My heart sank earlier when I read on the Sweet Oblivion Blog that my favourite shop in Cork, and by far my favourite music shop in Ireland, Plugd records, is closing down some time after Christmas. I’ve been reading various peoples reactions and lamentations throughout the day, and all day in the back of my head has been Plugd, it’s extremely hard to imagine it not being there, even though I’ve only been living in Cork about a year and a half, the place has found a huge place in that area of my heart reserved for record shops and the like. I remember wandering in there a few years ago before I lived in Cork and walking out about an hour later, €100 poorer and with an armful of CD’s to waste my days listening to. When I did get more familiar with the place, and learned that I didn’t have to (or rather shouldn’t) buy everything in there at once, I set about slowly chipping away at my little mental ‘to buy from Plugd’ list, something that’s been a wee Everest for me; for every class CD or record I fancy picking up, or I’ve heard about, that I buy one week, the next time I go in there there’s a whole new pile of  stuff there waiting to lay waste to my wallet, and  to my ears. And when I couldn’t decide what to buy, or, more likely, couldn’t afford to buy what I fancied, Jim or Albert were always up for a lengthy chinwag about all things musical or otherwise.

I also owe a huge thanks to the place for the amount of gigs it’s informed me of. And also for the support given to my own bands any time I need to promote a gig, or needed some advice or whatever.

There’s talk of Jim and Albert having plans for the future, I really hope there emerges a Plugd 2.0, and sooner rather than later. Plugd IS music in Cork, without it we’re lost.

The line up for Dublin Doom Day looks like this:

ESOTERIC www.myspace.com/esotericuk

SATURNUS www.myspace.com/saturnus

THE LAMP OF THOTH www.myspace.com/thelampofthoth

WRECK OF THE HESPERUS www.myspace.com/wothesperus

THE PROPHECY www.myspace.com/theprophecyeng

GRAVEYARD DIRT www.myspace.com/graveyarddirt

COUNIL OF TANITH www.myspace.com/counciloftanithdoom

ON PAIN OF DEATH www.myspace.com/onpainofdeathdoom

DWELL IN SUN www.myspace.com/dwellinsun

The poster looks like this:

(Contorary to the poster, Utopian Ruins are now not playing, and so I didn’t mention them)

For those of you don’t know, and for my own personal indulgence I’ll do a little description of all the bands.

Dwell in Sun play some seriously heavy filthy sludge in the vein of Graves at Sea, EyeHateGod, Noothgrush etc. and keeping a nice jammed out feel all the time, they’re definitely one of Irelands heaviest bands, and are extremely high priority on my to see list for the day, especially considering it’s been over a year since I last saw them live. I’d love to tell you to go buy their stuff, but they have nothing released yet, I’m counting the seconds until they do.

On Pain of Death will be continuing the filthy style sludge/doom and are a very suitable follow up to Dwell in Sun. OPOD are opting for a slightly more ‘twisted’ style doom, drawing as much comparison to Swans and Khanate as to EHG and all the usual suspects. I reviewed their demo here, which I believe may be sold out, but they have some new release of their own in the works, along with a contribution to the Clone series on Blind Date Records.

Council of Tanith will be providing a drastic shift in style, opting for a much more ‘traditional’ doom style, they’ve been compared to all the usuals, Saint Vitus, Pentegram (who they’re supporting on sept 27th in Whelans, Dublin by the way) etc. which are all suitable comparisons, basically, this is classic old school doom, with the odd geography based lyric, savage stuff. They just recently put a sample from their forthcoming demo on their myspace which sounds great, especially considering I’ve spent the last few months listening to a rough live recording. As mentioned elsewhere, one of the coolest things about this band (aside from their music) is how they operate on a totally DIY ethic, and spend as much time playing gigs from the punkier ‘scene’ as with more ‘metal’ bands.

Graveyard Dirt are one of those somewhat legendary Irish bands, they’ve been around for ages (well, they were inactive for about 10 years, but you get what I mean) and made an incredibly impressive return a year or two ago with their ‘Shadows of Old Ghosts’ EP. They play a kind of traditional doom in the style of My Dying Bride and the like, and while that style of doom is rarely my bag, I really love Graveyard Dirt, and, as with every other band mentioned so far, it’s been far too long since I caught them live too.

