This week: SHUB NIGGURATH - LES MORTS VONT VITE (1986)
Dang. Nothing says "Illogical Contraption" like an evil, Lovecraftian progrock album from 1986.
Shub Niggurath were French (of course), latecomers to the whole Magma/Zeuhl thing that proliferated in the mid-70's but also dark, heavy, and weird enough to carve out their own odd musical path. As far as prog goes, Les Mort Vont Vite is the blackest, meanest, and most oppresive album since Univers Zero's Heresie 7 years earlier. The whole atmosphere here is chaos and doom, from the plodding, tribal drums to the distorted, buzzing bass to the atonal guitar solos that seem to have a tendency to devolve into harsh walls of feedback and noise. The only deal-breaker here might be the soprano female vocal leads, which don't really seem to follow any pattern or melody whatsoever. Which could be seen as a plus or a minus with this kind of music.
Shub Niggurath is named after a demon from Lovecraft's Necronomicon, as is their song "Yog Sothoth". The album also contains a song entitled "La Ballade De Lenore", which I take to be a tribute to Poe's The Raven. Literary doom/prog/Zeuhl really gets my engine running. Fuck yeah, Shub Niggurath.
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2 hours ago
1 comment:
I was a huge fan of Univers Zero/Present/Art Zoyd and so on and this was considered a lost treasure in the circles of fans around these bands, so it came highly recommended. I haven't listened to it as many times as I should have, perhaps, but I was kinda disappointed at the lack of compositional interest. The form is certainly effective, it's pretty oppressive. But I lose interest because it tends to all sound the same. Perhaps more listens would reverse this impression, though.
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