PROTEST THE HERO
Fortress
(Vagrant)

CALDERA
Mist Through Your Consciousness
(Radar Swarm)

DISMEMBER
S/T
(Regain)

SEX MUSEUM
Fifteen Hits That Never Were
(Locomotive)

IN FLAMES
A Sense of Purpose
(Koch)

ASCEND
Ample Fire Within 

(Southern Lord)

PAINT IT BLACK
New Lexicon

(Jade Tree)

MORE REVIEWS

One of the things Greg Anderson will be remembered for is for turning heavy music upside down. In more ways than one he is responsible for making heavy music that is impossible to rock out to. He has made of drums an ornament with no function, of guitars an instrument meant to create atmosphere instead of carrying a rhythm and has made of the vocals another way to express transcendence but has invalidated the clarity of their message. Sure, Anderson wasn’t the first willing man to experiment with extended tones and deafening drone but his exhaustive forays into all sounds powerful and moody without having a tapping beat have served to expand extreme underground music beyond the common everyday man sounds we had all grown accustomed to by 1995. The extremes of music had already been laid out, it was only up to a man like Anderson to carry the torch and run with it as he has done during the last handful of years with his myriad of projects and the bold output of his label Southern Lord.

Being the prolific artist that he is, another collaboration with a kin mind couldn’t have waited until 2009 or even November 2008. This time attached to Iceburn’s Gentry Densley with a project named Ascend; the music walks the same charted paths of previous releases by Anderson’s Sunn0))). But despite its long standing tones and never ending sounds Ample Fire Within is a little on the lighter side. That, of course considering that Sunno)))’s music is as cheery and enlightening as Auschwitz in the first half of the 40’s.  “Divine” for instance, is rather light fare. Instead of darkness and morose sounds, Anderson and Densley present us a slow tune filled with warm tones of jazzy evocations. Sure, it is also filled with sparse strings and dragged vocals, but it is an inviting tune all the same. More so considering the background of these two bearded fellas.  “VOG” is almost tribal. Low ends bouncing from side to side at funereal speed, this slacker runs over ten minutes of devotion to entrancing beats and vocals fit for brainwashed cult followers.