The Prophecy, from England I know very little about, and have never properly listened to enough so sadly I can’t give much of a description on them, eh, sorry about that.

Wreck of the Hesperus on the other hand, are a different story, I could (and have, see here) go on about this band for ages. Bearing that in mind I’ll try keep this brief, WOTH play some of the most rotten depraved music I’ve ever heard, it’s heavy, creepy and often has a strange meandering feel about it, they have never disappointed live and with their recent experimentation onto dronier regions, and threats of a new album I’m really intrigued as to how their performance will go.

The Lamp of Thoth appear to be a pretty legendary and well respected band, making my lack of knowledge of them pretty bad, and further proof to my horribly false status.

Saturnus are another band I know very little about. Sorry, again.

Esoteric have been sitting comfortably at a relatively high level of popularity for quite some time it seems, and so may not need much introduction. However, after failing on the last two bands, and being a long winded prick I’ll have to indulge. Esoteric really are a band for a particular time and place (time will tell if late at night in a venue full of drunken idiots is such a time and place) as a result of this they often go un listened to by me for quite some time, and now that I think of it I can’t remember when I last listened to them. However, in the right context they’re mindblowing on CD, all vast guitars and subtle (and not so subtle) effects, the end result being the sound I’d imagine falling down a bottomless pit would sound like. Strangely enough, as much as I love the band, I’m more eager to see some of the local bands…

Doom 101 is sure to be a much different affair, opting for heavier, riffier, rockier bands, rather than some of the more traditional bands playing at Dublin Doom Day, and to be honest, this suits me better I think. The fact that the line up this year is so good and 99% Irish is really great to see also.

The doom 101 line up looks like this:

MOLOCH (UK) www.myspace.com/molochscum
WAR IRON http://www.myspace.com/wariron
ON PAIN OF DEATH www.myspace.com/onpainofdeathdoom
SEA DOG www.myspace.com/deadseadogs
SLOMATICS www.myspace.com/slomatics
DE NOVISSIMIS www.denovissimis.wordpress.com
REALISTIC TRAIN www.myspace.com/realistictrain
DWELL IN SUN www.myspace.com/dwellinsun

There’s no poster yet for this, but Glynn Smith is designing one, so you know it’ll be amazing when it’s done.

Moloch would be that 1% of non Irish bands playing this. They’ve been steadily rising in popularity this year and rightly so, they play that kind of ultra negative sludge you just have to love, and contain members of the excellent (and now sadly broken up Army of Flying Robots) which makes no difference to you, I just wanted to mention AOFR.

Moloch are also playing in Belfast on October 22nd in The Pavillion and Dublin on October 24th in The Tap

War Iron will no doubt be boasting the most low end at this weekend (and there’s some stiff competition), mainly because they don’t have a guitarist, and instead have two bassists, the result of which, as you would expect is some pure molten heft.

On Pain of Death have already been covered above in the Dublin Doom Day section. But, again, they’re deadly.

Sea Dog are a slightly different affair, totally different in fact, they play some rocked out instrumental rock that totally rocks. Rock. Seriously, there’s not much else to say about them, just go see/listen to them. (Rock)

Slomatics are in a way the opposite to War Iron, while War Iron have two bassists and no guitarist, Slomatics have two guitarists and no bassist, and strangely enough, members of both bands were previously in The Naut, coincidence? I think not. Conspiracy theories about unorthodox line ups aside, Slomatics are not a band to be missed, their two guitar set up and amplification worship, while not healthy for the ears, is so very pleasing to listen to.

De Novissimis are in a way simple to describe, and in a way difficult. I usually opt for something along the lines of ‘end of the world doom’, however, that may be a little too vague for some. To go into a little more depth, they go from extremely slow and heavy to very fast and eh, black grindey, for a more in depth view of me fumbling with words over this band see here.

