Skullflower - Taste The Blood Of The Deceiver (Not Not Fun, 2008)
First vinyl in ages from the mighty Skullflower, and much like the triple cd box reviewed elsewhere on this list, the new SF sound finds Skullflower mastermind mixing the two distinct sides of his sound, the looped hypnotic riffy side, and the free abstract noise side, and the results are pretty fantastic, forging a new sort of noise drenched, proto metal abstract free drone psychedelia, and of course incorporating all kinds of other sounds, like black metal buzz, and minimal industrial percussion. The lp is the perfect addendum to that massive triple album box, serving almost like a 4th disc in the set, covering similar ground, but with its own particular twist.
Side one opens with that distinctive abstract-krautrock, metallic-psychedelic riff that only Skullfower seems to be able to pull off, looped and repetitive, but slowly shifting, almost imperceptibly, over a swirling morass of distorted buzz and feedback drenched howl, noisy and heavy but strangely meditative. The follow up shifts gears and offers up a buzzing wall of sound with soaring high end melodic streaks over the top, and what sounds like vocals buried WAY down in the mix. Hot on the heels of that one comes an awesomely droning psych rock dirge, this time with drums, and an incredibly catchy and surprisingly melodic main riff, woozy and druggy, but sounding like some classic eighties metal riff, just Skullflower-ed. And so it goes, the tracks shifting from chiming ritualistic dronemusic to buzzing abstract ambience to noisy almost-industrial plod and back again. And we're digging it big time. These two most recent releases might just be our favorite Skullflower records since Exquisite Fucking Boredom on tUMULt!
http://rapidshare.com/files/164015827/sf_taste.rar