Beast in the Field, World Ending (2010)

The greatest mistake Michigan’s Beast in the Field ever made was not having their slogan as ‘WE’RE BEAST IN THE FIELD. FUCK YOU.’ for the entirety of their career. Talk about a band on whom the entire planet basically whiffed. These guys should have been huge, should have been on whatever the last good-ass tour you saw was, should have had internet dinguses like me eating out the the palm of their hand. Instead, what’ve we got? Five albums, a split, a live record and the wind that still carries outward from that big swing and a miss on the part of everyone who should have appreciated what these two dudes were doing. We’re all complicit. Don’t try to deny it.

Beast in the Field was formed in Mount Pleasant/Midland, MI, in 2007. Guitarist Jordan Pries and drummer Jamie Jahr had played together in a band called And the Sky Went Red, and as bands like Black Cobra were at the time demonstrating just how much devastation a two-piece could really wreak, I guess they figured they had all they needed with the two of them. That would turn out to be largely true. They made their debut with 2007’s Goat Isle Seance and followed it with Lechuguilla in 2009, forming their approach around and increasing density of tone and blend of bombastic production, doomed riffing, and a strong current of noise that would come further to the fore on their later output. An early allegiance to Saw Her Ghost Records persisted throughout their tenure, as the also-Michigan-based imprint released all five of their LPs, their 2014 live outing, Astral Path to Satan’s Throne (discussed here), and a 2018 split with Hellmouth that was reportedly in the making before the band even broke up in 2016. Sometimes these things take a while.

Their first two albums are both shorter and plenty heavy, but with World Ending, Jahr and Pries really started to figure out who they were as a band. The record was a purposefully unmanageable 67 minutes long, and it was in noise-coated extended pieces like the eponymous “Beast in the Field” and the grueling 15:45 “Hallucinations from a Silver File,” as well as in the two nine-plus-minute cuts that followed to close out, “No Hope on Earth” and the head-smashing-into-wall “Your Gods Have Died” that they most effectively explored the dynamic between the two of them. On some level, they were a tone band. Pries‘ guitar took the fuzz aspect of stoner doom and turned it into something menacing and ferocious, lending a sense of threat to the core groove, and Jahr‘s drums, even in the rawest of production settings, were precisely the right kind of punctuation that heft needed to add punch to the assault. I won’t take away from the solo-tearing in “Burning Times” (also over nine minutes) or the more uptempo riff that leads the way into the deluge on opener “Invoke the King of Hell,” but there was just something about when Beast in the Field really dug into a longer-form track that made it all the more punishing.

And as much as punishment was clearly the intent, they didn’t neglect attention to detail in that. Even on the three-minute Sabbathian blastoff “Sermon of the Black Order,” they maintained the locked-in feel that was so prevalent when they stretched out over longer runtimes, and whether it was just a shift in the riff or a change from Jahr on drums, they had a way of making each tiny movement from one part to the next count all the more for the effect they had on the listener and on the piece itself. “Sermon of the Black Order” is a speedy and efficient summary of that, but it’s true of the entirety of World Ending as well, and to make an entirely instrumental record that’s more than an hour long where those moments still stand out is no small feat. It was what Beast in the Field were best at. On paper, there was nothing so landmark about their approach — “cool tone, bro” meets “heavy drums, bro” resulting in “cool album, dudes” — but the chemistry between the two players ran deeper and that’s what most comes to fruition on World Ending, in such a way as to make the album a standout for anyone who was willing to hear it.

It might actually be “Burning Times” that best emphasizes the point, but something else Beast in the Field seemed to be able to do at a moment’s notice was bring it all down. Not just throw in a quiet part, or cut to a standalone guitar, but to really give the impression that the song was falling apart, like, “oh shit, they’ve lost it and put it on the record anyway.” But they were never actually losing it, or at least not to such a degree that they didn’t right themselves and press on into whatever level of the abyss was next on their heading. World Ending was almost (conceptually) jazzy in that way and speaks to some measure of studio improv or happy accidents in their process, but whatever it was, it gave their material another aspect of volatility that carried through in the final result in a feedback-drenched way no less brash than the loudest of riffs surrounding on either side.