Realistic Train are another of those ever elusive Irish bands that play very near me and I always manage to miss, so I cant wait to see them. They play some sweet ‘psychedelic’ stoner rock, and have lyrics about trains, what more could you need? I reviewed their demo here by the way.

Dwell in Sun were also covered earlier. If I didn’t get the point across there, they’re very very heavy.

1. Q. First of all could you introduce Parhelia to those who may not know them, maybe give a brief history of the band.

A. We’re a four piece instrumental band from Dublin, formed in 2005. We play something between Post/Prog- Rock/Metal.

Myself, Andy (Drums) and Cathal (Bass) used to play in a band called Revile, which were influenced by the likes of Katatonia, Anathema and early 90’s grunge. After we parted ways with our singer in 2004, we spent a year trying to find a suitable replacement. We eventually came to the conclusion that we had moved on musically and that the people coming in to try out were not really adding anything to the songs we were coming up with, so we binned the idea of recruiting a singer and decided to press on as an instrumental band.

To date we have released two ep’s “First Light” (2006), “Oceans Apart” (2007) and our album “Shifting Sands” was released this year.

2. Q. Since you are an instrumental band, where does the inspiration come from when writing? Is there an attempt to fit into a particular mood or theme or is it a more jammed out ‘see how it goes’ affair?

A. The inspiration still comes from the same places, the only difference is that we don’t need words to tell our story. For me, things like film, books, music, photography & life itself are great sources of inspiration.

As far as actually writing the music is concerned, usually one of us will have the initial idea for a song and then it’s jammed out to see where it goes, everyone can bring something to the song this way. We don’t agonise too much over each others parts, usually what we come up with in the jam will be almost the finished article, so the song can retain a natural flow. There is no conscious attempt to fit into any particular moods/themes, again -this just happens naturally!

3. Q. You always seem to put a lot of effort into your artwork, and it always ties in with the feel of your music, who does/has done your artwork? Do you feel artwork is an important factor for the band?

A. To us, the Artwork is just as important as the music. It completes the entire package when you release an album, it’s definitely something that’s not appreciated as much these days with the amount of downloading going on. If people choose to download a bunch of files I personally think they are missing out on something by not having the artwork.

As for our own artwork, we always try to find something that represents the album perfectly, which usually involves a lot of time trawling through the internet and then obtaining the rights to use whatever we have settled on. The images have come from a variety of sources, the main image on First Light came from the national observatory in Taiwan, Oceans Apart’s main images were taken by a DJ in Croatia and the image for Shifting Sands was taken by a landscape photographer from Oregon, USA. We usually do whatever it takes to obtain the image if it’s the right one, sometimes we get it for nothing, sometimes we have to fork out, as was the case with Shifting Sands. I must also mention Paul McCarroll, as he expertly handled the layout on all our releases and supplied photography for the First Light EP.

4. Q. So far all your releases have been self released, have you any plans to work with a label in the future? Or are you just waiting to see if a good enough offer comes along?

A. For the moment we are happy to do this ourselves. We have total control over everything, from recording budget to the actual sales of our albums, digital distribution etc and so we know exactly what has been spent and exactly what’s coming back to us. We did work with an Italian label recently for the cassette release of the Shifting Sands album, so I could definitely see us doing that again at some point for a Vinyl release or something.

Having said all that, we wouldn’t rule out the possibility of working with a label, the circumstances would just have to be right to do it.

5. Q. This is perhaps my favourite generic question for Irish bands; what’s your impression of the Irish scene at the moment?

A. Ok! I’ll try not give the textbook answer which reads something like “The scene has never been better” and mention six of our friend’s bands!

As far as the metal scene goes, I do think it has come a long way in recent years, some bands have raised the bar in terms of recorded output (It used to be the case that a quality sounding demo/cd did not exist here) and indeed in the live setting, some bands are quite capable of holding their own with established & touring acts and we have several bands here that are unsigned yet are capable of attracting very healthy crowds of their own.

