| W I C K E D K I N G W I C K E R Reviews/Press |
Terrorizer
"Remember the Noiseville label? They're back with a vengeance in the form of two LPs from Wicked King Wicker.
While there may be a plethora of sludgy doom dirge-type outfits delivering varying degrees of damage, WKW are not
to be glossed over. ‘Flydust’ [8] delivers two tracks of punishing, decayed black drones as expansive as they are
devastating but if push comes to shove it’s the self-titled ‘Wicked King Wicker’ that really goes off like a neutron bomb.
aided by an ever-so-slight sense of rhythm. [8.5]" (Guy Strachan)
AquariusRecords.org
WICKED KING WICKER Borne Black
Those who worship at the altar of all that is slow and low and heavy and sludgey and doomy and droney, you must
now bow before a new lord, the duo from New York known simply as Wicked King Wicker. After three records, each
heavier than the last, comes Borne Black, a sprawling black sun explosion of creepy crawly riffage, lumbering
lugubrious tempos, tarpit sludge, and spaced out abstract buzz and shimmer, if you fancy Moss, Bunkur, Blue Sabbath
Black Cheer, SUNNO))), Wolf Eyes, Khanate, Skullflower, Human Quena Orchestra, Monarch, Corrupted, Otesanek,
Habsyll, and all the various other denizens of the inky black dronedirgedoom underworld, and have yet to hear WKW,
you are in for a treat. That is, if a treat for you is two guys all dressed in black, mere shadows, pummeling you to within
an inch of your life with bloodied guitars, tossing your limp form into a freshly dug grave, before toppling a Guitar
Center's worth of amplifiers into the hole, then burying you alive, before pushing the amps, the bloody guitars and
your mangled corpse across an endless expanse of blackened filth and debris with a massive demonic KILLdozer.
That's kind of what it feels like listening to Borne Black, five lengthy tracks of ultra slow riffing, and black ambient
soundscaping. And while these guys can lean their guitars against the amps with the best of 'em, conjuring up thick
black clouds of noxious low end slither, they are also masters of the RIFF, and most of these songs do in in fact
contain riffs, not always right up in front, but the songs are driven by the riff, giving them more weight, more
heaviness, and making them sound way more METAL than most of their contemporaries.
Just have a listen to album opener "There Is Only Pain", a crushing descending, depressive doom riff, that just churns
relentlessly, pounding away, a gloriously miserablist sonic trudge, all amidst a constantly swirling field of white noise,
static buzz, and caustic feedback. Over the course of 10 + minutes, the riff, and the demonic vokills that accompany it,
sing slowly into the abyss, as the swirling clouds of noise around it grow more and more thick, the main riff eventually
crumbles into a tangle of what sounds like drum machine and electronics, before finally disappearing completely in a
doomic haze of black psychedelic power electronics. Woah. We could stop right there, and you'd definitely be getting
your $12 worth. But there's nearly 40 minutes of 'wickedness' to go...
Woozy washed out shimmer gives way to ultra distorted crunch, which in turn gives way to some post industrial noise
drenched pummel. Murky groaning ambience spreads out like some black fog, underneath which delicate melodies
struggle for air, the textures shift and the layers roil, before an insanely distorted riff emerges, the distortion so thick
and crumbling and blown out, it's difficult to discern the actual notes, that riff plays out, transforming as it goes from
sharp caustic crunch, to muddy murky mumble, always wrapped in bellowed vox and a steady barrage of FX-saturated
noize, until finally, the 13 minute noise doom dirge of album closer "They Are Suffering Alone And Terrified", a
feedback slathered stumble through a field of erratic metallic buzz, chugging grinding guitarnoise and weirdly dubbed
out drums, a twisting tangled bout of abstract heaviness, so corrosive and chaotic, any semblance of metal can only
be glimpsed through a constantly heaving haze of blackened fury.
Fucking awesome, and definitely some seriously difficult listening, but for the legions of the slow and low, who can't
ever seem to get enough glacial, near static, demonically riff-ed, doom-ed blacknoize, then Borne Black is yet another
gloriously grim missive from the darkside, another black sonic stone to hurl at the heavens, as let these sounds drag
you further into the fiery deep.
WAY recommended!!
Crucial Blast “Borne Black” CD
The mighty crawling industrial sludge of Wicked King Wicker has turned into some of my favorite ultra slow-motion
sludge-encrusted pit-lurking heaviness being made right now, and there's few bands out there making music this
obliterated and crushing. The New York duo is back with a new release, right on the heels of that killer limited-edition
LP Serpents Psalm that I wrote up in the last new arrivals list, and this new album Borne Black marks the first
appearance of new member Logan Butler. Logan's already well known around here, not only for being a longtime
Crucial Blast customer, but also for playing in the oddly named noisecore band J. Briglia, L. Butler, D.Schoonmaker &
J.Williams that released a split 7" with Agathocles not too long ago (which we also have in stock). So here we have
Borne Black, album number four from Wicked King Wicker with five new massive tracks of bone-crushing blackened
industrial noise-doom, heavier and more freaked-out sounding than ever, a boiling tarpit abyss of oozing lumbering
hypnotic doom metal riffs, chaotic noise, psychedelic formless electronics, and bestial vocals. Equal parts black
industrial noise and punishing glacial riffage, as doomy and heavy as any doom metal band, but they bury their
pounding, grooving riffs under tons of suffocating sonic debris and blackened skuzz, a monstrous mechanical doom-
machine grinding through lightless wastelands of toxic noise and imbued with this immense gravitational pull.
The album starts off with "There Is Only Pain", over ten minutes of swirling buzzing filth through which Wicked King
Wicker drag a massive ponderous Black Sabbath-like riff, a huge doomed-out, totally dreary guitar dirge that crawls
slowly forward while super-distorted death metal vocals bellow in the background, obscured by thick gusts of
relentless distortion, reverb and corrosive buzzing feedback. It's like Black Sabbath fused with the newer Skullflower
stuff, a suffocating demonic plod into the pit that just gets more and more caustic as the noise and reverb swarms
over the entire track, until the guitar finally disintegrates in the second half into a shapeless mass of squealing
feedback and deformed low-end grind, and damaged psych leads and wild oscillating electronic waves come surging
up out of depths.
The guitar moves to the background for "Against The Wisting Meadow", where soft droning pulses drift upwards over
a disorienting wash of metallic thrum, slowly joined by oceanic waves of distortion like the heaviest wall-noise
imaginable, The Rita infused with rumbling doom guitar and demonic vocals, but then the waves of distortion form into
a crushing rhythmic throb and the sound turns into a kind of super heavy industrial drone dirge, with those insanely
harsh vocals raging in the back. Blasts of punishing distorted percussion appear, and hellish choir voices rise up out
of the deep black murkiness that sets in towards the end, surrounded by fragments of ominous melody and gleaming
cosmic drones. "Tripping A Light Abomination" combines groaning sheet-metal torture and streaks of black psych
guitar, then evolves into a crushing mantra of jet-roar feedback and caustic looped bass-waves, and "And Now I Shall
Bleed For You" drops a vicious slab of blown-out deathdoom riffage in a vat of black bile and absurdly distorted noise,
the riff and everything around so fried and in-the-red that it sounds like it's disintegrating, a roiling black mass of
bottom-end heaviness and processed amplifier-vomit, creating one of the albums heaviest tracks.
