Metal 88 Items

For something to be “ecstatic,” the feelings and emotions it evokes must transcend what one tends to experience most regularly in their lives. Ecstatic joy isn’t just happiness; it’s a feeling of jubilation which impacts one emotionally and in a metaphysical, arguably spiritual sense too. Although it has long been associated with connotations of the dark and macabre, extreme music has the ability to be a powerful mode of expression for these feelings of absolute bliss, overwhelming love, and awe-inspiring sublimity. Extreme emotions no less and those which black metal quartet Agriculture evokes with its ecstatic subversion of the subgenre’s tropes. What was initially a meeting and subsequent series of jam sessions between Kern Haug and Daniel Meyer, two musicians in the Los Angeles underground noise scene, would eventually manifest as a shared vision to portray the sublimity of the human experience through the vehicle of heavy music. Following the additions of veteran guitarist Richard Chowenhill and bassist / vocalist Leah Levinson to the band’s lineup, this idea would crystalize into the “ecstatic black metal” backbone of Agriculture’s music, first heard on the band’s 2022 debut EP, The Circle Chant. With Agriculture’s self-titled record and first full-length LP, it’s abundantly clear that the band’s use of heavy music to showcase the most resplendent emotions and moments of the human experience has a far deeper meaning. Woven between the flurries of soaring tremolo picking, crescendoing guitar harmonies, celebratory screamed vocals, thoughtful improvisation, and meditative atmospheric passages is the record’s mission statement to experience the wonders and joys of both the esoteric and physical world.

Vinyl is close to NM.

Over the course of a couple of years in the mid-1970s, several musicians from the St. Louis, Missouri area gave notice to club and festival crowds that they were there to rock the house down. Their cover and original songs were accentuated by a bedrock rhythm section, heavy guitar riffs and tasty solos, topped off with powerful vocals. Rockers that witnessed them agree—Back Jack created solid songs and high-energy performances.

Beginning in 1971 as Trellis, the band members changed their name to Back Jack when they saw the bumper sticker that Kim McKinney’s dad, Jack McKinney, distributed during his election bid for the Mayor of Pacific, Missouri, home of the core three-piece band: Kim McKinney, Mike Collier, and Hans Myers (rip).

The 1974 version of Back Jack was active from very early 1974 to late-fall of 1974. The core three-piece band, Collier, McKinney, and Myers, recorded several tracks during their tenure and four of those tracks are included on this release. Temporary band members not on the recordings were Gary Reed (piano, Rip), Greg Witt (guitar, keyboards), Paul Cockrum (guitar), and Bill Niehoff (drums).

The four-piece, 1975 version of Back Jack was a merging of members of Back Jack 1974 (Mike Collier and Kim McKinney) and another local band, Osage Lute (Jeff Ballew and Mike Lusher). They were active from late-fall of 1974 to late-summer of 1975. Four of the tracks on the Back Jack LP were recorded by these four musicians.

Octagon is the eighth studio album by Swedish extreme metal band Bathory. It was released in October 1995, through Black Mark Productions. It continues the retro thrash metal style of the previous album, Requiem. It was reissued in 2003, with the first two tracks combined and "Winds of Mayhem" outro added.

Stunning 180g gatefold Vinyl

Vertigo Swirl labels. Cover with moderate signs of storage and esge wear. Writing on back cover. Stamp on label. Vinyl with foxing and scuffs.

Vinyl is slightly warped.

One of the earliest and first experimental/ambient projects to join the ranks of Sentient Ruin and turn it into the multi-headed abomination we strive to be(come), Italian black ambient/death industrial demon Clavicvla is back with its most perverse and deranged work yet, once again in proud partnership with illustrious French ambient/industrial colleagues Cyclic Law. From the artwork to the titles and themes, the intent of new full-length offering Degeneracy of the 5th Density is clear: worshiping and glorifying perversions, deviancy and immorality in their every form and shape. With these nefarious intents sole mastermind Ittiel has orchestrated the rise of this third aural plague of his around a creeping miasma of monstrous sepulchral ambience reeking from the ruptured bowels of oblivion, unfolding a forty-five minute sonic nightmare of absolutely omnipotent repulsiveness. Dark ambient, black industrial, ritual drone, noise and subsonic horrors of all kinds are distilled by the demiurge into a sonic morass of total suffering and terror, and ritualized into a soundtrack to every broken soul's most hidden, vile and foul impulses.