After World Ending, Beast in the Field dug further into a “hail Satan” thematic with Lucifer, Bearer of Light in 2011 and, having pushed that apparently as far as they were willing to go, they switched to an earthier take on cosmic destruction with 2013’s The Sacred Above, the Sacred Below (review here), their studio swansong, and, I’ll gladly argue, apex, taking the best elements of the two prior long-players and twisting them to suit an environmentalist, anti-colonialist stance that was heightened by the visceral impact of their delivery. Beast in the Field did not fuck around. Whether you got to see them with their pyramid of cabinets behind them or you’ve never heard them before, they were a band who never, never, never got their due appreciation, and whose work seems all the more prescient in its chaos as the years pass by.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

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It’s coming on 2AM in Belfast. I’ve been in Ireland all week. It’s been ups and downs. Mostly downs, if I’m honest, but that’s what meds are for.

The Slomatics guys were cool.

Okay.

Next week: packed. So packed I didn’t have room for a Roadsaw premiere, which is bullshit, but true all the same. I’m gonna be pissed about that forever, but what am I gonna do, ditch out on something I’ve committed to weeks or months in advance just because something else I dig is getting released that week? Hardly seems fair. Sucked when I got dicked over a couple weeks back, certainly.

Whatever.

We leave here tomorrow for I think Galway or Sligo, and are in each for a couple days. It’s supposed to rain, I think, forever. So that’s cool, as me and Toddler McScreamy are stuck plotzing through the latest sky-spit to wherever just because he can’t really be indoors at this point. It’s been a rough trip, on the whole. And I don’t think being on a bus all day tomorrow is going to help much either.

Did I mention “whatever?”

I did some perfunctory CD shopping in Dublin at Spin Dizzy Records. No one cares anymore. I mostly just feel sad.

This is my 11,500th post on this site. I think I’d get a cookie for that except I don’t eat cookies. “No juice for you, you just get more awful.”

Fuck it.

Great and safe weekend. Forum, radio, shirts.

The Obelisk Forum

The Obelisk Radio

The Obelisk shirts & hoodies

The taste at work behind Michigan imprint Saw Her Ghost Records is not a trifling thing, and it’s not every day the label puts out anything at all, so when I saw word that it had newly put its stamp on Bummer, the debut album from Tennessee heavygaze rockers Lacing, despite not being familiar with the band I had a pretty good feeling they’d be worth looking up. Sure enough, the record — which is also available as a name-your-price download from Lacing‘s Bandcamp page, linked and streaming in full below — offers a deeply weighted and nuanced take on weighted melancholic spaciousness, ranging from the crush of “Starless” to the minimal-seeming ambience of opener “Wound.”

The download comes with an exclusive remix, so if you’ve got a couple minutes to spare, and ears for something new, adventure awaits.

Have at it:

Lacing – Bummer

Saw Her Ghost Records is thrilled to welcome Rocky Top shoegaze brooders, Lacing. Their album Bummer is a sweeping, swirling series of waves- complete with dark hooks and trembling discordance. Ethereal, floating vocals compliment icy clean guitar lines that shift to fuzzy distortion. Their path ultimately descends into riffs the size of gritty, mammoth castle walls. At once, delicate, and in due time after, a unique heaviness shrouds all that was built before it. Blue, moody, uneasy, yet simultaneously comforting and redemptive- Let Bummer transport you to another emotional dimension, or it may just burrow down and bury you where you lie.

TRACK LIST:
1. Wound (4:06)
2. Summer (4:07)
3. Shoulder (4:34)
4. Drain (7:12)
5. Starless (7:55)
6. _ (5:26)
7. Milk (5:22)

Recorded & Mixed in February of 2017
by Scott Minor with Carey Balch
Wild Chorus in Knoxville, TN
Mastered By Carey Balch

Alan McGee would be flummoxed to learn that LACING, a shoegaze band from Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA, issued their debut album in 2017, not 1990. Like many of the bands from the original 90s scene, the band’s full length debut, Bummer, comes on the heels of a well received EP (their Honey Glow tape). It isn’t just more of the same though. Bummer is at times far noisier as evidenced by the end of the epic “Starless” which takes up a majority of the album’s second side with a healthy dose of fuzz blasted riffing. Elsewhere, tracks such as “Summer” and “Shoulder” play with the dynamics of Pixies while calling to mind several branches of the shoegaze family tree with nods to Slowdive, Hum, The Jesus & Mary Chain (circa Psychocandy) and occasionally even Dinosaur Jr.

