iron walrus - the plague

the new iron walrus record at hand. it just took this five-piece from osnabrück one year to come up with their second full length, entitled 'the plague'. this was actually the album i heard stuff from first, before i got to know any songs of 'insidious black sea'. on 'insidious...' you can hear that the band had an idea of what they wanted to sound like, on 'the plague' however they seem to have felt way more comfortable and grown together.

the songs have more depth and really stand as one. whereas 'insidious...' had some hits, the sophomore record is an unholy unit where it's hard to pick a favourite. therefore i will give you the link to the redfield records youtube channel, where you have the chance to listen to the album in all its glory.

beside the better song-writing of the walrus, vocalist sven's voice really stands out. it seems he treated his vocal chords with a huge amount of tobacco goods and whiskey in the course of the last year. so grumbling and barking that it reminds me of crowbar's kirk windstein to some extent. the art work goes hand in hand with the band's name and shows some consistency looking at the debut.

i really like that maritime theme. the record even ends with some sounds of the sea. when i ordered the records at the beginning of may the cd-version was already out since a few months and redfield had some problems with the pressing plant. as june came the vinyl was finally there and the outcome looks pretty neat. numbered sleeves, printed dust sleeves and nice marbled dark red vinyl. love when orders come with a little personal note. 525 made. get a copy here. nice job, redfield records. 2015.

iron walrus - insidious black sea

i am in a metal state of mind recently. i made my way into the doom genre and am therefore discovering a lot of new stuff. just as happened here. iron walrus is a german band and i stumbled upn them when checking the redfield records online store. the cover art of their second record, which will appear in the next post, was pretty cool and as i read 'doom metal' in the description i ventured over to the tube.

checking some tunes there, my decision was made. i wanted a copy. as redfield also had their debut record still in stock, i didn't do any monkey buisness and added it to the order. musically 'insidious black sea' is a real solid debut record. chunky riffs, beefy drums and rough vocals and the outcome is a great doom record with a distinct stoner edge. reminds me a bit of high on fire.

check out the songs 'sleep' and above all 'erdbeermund'. it's an instrumental song played over a six minute long klaus kinski sample. klaus kinski was a controversial but successful german actor in the seventies and eighties of the last century. he was known for his uncontrollable temper but also for his acting genius. this sample is a recorded reciting of a villion poem by paul zech. you can almost feel the raging energy floating through kinski here.

the album was released last year and pressed to vinyl in a crystal blue with black smoke edition. someone really spent some thoughts here matching the vinyl colour perfectly to the album title 'insidious black sea'. looks real nice held against the light. 503 copies made. comes with a numbered sleeve, mine is #227. copies still available. redfield records. 2014.