SECOND ATTACK was CROSSFIRE’s second album

Heavy music’s evolution has always been a murky swamp of sub-genres. So, combining Thin Lizzy’s glistening twin guitar harmonies with Melvins-grade sludge and a hearty dose of proto-metal psych probably shouldn’t sound so revolutionary as it does in the hands of L.A. quartet Deathchant. But theirs is a special, transcendent sound. Waste, the band’s sophomore album and first for Riding Easy Records, is anything but. The thirty three-minute, seven-song blast flows seamlessly from song to song, aided by droning segues, while simultaneously slithering between genres and moods. Rumbling noise, chiming guitar melodies, bluesy boogie, Nwobhm thrash, COC grunge and punk fury all rear their head at times, sometimes all at once. Though one wouldn’t be able to tell by the concise structures and well-crafted songs, a lot of Deathchant’s music is improvised, both in the studio and live. That’s not to suggest their songs are jammy— they’re very tightly organized compositions. But the four musicians have that special musical telepathy that allows them to keep the song structures open-ended. “Improv is a huge things for us and always has been,” singer / guitarist T.J. Lemieux says. “The musical freedom to look at the other dudes in the band and be able to take things wherever we want to go is magical. I like the feel of flying off the hinges.” Likewise, the band itself is similarly amorphous in its membership. “We run the band with an open door. No lineup is definitive,” Lemieux explains. On Waste, the lineup is: Lemieux, George Camacho on bass, Colin Fahrner on drums, and John Belino on second guitar. Waste was recorded live in a rented cabin in the mountains of Big Bear, CA. “We packed a big-ass van and set up in the living room and kitchen,” Lemieux says. “Tracked it live, with overdubs after.” The whole album was recorded over two separate weekends, engineered by Steve Schroeder, who also recorded the band’s 2019 self-titled debut album. “I’d say it has sort of a DIY LA punk aesthetic,” he adds. “Very ironically going hand in hand with a classic metal vibe: Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, classic Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and other melodic heavy rock bands.”

Cover and vinyl are close to VG+. Original inner sleeve

Founded 1988 in Stockholm/Sweden, Dismember were among those responsible for Death Metal's big break through. The debut album, Like An Ever Flowing Stream from 1991, clearly showed that Dismember are an uncompromising band which resulted in their rise to cult status and within a short period of time the album took the scene by storm. Extensive touring with bands like Death, Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse showed that Dismember are a live force to be reckoned with and the number of fans grew steadily. The band then released the 5-track EP, "Pieces", and went out on tour again with Napalm Death and Obituary. They played for thousands of fans throughout Europe thus reinforcing their status as one of the best live bands on earth. Dismember set a new path and in 2004, they released their sixth studio album titled Where Ironcrosses Grow which sounds close to Hate Campaign and is heavily inspired by Iron Maiden and Autopsy. Their seventh album The God That Never Was followed in 2006, continuing in the style of its predecessor.

American technical brutal death metal absurdity Edenic Past join Sentient Ruin for a vinyl release of their synapse-twisting first ever LP Red Amarcord. Formed by Colin Marston and Nicholas Mcmaster of Krallice fame along with vocalist Paulo Paguntalan of Encenathrakh, on the surreal debut offering Edenic Past unfold an absurd and ultra-brutal hallucination of futuristic aural atavism that touches lows of knuckle-dragging sonic primitivism and brutality and peaks of masterful ambient avant-garde deconstructionism that will be both too much to handle or understand for the average “slam” knuckle brains, and too fucking brutal and ignorant for the average elitist prog nerd. Perhaps standing as the most imaginative and visionary “slamming” technical brutal death metal releases ever conceived, with Red Amarcord Edenic Past redefine the outer limits of brutal death metal and set an unprecedented foot in the future for the genre.

It is not about avoiding fear of the pitch-black darkness, but to go into the darkness itself. Enter “Utgard”. Enter a record brimful with northern magic. Let all those other bands sing about Thor’s mighty hammer and poor Odin hanging from that tree in miserable weather conditions. Enslaved are looking behind the mirror, tracing the origins of the well-known fables of the northern world back into each and every one of us.

Who’s to say if we’re to believe Pablo Picasso’s theory that “art washes away from the soul the dust from everyday life”, However, only a fool would deny the simple processes of guitar string to amplifier or microphone to magnetic tape/WAV file can be more than merely a hobby or an idle pastime. This is a cathartic endeavour that reflects and refracts the daily joys and tribulations to elevate and elucidate. Such is the case with the second solo album by Kavus Torabi, The Banishing.

Who’s to say if we’re to believe Pablo Picasso’s theory that “art washes away from the soul the dust from everyday life”, However, only a fool would deny the simple processes of guitar string to amplifier or microphone to magnetic tape/WAV file can be more than merely a hobby or an idle pastime. This is a cathartic endeavour that reflects and refracts the daily joys and tribulations to elevate and elucidate. Such is the case with the second solo album by Kavus Torabi, The Banishing.