LACING is:
Joe Davenport: Guitar, Vocals
Jerry Reed: Drums
Robert Parker: Guitar
Joseph J Micolo III: Bass

https://www.facebook.com/lacingband/
https://www.instagram.com/lacingband/
http://lacingband.tumblr.com/
http://sawherghost.net/sawherghost/?page_id=1072
https://www.facebook.com/Saw-Her-Ghost-Records-54739172715/

Lacing, Bummer (2017)

Some bummer news out of Michigan imprint Saw Her Ghost Records, the longtime imprint of crushing instrumental duo Beast in the Field (among others), which has announced that the band has decided to break-up. Based in Midland, MI, and comprised of drummer Jamie Jahr and guitarist Jordan Pries, Beast in the Field will play what will reportedly be their final Detroit show on April 30 at Small’s with Nuke and Bison Machine. There may be more dates after that, as the band says in the works, but it would seem like pending that, they’re done.

Beast in the Field issued five full-lengths together on Saw Her Ghost between 2007 and 2013, the last of which, The Sacred Above, The Sacred Below (review here, streamed here), offered a consuming 71 minutes of thick-toned, hard-hit obliteration. Deeply atmospheric in spite of being so outwardly heavy, it pushed the band’s Satanic themes on 2011’s Lucifer, Bearer of Light to the side in favor of statements more grounded in social issues of environment and the atrocities committed against Native Americans. That they managed to make such a statement, and make it so loudly, without the use of lyrics, only seemed to make the album’s artwork more evocative.

Their final release was the comic book (also wordless) and live album combo The Astral Path to Satan’s Throne (review here), which reaffirmed the impact of their onstage assault that I was fortunate enough to also see in 2014. To my knowledge, they never toured widely outside of the Midwest, and it looks like they never will, but Beast in the Field crafted a reputation for devastating heft delivered through a mountain of amplifiers, and cut their progression short at a moment when it seemed like they were just beginning to branch out in new and exciting ways. I was looking forward to their next album. They’ll be missed.

Here’s word from the label and a few brief notes from the band:

It’s been hard to keep this to myself, but April 30 at Small’s will be Beast In The Field’s last Detroit show. Jamie and Jordan are calling it quits. They’re two of my best friends. Anyone who really knows us knows how close we are and how intertwined our musical lives have been for the near decade long span of Beast. I’ve seen most of this country with them and lived some of the best experiences a guy could ever wish for, not to mention having the honor and thrill of releasing all of their music.
We always had the most fun.

Whether you’ve seen them a hundred times or never, I encourage everyone to come out and be a part of this show. It’s always an experience.

Thanks friends.

Said Beast in the Field:

LAST DETROIT SHOW FOR BEAST IN THE FIELD. YEP, WE ARE ALL DONE SOON. TRYING TO SET UP A SMALL RUN FOR THE CITIES THAT REALLY ENJOYED US AND WE ENJOYED. THE END.

https://www.facebook.com/beastinthefield/
https://www.facebook.com/Saw-Her-Ghost-Records-54739172715/
http://sawherghost.net/

Beast in the Field, “Wakan Tanka” official video

I managed to buy just one CD while on tour recently and it was the new live album from Michigan instrumental destroyers Beast in the Field. Recorded in 2012 as an in-studio performance at the Kalamazoo-based radio station WIDR, it’s been given the cumbersome title The Astral Path to Satan’s Throne and coupled with a sans-dialogue comic book featuring the band’s two members, guitarist Jordan Pries and drummer Jamie Jahr. At first I thought I might’ve had it wrong it and it was a DVD because of the case, but no, it’s a CD. After seeing even half of the band’s amplifier stack in Lansing, it became quickly apparent they don’t do anything small.

