After leading us on with thirteen minutes of magnificent drone, Quadriplegiac’s opening track devolves into a stoned, floppy masturbation session, as happy to adopt rock and metal’s biggest clichés as it is to ignore their ground rules. This sets the tone nicely…

Although perhaps not the most inspired 43 minutes ever committed to CD, For The Rest Of My Childhood nevertheless accomplishes very nicely what it sets out to do. Helgi Hrafn’s beautiful voice, strained and desperate, yet somehow also formal and wooden, carves…

Carving a smooth line from the cutesy, sweet-toothed openers into darker territory towards the end, Alltihop’s eventual slide into depression is so welcome that it practically renders the first two-thirds of the album irrelevant.  The first six tracks are so perfectly circular…

Jarboe’s magnificent Hindu-apocalyptic concept album Mahakali is nothing short of spectacular in its gloom, hopelessness, and sense of impending insanity; although it could have used a little more adventurousness, it is no less a fitting product of the sound she has been…

It is amazing how two incredibly talented and interesting musicians can conspire to make something as inherently dull and commonplace as this. Middle age, it seems, has not only caught up with the duo, but completely overwhelmed and surrounded them. There are…

Sparks’ 21st studio album is not exactly a return to their seventies golden age values and energy, but it comes as close as the fifty-year olds are likely to get at this point. Discarding the distinctly fake-sounding string synths of their last…

Flashy is, frankly, anything but. After four albums of rollicking, spectacular cock-rock that have gone sadly unnoticed, Electric Six’s fifth studio LP in six years is little more than a slightly sexed-up lumpy slab of rock. It is almost totally devoid of…

The Vultures EP is the début offering from a very young Reykjavík band, Muck, whose members barely seem to have left their teens – at least judging by their appearance, because the first evil-downtuned chords of Vultures display that this is serious…

Within seconds, Sudden Weather Change’s (not that) new recordings catch me. The way the five seem to break every genre border between emo, punk, rock and even funk or danceable disco-pop is unique so far, but they manage to make the outcome…

His music plays a big role in the documentary, and serves to emphasise its important message. To create the score, Valgeir drafted in the all-star Bedroom Community team with the expected results. The track on offer, Grýlukvæði, is likely to be one…

Since forming in 1997, Dälek has mixed traditional hip-hop with drone and rock elements, gaining attention from audiences far beyond the genre’s usual borders. Since 2002, they have been signed to Mike Patton’s extravagant label IPECAC. Dälek did not change their music…

I guess ZU make it even harder to categorise their sound than Dälek – also on IPECAC records – do. Being silhouetted from the classical rock outfit, Zu is a trio consisting of a drummer, a bass player and a saxophonist. The…

After a somewhat unnecessary intro begins the most shockingly direct and vital American rock album in years. All playful drums, raw, chunky distortion and flangey, sedated vocals, it blasts through its fourteen tracks with such simple, random energy that the whole album…