And then at last the final track, the thirteen minute "They Are Suffering Alone And Terrified", another brutal and utterly
evil bass-heavy doomdeath riff, only this time it's not quite as ponderous as the previus tracks, and instead hurtles
into a weirdly groovy off-time lurch, the abrasive bass riff grinding through a thick fog of immense echoing drums,
huge dubby blasts of percussive rumble tripping into infinity, the snarling distorted vocals also steeped in reverb and
delay and appearing as demonic tracers across the wheezing, noise-and-FX-damaged doomscape.
It's amazing how these guys are able to get heavier and heavier with each new release, and Borne Black is their
heaviest yet, a skullcrushing orgasm of ultra-slow feedback-fucked abyssal machine-doom, and fans of their previous
releases will no doubt blow multiple gaskets over this disc. Most highly recommended, and anyone into the abstract
blackened tectonic noise/sludge mayhem of bands like Human Quena Orchestra, Habysll, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer,
post-Tribulation Skullflower, Josh Lay's solo stuff, Lietterschpich, Grave In The Sky, and Gnaw Their TOngues needs
to hear WKW, STAT!
Forced Exposure
The 4th album from Wicked King Wicker Borne Black, self released by the band, is already winning praise as the
heaviest, most densely disturbed offering from these doom laden noise freaks to date. WKW's following has exploded
recently with a burst of praising reviews from around the world, and the adoration of fans who are spreading the word
that Wicked King Wicker is a 'must hear to be believed' group. The band's original core following was among the noise
and extreme doom heads, but has recently spilled into the world of lo-fi black metal and fans of deep cerebral
psychedelia. Where will it end? Previous releases are selling out at a quick pace, and this CD is an edition of 999
copies. Wicked King Wicker have already become a band by which other bands are compared to in the pages of top
internet sellers and reviewers. Loud blistering doom noise."
Aquarius
WICKED KING WICKER The Serpent's Psalm (Magnetica Nocturnus)
Brand new slab of extreme ultra low end slow motion doom-ed brutality from this NY outfit, whose last few records have
left us beaten and bloodied and jonesing for more.
These guys have been around for a while apparently, but we only discovered their beautifully caustic downtuned din
last year, with two records, their s/t debut (re-listed elsewhere on this week's update) and their second record Flydust.
Both pushed all the right buttons, SUNNO))), Skullflower, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Khanate, Bunkur, Moss, just
unbelievable heavy and sludgy, blackened and glacial, dripping and oozing with atmosphere, textures and drones, not
just run of the mill sludge, or boring, lean-the-guitar-against-the-amp guitardrones, no, this was a band, rocking out
full force, albeit insanely slow, and crushingly intense. So here comes record number three, another super limited lp
only release, two sidelong tracks, and hell, if it doesn't leave the other two in the dust.
We're listening to it at 33, which sounds perfect, but it sounds pretty bad ass at 45 too, and still slow and sludgey,
EVEN at 45, but slower is better, and this is slow and thick and viscous and so so so heavy. All built on a super
stripped down bass riff, the bass super distorted and crumbling, unfurling an impossibly slow doom-ic anti-groove,
over and over and over, cyclical and hypnotic and trance like, ultra minimal, but in no way boring or simple, just
mesmerizing, while all around that riff, the rest of the band fills up whatever empty space is left with, massive sheets of
buzz and whir, distorted effects everywhere, layers upon layers, drones and textures, feedback and incidental
melodies, all being dragged along in the wake of that main bass riff behemoth. Not sure how they do it, but the sound,
beyond heavy, and drone-y, is super musical, and while not quite melodic, there is some melody buried under all that
murk and grime, it's like super blown out space rock, slowed down to 3 or 4 rpm, still retaining some of it's blissed out
spaciness, but setting it amidst a roiling sea of black sonic tar and creeping, lurching, lumbering heaviness.
The flipside, another side long black drone sludge doom epic, seems to have been birthed out of the same grim black
sound hole that produced the first side, the same lugubrious creep, the same grim blackened atmosphere, but here
that riff has been pulled apart, whatever black beasts lurk in the shadows has torn it to pieces, leaving just shards and
fragments, a swirling churning chaos of dense processed low end, crumbling distortion, deep fractured drones, more
atmospheric and ambient than the first side, but just as harsh and hellish and heavy. Imagine building a massive
roaring fire, then taking a load of guitars and amps, all plugged in, cranked, and howling and moaning and feeding
back, and tossing them into the fire, letting them twist and ooze and smoke, recording the sound of the guitars and
amps dying, melting, slowly fusing into one charred blackened heap of blistered and blown out buzz. It's kind of like
that.
Awesome packaging too, thick clear plastic sleeves, silkscreened in white, over a red slab of vinyl with no labels, and a
printed single panel insert, with three tiny Dore woodcut cards bearing the band's initials. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!
Crucial Blast “The Serpent’s Psalm” LP
Album number three from those upstate NY purveyors of ultra hypnotic industrial blackdoom heaviness, Wicked King
Wicker! The last two records that we picked up from these guys stomped my head in with their repetitious riffage and
psychedelic noise abuse, and I've been looking forward to more...
The band kinda came out of nowhere last year, with those two slabs of tectonic machine-doom plod that were
released on Noiseville Records (the longrunning indie label that's owned by one of the members and which released
the classic Last Shot At Heaven album from Skullflower as well as some other killer noise rock releases back in the
90's), both of which were a big deal around here, both the self-titled debut and the followup Flydust spewing massive
gouts of abstract, noisy sludge, hateful and corroded and drenched in feedback and psychedelic effects, sharing that
same diseased blackened vibe as bands like Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Black Boned Angel, Grave In The Sky, Burial
Chamber Trio and the newer black-metal obsessed Skullflower stuff. In other words, just the sort of shit that we can't
get enough of around the C-Blast office. What made me really fall in love with Wicked King Wicker was just how
industrial their blackened sludge sounds, with huge lumbering simplistic percussion grinding underneath the dense
suffocating glacial slime, like hearing early Pitchshifter buried underneath an ocean of hideous blacknoise.
So now we've got this third album from the band, this time released by another label, Magentica Nocturnus, and
released in a limited edition of 300 copies on red vinyl streaked with black, packaged inside of a stunning thick
silkscreened plastic sleeve with a backing insert card and three postcards featuring artwork from Gustave Dore. Two
songs, both long as fuck, each one taking up a whole side.
The first side is the title track, "the Serpent's Psalm", a nearly 20 minute scumdoom dirge, ultra slow and lumbering
and syrupy, a massive chunk of slow-mo heaviness creeping through a sea of druggy noise. The whole jam is
centered around a single basic bass riff, super blown out and distorted and in the red as it lumbers forward in a
jagged angular throb, repeating itself over and over again, a hypnotic doomy riff that lulls you into a trance while the
band pours on tons of freaked out fx-drenched vocals and corrosive feedback, wailing feedback and ethereal reverb,
slow-writhing streams of high end skree and endless layers of grinding distortion and scraping subterranean drones,
the whole sound completely and utterly drowned in psychedelic fx and noise while that plodding bass riff plows through
it towards the end. It's like Skullflower slowed down to 20 bpm and buried under an avalanche of bass-heavy filth, with
spacey melodies somehow clawing their way out of the murk and grime to hover over the brain melting heaviness.