God of Hellfire’ Arthur Brown made an indelible impact in The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, performing outlandish theatrics with a burning helmet and being deported from Italy after a naked appearance at the Palermo Pop Festival in 1970. When his bandmates quit to form Atomic Rooster, Brown formed Kingdom Come to cut three esoteric albums for Polydor, this self-titled sophomore set inspired by the element of water. It’s a deep dive into prog concept territory, with churning organ, pounding bass and drums, wah-wah excursions and Brown’s internal conversations drifting between the speakers. Fantastic stuff!

Mamaleek seeks to weaponize the tropes of blues, jazz and black metal through an understanding of their respective formal structures. Known for flouting genre conventions, the band’s newest album Come & See, marks yet another degree of separation from their black metal roots. Here Mamaleek draws inspiration from post-war public housing—specifically Chicago’s notorious Cabrini Green housing project—seeking to analyze the emotional impact of the spaces one occupies, the surreal forces behind the appearance of physical reality, and the residues they leave behind. This is the band’s third full-length album for The Flenser, and their first release written and recorded with a full band.

Founded in 2008 in the Bay Area by two anonymous brothers, Mamaleek has explored a vast sonic territory on the edge of a genre often renown for its aversion to change. Their expert utilization of left-field samples and unconventional instrumentation, and their insistent drive to experiment continues to set the band apart from their peers.

limited edition 180 gram vinyl

Remastered 180g Vinyl

"In Search of Sanity" is the third studio album by English thrash metal band Onslaught, originally released in 1989. With several changes in the band's line up, including the addition of legendary Grim Reaper vocalist Steve Grimmett and their longest song to date "Welcome to Dying", the album contains a more polished sound than previous Onslaught albums. "In Search of Sanity" was incredibly successful, peaking at #46 in the UK charts while the single "Let There Be Rock" peaked at #50, a great accomplishment for an underground thrash metal band!

Re-issue of the debut album of one of the greatest black metal bands of all time!

Onslaught, the British thrash metal band, formed in 1983 by guitarist Nige Rockett and drummer Steve Grice, initially drew influence from the second wave of Punk bands. In 1984 Jase Stallard and Paul Mahoney joined and The band began to write more Heavy Metal songs than their original punk sound. This was mainly influenced by the early releases of Thrash Metal bands. The output of this was the 1985 release of Power from Hell on the Children of the Revolution record label.

“Power from Hell” came into a time when satanic imagery was labelled "childish Venom worship" and Black Metal was a swear word terrifying musicians labelled as such. Their convincing powerful Black Thrash is as enjoyable in 2007 as it was in 1985 – Every song on this Blackend re-release is Thrash with class!!!

"The Force" is the second studio album by English thrash metal pioneers Onslaught, originally released in 1986. More successful than their previous album, "Power From Hell", The Force is considered a thrash metal classic by fans and critics. Fast paced drumming, a huge variety of riffs from tremolo picked insanity to chugging heaviness, and a vocal performance that truly gives the genre a good name! Influencing bands such as Exodus, Slayer and Metallica, Onslaught played a big part in defining the death metal genre!

Quorthon was a Swedish musician. He was the founder and songwriter of the band Bathory, which pioneered the black metal genre and is credited with creating the Viking metal style. A multi-instrumentalist, Quorthon wrote the music and lyrics on all of Bathory's albums and performed vocals and guitars. Originally released in 1997, Purity of Essence was the second full length studio album released by Quorthon as a solo project. Featuring 23 epic tracks split across a double CD - this version has been dedicatingly transcribed to vinyl and is available here as a massive heavyweight double LP.

Re-issue of Raw Noise's 1999 'The Terror Continues' on amazing limited edition RED Vinyl!

Ritual Clearing have returned, building off of the cold depravity of their 2020 demo and now unleashing their debut full-length effort, Penitence. Continuing their unholy alliance with Eternal Death, this new record showcases six epic tracks of dark, brooding black metal. The band's noble influences they displayed across that well-received first demo—Bathory, Sacramentum, and Lord Belial—have been built upon and refined here, revealing riff labyrinths not unlike the cult '90s work of Sorhin but further fleshed out by bouts of nearly hardcore-punk mania and especially a raw hideousness not unlike their American brethren in the Black Twilight Circle. Still, Ritual Clearing and clearly their own masters, and the alternately linear / darting depths of Penitence open wide to devour the listener in hypnotic, harrowing splendor. Still as melodic-yet-cutting as ever, it's not surprising that the album was written during the grim landscape of the global plague; there's an undeniable sense of dread across Penitence, laced with a resigned melancholia (sickly) colored by opportunely timed acoustics. Fucking Riffs for days, Ritual Clearing provide this offering as the overture to a sick and dying world. Edition of 100 copies.

