud | Bandcamp | Twitter | YouTube

EP Review - ".​.​.​And Bear Witness To The Colossus​.​.​." by Winters.

 "…And Bear Witness To The Colossus…" retells the story of the 1969 moon landing in an alternate universe and ends with the demise of all humankind. It has space travel, religion, death, destruction. Thematically, it's everything you could want from an aggressive band aside from nautical."

Winters could be classed as a mix of Hardcore, post-Metal and Sludge and what these 5 Scots have produced with their debut EP is some seriously heavy, noisy and downright pulverising forms of those 3 genres. The subject matter is very interesting indeed and a quote from their Bandcamp states Winters are "Born from ideas and concepts over months and years" with those ideas and concepts being drawn from various musical styles, film, television, history, comics, games and anything else that manages to bleed into their songs. 

The 3 tracks on this brilliant EP are right in your face making it impossible not to sit up and take notice. The barrage of noise is beautifully relentless, reminding me of some of the work from the likes of Black Sheep Wall; the guitars and bass being tuned low, razor edged double kick drums where appropriate, passionately growled HC style vocals all played at a hectic pace with section changes so quick that if your ears could blink you would miss them. I was quite simply enthralled by the experience of hearing this EP and I came away feeling amped up, full of energy and determination, exactly how these 3 songs are played.

As much as I love ultra heavy and super slow doom and sludge, I find it refreshing to come across a band like Winters that stick to a mostly Hardcore sound but add huge weight to the songs they have crafted. If you like fast paced Hardcore with elements of post-Metal with a hint of Sludge then Winters is where it's at.

Grab their EP now from their Bandcamp where it's available as a "name your own price" download. 

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LP Review - The Inner Sanctum by The Cosmic Dead

Having previously been reviewed on Heavy Planet back in 2011 as a "New Band To Burn One To" for their self titled album, there was no way I was going to let The Cosmic Dead's latest psychedelic beast "Inner Sanctum" slip through our fingers.

Born in the tough, cold city of Glasgow, Scotland, UK; The Cosmic Dead drop an album of 4 masterful psychedelic jams reminiscent of the best hypnotic wig-outs of the legendary Hawkwind and the likes of Neu and Amon Düül II. The Cosmic Dead play a mix of heavy psychedelic spacerock, Krautrock and experimental audio trips in a unique way that only a British psych band can do. I put this down to the particularly ancient and potent strain of Psilocybe Semilanceata that can be found growing in abundance on the fields and mountains of the UK and The Cosmic Dead's trance inducing mind transferals are a perfect soundtrack to the shamanic ritual partakings traditional to certain tribes of this land during the autumn/fall months. Whilst listening to this album I was flashed back to the last shroom season here and wished I had chosen to listen to The Cosmic Dead when I was lying horizontal on my couch, staring at a kaleidoscopic multi-colored and rippling ceiling, wide eyed and dribbling down my chin as I journeyed to the subconscious realms of weirdness. I certainly won't be forgetting The Cosmic Dead during this years shroom season.

The album takes off with "Gustav Björnstrand" which is an ode to a rather obscure Swedish physicist from what I can tell and of whom I can find very little information other than that he doesn't watch TV or read newspapers and believes we are currently living in an Orwellian nightmare. I can't argue with that and I join him in his rejection of main stream news and entertainment. I haven't owned a TV in years and have a great loathing for the British tabloids in particular. But I digress...the opening of this track does not start with a long introspective ambient space-out as one would expect from a band like The Cosmic Dead, but instead launches straight into a thick psychedelic jam with a hypnotic bass line and drifting trippy guitars and tight drumming that drives the track along on it's journey into the inner realms. After a few minutes there is an echoed voice of some narrative by an unknown maverick of the mind. Is this Gustav Björnstrand speaking? I'd like to know what's being said. The track evolves and builds as it drifts with easy style along the space highway sending shards of bright purple and yellow to twist and splinter my mind in its wake. The psyche-out continues to build throughout until our first destination is reached and we are firmly set within the mind expanded dimensions laid out by these sonic psychonauts from Scotland.

The journey then continues as we move ever further into psychotropic frequencies with "The Mass of Betelguese" and a quiet rising up the spine of pure psychedelic energy that then fills the space between your ears with a soothing massage of floaty guitar effects and laid back bass riffs and sparse percussion. This blissful drifting of meditative sound builds to illuminating crescendos and gently tripping drops of hallucinations for over 20 minutes in dazzlingly beautified and colourful spacerock played at it's very best. Your mind is wrenched open and in pours a myriad of visions the likes of which can only be experienced with huge doses of hallucinogens or 25 years of dedicated yogic practice while living in a tree dressed only in a loin cloth. The track ends with with an ecstatic breakthrough to even further in/out dimensions that The Cosmic Dead travelled to in this albums opener.