This continues onto the second side, where the fifteen minute "Black Death Upon The White Robe" unfurls into
another massive blot of blackened psychedelic sludge, only this time, there's no riff, no form, no forward propulsion of
any kind, just a massive churning ocean of grim, lightless buzz and roar. Insanely distorted guitars (or bass, who
knows) grind and rumble infinitely, forming a thick dense cloud of overmodulated dronesludge steeped in toxic low-end
and weird processed effects, super heavy and evil sounding but much more "ambient" and droning than the first side.
It's like an ultra-heavy flanged out Vulture Club track bathed in black murky feedback and digital distortion, stretched
out into a surging buzzing mesmerizing black drone that towards the end is gradually joined by thumping percussion,
looped metallic feedback, clanging sheet-metal, and crushing waves of subsonic urk.
From Crucial Blast
WICKED KING WICKER self-titled
Man, Noiseville came back with a bang last year - the legendary noise rock label that was responsible for releasing
Skullflower's Last Shot At Heaven way back in the day had been quiet for awhile, but we started to see some gnarly
grindcore records coming out through em from the likes of Unholy Grave and others, but then late last year they
dropped not one, but two albums from a new band called Wicked King Wicker who I had never heard of before, but
who totally blew my fucking head off with some of the heaviest, most deformed noise/doom weirdness ever! This New
York band is hard to pin down; their sound is definitely doomy and metal as fuck, ultra slow and punishing, but it's
slathered in so much noise and distortion and caustic filth that it starts to lean more towards the more abstract, noise-
damaged end of the doom spectrum.
This self-titled album is Wicked King Wicker's debut, with four songs of unbelievable psychedelic heaviness. At their
core, Wicked King Wicker are pure doom, playing huge subsonic Sabbathoid riffs over pounding glacial percussion
that sounds kind of industrial, a plodding pounding metal trudge, but the guitars are completely fucked, mashed into a
howling, grinding mass of ultradistorted buzz, insanely blown out and crumbling under the weight of their distortion,
this crunchy and abrasive black roar of viscous amplifier grind that is poured over everything. The first song "Faith
Through Fear" is this one massive upwardly winding riff grinding over and over through a thick cloud of blackened
buzz and grit, the drums buried deep in the corrosive murk and pounding out a simple, skullcrushing industrial groove,
gibbering vocals howling in the chaos and drenched in nasty, warped FX, multiple screaming guitars spewing bizarre
acid-rock solos across the throbbing, propulsive sludge, like some ultra-noisy mix of Skullflower, Whitehouse and early
Pitchshifter. But that's followed by "Through A Soul, Darkly", which veers into a vast elongated buzzsaw riff thats been
slowed down into a massive glacial buzzroar hovering over a blackened landscape of sparse percussion and distorted
FX, like a static Sunn O))) riff stretched out into infinity, until halfway in when everything is overtaken by a huge wave
of black distortion that slowly evolves into this suffocating wall of demonic deathdrone. The other two tracks "Often
Referred To (But Never Seen)" and "Don't Go In The Woods" follow a similiar path as the first two, moving from bizarre
percussive thunder and warped psychedelic effects to lurching motorik rhythms, buzzing swarms of rust-encrusted
ultradrone, damaged doom riffing, hissing black metal vocals, murky Hawkwind effects, grinding industrial plod,
everything enshrouded in blasted distortion and filthy metallic drone. Minimal and crushing, way, way zoned out, it's
like this mutant spawn of Skullflower and extreme black doom, ridiculously heavy, and mega recommended to any of
you that worship the damaged, droning scumdoom of Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Khanate, Burial Chamber Trio, RYN,
Alkerdeel, Black Boned Angel, Burmese, and Grave In The Sky. The LP is limited to 490 copies, and comes on purple
vinyl.
WICKED KING WICKER Flydust LP
Man, Noiseville came back with a bang last year - the legendary noise rock label that was responsible for releasing
Skullflower's Last Shot At Heaven way back in the day had been quiet for awhile, but we started to see some gnarly
grindcore records coming out through em from the likes of Unholy Grave and others, but then late last year they
dropped not one, but two albums from a new band called Wicked King Wicker who I had never heard of before, but
who totally blew my fucking head off with some of the heaviest, most deformed noise/doom weirdness ever! This New
York band is hard to pin down; their sound is definitely doomy and metal as fuck, ultra slow and punishing, but it's
slathered in so much noise and distortion and caustic filth that it starts to lean more towards the more abstract, noise-
damaged end of the doom spectrum.
The second Wicked King Wicker album, Flydust is a vinyl only release that features two eighteen-plus minute tracks,
one on each side, each one an avalanche of sickening, diseased industrial dronesludge. These two tracks might be
even more fearsome than the self titled album, and are definitely way more abstract and shapeless than the more
doom-metal like grinding on that disc. The sound is vast and formless, a terrifying black mass of churning distortion
and crushing machine clatter, buzzing amplifiers roaring endlessly through a fog of throbbing buzzing guitars, the
distortion and volume pushed deep into the red and causing the droning metallic riffs to crumble and collapse under
their own weight. It sounds like there's a band underneath the thick suffocating layers of noise, distortion and
feedback, some monstrous extreme doom metal band oozing black lumbering riffs and hypnotic slow-motion beats
deep beneath the squall of churning, sprawling murk, ultra deep and crushing and swirling in filthy subsonic buzz,
grinding riffs pulled apart into murky rippling drones. Insanely deep death metal like vocals appear over top of this
chaotic black organism, gutteral and tortured, doused in tons of FX. Ultra crushing, blown out and fucked up blasts of
hypnotic noise-doom that reveals subtle shifting layers of dark melody and caustic textures beneath the massive
blackened throb of Wicked King Wicker. Essential for fans of Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, newer Skullflower, and other
forms of ultra-heavy black abstraction. Flydust is only available on vinyl in a limited edition of 490 copies, and includes
a printed lyric sheet.
Arthur Magazine (Byron Coley/Thurston Moore)
From somewhere in the same region comes the second LP by Wicked King Wicker. Flydust (WKW) is another solid
slub-wall of guitar-spuzz and murk with devil-ass overtones. They’ll have a split LP with Skullflower soon, which should
be an indicator of sorts.
Aquarius Records “Picks of the Week”
WICKED KING WICKER Flydust
We had never heard of this NY band before but HOLY SHIT. A serious new contender for sure in the ever expanding
world of crushing slow motion ultra doom-dirge-dronemusick. Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, SUNNO))), Skullflower,
Khanate, Wolf Eyes, Bunkur, etc. Any of those names get your blood boiling, then WKW just might be your favorite
new band.
Flydust is WKW's latest offering, two tracks, both taking up a whole side, each a harrowing black expanse of
crumbling, buzzing, churning heaviness. A sprawling, bottomless sea of throbbing, pulsing downtuned lowend buzz,
roiling distorted drones, all murky and muddy and smeared into constantly shifting layers and textures, abrasive and
chaotic, but washed out into a single heaving organic black expanse. Over the top, a weirdly motorik drumbeat, locked
into a neverending rhythm, looped and hypnotic, and over that, super creepy vocals, equal parts death metal gurgle,
and tortured anguished howl. The sound is mostly monochromatic, but the sounds shift and the textures transform,
moments of melody surface here and there amidst the long stretches of near static blur and buzz, the vocals almost
like another instrument, another black layer, all tangled up into an abject, blackened and brutal otherworldly kraut-
doom. Harrowing, mesmerizing, buzzing, grinding and blown out, fucked up and abrasive, but simultaneously hypnotic
and in its own brutal and punishing way, strangely beautiful.