On the negative side, I think musically a lot of bands go for the tried and trusted formulas here. Death and Thrash prevail and most times I find it’s lacking in innovation or originality (There are exceptions, of course!), which is disappointing as I do take the time to check out most bands CD’s/Demos. I find that most of the Irish metal releases that I would listen to regularly would be outside these genres. A lot of bands could do with more time rehearsing too, there are still alarming amounts of CD’s being released with things that can be rectified such as timing, tuning etc and even more are in a rush to put up half finished rehearsal demo’s on myspace!!!

6. Q. Are any of you in any other bands or involved in any other projects?

A. Just Cathal, I think one band is enough for the rest of us! Cathal is involved with Wereju, The Pale Fall, Eden Obscured, Wreck of the Hesperus……… probably a couple of others too – must be a record of some description there!

7. Q. What are your plans for the future of Parhelia?

A. We don’t have any long term plans as such, we normally just deal with what’s right in front of us so at the minute we’re currently working on a couple of new tracks which we’re really happy with and plan to do a run of headlining shows before the year is out, most times we play it’s in a supporting slot so it will be nice to play for a bit longer and deviate from our standard set!

www.parheliaband.com

www.myspace.com/parhelia

Decapitated Jaysus are an instrumental rock band, I don’t want to call them post rock because that term is one of those over used terms I’m really growing to hate, that and they don’t exactly sound like post rock, they certainly don’t use all the usual sounds and ideas that modern generic post rock is known for nowadays, this sounds more like straight forward rock, keeping a slow tempo throughout and with a nice relaxed feel, there’s no over reverbed guitars or tried and tested ‘quiet-loud-quiet-loud’ song structures to be found here.

The music here is nice and riffy, and lacks any melodrama or unnecessary frills, just some nice jammed out (not quite post) rock. This is a two track demo and it clocks in at around ten minutes, so it’s clear the band like to meander here and there, but there’s nothing wrong with that at all. This meandering is most prominent in the second track ‘These are dark days’ which, for the most part, just builds on a single riff, which, in this instance works very well, and, in the right mindset, has the ability to carry you away in that way a good riff should.

Upon first listening to this band about a year or so ago the first thing that struck me was the slight shakiness of the bands playing, and while this is evident here to some extent it stops being an issue after a few repeated listens and the depth of the songs is allowed to do the talking. The same can be said for the slightly rough around the edges production (understandable considering this is a self-recorded effort).

All in all however, this is a very enjoyable CD with some nice, straightforward relaxed rock and, with a little more time and a little tightening up here and there future releases from this band could be something really excellent.

http://www.myspace.com/decapitatedjaysus

Luxury Mollusc is a one man band from Dublin playing some nasty, creepy noise, nothing elegant, or no attempts at being ‘deep’ here, just some murky, unsettling music, and I use the term ‘music’ very lightly.

As suggested by the name, Luxury Mollusc is somewhat obsessed with molluscs and other such sea dwelling chaps, and the music really reflects this, as does the bands myspace, which is full of pictures, drawings and scientific diagrams of various sea creatures.

With this maritime aesthetic in mind, it makes sense that, for the most part, this CD is relatively calm, the first half in particular being very drone oriented (don’t get me wrong, this is far from the likes of Sunn etc, this is something far quieter and more surreal). This sounds very much like what I could imagine a swim around some murky, unknown waters might sound like, it’s eerily calm and unsettling, with various noises floating around in the background, sometimes moving themselves to the fore to unsettle you some more.

As the CD progresses, it moves from the eerie, abyss like calm to some harsher, noisier parts, now it feels more as if you are facing some of the weird creatures this music brings to mind head on, with some suitably noisy screeches and screams. There is also some recognisable instrumentation to be heard in the latter part of the CD, with some low key guitar building up so a huge noisy section, and what sounds like a cello or violin adding to the surreal madness.

Extended analogies aside, this is simply a great CD for those into the stranger side of noise, and it feels like there is a genuine attempt here to build on an aesthetic, creating something genuinely intriguing and with its own unique feel.

http://www.myspace.com/luxurymollusc

The sound on this, their first demo, is pretty rough, but that’s to be expected, and something easily overcome with subsequent releases. Crucially though, the band know how to write a good song, and that shines through the production quality. The band also show an ability to mix it up a bit, with the last song, ‘Garden’, they show an ability to make the music a little moodier, this is probably the standout track, it’s nicely structured, starting off slowly and building into a nice big sound, giving a slight contrast to the more straightforward rocking tracks that preceeded it.

