slomatics - a hocht

northern irish doom/sludge outfit slomatics gracing this blog with a recent re-press of their second full length "a hocht". initially it was released in 2012, cd version made by burning world and vinyl rights liscensed to head of crom records. i was introduced to small uk label head of crom via their pressings of the first conan record, which i never got my hands on. in its day head of crom pressed a clear orange vinyl edition out of 300 copies, which proved to be difficult to obtain. therefore i was really happy when burning world announced a re-press this year.

as i wanted to save on shipping, it took me a bit of time to finally order a copy. when the new bongripper came around and burning world was handling european pre-order affairs, it seemed like the perfect chance to order "a hocht" along. musically this record may become my favourite slomatics album. "a hocht" is no big deviation from their other works in terms of sound but the dynamic, the flow is fantastic. droning, yet catchy - check it out. i always wondered what the record title meant. google says it's irish and simply means "eight". don't know if that is correct but the album has eight songs so maybe that's the trick. clear red vinyl out of 300 copies. burning world records. 2012/2018.

elder - live at roadburn 2013

three weeks ago two of my best friends and me were on a trip to hamburg to catch one of our favourite bands live. elder is the name and i was pretty excited to see them. i missed them last year and therefore i was almost hysteric when i learned about the concert in hamburg a few months ago. on a little side note i also wanted to snag a little piece of u.s. vinyl of the new record "reflections of a floating world". the gig was on a monday and the day started out with constant heavy raining.

the highway to hamburg was blocked because of a construction site and so we thought to get to the city via ordinary roads. those were inaccessible as well because of another construction site. so we drove to wedel, a small town near hamburg with access to public transport. halfway in hamburg we had to get out of the train because of yet another construction site. so we took a rail replacement bus, hopped into another train and finally arrived after two and half hours. usually the trip takes an hour.

we missed one of the two supporting bands but that wasn't too much of an issue. when elder started their set, the small venue with a capacity of maybe 200-300 people was on fire. great set list with mainly new songs and a great atmosphere between crowd and band. the only tiny downer was that the band didn't carry any u.s. vinyl but the european edition instead, which i already own. in hindsight that seems very plausible. on such a small d.y.i. euro tour the band only took the most important merch with them. the european label delivered the vinyl. next to a shirt and a patch i still bought some elder vinyl.

they released a live record from the 2013 edition of roadburn festival in the netherlands. recently burning world records re-pressed this record on opaque red and green vinyl and i actually wanted to pick up a copy before but never came around to it. so this was the chance. after a little chat with some band members at their merch table after the concert, i took my stuff and was delighted to find the green vinyl inside the gatefold. an all around great gig with good friends. what more can a guy ask for? the record itself is a mix of mainly songs from their "dead roots stirring" album and one from their self-titled debut. solid performance with nice artwork. burning world records/roadburn records. 2013/2017.

slomatics - estron

you remember that post about conan's split release together with slomatics and how i said the latter band wasn't my cup of tea? well, when i looked through the burning world web page, just out of curiosity, one cover caught my eye immediately. the regular reader might know that besides my addiction for vinyl, i am a huge star wars geek. and this cover reminded me strongly of a tatooine desert secene from 'a new hope'.

with this pleasant reminiscence i checked to which band such a cool cover might belong. slomatics was the name. so with my first dislike concerning these guys from belfast in the back of my mind, i ventured out to check some tunes of 'estron'. boy, suddenly it clicked with me. check 'tunnel dragger' and 'futurian' and get spaced out! quickly thereafter i ordered a copy together with the bongripper 'hate ashbury' record of a few posts back.

this new pressing is the first burning world vinyl pressing of this release. the first press was liscensed to head of crom records from the u.k. and came on 'dried blood red' vinyl. burning world brings us an orange variant, which matches the artwork perfectly. speaking of, the artist behind this awesome work is tony roberts who graced conan's records with his visuals as well. lovely! 300 copies made. burning world threw a digi-cd of the album into the package. thanks! 2014/2015. 

conan vs. slomatics - split

in the course of the last half a year conan vinyl became part of the highly frequented records of mine. their style of doom is most hypnotising and damn heavy. after i called the two full length's and the first e.p. my own, i was on the hunt for the last remaining stuff to get. the split with slomatics. i don't count the live recording and we'll see if i get the split with bongripper.

this baby was actually released on vinyl by head of crom records and the cd version by burning world records in 2011. as conan releases sell quite unproblematically these days, burning world decided to re-press this split on two more colours. musically the conan part is again absolutely convincing. two lovely pieces of crunching uk-doom. check 'retaliator' and 'older than earth' for yourself.

the slomatics side however can't come close to conan's contribution. i mean, this is not bad. but not really good either. nevertheless i can see why those two bands team up. they play similar styles. i like that. don't think it makes much sense to bring two bands on a split when the sound differs too much. the cover art proves taste. slow music for slow animals. made me chuckle. burning world pressed 500 copies altogether. some on red and some on blue. 2014.

conan - monnos

in my second post this month (life of agony) i spoke of my new mailorder find, hhv.de namely. this mailorder has a very, very decent metal section and huge part with small european and u.s. label distributions. all the stuff you don't get via the big labels nuclear blast, century media and metal blade. they have literally thousands and thousands of titles to offer. and in my foolish attempt to browse through them all in one go without losing  perseverance, i came across this one here.

the first thing that caught my attention was the artwork. it has a nice comic touch to it and reminded me vaguely of stephen bissette and his work on eighties swamp thing comics. it also reminded me of the 'death is this communion' cover art from high on fire. with reminiscence of two things i really like, i ventured over to the tube to see if my gut instinct could be proven right. i listened to 'grim tormentor' and fell in love. i'm not the biggest doom metal fan. in fact, a year ago i didn't even know one doom metal band by the name. things changed with austrian's iron heel and my interest grew. but, you know, there is doom and then there is doom. i love the mean kind with bottom low down-tuned guitars. and hell yeah, liverpool's conan is definitely that kind.

so i checked back with the label that released this cracker. burning world records from the netherlands is the name. never heard of them though. but my unknown concerning this metal sub-genre explains that to an extend. the first pressing of 'monnos' was long gone, as it actually appeared in 2012. but they had a fresh re-press available. probably to cash in on the release of conan's latest album this year. not that this would be a bad thing at all. the new pressing, now on green vinyl, was all coloured. so i didn't hestitate to throw this in my cart and check it out along with another record, that will be featured here next.

in natura this baby looks brilliant. this great artwork which reflects parts of the lyrics and the album title (if researched correctly, monnos is a figure taken from the world of warcraft video game, which people get crazy over but fails to excite me in any way), lovely thick, 180gr apple green vinyl and a black dust sleeve make it a pleasure for almost every sense. check this shit out and if you love your music neck crushing, steam rolling heavy, than this is your address. don't know how many were made. burning world records. 2012.