Like their five studio albums, The Astral Path to Satan’s Throne is out on Saw Her Ghost Records, which has overseen everything the two-piece has done since their 2007 debut, Goat Isle Seance. That record is represented here by “Deep in the Caves,” which follows a noisy solo by Pries, and is preceded by “The Destroying Angel” and followed by closer “Through the Fires in all of Hell,” both of which come from 2011’s Lucifer, Bearer of Light. That would’ve been Beast in the Field‘s newest album at the time, though interestingly, the first three cuts they played at WIDR were “Hollow Horn,” “Altar Made of Red Earth” and “Wakan Tanka,” which also appear in that order following the intro “Great Watcher of the Sky” on 2013’s stellar The Sacred above, the Sacred Below (review here, stream here). Whether Pries and Jahr had recorded by then or were hammering out the flow of the album in a live setting, I don’t really know, but in hindsight it makes for some sound continuity from the record to the live outing and gives some sense of how the duo relate shows and studio work.

Unsurprisingly, they kill it. I’d be interested to know how many cabinets they didn’t bring to the radio station that day, but whatever balance they found, the audio is clear on both guitar and drums — or at least no more blown out than sounds cool — and the sheer density of their tone and impact of their crash are both captured. Speaking of “captured,” that’s pretty much the plot of the comic book as well. Pries and Jahr load up their gear and are in their van headed to, wouldn’t you know it, Kalamazoo, when all of a sudden they’re kidnapped by naked-lady demons and taken to some approximation of an underworld where they’re torn apart and fed to a skeletal version of a four-horned goat beast. I won’t spoil the ending, if they get out of it or not. With art by Mark Rudolph, it’s an engaging complement to the recording itself, and puts The Astral Path to Satan’s Throne in different category of releases than it might otherwise reside in were it just a live album. It may still be a stopgap en route to whatever Beast in the Field do next, but there’s enough presence and force behind the band’s sound that whatever they’ve got, it’s bound to turn a few heads. Just far enough to hear a pop.

With bonus points earned for the smiling cartoon depictions of Pries and Jahr, The Astral Path to Satan’s Throne is further proof of how ready Beast in the Field are for recognition outside regional borders. For now, they remain a secret kept all too well.

Beast in the Field, Live at Dirt Fest, Aug. 9, 2014

Beast in the Field on Thee Facebooks

Saw Her Ghost Records

I wanted to make sure I did a round of radio adds for this week. Not just because they’re fun to do and it’s a bit like submerging my head in heaviness for an afternoon, but because I’ve already got one or two records in mind to join the playlist next week (or the week after, depending on time) and I don’t want to get too far behind. As always, these five are just picks out of the bunch. Over 20 records went up to the server today, so there’s much more than this to dig into. As well as all the rest of everything up there. I don’t even know how much stuff that is at this point. Last I heard from Slevin, it was “a lot.” Nothing like more, then.

The Obelisk Radio adds for Oct. 16, 2014:

Godflesh, A World Lit only by Fire

It seems that after a decade-plus of moving further away from Godflesh‘s sound in Jesu, guitarist/vocalist Justin K. Broadrick has had no problem whatsoever slipping back into songwriting for the ultra-influential early-industrial outfit. Preceded by an EP called Decline and Fall (review here) that was also released through Broadrick‘s Avalanche Recordings imprint, the 10-track A World Lit Only by Fire harnesses a lot of the churn that was so prevalent in prime-era Godflesh and, more impressively, successfully channels the same aggression and frustration without sounding like a put-on. The chug in “Carrion” is visceral, and while “Life Giver Life Taker” recalls some of the melody that began to show itself on Godflesh‘s last album, 2001’s Hymns, and subsequently became the core of Jesu, songs like “Shut Me Down” and the gruelingly slow “Towers of Emptiness” find Broadrick and bassist G.C. Green enacting a familiar pummel that — and this is a compliment — sounds just like Godflesh. No doubt some of that is because so much of the duo’s elements are electronic, and while they might sound dated after a while, electronics don’t actually age in the same way people do, but even in the human core of the band, Godflesh are back in full, earth-shattering force. A World Lit Only by Fire is a triumphant return. I don’t know if it necessarily adds much to the Godflesh legacy that wasn’t already there, but as a new beginning point, a sort of second debut, its arrival is more than welcome. Godflesh on Bandcamp, Justin Broadrick on Thee Facebooks.

