Ufomammut
Eve
Supernatural Cat

Ufomammut’s fifth album, Eve, is one chilling 45 minute possession separated into five movements, and its affection is wholly and shamelessly UNGODLY. When the music isn’t whispering to you in forked tongues and taunting you with an unnerving drone, it’s driving the heavy, black riff of DOOM right through your frayed soul. It’s a hellish soundscape of caverns and creatures in cloaks, punctuated by crimson spasms of cosmic catastrophe. What I’m getting at here is that this album is the aural equivalent of what would be going through your mind if you sliced open your inner thigh and watched the blood slowly drain out of your body until the darkness enveloped you, and should finally earn these evil Italians their own spot in the amp-worshiping cabal alongside monolithic motherfuckers like OM, Sunn O))), Earth, Boris, and the rest. Unkind stuff, man.

Listen to “Eve Pt. IV” from Eve!

#16 Om – God is Good

Chris Hakius bows out and Emil Amos steps in, but this first ever line-up change hasn’t seemed to affect Om’s heady flow one bit. Another one of those terrible twosomes I mentioned many entries ago, Om, with Al Cisneros at the helm, keeps on keepin’ on, droning, dooming, chanting, and mesmerizing like the high priests of some holy smoking order delivering mass on the Sleep-y Sabbath. Like every other Om offering, God is Good has only a handful of songs, but can take up a good part of your day if you really want to get lost in it. And you will get lost in it, trust me.

Listen to “Cremation Ghat I” from God is Good!

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Tia Carrera
The Quintessential
Small Stone

Tia Carrera the band is not as sexy and sleek as the actress. Hell, they don’t even spell their names the same. This Tia Carrera is a shriveled old mystic with a glass eye who curses you in tongues. Her neon sign calls to you from a dimly-lit back alley in Austin, Texas — not Hawaii — and you’re just drunk enough to let her crack open your soul. You walk in and are surrounded by bubbling walls and incense and Ste. Clare of Assisi candles. The whole place is HEAVY and envelops you like a robe of molasses. Then it hits you HARD and all of a sudden you’re drowning in a cough syrup haze and the hex is ON. You leave a lifetime later with an empty wallet and a jangled mind.

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