ALASEHIR

An "exceptional" textbook of drone-stoner-psychedelic progressive rock.

Torment Of The Metals keeps the same basis as their debut shot Sharing The Sacred - where we can feel their suppressive, narcotic, infernal sound-shouts are in full bloom - and furthermore, has more glistening, more colourful soundscape in the three songs. As a result, this album can get more understandable I feel. One of the most important points is drumming, altering time after time, scene after scene ... especially in Wheel Of Anguish complex Oriental percussion sounds are impressive and splendid. They can strictly hold extreme psychedelia with Orientalism, as heard in Sharing The Sacred. Such a "visible" soundscape should be involved in the dark. Indeed, sure that listening to this whole album may make a listener on a downer more depressive, but on the contrary, may give him much rumblin' power ... an interesting album I wanna say.

Like their debut album for me, this Torment Of The Metals cannot be recommended to all psychedelic progressive rock freaks. Only for stoner freaks. Me too.

My first impression of ALASEHIR; Sleep is heavier than Sir Lord Baltimore, Om is more heavier than Sleep, and ALASEHIR is much more heavier than Om ... (all are from United States)

Wait a moment, guess everyone may emphasize their heavy, dark, depressive noise shower but again ask myself what their musical key element is? Hmm, not heaviness, not darkness, nor depression (!) ... sure that silkily ethnic (especially Indo or Oriental) touch, they can shoot glimpse of which, should be the core of ALASEHIR. Suppose you may think it's quite the opposite ... indeed, their heaviness, darkness, distortion, depression previously mentioned are very powerful and aggressive for almost all of listeners. However believe me they are not simply a heavy metal outfit but of extreme psychedelia magnified with their Oriental soundscape. Of course, NOT only electric sitar solo in the third track Seven Tongues can let me mention so. Through the whole Sharing The Sacred, we can hear their delicate (but enjoyable for them) sound proceeding, over their complex (namely not simply heavy) and underground sounds flung against us.

Maybe cannot realize the silky touch without analytic listening but we can enjoy their heavy-dark-depressive sounds, not as a stoner progressive rock outfit but simple stoner rock one. Not on the mainstream so I cannot recommend ALASEHIR to all psychedelic progressive rock fans (and can give only two stars) but highly to all stoner rock fans, including me!

Wow, this album evidently offers very interesting and strong trip for the acceptable listener. It is opened by dirty radiophonics, revealing "Nazca"'s acoustic guitar mantras starting up the journey. Different musical ideas flow and are joined together, both fast and slow guitar motives merge as a nice sound wall where the drums join up. In following "Lost City" nice cosmic synths and tender rolling rhythm deliver a nice promise of musical trip, and then slowly shifting dreamy and dark musical inventions fulfill this promise, creating some kind of very black space rock. In the middle part there is a calmer acoustic and open "eye of the storm", later leading to a strong doom-oriented stoner passages. Third song "Shroud" starts also with calm drumming, where distorted layers of sound start to emerge. Monothonic "theme drone" is held strongly supported by surrounding noises, leading to dark cosmic sound installations. The last part of the song contains quite strong heavy contrasts of experimental noises and silence. If you like your aural psychedelics loud, trashy and tripped out, this band could be your source of inspiration. I liked this album very much due it's successfulness in sincere, effortless revelation of impulsive musical ideas and pleasant aesthetic elements. Also the shifts from peaceful calm moments and aggressive metal phases are controlled in fine manner.

Distorted raw guitars and noises open the album in a trashy, careless style. Rest of the band is joining lazily in behind, growing tension in a way not very pleasing to listen in my opinion. On following longer "Bone Fire" two dirty-sounded guitars search the tune for some time, after the rhythm section joins for the collective smash. Third track "Seven Tongues" has cleaner oriental sitar sounds, and this this minimalistic refreshed the listening experience for me quite much. The last song "Malta" is longest here, little over 20 minutes, but I think they fail to find the parrot... A dull voyage to stoned wanderings fades in, the rhythm feels quite uncertain and the guitar solos are very messy, level of aggression slowly grows to really crazy heights, creating two long waves of gaining and reduction of pressure, finally ending the record by bidding farewells via some bells chimes. Certainly this is impulsive, raw and true music, but not very pleasant to listen in my opinion. I do not like very much the dominant heavier side of the sound, though I can appreciate certain heavier tunes too, very much actually. Also there is not much musical content in the long songs, nor that kind of creativity which would please my own subjective taste, allowing euphoric ecstasy via successful repetitive hypnotism. Devoted fans of stoner rock and noise influenced music might wish to check this out, and I admit there is promise in the style as it's sincere and "true", but not pleasing trip for me. Instead their following "The Stone Sentinels" record was, and I would recommend it instead.