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Early Man, Thank God You’ve Got the Answers for us All

After starting out in Ohio and making their way to New York around the middle of the last decade, the duo of multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Mike Conte and guitarist Pete Macy — better known as Early Man — recorded their new album, Thank God You’ve Got the Answers for us All, as they put, “inside various closets, attics and basements within the greater Los Angeles area over the past year.” I recall seeing them in Manhattan and getting their demo in 2004/2005 and Early Man was the shit. They were gonna be huge. A contract with Matador Records brought their debut and then they went five years before their next album came out, and by then, retro metal and heavy rock has passed them by. Thank God You’ve Got the Answers for us All taps some of the same younger-Metallica vibing of their earliest work on “Black Rains are Falling” and closer “The Longer the Life,” but the current of Sabbathian heavy that was always there remains strong and “Always Had a Place in Hell to Call My Own” ups the ante with a more punkish take. The recording is raw in the new digital sense, but the tracks get their point across well enough, and Conte‘s songwriting has always produced some memorable results — the keyboard-soaked “Hold on to Nothing” stands out here — but it seems like the story of Early Man is still waiting to be told. Early Man on Thee Facebooks, on Bandcamp.

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Temple of Void, Of Terror and the Supernatural

Any given song, it can be hard to tell where Detroit’s Temple of Void come down on the spectrum of doom/death and death/doom, but whatever genre tag you want to stick on it, their debut long-player, Of Terror and the Supernatural, is fucking grim. A roaring morass of thuds, low growls, bouts of extreme violence and bludgeonry, and horror — oh, the horror. Last year’s Demo MMXIII (review here) was fair enough warning, but what the double-guitar five-piece do across these eight tracks is a cruelty of atmosphere and lurch. Squibbles perpetrate “Invocation of Demise,” which also has some surprise key work that sounds like a flute, and a moment of respite arrives with the subsequent “To Carry this Corpse Evermore” in Opethian acoustics, but as the title would indicate, “Rot in Solitude” throws the listener right back into the filth and it’s there Temple of Void seem most in their element. Buried deep in “Exanimate Gaze” is a melodic undertone and 10-minute finale “Bargain in Death” shows a fairly dynamic approach, but the core of what they do is rooted in toying with a balance between death and doom metals, and already on their first outing they show significant stylistic command. If they tour, it’s hard to imagine one of the bigger metal labels —Relapse, Metal Blade — wouldn’t want them somewhere down the line. Temple of Void on Thee Facebooks, Saw Her Ghost Records, Rain without End Records.

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Mage, Last Orders

UK fivesome Mage debuted in 2012 with Black Sands (review here) and showcased a burly blend of heavy rock and metal, and tonally and in the drums, their sophomore outing, Last Orders, follows suit in copping elements of thrash, Voivod-style otherwordliness and a penchant for shifting tempos effectively while keeping a seemingly downward path. Vocalist Tom has pulled back on the ultra-dudely vocals and it makes a big difference in the band’s sound for the better. He’s much better mixed and exploring some new ground on “The Fallen,” but he boldly takes on the task with the slower “Beyond” — the longest song here at six minutes flat — and comes out stronger for it. Guitarists Ben and Woody, bassist Mark and drummer Andy showcase some Electric Wizard influence in that song, but I wouldn’t tie Mage‘s sound to any one band, as “Lux Mentis” before offers huge-sounding stomp and “Violent Skies” after feeds an adrenaline surge of chugging and turns before opening to Last Orders‘ satisfying payoff, Tom tapping into mid-range Halford along the way and closer “One for the Road” reminding that there’s still a riffy side to the band as well. Mage on Thee Facebooks, Witch Hunter Records.

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Lamperjaw, Demo EP 2014

Formed in 2011, Virginian trio Lamperjaw make their three-track debut with the descriptive Demo EP 2014, drunken-stomping the line between sludge and Southern heavy. One can’t help but be reminded of Alabama Thunderpussy‘s glory days listening to “Throw Me a Stone,” but with guitarist Dedrian, bassist Lane and drummer Codi all contributing vocals, Lamperjaw bring something immediately distinguishing to their approach. “Blood Dreams” aligns them with the burl-bringing Southern set, some screams and a metallic chug surprising after the opener’s booze-rocking vibe, but their real potential comes out on the seven-minute “Menace of a Cruel Earth,” which moves from low-in-the-mouth whoa-yeah-style grit across a successful linear build to a harmonized, well-arranged apex. It’s always hard to judge a band’s intent by their first release, and there’s a lot about their sound Lamperjaw are still figuring out, but they’ve given themselves some directional liquidity on their first demo, and it will be interesting to hear how they proceed from this point. Lamperjaw on Thee Facebooks, on Bandcamp.

