Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Bandcamp Picks: Mammoth Storm, Have A Nice Life, Ea, Mühr



Mammoth Storm (featuring Draconian's David Arvidsson on bass and vocals) have only been around since the end of 2012, but they're worth keeping an eye on. Rite of Ascension's two tracks take the Dopesmoker aesthetic and spin it into actual (albeit very long) songs. It's too early to start naming the best doom release of the year, but this is definitely an early contender. Let me just listen to it a couple dozen more times to be sure. The EP is available as a "name your price" download.



Have A Nice Life from New England have been around for over a decade and are apparently a cult name in shoegaze circles. On The Unnatural World (their first album since 2008 and second overall), the post-punk/proto-New Wave of Joy Division takes a turn for depressive doom/drone, and is all the better for it. Highly recommended, even if it occasionally sounds like Nadja recorded with a TV on in the background. [$7]



I tried and failed to find out more about Russian (one man?) band Ea, besides the same regurgitated blurb that their music "is based on the sacral texts of ancient civilizations" ...by which I'm assuming they mean the early albums of Paradise Lost and Katatonia. A Etilla takes the velvet-draped doom of the Peaceville catalogue to create a masterfully produced 49 minute epic. Cold and dystopian, but not without heart. [$4.99]



Doom/drone kings Sabazius may have had the final say on the genre, but that's not going to stop bands like Mühr from trying to get a word in edgewise. Messiah seems like it's going into Sleep/Om territory before the meditative bassline dissolves into waves of droning feedback. And it goes back and forth like that for most of its 40 minute duration, so get your vaporizer and a copy of Wizard of Oz cued up. [€5]