VINYL ONLY. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Each one has a hand drawn inner sleeve, customized (i.e. scribbled on) by
the band, every one unique.
WICKED KING WICKER s/t
We had never heard of this NY band before but HOLY SHIT. A serious new contender for sure in the ever expanding
world of crushing slow motion ultra doom-dirge-dronemusick. Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, SUNNO))), Skullflower,
Khanate, Wolf Eyes, Bunkur, etc. Any of those names get your blood boiling, then WKW just might be your favorite
new band.
This WKW's self titled debut, and is in some ways even heavier and more blown out than Flydust (reviewed elsewhere
on this list). The root sound is similar, a heaving morass of crumbling superdistorted guitars, but where as Flydust is
murky and muddy and washed out, the sound here is prickly and cacophonous, abrasive and sort of sharp. The
sound is also more propulsive, more distinct riffs, dripping with in-the-red distortion and twisted FX. The opening track
is one single ascending riff, looped over and over and over and over, pounding its way through a dense cloud of
impossibly thick buzz, the drums a buried plod, the vocals, barely audible through the churning mass of unfurling riffs
and a constantly expanding wall of sound. The strange thing is, there is a definite groove lurking underneath, loping
and lurching, but groovy nonetheless. Think Godflesh or Pitchshifter mixed with Ramleh and Wolf Eyes, but super
charged and revved up, and dipped in a psychedelic concoction of tripped out prismatic psychrock filigree and blown
out amp destroying drone drenched doom.
But the second track is a whole different beast altogether, a stretched out slowed down distorted riff, unfurled in slow
motion, very reminiscent of Earth 2, but peppered with simple spare drumming, only barely, until about halfway
through when the sound is swallowed up but a wall of distorted sound much more like the opening track, and suddenly
the sound is transformed into a blown out acid-doused blast of crumbling blacknoise.
The last two tracks offer up more of the same, varying degrees of forward momentum, of spaced out ur-drone, of in-
the-red effects, pounding abstract percussion, all draped over near static whitenoise buzz, weird krauty grooves,
woozy metallic crawls, pulsing metallic ambience, and heavy heavy hypnotic dirgedoomdronemusick.
The lp is limited to 490 copies, pressed on purple vinyl, the cd is limited to 1000 copies.
Arthur 5/5/08 Bull Tongue (Byron Coley/Thurston Moore)
Seems like we’ve mentioned Chrome a coupla times in passing. It should be noted that Jim Gibson’s newly-reactivated
Noiseville label has followed their superb Helios Creed two-LP set with reissues of three crucial Chrome albums on
CD: Alien Sountracks, Half Machine Lip Moves and Third from the Sun. These albums track the early development of
this legendary Bay Area psych combo, from their garagist roots into their deepest Neu/Suicide trance states, on to the
synchretically fused punk-space hybrid they perfected. Three great albums. And if you write Noiseville, don’t forget to
ask about the Wicked King Wicker. It is a brutal guitar piece taken to a near-Skullflower level. We shit you not.
From www.schwermetall.ch
Wicked King Wicker - Wicked King Wicker (2008)
Style: Drone, Noise, experimental music
Label: Noiseville record
Points: 9/13
Play time: 32:59
Are you in the search for loud, brutal and experimental music, which overcomes the usual metallic plates with ease?
Then you should lead yourself this New Yorker formation to mind…
Skullflower with the Gastklampfer John Cale presents to you. Together they play loaf oh a piece as if it would be from
sunn o))) and bed this into the Düsternis of Celtic frost. So one could describe the musical spectrum of this unusual
colloquium. Really that is applicable naturally not, but around a rough direction to indicate it should be enough.
Four abstract works of art form its debut EP, which appeared last year quasi on the own record company to Noiseville
record. Wicked King Wicker orient themselves in parts at something something similar as a Songstruktur, which only
causes with comparable category colleagues the case is. Wants to be called, also ungeübte listeners could try once
ear-fully of it without the bulky parts clog equal the whole Gehörgang. But no fear, easily consumable is definitely
never “Wicked King Wicker”.
The album is coated by an intensive, terribly dark aura. Apart from the crashing noise excesses the gentlemen
increase skillfully, some post office skirt volume not dissimilarly, the tension eternally, dark and tough grasp picture
and let it finally in a Rückkopplungsorgie implode. The singing, or better murmuring in the background plays only a
subordinated role and creates a correctly dämonische atmosphere.
Here I must relate however something. Behind this group is some more than devil worshipping, Nietz, Blutgeilheit, kite
cult and heroische battles. Volume, which beyond the edge of plate of the typical metal topics. “Through A soul,
Darkly” for example was inspired by a Swedish feature from the year 1961 “as in a mirror” by Ingmar Bergman.
The kratzige and raw photograph quality is really suitable. Thus quasi the necessary fine cross section is given to the
sound, which offers an authentic ambience to the consumer.
Too ergattern there are 1000 CD and 490 violet records. Whom this criticism did not deter yet, gladly its soul may risk.
Peacedogman (Hellride Music)
• WICKED KING WICKER - "Wicked King Wicker", 2007
• (Noiseville)
• No rest for the wicked.
It’s great to see that Noiseville is still at it after all these years. Even nowadays the “From The Twisted Minds Come…”
compilation I got on yellow clear vinyl still gets played (what diverse record that was). Back in those days the rock had
quite a bit of noise to go along with it. Between BULLETS FOR PUSSY’s scuzzcore, UNHOLY SWILL’s noise rap, ST37’
s garage/surf, COZ THE SHROOM’s schizoid acid rock, BOOTBEAST’s slick metal, to JARMED ENECY’s experimental
sounds, it was all there. SURGERY’s reworking of “Knocking On Heaven’s Door” was perhaps me fave. It was
mastered at the wrong speed. To slow at 33 speed, yet if you cranked it to 45 it would be too fast.
With WICKED KING WICKER it looks as though things have gone in the opposite direction. The record label moniker is
more appropriate here. The noise has a slight bit of rock to help it along the path to Armageddon. This is the kind of
scuzz that SAVAGE PENCIL’s SATIN CHICKENS and SKULLFLOWER fans will devour. Think dark, distorted and
intense. You kind of have to be in the mood for this sort of thing. I know I have to. I tried to listen to this a couple days
ago and all it managed to do was irritate. Now I’m being channeled back to a day and age where I was up for this sort
of punishment any day of the week. Back when I could venture into a club in Hotlanta and say Japan’s ZENI GEVA
would be there to destroy anything in their path. Although this sort of musically inert mindlessness has very little to do
with what I’m into now-a-days, this disc appears to hit me on a guttural level that works for me as I listen. The droning
quality of the sounds can be very calming after awhile. The whispered and gurgled (somewhat Satanic sounding)
voice fucks it up a little, but not enough to ruin the vibe.
Each of the four eightish minute pieces has a slightly different vibe. “Faith Through Fear” has got the murky drums,
feedback and some ascending melodic notes to keep it slightly musical. “Through A Soul, Darkly*” is just a drone that
turns into a long explosion and then back to a drone. “Often Referred To (But Never Seen)” has got the the drones,
some fluttering helicopter like flapping rhythm and guitars riffing. As it appears to increase in volume wind like chaos,
loud cricket chirps and vocal noises enter the fray. “Don’t Go Into The Woods” returns the sound to minimal droning
that, predictably builds up to another ostensible climax. I’m liking it. There is a time and place for this. Noise can
annoy, but not today.