The band are also luckily enough to have a talented vocalist, with an ability to mix his range up a little, this is a crucial element, and probably one that will prove itself more and more valuable with time.

All in all this is a great first effort for the band, and shows real potential, with a little hard work and upping the ante production wise I could see them making a good name for themselves.

http://www.myspace.com/wearemount

Realistic Train are perfect for this frame of mind, they’re slowly becoming more and more appealing to me whenever I’m looking for something more ‘fun’ to listen to, this being due to their imagery full of psychedelic locomotives, lyrics to the tune of “rolling down the tracks inside your mind now” and simply the fact that they play some seriously solid, straight forward stoner rock, with no nonsense, just killer riff after killer riff.

The music here really can’t be faulted, it’s all great, catchy riffs, with a nice, slightly rough, guitar tone, some excellent lead work, solid, straight forward drumming, and topped off with some great, well performed vocals (along with the aforementioned witty lyrics) all making an extremely solid first demo and, more to the point some genuinely fun, entertaining music.

It seems to be a running joke in underground music about stoner rock being, for the most part, a bit crap, but quite frankly if people are complaining about this kind of stuff chances are they don’t get the point, it’s not meant to be deep, or intelligent or anything, it’s just pure ROCK. This band are slowly becoming one of my favourite new Irish bands, purely because of the ability of this demo to raise my spirits every time I hear it, pretty much without fail. The prospect of a full album of this stuff would be enough to have me drooling, so, eh, get to it lads.

http://www.myspace.com/realistictrain

A few years ago when I first heard about the prospect of this release it was met with immediate excitement, I hold both bands in extremely high regard both as Irish bands and as contenders in the wider doom/sludge ‘scene’. Both bands have an unrivalled ability in creating their own unique sound; something quite difficult to do in this style of music without falling on tired musical clichés, but something both bands manage to make seem effortless.

Along with the bands avoiding musical clichés I feel I should try my best to avoid as many descriptive clichés in reviewing this release, but quite simply I can’t think of any better description for the De Novissimis side of this than ‘devastatingly heavy’, and even though this is probably one of the most overused phrases in the world of doom/sludge it really fits De Novissimis perfectly, they have found the perfect balance between devastation and heaviness, with guitar and bass blending in to create a huge wall of heaviness, and the intricate drumming and dual vocals, alternating between a nasty snarling and a more guttural bellowing and giving a sense of desperation to the music, all adding to the apocalyptic sound the band create.

The impressive thing about this band is their ability to create a sound that is distinctly their own and which is relatively hard to find in this style of music. In their slow parts they build a huge discordant wall of black noise which always seems to be building and building until the music finally breaks into a faster, blastbeat and double bass drumming fuelled section, this signature sound being distinctly the bands own, even in these faster parts the music can’t really be pinned down, it’s neither black metal or death metal sounding really, it sounds maybe like tremolo picked sludge, whatever it is it’s amazing, and serves as perfect illustration of where this band sits musically, they manage to sound like a mix of black metal, sludge and crust all at the same time, which for me is extremely close to musical perfection.

Wreck of the Hesperus, on their side, create something that can both be closely compared and widely contrasted with the De Novissimis side, while De Novissimis’ side was full of intricacies and tempo changes, Wreck of the Hesperus have opted for a pretty much constant near-standstill tempo musically, however the objective in creating something both heavy and ugly in pretty much equal measures seems to be the same with both bands, albeit with significantly different methods of doing so.

Wreck of the Hesperus seem to be digressing with each subsequent release nowadays (in a positive way, that is), moving from the relatively technical weirdo doom of their earlier releases to this piece of sonic disgust, admittedly I have slowly been losing track of their more recent releases due to the close time frame they were released in, but from what I hear and from what I’ve seen live my theory seems pretty true. This piece is perhaps the closest WOTH have come to drone doom, with the guitars laying in an almost static state of filthy noise for the most part, only being dragged back to having some form of recognisable tempo by the signature ‘off the wall’ drumming.