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Like I said, this is just a fraction of the stuff that went up to the server this afternoon, so if you get a second, I hope you’ll peruse the The Obelisk Radio Updates and Playlist page, or whatever it is I’m calling it in my head this week. It’s the same page as always either way.

Thanks for reading and listening.

Brutality always has a place, and Detroit death/doomers Temple of Void seem to have found a right balance of creeping lurch and extreme plunder. Their debut long-player, Of Terror and the Supernatural, arrives tomorrow, Sept. 30, courtesy of Saw Her Ghost and Rain Without End Records. Of course, when it comes to Midwestern death/doom, my head goes immediately to Chicago stalwarts Novembers Doom, but if you’re looking to compare the two acts, you won’t get far. At least going by “The Embalmer’s Art,” which you can hear below, the Detroit five-piece keep away from more dramatic fare and stick of a varied but consistently bludgeoning approach — not without melody in the guitar, but far more pummeling than theatrical.

Or you can check it out for yourself. To the PR wire:

Death / Doom band TEMPLE OF VOID Release Debut Full Length “Of Terror and the Supernatural”

On September 30th the Detroit, Michigan (U.S.) Metal act TEMPLE OF VOID will release their debut full length album “Of Terror and the Supernatural” on multiple labels as well as multiple formats. “Of Terror and the Supernatural” includes Eight Tracks of early British Doom mixed with Old School American Death Metal with a running time of just over fifty minutes.

The album was recorded by Clyde Wilson ~Mt. Doom Studio / Mark Hudson ~Audiolux Studio, with Todd Konecny ~Bright White Light Studio handling the mixing and Tony Hamera with the Mastering duties. While the artwork was provided by the legendary fantasy artist Bruce Pennington (http://www.brucepennington.co.uk). “Of Terror and the Supernatural” will be released on Double LP & Cassette on Saw Her Ghost Records and on CD through Rain Without End Records. Preorders are now available through both labels Webstores. Sell your soul and enter the Temple of Void!

An Official Video for a track from “Of Terror and the Supernatural” has been filmed and will be released to the general public in the near future.

1. The Embalmer’s Art
2. Savage Howl
3. Beyond the Ultimate
4. Invocation of Demise
5. To Carry this Corpse Evermore
6. Rot in Solitude
7. Exanimate Gaze
8. Bargain in Death

TEMPLE OF VOID
Eric Blanchard (Guitar)
Mike Erdody (Vocals)
Brent Satterly (Bass)
Jason Pearce (Drums)
Alex Awn (Guitar)

http://templeofvoid.bandcamp.com
www.facebook.com/templeofvoid
www.youtube.com/templeofvoid
http://vimeo.com/templeofvoid
http://www.naturmacht.com/2014/07/rwe004-temple-void-terror-supernatural/
http://sawherghost.net/sawherghost/?page_id=1486

Temple of Void, “The Embalmer’s Art”

It’s a brief but intense catalog of miseries that Detroit double-guitar five-piece Temple of Void emit on their 2013 debut release, Demo MMXIII. It is a demo, obviously, and self-released in an initial CD pressing of 200 — reportedly there’s a repress in the works — and it comprises just three tracks that total 22:15 between them, with “Beyond the Ultimate” and “Exanimate Gaze” hovering around six minutes each while closer “Bargain in Death” extends the lurch to 10:36, rounding out with cyclical riffing that more or less could go as long as the band wanted it. Aggressive, tonally weighted and dark in its atmosphere, Demo MMXIII is on the sludgier end of doom, but follows a course derived in no small part from extreme metal — death metal, particularly — and vocalist Mike Erdody, also of the live incarnation of Acid Witch and formerly of Borrowed Time, is a big part of what situates them as such. His vocals aren’t unipolar in the sense of just being low-register growls, but there’s no clean singing to be found in any of the three tracks, so Temple of Void wind up with a newer-school feeling take on death-doom. The tones of guitarists Eric Blanchard and Alex Awn are oppressively heavy, but not overly concerned with adhering to a classic approach, and though “Exanimate Gaze” speeds up some toward its end, the demo by and large makes its sonic impression with a thunderous plod thickened and pushed forward by bassist Brent Satterly and drummer Jason Pearce, and presents its extremity in a manner both professional and vicious.