"Remember the Noiseville label? They're back with a vengeance in the form of two LPs from Wicked King Wicker.
While there may be a plethora of sludgy doom dirge-type outfits delivering varying degrees of damage, WKW are not
to be glossed over. ‘Flydust’ [8] delivers two tracks of punishing, decayed black drones as expansive as they are
devastating but if push comes to shove it’s the self-titled ‘Wicked King Wicker’ that really goes off like a neutron bomb.
aided by an ever-so-slight sense of rhythm. [8.5]" (Guy Strachan)
AquariusRecords.org
WICKED KING WICKER Borne Black
Those who worship at the altar of all that is slow and low and heavy and sludgey and doomy and droney, you must
now bow before a new lord, the duo from New York known simply as Wicked King Wicker. After three records, each
heavier than the last, comes Borne Black, a sprawling black sun explosion of creepy crawly riffage, lumbering
lugubrious tempos, tarpit sludge, and spaced out abstract buzz and shimmer, if you fancy Moss, Bunkur, Blue Sabbath
Black Cheer, SUNNO))), Wolf Eyes, Khanate, Skullflower, Human Quena Orchestra, Monarch, Corrupted, Otesanek,
Habsyll, and all the various other denizens of the inky black dronedirgedoom underworld, and have yet to hear WKW,
you are in for a treat. That is, if a treat for you is two guys all dressed in black, mere shadows, pummeling you to within
an inch of your life with bloodied guitars, tossing your limp form into a freshly dug grave, before toppling a Guitar
Center's worth of amplifiers into the hole, then burying you alive, before pushing the amps, the bloody guitars and
your mangled corpse across an endless expanse of blackened filth and debris with a massive demonic KILLdozer.
That's kind of what it feels like listening to Borne Black, five lengthy tracks of ultra slow riffing, and black ambient
soundscaping. And while these guys can lean their guitars against the amps with the best of 'em, conjuring up thick
black clouds of noxious low end slither, they are also masters of the RIFF, and most of these songs do in in fact
contain riffs, not always right up in front, but the songs are driven by the riff, giving them more weight, more
heaviness, and making them sound way more METAL than most of their contemporaries.
Just have a listen to album opener "There Is Only Pain", a crushing descending, depressive doom riff, that just churns
relentlessly, pounding away, a gloriously miserablist sonic trudge, all amidst a constantly swirling field of white noise,
static buzz, and caustic feedback. Over the course of 10 + minutes, the riff, and the demonic vokills that accompany it,
sing slowly into the abyss, as the swirling clouds of noise around it grow more and more thick, the main riff eventually
crumbles into a tangle of what sounds like drum machine and electronics, before finally disappearing completely in a
doomic haze of black psychedelic power electronics. Woah. We could stop right there, and you'd definitely be getting
your $12 worth. But there's nearly 40 minutes of 'wickedness' to go...
Woozy washed out shimmer gives way to ultra distorted crunch, which in turn gives way to some post industrial noise
drenched pummel. Murky groaning ambience spreads out like some black fog, underneath which delicate melodies
struggle for air, the textures shift and the layers roil, before an insanely distorted riff emerges, the distortion so thick
and crumbling and blown out, it's difficult to discern the actual notes, that riff plays out, transforming as it goes from
sharp caustic crunch, to muddy murky mumble, always wrapped in bellowed vox and a steady barrage of FX-saturated
noize, until finally, the 13 minute noise doom dirge of album closer "They Are Suffering Alone And Terrified", a
feedback slathered stumble through a field of erratic metallic buzz, chugging grinding guitarnoise and weirdly dubbed
out drums, a twisting tangled bout of abstract heaviness, so corrosive and chaotic, any semblance of metal can only
be glimpsed through a constantly heaving haze of blackened fury.
Fucking awesome, and definitely some seriously difficult listening, but for the legions of the slow and low, who can't
ever seem to get enough glacial, near static, demonically riff-ed, doom-ed blacknoize, then Borne Black is yet another
gloriously grim missive from the darkside, another black sonic stone to hurl at the heavens, as let these sounds drag
you further into the fiery deep.
WAY recommended!!
Crucial Blast “Borne Black” CD
The mighty crawling industrial sludge of Wicked King Wicker has turned into some of my favorite ultra slow-motion
sludge-encrusted pit-lurking heaviness being made right now, and there's few bands out there making music this
obliterated and crushing. The New York duo is back with a new release, right on the heels of that killer limited-edition
LP Serpents Psalm that I wrote up in the last new arrivals list, and this new album Borne Black marks the first
appearance of new member Logan Butler. Logan's already well known around here, not only for being a longtime
Crucial Blast customer, but also for playing in the oddly named noisecore band J. Briglia, L. Butler, D.Schoonmaker &
J.Williams that released a split 7" with Agathocles not too long ago (which we also have in stock). So here we have
Borne Black, album number four from Wicked King Wicker with five new massive tracks of bone-crushing blackened
industrial noise-doom, heavier and more freaked-out sounding than ever, a boiling tarpit abyss of oozing lumbering
hypnotic doom metal riffs, chaotic noise, psychedelic formless electronics, and bestial vocals. Equal parts black
industrial noise and punishing glacial riffage, as doomy and heavy as any doom metal band, but they bury their
pounding, grooving riffs under tons of suffocating sonic debris and blackened skuzz, a monstrous mechanical doom-
machine grinding through lightless wastelands of toxic noise and imbued with this immense gravitational pull.
The album starts off with "There Is Only Pain", over ten minutes of swirling buzzing filth through which Wicked King
Wicker drag a massive ponderous Black Sabbath-like riff, a huge doomed-out, totally dreary guitar dirge that crawls
slowly forward while super-distorted death metal vocals bellow in the background, obscured by thick gusts of
relentless distortion, reverb and corrosive buzzing feedback. It's like Black Sabbath fused with the newer Skullflower
stuff, a suffocating demonic plod into the pit that just gets more and more caustic as the noise and reverb swarms
over the entire track, until the guitar finally disintegrates in the second half into a shapeless mass of squealing
feedback and deformed low-end grind, and damaged psych leads and wild oscillating electronic waves come surging
up out of depths.
The guitar moves to the background for "Against The Wisting Meadow", where soft droning pulses drift upwards over
a disorienting wash of metallic thrum, slowly joined by oceanic waves of distortion like the heaviest wall-noise
imaginable, The Rita infused with rumbling doom guitar and demonic vocals, but then the waves of distortion form into
a crushing rhythmic throb and the sound turns into a kind of super heavy industrial drone dirge, with those insanely
harsh vocals raging in the back. Blasts of punishing distorted percussion appear, and hellish choir voices rise up out
of the deep black murkiness that sets in towards the end, surrounded by fragments of ominous melody and gleaming
cosmic drones. "Tripping A Light Abomination" combines groaning sheet-metal torture and streaks of black psych
guitar, then evolves into a crushing mantra of jet-roar feedback and caustic looped bass-waves, and "And Now I Shall
Bleed For You" drops a vicious slab of blown-out deathdoom riffage in a vat of black bile and absurdly distorted noise,
the riff and everything around so fried and in-the-red that it sounds like it's disintegrating, a roiling black mass of
bottom-end heaviness and processed amplifier-vomit, creating one of the albums heaviest tracks.