The vocals here may well be Andy’s nastiest work also, his usual, more high pitched, screeching has been replaced with a nastier snarling, which at times is reduced to just some horrible guttural noises rather than anything that could even loosely be described as vocals. These ‘vocals’ serve to provide the final piece in making this song sound so unsettling, unlike their previous work, there’s very little sign of any structure here (and I mean that in a positive way), instead this just feels like some kind of horrible, jammed out piece of filthy noise, there’s no riffs that could be remembered here, just a wall of horrible noise. This is testament to this bands commitment to and ability in making truly horrible sounding music.

The artwork here is definitely worth a mention too. It seems to be that kind of artwork that matches the bands music, which is something I always love. For the De Novissimis side there’s a picture of an intricate work of distorted bridges and passageways, which looks like some skewed otherworld, which fits in with De Novissimis’ intricate and unorthodox sound. On the WOTH side there’s a more simple picture of some disfigured animal/creature of some sort, which is well suited to the more straight-forward ‘pure filth’ sound of WOTH. This tying in of artwork and music makes this release feel all the more important and well crafted.

In my last review I mentioned the growing doom/sludge scene in Ireland, and how great it was to see such a thing, this release serves as one of the best examples of this scene and features two of the more veteran bands from it. I hope the quality of the music on this release can be matched by the newer bands.

http://www.myspace.com/wothesperus

http://www.denovissimis.wordpress.com

I know the term ‘filthy’ has been used a lot to describe some music, and while this may seem a bit strange to some, for some bands it is simply the most apt description, a perfect example of this is On Pain of Death, a relatively new Irish band whose brand of sludgey doom just oozes filth.
On Pain of Death build up this ‘filthy’ sound through heavy guitars playing twisting, turning riffs and an excellently diverse vocal delivery. All of this makes this demo something special, for a two track CD clocking in at just under half an hour it manages to keep me interested the whole time, no mean feat, especially when playing doom which at the best of times can drag on a bit and become boring.
Crucially, I think, this band has a very talented drummer who is not afraid to experiment a bit and move beyond the simplistic drumming so often found in many doom bands. The vocals here are excellent also, the band utilises a dual vocal delivery, ranging from low growls to high pitched screeching and almost everything in between, this helps to add another unique element to the music.
This band are part of what seems to be a growing sludge/doom scene in Ireland (which is excellent to see) and have created a unique sound, with further releases I think they could really make a name for themselves.

http://www.myspace.com/onpainofdeathdoom

It seems these days it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find good Black Metal, it seems to me that, more than with other genres, black metal lends itself to relying on clichés, this is especially true when dealing with the harsher, rawer side of black metal often, it seems bands get labelled as another stereotypical harsh B.M. band, and, more often than not, this is true. Luckily, Wrnlrd manage to avoid most of these clichés, or at the very least, manage to have enough experimentation in the music to make the clichés acceptable, so to speak.

Opener ‘nighthole’ begins with some calm ambient noises, I found myself listening, waiting on that first note to break the calm, and, as expected it wasn’t long coming, soon we’re treated (or subjected?) to extremely harsh guitars playing slow, feedback drenched, notes, again the cynic in me was waiting for the usual tremolo-picked fast black metal section, but, strangely enough, it never really arrives, indeed, at times the music does speed up, but only relatively briefly, for the most part it maintains a relatively slow pace, this, along with the well laid-out guitar work works in creating a genuine unsettling atmosphere, not only is the music extremely harsh to listen to, but it also seems to creep along, layered guitars twisting and intertwining, and subtle drums giving an almost ritual-like feel to the music, or sometimes just adding to the chaos.

It’s always good to hear bands who know the value of subtlety in their music, and here there are many subtle things to be heard on repeated listens, once you get beyond the initial wall of harshness, from many different vocal sections to small melodies here and there, all in all adding up to create a unique, and sometimes unsettling, atmosphere.

http://www.myspace.com/wrnlrd