Production quality comes into play quickly with Demo MMXIII in that it would be a much different release if recorded dirtier. I guess that’s universally true — if things were different, they would be different — but it comes into relief with Temple of Void in that where their moniker might lead a listener to expect cave echoes and direct-to-Maxell rehearsal-room quality in the recording, “Beyond the Ultimate” dispels that idea before even the first verse has begun. Erdody sets the tone with a welcoming growl over a nasty, hulking riff, and by the time they’re a minute deep, Demo MMXIII has established a course far from the dictates of doomly trend. That is to say, there’s nothing cultish in their temple. Sure, the lyrics of “Beyond the Ultimate,” which come included with the CD version but are also available online, talk of “Haunting, cryptic visions,” and sacrificial summonings, but the vibe is utterly terrestrial and rather than try to creep you out with its vibe, it takes the (admittedly, more efficient) route of bludgeoning you with a hammer. The actual words to the song are largely indecipherable through Erdody‘s growls — at least until you’re reading along — and the aggression in his style is the stuff more of modern deathcore than most of what one runs into even in death-doom, where playing ultra-low growls and clean vocals or spoken parts, Novembers Doom-style, is the expected norm. Both for that reason and the sheer fact that the band sound so pissed off, I’m more inclined to think of Demo MMXIII as death-sludge, but its foundations are unquestionably metal and the result is brutal and poised in like measure.

Read more »

Am I posting this update from Saw Her Ghost Records because if gives me an excuse to put up the video for Beast in the Field‘s “Wakan Tanka” again? Yes, absolutely. Is that my only motivation? Not really. While word of an impending vinyl release for 2013’s hyperbolically heavy The Sacred Above, the Sacred Below (review here) is certainly welcome and the more people who hear about it and hear that album the better off we as a civilization will be, the news of a Temple of Void LP forthcoming is definitely also welcome, as is the rest.

So dig it and dig in:

Beast In The Field COLOR VINYL

Regarding the 2xLP version of Beast In The Field ‘The Sacred Above The Sacred Below’: We encountered some legal issues with the original vinyl masters which are in contention in court. We decided that we’ve waited too long to get this sorted out, so we have gone ahead and had new masters cut. We should get the new tests in mid January and hopefully have the records done by the first week of February. We apologize for the massive delay, but it was honestly out of our hands. We appreciate your patience and guarantee that those who have preordered this will receive everything they’ve ordered plus some extras that we are drumming up right now. We will be doing at least 100 of the first pressing on color (most likely green). All of those who preordered and will preorder will get color if they want it. If for some reason you do want black, just say so in the instructions section of your PayPal thingy.

Konkeror ‘The Abysmal Horizons’ LP is available now for $15 ppd. The first pressing is on purple vinyl and comes with a digital download card.
Touch Of North America’s untitled 7″ is available as well. Hand stamped labels, digital download card, and 4 rip roaring explosions.

The new year is shaping up nicely for Saw Her Ghost. We are releasing the posthumous swan song 7″ by ROUGH ROPE. The SUN MYTH ‘A.M. Sky’ CD/2xLP is ready to go to press. We’re preparing for the LP release of the mighty TEMPLE OF VOID. BEAST IN THE FIELD’s live CD/COMIC BOOK is still happening. There will also be a HELLMOUTH/BEAST IN THE FIELD split 7″. And our latest addition is a 7″ by Chicago’s THE FIREBIRD BAND, which features Chris Broach of Braid. Yeah, that’s right.

http://sawherghost.net/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Saw-Her-Ghost-Records/54739172715

Beast in the Field, “Wakan Tanka” official video