And then at last the final track, the thirteen minute "They Are Suffering Alone And Terrified", another brutal and utterly
evil bass-heavy doomdeath riff, only this time it's not quite as ponderous as the previus tracks, and instead hurtles
into a weirdly groovy off-time lurch, the abrasive bass riff grinding through a thick fog of immense echoing drums,
huge dubby blasts of percussive rumble tripping into infinity, the snarling distorted vocals also steeped in reverb and
delay and appearing as demonic tracers across the wheezing, noise-and-FX-damaged doomscape.
It's amazing how these guys are able to get heavier and heavier with each new release, and Borne Black is their
heaviest yet, a skullcrushing orgasm of ultra-slow feedback-fucked abyssal machine-doom, and fans of their previous
releases will no doubt blow multiple gaskets over this disc. Most highly recommended, and anyone into the abstract
blackened tectonic noise/sludge mayhem of bands like Human Quena Orchestra, Habysll, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer,
post-Tribulation Skullflower, Josh Lay's solo stuff, Lietterschpich, Grave In The Sky, and Gnaw Their TOngues needs
to hear WKW, STAT!
Forced Exposure
The 4th album from Wicked King Wicker Borne Black, self released by the band, is already winning praise as the
heaviest, most densely disturbed offering from these doom laden noise freaks to date. WKW's following has exploded
recently with a burst of praising reviews from around the world, and the adoration of fans who are spreading the word
that Wicked King Wicker is a 'must hear to be believed' group. The band's original core following was among the noise
and extreme doom heads, but has recently spilled into the world of lo-fi black metal and fans of deep cerebral
psychedelia. Where will it end? Previous releases are selling out at a quick pace, and this CD is an edition of 999
copies. Wicked King Wicker have already become a band by which other bands are compared to in the pages of top
internet sellers and reviewers. Loud blistering doom noise."
Aquarius
WICKED KING WICKER The Serpent's Psalm (Magnetica Nocturnus)
Brand new slab of extreme ultra low end slow motion doom-ed brutality from this NY outfit, whose last few records have
left us beaten and bloodied and jonesing for more.
These guys have been around for a while apparently, but we only discovered their beautifully caustic downtuned din
last year, with two records, their s/t debut (re-listed elsewhere on this week's update) and their second record Flydust.
Both pushed all the right buttons, SUNNO))), Skullflower, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Khanate, Bunkur, Moss, just
unbelievable heavy and sludgy, blackened and glacial, dripping and oozing with atmosphere, textures and drones, not
just run of the mill sludge, or boring, lean-the-guitar-against-the-amp guitardrones, no, this was a band, rocking out
full force, albeit insanely slow, and crushingly intense. So here comes record number three, another super limited lp
only release, two sidelong tracks, and hell, if it doesn't leave the other two in the dust.
We're listening to it at 33, which sounds perfect, but it sounds pretty bad ass at 45 too, and still slow and sludgey,
EVEN at 45, but slower is better, and this is slow and thick and viscous and so so so heavy. All built on a super
stripped down bass riff, the bass super distorted and crumbling, unfurling an impossibly slow doom-ic anti-groove,
over and over and over, cyclical and hypnotic and trance like, ultra minimal, but in no way boring or simple, just
mesmerizing, while all around that riff, the rest of the band fills up whatever empty space is left with, massive sheets of
buzz and whir, distorted effects everywhere, layers upon layers, drones and textures, feedback and incidental
melodies, all being dragged along in the wake of that main bass riff behemoth. Not sure how they do it, but the sound,
beyond heavy, and drone-y, is super musical, and while not quite melodic, there is some melody buried under all that
murk and grime, it's like super blown out space rock, slowed down to 3 or 4 rpm, still retaining some of it's blissed out
spaciness, but setting it amidst a roiling sea of black sonic tar and creeping, lurching, lumbering heaviness.
The flipside, another side long black drone sludge doom epic, seems to have been birthed out of the same grim black
sound hole that produced the first side, the same lugubrious creep, the same grim blackened atmosphere, but here
that riff has been pulled apart, whatever black beasts lurk in the shadows has torn it to pieces, leaving just shards and
fragments, a swirling churning chaos of dense processed low end, crumbling distortion, deep fractured drones, more
atmospheric and ambient than the first side, but just as harsh and hellish and heavy. Imagine building a massive
roaring fire, then taking a load of guitars and amps, all plugged in, cranked, and howling and moaning and feeding
back, and tossing them into the fire, letting them twist and ooze and smoke, recording the sound of the guitars and
amps dying, melting, slowly fusing into one charred blackened heap of blistered and blown out buzz. It's kind of like
that.
Awesome packaging too, thick clear plastic sleeves, silkscreened in white, over a red slab of vinyl with no labels, and a
printed single panel insert, with three tiny Dore woodcut cards bearing the band's initials. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!
Crucial Blast “The Serpent’s Psalm” LP
Album number three from those upstate NY purveyors of ultra hypnotic industrial blackdoom heaviness, Wicked King
Wicker! The last two records that we picked up from these guys stomped my head in with their repetitious riffage and
psychedelic noise abuse, and I've been looking forward to more...
The band kinda came out of nowhere last year, with those two slabs of tectonic machine-doom plod that were
released on Noiseville Records (the longrunning indie label that's owned by one of the members and which released
the classic Last Shot At Heaven album from Skullflower as well as some other killer noise rock releases back in the
90's), both of which were a big deal around here, both the self-titled debut and the followup Flydust spewing massive
gouts of abstract, noisy sludge, hateful and corroded and drenched in feedback and psychedelic effects, sharing that
same diseased blackened vibe as bands like Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Black Boned Angel, Grave In The Sky, Burial
Chamber Trio and the newer black-metal obsessed Skullflower stuff. In other words, just the sort of shit that we can't
get enough of around the C-Blast office. What made me really fall in love with Wicked King Wicker was just how
industrial their blackened sludge sounds, with huge lumbering simplistic percussion grinding underneath the dense
suffocating glacial slime, like hearing early Pitchshifter buried underneath an ocean of hideous blacknoise.
So now we've got this third album from the band, this time released by another label, Magentica Nocturnus, and
released in a limited edition of 300 copies on red vinyl streaked with black, packaged inside of a stunning thick
silkscreened plastic sleeve with a backing insert card and three postcards featuring artwork from Gustave Dore. Two
songs, both long as fuck, each one taking up a whole side.
The first side is the title track, "the Serpent's Psalm", a nearly 20 minute scumdoom dirge, ultra slow and lumbering
and syrupy, a massive chunk of slow-mo heaviness creeping through a sea of druggy noise. The whole jam is
centered around a single basic bass riff, super blown out and distorted and in the red as it lumbers forward in a
jagged angular throb, repeating itself over and over again, a hypnotic doomy riff that lulls you into a trance while the
band pours on tons of freaked out fx-drenched vocals and corrosive feedback, wailing feedback and ethereal reverb,
slow-writhing streams of high end skree and endless layers of grinding distortion and scraping subterranean drones,
the whole sound completely and utterly drowned in psychedelic fx and noise while that plodding bass riff plows through
it towards the end. It's like Skullflower slowed down to 20 bpm and buried under an avalanche of bass-heavy filth, with
spacey melodies somehow clawing their way out of the murk and grime to hover over the brain melting heaviness.
