DISORIENTATION – Survival Mode EP

In some ways, this second EP from Disorientation sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard before. Scratch the surface, of course, and you’ll find bits and pieces of familiar noise, but nothing presented by this avant-garde metal duo ever takes a predictable route. This is doom and black metal, but never as you’ve experienced it before. It’s almost industrial, but never entirely so. There are also elements of avant-garde jazz prog and chamber vocals appearing, somewhat unexpectedly, alongside the heavier moments.

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FORLESEN / LOTUS THIEF – Split EP

Extreme metal band Forlesen closed 2023 in a grand and uncompromising fashion by offering an abrasive cover of Type O Negative’s ‘Red Water (Christmas Mourning)’ as festive bait. Transforming the slow, heavy gothic tune into an abrasive black metal/doom metal tour de force, they not only gave the track their own twist, but also made it sound like an original cut – something that originated from somewhere deep within the American band’s blackened souls.

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SLOWER – Slower

Slower. As the name implies, this band is all about the doom. However, this is doom with a twist. Bringing together members of Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Kylesa, Year of The Cobra and others, the performers are famous in their own right, but nowhere near as famous as Slower’s choice of material. This debut album features five Slayer classics, each one drastically reimagined as a timeless doom/sludge piece; five numbers that end up invariably sounding like more like Acid King than Kerry King. It seems inconceivable that speed driven bangers that sound tracked a generation’s metallic apocalypse could take on the stance of Electric Wizard and Witch Mountain, but behind their comical name, Slower have made such things a striking reality.

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WEIRD TALES – Second Coming, Second Crucifixion

It’s taken Weird Tales a fairly long time to actually make a record deserving of their talents. Their early works often sounded like a swampy, low budget mess; their EP of blues covers was a woefully misjudged experiment, and although their live EP from 2021 was very cool in its own way, it often sounded like there was a much better band desperate to be heard underneath the mass of distortion.

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THE REAL GONE SINGLES BAR #23

Welcome back to the Real Gone Singles Bar, the place where we explore some of the individual mp3s that have landed in our inbox over the previous few weeks. A popular feature, the mixed bag approach at the Singles Bar has often allowed for coverage of things that people wouldn’t necessarily associate with the site. The selection this time around is a little more rock based in places, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a couple of interesting twists, and a jazzy, downtempo track definitely provides one of the best tunes. We present the return of Big River with a very melodic track, some brilliant pop, an interesting take on a classic band, and more besides.

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