bongripper - empty

these guys never seize to amaze me. massive walls of sound shall be the whole of the law. 400 copies on sea blue and grey merge vinyl. great barrier records. 2024.

bongripper - the great barrier reefer

bongripper is next to animals as leaders my favourite instrumental band. their progressive doom metal is able to unleash such a mantra-like power, it is remarkable. the rising and dense atmosphere of their songs transfers one into riff nirvana. i have almost all their releases on vinyl but two were always eluding me.

the noise/soundscape album "heroin" which doesn't really appeal to me and their debut album "the great barrier reefer". the album was actually self-released in 2006 and it wasn't until 2012 that a proper vinyl version was produced. emetic records did the job back then with only 100 colour copies. so those didn't come by cheap. thankfully the lads run their own now label to promote their stuff.

another seven years later and here we are with this slick re-press. burning world rec. from the netherlands provided the eu distro and now i am the proud owner of this splattered blue/purple merge version out of 200 copies. musically the first lp isn't that exciting but the last half of the reefer makes up for that big time. really excited to see them live in two weeks. great barrier records.

bongripper - terminal

i am really stoked to have the new bongripper in my hands. these instrumental doomsters are not known for dropping full lengths at a high rate. so it doesn't surprise that "miserable" is already four years old. the more i was happy that i was spot-on for the pre-order deals here. a few months back i missed out on some bongripper re-issues because when i was at the party it was already old news. not really a problem because i already had vinyl copies of these re-issues but it annoyed me to have missed out.

so i e-mailed the guys asking for something like a mailing list. to cut it short, i am now recieving the bongripper newsletter and via this channel i heard news of the pre-orders for "terminal". the band handled north american orders themselves and burning world records from the netherlands did so for europe. it's a collaboration with history and everything went smooth again. i opted for the grey and purple swirl variant and am very happy with the outcome - vinyl looks fantastic. musically the new record is just the same, fantastic!

their ultra low tuned string sound and the kiloton drumming is a sonic experience of its own and with this album bongripper reduced the duration which proved to be refreshing for the overall song-writing. "terminal" feels more compact with loads of memorable riffs and lovely melodies. the physical component of the album is also superb. nice gatefold cover with sick artwork by sam alcarez and the aforementioned grey/purple merge vinyl as a fine match. 500 copies made. great barrier records. 2018.

bongripper - hippie killer

bongripper record #4 in my collection and the second full length in their discography. what i hold in hands here is the recent colour re-press from december of the bygone year 2015. i heard news of it just a few days after burning world records, which has a distribution deal with the ripper, posted a respecitive message with pre-order informations on their facebook page. i instantly hit the web-store.

once there i could only see pre-order options for 'miserable', which got re-issued, too. at this point i freaked a little. could it be that all the copies burning world would recieve had already been sold, or was it some flaw on the site that made 'hippie killer' currently unavailable? i checked the bongripper big cartel store and found copies still available. i thought to and fro if i should get a copy from overseas, or wait for burning world to put some up.

i mean, i just couldn't imagine that all copies were gone so soon but in the end i was too frightened to miss out and bought a coloured copy directly from the band. fuck them oversea shipping costs! surprisingly my copy arrived even before christmas and didn't get delayed because of the increased package traffic in this time of year. while i was waiting for the vinyl to show up, burning world offered copies after all. typical.

i listened to this record a few times since and have to say that it was the hardest to get into yet. the first half is brilliant but the second half wears thin in comparison. maybe further listens will change my opinion but for now 'hippie killer' is the weakest of the four albums i know. still a great listen though. the artwork is absolutely stunning. mike miller did a great job to transfer the title into disturbing and yet funny images. the vinyl colour is lovely, too. 250 copies on luna green. great barrier records. 2007/2015.

bongripper - satan worshipping doom

another bongripper want crossed off the list. since i snagged the roadburn festival re-press of their 2008 'hate ashbury' album, i fell in love with this unique, bongripping doomsters. therefore i am always prepared to throw reasonable money at people for their copies of bongripper vinyl i am missing. in this case i actually wanted to spend my hard earned bucks on a discogs copy from the netherlands. it wasn't coming cheap but it was the common going rate and i was ready to bite the bullet.

then there was this incident at work. i had one of my thankfully rare saturday shifts, enjoying a break and was killing some time on the internet. i was searching for some mastodon vinyl pictures, clicked my way through some links and landed at the gates of kozmik artifactz. it is a mailorder from berlin specialised on doom, psyche and everything around sabbath worship. i found myself some other nice doom records, i will soon write about and then came across a new copy of this baby right here.

'satan worshipping doom' was right there for the taking. of course dudes at kozmik artifactz recognised the signs of the times and so the copy was only a bit cheaper than the discogs asking price, but together with only half of the shipping costs it was quite a worthwhile deal to me. kozmik packed the records super safe and i am all around happy with that order. recommended.