This continues onto the second side, where the fifteen minute "Black Death Upon The White Robe" unfurls into
another massive blot of blackened psychedelic sludge, only this time, there's no riff, no form, no forward propulsion of
any kind, just a massive churning ocean of grim, lightless buzz and roar. Insanely distorted guitars (or bass, who
knows) grind and rumble infinitely, forming a thick dense cloud of overmodulated dronesludge steeped in toxic low-end
and weird processed effects, super heavy and evil sounding but much more "ambient" and droning than the first side.
It's like an ultra-heavy flanged out Vulture Club track bathed in black murky feedback and digital distortion, stretched
out into a surging buzzing mesmerizing black drone that towards the end is gradually joined by thumping percussion,
looped metallic feedback, clanging sheet-metal, and crushing waves of subsonic urk.
From Crucial Blast
WICKED KING WICKER self-titled
Man, Noiseville came back with a bang last year - the legendary noise rock label that was responsible for releasing
Skullflower's Last Shot At Heaven way back in the day had been quiet for awhile, but we started to see some gnarly
grindcore records coming out through em from the likes of Unholy Grave and others, but then late last year they
dropped not one, but two albums from a new band called Wicked King Wicker who I had never heard of before, but
who totally blew my fucking head off with some of the heaviest, most deformed noise/doom weirdness ever! This New
York band is hard to pin down; their sound is definitely doomy and metal as fuck, ultra slow and punishing, but it's
slathered in so much noise and distortion and caustic filth that it starts to lean more towards the more abstract, noise-
damaged end of the doom spectrum.
This self-titled album is Wicked King Wicker's debut, with four songs of unbelievable psychedelic heaviness. At their
core, Wicked King Wicker are pure doom, playing huge subsonic Sabbathoid riffs over pounding glacial percussion
that sounds kind of industrial, a plodding pounding metal trudge, but the guitars are completely fucked, mashed into a
howling, grinding mass of ultradistorted buzz, insanely blown out and crumbling under the weight of their distortion,
this crunchy and abrasive black roar of viscous amplifier grind that is poured over everything. The first song "Faith
Through Fear" is this one massive upwardly winding riff grinding over and over through a thick cloud of blackened
buzz and grit, the drums buried deep in the corrosive murk and pounding out a simple, skullcrushing industrial groove,
gibbering vocals howling in the chaos and drenched in nasty, warped FX, multiple screaming guitars spewing bizarre
acid-rock solos across the throbbing, propulsive sludge, like some ultra-noisy mix of Skullflower, Whitehouse and early
Pitchshifter. But that's followed by "Through A Soul, Darkly", which veers into a vast elongated buzzsaw riff thats been
slowed down into a massive glacial buzzroar hovering over a blackened landscape of sparse percussion and distorted
FX, like a static Sunn O))) riff stretched out into infinity, until halfway in when everything is overtaken by a huge wave
of black distortion that slowly evolves into this suffocating wall of demonic deathdrone. The other two tracks "Often
Referred To (But Never Seen)" and "Don't Go In The Woods" follow a similiar path as the first two, moving from bizarre
percussive thunder and warped psychedelic effects to lurching motorik rhythms, buzzing swarms of rust-encrusted
ultradrone, damaged doom riffing, hissing black metal vocals, murky Hawkwind effects, grinding industrial plod,
everything enshrouded in blasted distortion and filthy metallic drone. Minimal and crushing, way, way zoned out, it's
like this mutant spawn of Skullflower and extreme black doom, ridiculously heavy, and mega recommended to any of
you that worship the damaged, droning scumdoom of Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Khanate, Burial Chamber Trio, RYN,
Alkerdeel, Black Boned Angel, Burmese, and Grave In The Sky. The LP is limited to 490 copies, and comes on purple
vinyl.
WICKED KING WICKER Flydust LP
Man, Noiseville came back with a bang last year - the legendary noise rock label that was responsible for releasing
Skullflower's Last Shot At Heaven way back in the day had been quiet for awhile, but we started to see some gnarly
grindcore records coming out through em from the likes of Unholy Grave and others, but then late last year they
dropped not one, but two albums from a new band called Wicked King Wicker who I had never heard of before, but
who totally blew my fucking head off with some of the heaviest, most deformed noise/doom weirdness ever! This New
York band is hard to pin down; their sound is definitely doomy and metal as fuck, ultra slow and punishing, but it's
slathered in so much noise and distortion and caustic filth that it starts to lean more towards the more abstract, noise-
damaged end of the doom spectrum.
The second Wicked King Wicker album, Flydust is a vinyl only release that features two eighteen-plus minute tracks,
one on each side, each one an avalanche of sickening, diseased industrial dronesludge. These two tracks might be
even more fearsome than the self titled album, and are definitely way more abstract and shapeless than the more
doom-metal like grinding on that disc. The sound is vast and formless, a terrifying black mass of churning distortion
and crushing machine clatter, buzzing amplifiers roaring endlessly through a fog of throbbing buzzing guitars, the
distortion and volume pushed deep into the red and causing the droning metallic riffs to crumble and collapse under
their own weight. It sounds like there's a band underneath the thick suffocating layers of noise, distortion and
feedback, some monstrous extreme doom metal band oozing black lumbering riffs and hypnotic slow-motion beats
deep beneath the squall of churning, sprawling murk, ultra deep and crushing and swirling in filthy subsonic buzz,
grinding riffs pulled apart into murky rippling drones. Insanely deep death metal like vocals appear over top of this
chaotic black organism, gutteral and tortured, doused in tons of FX. Ultra crushing, blown out and fucked up blasts of
hypnotic noise-doom that reveals subtle shifting layers of dark melody and caustic textures beneath the massive
blackened throb of Wicked King Wicker. Essential for fans of Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, newer Skullflower, and other
forms of ultra-heavy black abstraction. Flydust is only available on vinyl in a limited edition of 490 copies, and includes
a printed lyric sheet.
Arthur Magazine (Byron Coley/Thurston Moore)
From somewhere in the same region comes the second LP by Wicked King Wicker. Flydust (WKW) is another solid
slub-wall of guitar-spuzz and murk with devil-ass overtones. They’ll have a split LP with Skullflower soon, which should
be an indicator of sorts.
Aquarius Records “Picks of the Week”
WICKED KING WICKER Flydust
We had never heard of this NY band before but HOLY SHIT. A serious new contender for sure in the ever expanding
world of crushing slow motion ultra doom-dirge-dronemusick. Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, SUNNO))), Skullflower,
Khanate, Wolf Eyes, Bunkur, etc. Any of those names get your blood boiling, then WKW just might be your favorite
new band.
Flydust is WKW's latest offering, two tracks, both taking up a whole side, each a harrowing black expanse of
crumbling, buzzing, churning heaviness. A sprawling, bottomless sea of throbbing, pulsing downtuned lowend buzz,
roiling distorted drones, all murky and muddy and smeared into constantly shifting layers and textures, abrasive and
chaotic, but washed out into a single heaving organic black expanse. Over the top, a weirdly motorik drumbeat, locked
into a neverending rhythm, looped and hypnotic, and over that, super creepy vocals, equal parts death metal gurgle,
and tortured anguished howl. The sound is mostly monochromatic, but the sounds shift and the textures transform,
moments of melody surface here and there amidst the long stretches of near static blur and buzz, the vocals almost
like another instrument, another black layer, all tangled up into an abject, blackened and brutal otherworldly kraut-
doom. Harrowing, mesmerizing, buzzing, grinding and blown out, fucked up and abrasive, but simultaneously hypnotic
and in its own brutal and punishing way, strangely beautiful.