In the third stage of our grand mind trip with The Cosmic Dead we enter the "Inner Sanctum" and another 20 minute mind bender of trance inducing vibrations in the form of simple rhythms, all encompassing swathes of spacey guitars and hypnotic bass jamming building slowly but very surely towards a wild eyed and flailing arms freak out as the pace of the track builds leaving a throng of long haired and half naked space cadets writhing around in ecstatic bliss within a vast hazy meadow of many coloured flowers under a multi-bejeweled and deep purple night's sky.

The Cosmic Dead end their 4 stanzas of psychedelic instrumental poetry with "Hello, SATAN" which takes us into the darker occult realms but here does not lie evil and horror even though this track is as doomy as The Cosmic Dead go on this album. Dear reader, I know you do not come here for lessons on occult symbolism but I feel it is worth mentioning briefly that Satan is not necessarily the harbinger of spiritual destruction and the king of the fiery pits as so belovedly believed by those of the christian faith. Indeed, Satan could be understood on one level to symbolise the masculine generative force of nature, a modern form of the horny goat legged Pan and in Tarot lore the Phallus as the lingham to the yoni or the 1 to compliment the 0. This I feel is where The Cosmic Dead are going with this reference to Satan but I may be over presumptuous in my interpretation of the track. Nevertheless the initial doomyness of this track, which to me sounds more humbly somber than doomy; is left behind 6 minutes in to enter another psychedelic void of wonder and colourful waves of glowing visions but the solemnity is not broken throughout this journey from the darkness so beautiful. The spirit is raised up as the sounds evolve as a twisting and twirling mass of emotions bring one to higher levels of understanding beyond the sticks and stones of the mundane universe. It is not all sweetness and light within or without, but a balance of positive and negative, the ying and the yang, + and -, Α and Ω, as above so below.

To put it simply, this album shows that The Cosmic Dead are truly the one of the best heavy psych bands in the UK, if not this entire rock we call planet Earth that floats through space. They are currently in the last half of their current European tour so if they happen to be playing near you then go and see them, loaded up with a huge dose of the hallucinogen of your choice of course but if for whatever reason you can't make it then go buy their album now released by Evil Hoodoo on a limited edition pea green cassette in a handmade cotton sleeve. Very tasty.

FACEBOOK  // BANDCAMP // EVIL HOODOO

New Band To Burn One To: MONSTRONAUT

HEAVY PLANET presents...MONSTRONAUT!

BAND BIO:

Formed in 2010 from the remnants of several highly acclaimed Scottish bands ( Ludovico, Dirty Angels, The Common Empire) Monstronaut have quickly realised their vision of producing thunderous, life affirming hard rock. Taking inspiration from the very first, late 60’s British metal and their American stoner rock descendants, Monstronaut are providing a groove laden, modern take on the original hard rock blue print.

A highly succesful gig calendar in 2011-12, culminating in both their debut London show and a headline performance at the annual Bledgefest festival, in which Monstronaut stole the show has confirmed their potential as standard bearers of British rock. With the hunger and dedication that these guys have shown time and again after the all too familiar hard luck stories of years gone by, no one that has seen them would bet against Monstronaut making a big impact this year!

Having already garnered a hardcore, dedicated following in the Dumfries and Glasgow scenes, as well as the small festival circuit, the future is nothing but bright for this exciting group. The recording of the In The Beginning….EP began in early 2012 at Lovers Lane studios in Dumfries with Grant Henderson at the helm and finished sporadically throughout the year at the University of Paisley with Dave Miller behind the desk. With Mike D himself taking on the mixing and post production duties the band have found themselves with a ferocious reproduction of their incendiary live shows. The 5 songs on show here are without doubt the most

immediate in the groups repertoire and will doubtless leave everyone who hears it marking their diaries for In The Beginning….part 2, due in the summer of 2013.

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THOUGHTS:

"Monstronaut is a ferocious new Stoner Metal monster hailing from Scotland. The band hits the nail on the head with catchy yet heavy tracks guaranteed to have you bashing and bobbing your head in no time. The songs on their latest EP "In the Beginning" are filled with powerful riffs, clean vocal prowess and slick production. Influences of NWOBHM is evidenced throughout the EP which adds a magnetic flair and thunder to the well-written tunes heard within. These guys undoubtedly rock! Check them out!"

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New Band To Burn One To: HEADLESS KROSS

HEADLESS KROSS are today's "NEW BAND TO BURN ONE TO".

Bio:

Headless Kross are a heavy rock /doom metal 3 piece formed in early 2011 in Glasgow, Scotland. They have recently released their debut album, "Bear" as a "pay what you like" download and encourage the free sharing of the album across the planet. Members have been involved in the underground music scene for over 15 years playing in bands such as Ultimo Dragon, Atomgevitter, The Process and many others.

"Bulldozing their way through epic hunks of sludge, Glasgow, Scotland's one and only Headless Kross will bury you under a monster pile of doom. Pooling together a perpetual blend of crunchy and majestic guitar buzz, uber-heavy power chords, and moments of insanity, Headless Kross's colossal sound will leave you beaten and bruised. Check out their latest CD "Bear" streaming below."

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