Rockabye Baby! transforms timeless rock songs into beautiful instrumental lullabies. The soothing sounds of the glockenspiel, vibraphone, melltoron and other instruments will lull your baby into a sweet slumber.

On this album, they’ll enjoy Metallica’s biggest anthems without the pesky earplugs you didn’t bother to wear growing up. We’ve turned down the volume from an eleven to a two, and made the bed ourselves. Say your prayers little one. Tonight the sandman will be gently rocking you to sleep with these essential masterpieces of rock n roll.

Demos & Live assault from legends of UK punk/metal Sacrilege! Contains the first two ’84 and ’85 Sacrilege demos alongside a remarkable set from the eminent Ambulance Station Squat on Old Kent Road in London, 1985

Classic Cover. "Inri" is the 1987 debut album by Brazilian extreme metal band Sarcofago. "Inri" would become the unofficial staple of the emerging extreme metal subgenres, and today it still stands as one of the most iconic and influential releases of the decade, if not all time. It’s been impersonated, emulated, and ripped off countless times, yet there’s something about makes it stand head and shoulders above the countless imposters it spawned.

The third instalment of SIX Feet Under's highly successful Graveyard Classics cover album series! SIX Feet Under puts their classic influential death metal styling's on some of the rock and metal classics that inspired the members of SIX Feet Under to pick up guitars in the first place!

Cosmic Key Creations proudly presents the 2023 repress of the deluxe double LP edition for the 3rd album from Gothic doom pioneers Theatre OF Tragedy. The album that cemented the band's status as a household name. This re-issue comes with a 12 panel booklet on LP size containing exclusive liner notes by the producer, previously unpublished pictures and extensive interviews and liner notes. The release includes 4 special bonus tracks. The ultimate edition for a very special and unique album that has stood the test of time... The entire release is mastered for vinyl