'satan worshipping doom' is nothing short of a masterpiece. the whole record is very dynamic, as long as you would call doom metal dynamic, that is. beside those crushing slow doom outbursts, bongripper knows to accompany them with some variety in pace - the very sound that made me adore 'hate ashbury' and of which 'miserable' lacks a tiny bit. check out 'worship' and get sucked in. my copy is part of the fourth pressing coming on coke bottle clear vinyl with some real cool blue smudges. ace artwork too. 250 made. great barrier records. 2010/2015. 

conan / bongripper - split

with my latest fascination for bongripper and with the already existing fondness for u.k.'s mighty conan, it was pretty clear that i couldn't get pass ordering their split release from two years ago. it was originally released via holy roar records from london. back then on 180gr black vinyl only and out of 500 copies. i believe they did this split in occasion of their united kingdom tour 2013.

in early 2015 both bands decided that this long sold out pearl should recieve a vinyl re-issue. as conan and bongripper both have labels on their own, black bow records on the conan side and great barrier records as the bongripper equivalent, what could be more apt to re-release the split as a collaboration on both labels? the re-press consists of two colours, dookie brown and translucent beer splatter. i snagged my copy from the finest doom label of the netherlands, burning world records.

musically there are just one song per band on this split and still the record clocks in at over twenty-five minutes. it's pretty rare for split releases that i find it hard to decide which side is the better one. in this case, i think bongripper takes the lead, but only by a hair's breadth. check out conan's 'beheaded' and bongripper's 'zero talent'. i love both bands and so this split is an absolute winner to me. both colour-ways are out of 500 copies and some still available at burning world.

now it's time for some nerd alert. this split is always listed as the 'bongripper / conan' split lp. this re-issued version was pressed to physical format by pirates press and reading the matrix run-out of this platter, it appears that the conan side is side a and the bongripper side is the b-side. even the sleeve is glued in a way that the conan cover is the front. i don't know for the holy roar pressing but for this re-press the correct title is actually 'conan / bongripper' split. do i nerd out too hard here? black bow records. great barrier records. 2015.

bongripper - miserable

after i was totally blown away by bongripper's 2008 release 'hate ashbury', i wanted more of their stuff. when i scoured the market for bongripper vinyl i was a little bummed to find that prices are pretty high. when i found out that vinyl releases always have been pretty limited - in the two hundred copies range - plus the very good underground reputation of the band, those prices weren't too surprising at all anymore.

the band's big cartel shop was a dead end as all their vinyl copies of different albums were gone, ebay had nothing to offer too and so i checked discogs again with better luck. a german seller had a reasonable priced second press copy of bongripper's latest record 'miserable' available. still being on that 'hate ashbury' high i ordered straight away, without listening to any song before.

when the postman delivered the record safe and sound and i dropped the needle on 'miserable' it wasn't an instant hit like 'hate ashbury'. 'miserable' is a grower and i needed something like five or six whole spins before its greatness manifested in my auditory passages. the album has so much to offer with its slow heaviness and omious melodies. in my humble opinion it won't top '... ashbury' but it's such a good doom record anyway.

as mentioned before my copy is part of the second pressing consisting of 1000 copies in total. 500 on good ol' black vinyl and another 500 on this grey marbled vinyl. 180gr vinyl, black dust sleeves and a nice artworked gatefold sleeve make this sucker a top notch release. the art looks like some sinister lovecraft, cthulhu mysticism brought to cardboard. again bongripper released this album on their own label. all very d.i.y. great barrier records. 2014.

bongripper - hate ashbury

irony of faith. who would have thought that a band with a name such as bongripper could land on an x'ed up blog like mine? me at the very least. but this blog was never about the consumption of drugs or the complete denial of it. it's about the music. that is what counts to me. and the music on this slab of wax is the shit! i heard of bongripper before, because they have a split together with my favourite british band conan. i didn't buy the split yet because i thought instrumental doom wasn't my cup of tea.

how wrong i was. as i am warming up with instrumental prog/avantgarde/metal through bands like toundra or red sparowes, it was the right time for me to check out some serious doom/sludge instrumental metal. i was browsing through the burning world records home-page, looking for a different release i will soon write about, and stumbled across this re-press of 'hate ashbury', the band's 2008 release. it looked pretty good and so i went to the tube, to see if i would like the music as well.

what can i say, this record is as close to perfection as it gets. the songs have no titles and flow into each other seamlessly, so it's like listening to one coherent piece. the album has some relentlessly good hooks and the downtuned guitars pummeling through your belly like a sledge hammer. man, i really like this record. bongripper played this year's roadburn festival in the netherlands. for this occasion great barrier records, which is the band's very own label i believe, pressed a 'roadburn blue' edition of 250 copies. burning world has some left. great barrier records. 2008/2015.