Bandcamp Picks - Ulver, Author & Punisher, Planning for Burial, Longhouse

Ulver's transformation from "True Norwegian Black Metal" to their present state has really been something to behold. Heralded as their "pop" album, The Assassination of Julius Caesar masterfully and unapologetically encompasses kraut rock, synthpop, soul, trip hop, and even an extended John Zorn-esque sax freakout (courtesy of Hawkwind's Nik Turner) - no surprise, considering how boldly Garm moved from black metal to folk to electronica earlier in his career. But who knew that the band that released Nattens Madrigal twenty years ago would surf from black metal's second wave to New Wave? [€7]

I can't think of another act out there like San Diego's Author & Punisher, the musical outlet of mechanical engineer Tristan Shone that utilizes his custom built machines as instruments. Pressure Mine contains five songs of subwoofer-threatening doomwave, with Shone's forlorn vocals sitting astride all the throbbing and clanking. This is R Kelly for robots; Genesis P-orridge and Blixa Bargeld would approve. [$5]


Pennsylvania's Planning For Burial are adept at several kinds of bleak. Below The House runs on droning guitar noise, shuffling drums and plaintive keyboards, traversing from rumbling doom to pop-adjacent shoegaze. Like the album art, an exercise in minimalism. [$8]



If there was a doom metal version of a Whitman's sampler, it might be Ottawa's Longhouse. II: Vanishing draws not only from the indie-friendly heft of Isis and Cult of Luna, but also the velvet darkness of Paradise Lost, with more than just shades of Gregor Mackintosh in the riffs. It's about time someone attempted a unified field theory of doom metal. [$7 CAD]