VINYL ONLY. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Each one has a hand drawn inner sleeve, customized (i.e. scribbled on) by
the band, every one unique.
WICKED KING WICKER s/t
We had never heard of this NY band before but HOLY SHIT. A serious new contender for sure in the ever expanding
world of crushing slow motion ultra doom-dirge-dronemusick. Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, SUNNO))), Skullflower,
Khanate, Wolf Eyes, Bunkur, etc. Any of those names get your blood boiling, then WKW just might be your favorite
new band.
This WKW's self titled debut, and is in some ways even heavier and more blown out than Flydust (reviewed elsewhere
on this list). The root sound is similar, a heaving morass of crumbling superdistorted guitars, but where as Flydust is
murky and muddy and washed out, the sound here is prickly and cacophonous, abrasive and sort of sharp. The
sound is also more propulsive, more distinct riffs, dripping with in-the-red distortion and twisted FX. The opening track
is one single ascending riff, looped over and over and over and over, pounding its way through a dense cloud of
impossibly thick buzz, the drums a buried plod, the vocals, barely audible through the churning mass of unfurling riffs
and a constantly expanding wall of sound. The strange thing is, there is a definite groove lurking underneath, loping
and lurching, but groovy nonetheless. Think Godflesh or Pitchshifter mixed with Ramleh and Wolf Eyes, but super
charged and revved up, and dipped in a psychedelic concoction of tripped out prismatic psychrock filigree and blown
out amp destroying drone drenched doom.
But the second track is a whole different beast altogether, a stretched out slowed down distorted riff, unfurled in slow
motion, very reminiscent of Earth 2, but peppered with simple spare drumming, only barely, until about halfway
through when the sound is swallowed up but a wall of distorted sound much more like the opening track, and suddenly
the sound is transformed into a blown out acid-doused blast of crumbling blacknoise.
The last two tracks offer up more of the same, varying degrees of forward momentum, of spaced out ur-drone, of in-
the-red effects, pounding abstract percussion, all draped over near static whitenoise buzz, weird krauty grooves,
woozy metallic crawls, pulsing metallic ambience, and heavy heavy hypnotic dirgedoomdronemusick.
The lp is limited to 490 copies, pressed on purple vinyl, the cd is limited to 1000 copies.
Arthur 5/5/08 Bull Tongue (Byron Coley/Thurston Moore)
Seems like we’ve mentioned Chrome a coupla times in passing. It should be noted that Jim Gibson’s newly-reactivated
Noiseville label has followed their superb Helios Creed two-LP set with reissues of three crucial Chrome albums on
CD: Alien Sountracks, Half Machine Lip Moves and Third from the Sun. These albums track the early development of
this legendary Bay Area psych combo, from their garagist roots into their deepest Neu/Suicide trance states, on to the
synchretically fused punk-space hybrid they perfected. Three great albums. And if you write Noiseville, don’t forget to
ask about the Wicked King Wicker. It is a brutal guitar piece taken to a near-Skullflower level. We shit you not.
From www.schwermetall.ch
Wicked King Wicker - Wicked King Wicker (2008)
Style: Drone, Noise, experimental music
Label: Noiseville record
Points: 9/13
Play time: 32:59
Are you in the search for loud, brutal and experimental music, which overcomes the usual metallic plates with ease?
Then you should lead yourself this New Yorker formation to mind…
Skullflower with the Gastklampfer John Cale presents to you. Together they play loaf oh a piece as if it would be from
sunn o))) and bed this into the Düsternis of Celtic frost. So one could describe the musical spectrum of this unusual
colloquium. Really that is applicable naturally not, but around a rough direction to indicate it should be enough.
Four abstract works of art form its debut EP, which appeared last year quasi on the own record company to Noiseville
record. Wicked King Wicker orient themselves in parts at something something similar as a Songstruktur, which only
causes with comparable category colleagues the case is. Wants to be called, also ungeübte listeners could try once
ear-fully of it without the bulky parts clog equal the whole Gehörgang. But no fear, easily consumable is definitely
never “Wicked King Wicker”.
The album is coated by an intensive, terribly dark aura. Apart from the crashing noise excesses the gentlemen
increase skillfully, some post office skirt volume not dissimilarly, the tension eternally, dark and tough grasp picture
and let it finally in a Rückkopplungsorgie implode. The singing, or better murmuring in the background plays only a
subordinated role and creates a correctly dämonische atmosphere.
Here I must relate however something. Behind this group is some more than devil worshipping, Nietz, Blutgeilheit, kite
cult and heroische battles. Volume, which beyond the edge of plate of the typical metal topics. “Through A soul,
Darkly” for example was inspired by a Swedish feature from the year 1961 “as in a mirror” by Ingmar Bergman.
The kratzige and raw photograph quality is really suitable. Thus quasi the necessary fine cross section is given to the
sound, which offers an authentic ambience to the consumer.
Too ergattern there are 1000 CD and 490 violet records. Whom this criticism did not deter yet, gladly its soul may risk.
Peacedogman (Hellride Music)
• WICKED KING WICKER - "Wicked King Wicker", 2007
• (Noiseville)
• No rest for the wicked.
It’s great to see that Noiseville is still at it after all these years. Even nowadays the “From The Twisted Minds Come…”
compilation I got on yellow clear vinyl still gets played (what diverse record that was). Back in those days the rock had
quite a bit of noise to go along with it. Between BULLETS FOR PUSSY’s scuzzcore, UNHOLY SWILL’s noise rap, ST37’
s garage/surf, COZ THE SHROOM’s schizoid acid rock, BOOTBEAST’s slick metal, to JARMED ENECY’s experimental
sounds, it was all there. SURGERY’s reworking of “Knocking On Heaven’s Door” was perhaps me fave. It was
mastered at the wrong speed. To slow at 33 speed, yet if you cranked it to 45 it would be too fast.
With WICKED KING WICKER it looks as though things have gone in the opposite direction. The record label moniker is
more appropriate here. The noise has a slight bit of rock to help it along the path to Armageddon. This is the kind of
scuzz that SAVAGE PENCIL’s SATIN CHICKENS and SKULLFLOWER fans will devour. Think dark, distorted and
intense. You kind of have to be in the mood for this sort of thing. I know I have to. I tried to listen to this a couple days
ago and all it managed to do was irritate. Now I’m being channeled back to a day and age where I was up for this sort
of punishment any day of the week. Back when I could venture into a club in Hotlanta and say Japan’s ZENI GEVA
would be there to destroy anything in their path. Although this sort of musically inert mindlessness has very little to do
with what I’m into now-a-days, this disc appears to hit me on a guttural level that works for me as I listen. The droning
quality of the sounds can be very calming after awhile. The whispered and gurgled (somewhat Satanic sounding)
voice fucks it up a little, but not enough to ruin the vibe.
Each of the four eightish minute pieces has a slightly different vibe. “Faith Through Fear” has got the murky drums,
feedback and some ascending melodic notes to keep it slightly musical. “Through A Soul, Darkly*” is just a drone that
turns into a long explosion and then back to a drone. “Often Referred To (But Never Seen)” has got the the drones,
some fluttering helicopter like flapping rhythm and guitars riffing. As it appears to increase in volume wind like chaos,
loud cricket chirps and vocal noises enter the fray. “Don’t Go Into The Woods” returns the sound to minimal droning
that, predictably builds up to another ostensible climax. I’m liking it. There is a time and place for this. Noise can
annoy, but not today.
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