if you survived trips 1-17 with one tiny speck of psychedelic sunshine intact, Brown Acid The 18th Trip will be your coming of age nightmare. Vintage underground '70s hard rock, coming at you from bizarre angles, local scene wasteland America when everybody was out for themselves and the drugs went bleak. The guitars kill, the attitude is twisted, even the sex is headed down the wrong road. Real people, no compromise, pure and potent. Get stoked, take the 18th Trip and know that the artists will get paid for pulverizing your soul! "People… are you ready?, 'cause the music now is getting so heavy"… Back Jack out of St. Louis, Missouri in 1974 launch our trip with "Bridge Waters Dynamite". It's an invocation to rock flashing on Mark Farner whooping up a Grand Funk crowd, then getting to the point quickly with berserk guitar assaults. Heavy riff with power chord stalks beneath as you take their advice… get loose and blow up the past. Smokin' Buku Band dropped my jaw with the audacious track "Hot Love" coming on like some fractured fever dream burlesque of Led Zep moves out of Hollywood in 1980. Swooping elongated vocals above, a total Zep chord move at the end of each verse. Writer/producer Steve Shauger aka Shag Stevens gets a brilliantly messed up sound quality here, the ideal polar opposite of slick. The extended guitar break is an epitome of serendipitously crude virtuosity, simply outrageous! Coming at you from way outta left field is "Moby Shark" by Atlantis, a hilarious and strange Baltimore pre-punk vibed dose of D.I.Y. meets hard rock. Lon Talbot is the mastermind, the flip side of this impossibly rare Mekon Records label single was featured in an obscure 1978 B-movie titled "The Alien Factor". Follow the lyrics closely, when the ominous jaws jaws jaws start coming after you you you… the song's big hook is so preposterously catchy the shark attack feels like good news. Inquiring minds should know that the band formerly known as Atlantis can now be found by searching for the Lon Talbot Group! Tommy Stuart and the Rubberband's "Peeking Through Your Window" from 1970 opens with a spooky organ riff, slips into a gushy fuzz/organ groove akin to "Mustache In Your Face” by Pretty. The singer creates downright creepy vibes, a stalker peeking through the girl's mind like a peeping Tom at the window up to no good. The lyrics evoke a disturbing scenario. Tommy Stuart also made a strange LP titled Hound Dog Man in 1977 and some terrific rare garage singles under the names Magnificent Seven and The Omen & Their Love in the mid '60s. Nothing better than an angry two chord guitar attack with cowbell to set the stage for this rant about getting "Ripped Off" by love. Taken from their rare 1977 LP on Dynamite Records, Chicago Triangle was Marvey Esparza, Dave Guereca, Jose 'Tarr' Perez and Robert Aguilera. They unleash such strong brain-scrubbing wah wah frenzy in the guitar break here that it seems to perversely mock it's own intensity! Like I said, Brown Acid the 18th Trip comes at you from all kinds of uncanny angles. Damnation of Adam Blessing out of Cleveland, Ohio unleashed a stone killer psychedelic hard rock classic "Cookbook" in the late '60s, this track "Nightmare" from 1973 has them cooking again at full power. A different singer, name change to Damnation and then Glory, unleashing a deadly dose of dark progressive heavy rock drama peaking when spooky 'oooo-wa-oooo' background vocals emerge during a bizarre spoken bit. It unfolds like a mini-epic and includes some remarkably brutal guitar and turbulent organ, too. "Swing your sword, all aboard… bid farewell to the dreamer" Dalquist exclaims. Cynical view of human nature, idealism is over, war is coming, it always does. Opens with a cold menacing riff and atmosphere reminiscent of "Synthezoid Heartbreak" by Maya. Mournful despondent vocals ride an insistent churning groove, gnarly guitar break moves into free noise territory. This rare track is from a local various artists benefit album titled Kangaroo Jam issued for the Waco Family Abuse Center in Texas circa 1980. The Pawnbrokers "Realize" is prime proto heavy rock emerging out of psychedelic garage roots in 1968 Fargo, North Dakota. Unusual arrangement, terrific sustain guitar tones like on the first Blue Cheer LP, even a rip on Hendrix "Manic Depression" with unison voice and guitar ascent near the end. They made three 45s and were active from '65 to '69. Hats off to Blake English, Kent Richey, Paul Rogne and Steve Harrison, you nailed it in just a hair over two minutes! As pure and creative as the original psychedelic garage hard rock gets. Parchment Farm from Union, Missouri gigged with the likes of ZZ Top and Foghat back in the day and unleashed the amazing "Songs Of The Dead" in 1971. Primitive riff/chord pattern dosed with some funky prog moves, sky turning black, 'is this heaven or hell' type disoriented confusion… may as well grab your guitar and sing songs to the dead. Robert 'Ace' Williams on bass, Paul Cockrum on guitar, Gary Reed on keys and Micky Waterman on drums, replacing Mike Dulany (R.I.P.) Cool that they use the Blue Cheer misspelling from Vincebus Eruptum for the band name! Ominous organ, thick minimalist fuzz riff, funky psychedelic wah wah flashes and freaky sex combine in one twisted dance titled "Rockin' Chair" by Brothers Of The Ghetto. Out of Chicago in 1975 with some Santana atmospherics and a delicious fuzz wah screamin' guitar break, the groove is highlighted by an off the wall vocal which sounds eerily detached in a subtly sleazy way. Rene Maxwell is the writer of this hard-rock boogie-down hybrid straight out of the twilight zone. It was issued on Ghetto, a subsidiary of the peculiar Kiderian label that released the Creme Soda LP. Now that your head is totally skewered, go Back Jack and play side one again! (Words by Paul Major)

Re-issue of Year OF NO LIGHT's album 'Ausserwelt'!! Year OF NO LIGHT's lengthy, sprawling compositions of towering walls of guitars and sombre synths irradiate a sense of dire solemniand spiritual gravity, and couldn't be a more fitting soundtrack for such grim medieval scenarios. But there is also the element of element of absolution transcendence in the face of death. Year Of No Light sound dense, rich and lush and yet somehow starved and deprived. “There's a thread running through all of our albums”, the band comments, “an exploration of the sensitive world that obeys a certain telos, first fantasized ("Nord") and reverberated ("Ausserwelt"), then declaimed as a warning ("Tocsin"). The deeper we dig, the more the motifs we have to unveil appear to us. Yes, it's a bit gnostic. This album is invoked after the Tocsin, it's the epiphany of the Fall”.

When 'One-Armed Bandit' was released back in 2004, the album propelled Zornik to the top ranks of De Ultratop and De Afrekening (StuBru). The Limburg-based group had already staked their claim in the Belgian rock scene with their debut album 'The Place Where You Can Find Us' and a finalist position in Humo's Rock Rally. However, with the release of the album 'One-Armed Bandit' in 2004, the cult status of the Limburg band led by frontman Koen Buyse became an even greater success story. The album, featuring singles like 'Scared Of Yourself', 'Goodbye', and 'Believe In Me' sold over 100,000 copies... on CD. Now, in celebration of the album's 20th anniversary, it is exclusively available on 2LP vinyl for the first time!