ATTA VINTER RELEASED
Atta Vinter is now available as a special limited edition CD. Visit the Aquarius Records store or e-mail jabladav directly.
LINKS
Latest reviews and postings for JABLADAV releases.
- http://rateyourmusic.com/artist/jabladav
- http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=10995
- http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?
fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=44313012
- http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=638702
- ATTA VINTER (Aquarius Records review)
"It's all been leading up to this. Seven releases in less than 4 years, we now find ourselves bowing before long anticipated (at least around here) record number eight from this Weakling worshipping, Black Flag channeling one man black metal band, who as we've mentioned before, began life as nothing more than a fun fuck-around musical HAILZ to the late great Bay Area metal masters Weakling, and heck, if you're gonna pick a band to emulate and be influenced by, you could do a LOT worse. But it didn't take long for that influence to fade, and for Jabaldav to find their own voice. And that voice was indeed a twisted one, a sound that struck a chord with aQ weirdo black metal obsessives, a twisted and gnarled blackness, jagged and harsh, hooky and heavy, and plenty weird and warped.
On Atta Vinter, Jabladav expand their sound considerably, present still are the frenzied buzzing, the relentless blast beats, the grinding Greg Ginn-ish like guitars, but the songs on AV are way more epic and sprawling, weirdly haunting and majestic, long stretches of choral drift, of looped keyboard-drenched ambience, acoustic guitar flecked streaks of orchestral sounding mellotron, strange bits of abstract vocals, soaring strings, all woven seamlessly into huge crushing slabs of black brutality, of howling pounding primitive pound.
Weirdly enough, the punk element is in full effect here too, with some of the tracks sounding like slightly more metal versions of classic Midwestern punk rock, at least one is a dead ringer for Die Kreuzen, which is NEVER a bad thing.
The vocals are way more varied too, from yowled bellow, to feral yelp, to hellish shriek, most of the songs are pretty short too, with more than half under 3 minutes, but plenty of wild tangled riffing and octopoidal drumming crammed into those few minutes. And even at its punkest, the sounds are a breath away from full on furious black metal blur, and that's sort of the magic of Jabladav, a careening, lurching unpredictable punkish black metal blowout that confounds and confuses, slipping from total Norwegian style icy blast, to killer loping post punk tangle, to gorgeous shimmery drone, and back again, the various elements so disparate, but so perfectly meshed, the melodies catchy as hell, the riffs super memorable, the sound still strangely sharp and lo-fi, almost lush, but the guitars ultra distorted and super saturated, the drums pounding but buried in the mix, the flow of the record a definite sonic journey, culminating in the final 3 song suite, a long-ish expanse of downtuned doominess, that gives way to mathy grinding witchiness, whose barely there drone outro leads right into a brief blast of weirdly melodic almost power-metal sounding blackness, with harmonized guitars and a super blown out in-the-red sound, which finally, leaves us battered and bruised before the epic 11 minute closer, which begins all spidery minor key guitar, and whirring warbling mellotron, before exploding into perhaps one of the most frantic bits on the record, a lurching, twisted downtuned, buzz drenched stutter, with one of the weirdest, and most KILLER riffs ever, before again slipping into that murky spidery crawl, and then back again, over and over, the heavy riffage, getting simultaneously more and more distorted and fucked up, but more and more catchy and melodic, the weird mellotron drones only adding a distinctly creepy vibe to the proceedings, the whole track impossibly complex and dizzying, before the track stumbles to a standstill, leaving a shadowy blur, a strange funereal drift, the blackened tendrils of sound gradually shriveling up and dying, leaving nothing but darkness.
Next level shit for sure, maybe too much for the grim troo old guard, but screw them, for the rest of us, this is exactly the sort of stuff we're always dying for, buzzing, blackened, outsider, otherworldly, weird as shit heaviness that defies easy categorization. WAY recommended. Maybe the best Jabladav yet, which is saying something!"
- AMBIENCE (Aquarius Records review)
"As we wait for the next Jabladav full length, the ultra brutal Atta Vinter, the band have released this ambient precursor, taking it's cue from the spacier elements of Paysage D'Hiver, but also incorporating plenty of free noise drift, new age shimmer, and abstract kraut-drone.
Unlike past Jabladav ambient missives, the focus here is less on low end, on the rumble and whir and buzz, instead, it's much airier and spacier, tinkling chimes, warm swells of soft focus synths, there are some haunting things happening below, deep bellow thuds, industrial groans and creaks, but they are so far down in the mix as to just add a bit of texture and mystery. Otherwise, the sound is strangely sun dappled, glimmering, shimmering, ethereal and effervescent, and yeah, new age-y, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Popol Vuh, David Parsons, the whole first side is slow sprawling expanse of dreamy new age-y shimmer.
The second side slips a bit more into low end, but not rumbling or buzzing, not doom drone or dirge, instead, another warm whirring, lighter than air bit of sonic weightlessness, mesmerizingly tranquil, relaxingly otherworldly, this is the sound of drifting through space, or floating amongst the clouds, sun dappled or moonlit, the sounds on Ambience are a softly shifting soundtrack to leaving your body and exploring the vast expanses of inner, and outer space."
- "How much more black could it be? None..."
With this opening voice sample we get an indication of what Mr. Jabladav is trying to achieve. With this release - a black metal disc and a dark ambient one encased in a grotty wooden box, formerly sealed and with scratches and wear as if it had been the secret repository of a hermit in a hole deep in the woods, where precious bits of rock, shiny fluff, and perhaps pieces of the true cross were stored - our student continues to learn well from his sensei guides: Varg Vikernes for the murky structure, and Greg Ginn and his wall-of-sound punk guitar for substance. And 'black' here doesn't mean bleak, there is enough of an emphasis on experimental and even anarchic stylings to be too grim. The darkness is still there, it's just behind the drawn curtains that overlook the nice park where the children play. (Indeed, soon the trolls will march out.)
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- Primland begins by announcing its blackness ... metal-wise, that is!: first by cozying itself inside a handmade wooden coffin (limited to 100 copies); secondly with a ten second introduction featuring the famous lines from the 1984 classic This is Spinal Tap (Q: How much more black could this be? A: None.).
"Black Snow" kicks off the two-and-a-half hours of music that follow. It is a thunderous black-metal rave up replete with double-bass and synthesizers meant to sound like demented Gregorian chanters. "Lodona," the follow-up, is the most musically impressive track of this haunting set, featuring numerous time changes and even a few chunky, monstrous riffs. "Excelerate Slackandre" begins a section of the set where there are numerous tone shifts within single tracks, and is alternately haunting--with its chorus pedal effect intro--and headbanging, with its seemingly quadrupled high note guitar leads. Probably the most stunning track on this release closes out the first disc. "Homeland and Awe" begins with a solemn organ playing a single chord for the opening minute. Then the movement becomes much more intensified with the addition of discordant electric guitar work and a percussion track that resembles a lawn sprinkler. With this track--and though Primland is predominantly instrumental, the vocals either screams or lyrics severely muffled--the music begins to suggest themes of exploration, or possibly conquest. This particular composition makes me imagine hiking over a mountain pass after a long, drawn out battle, during the coldest months of winter. Perhaps this is black metal's War and Peace.
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- "Aquarius records rarely runs short of off-kilter super limited black metal releases to hype and that is how this record came to my attention. Black Metal with a Black Flag influence? Obvious nod to SF's Weakling. All right, I will bite..."
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- "A record that I was really able to give a good listen to (and I'm pretty sure is gonna make it into my "Best Of 2007" list) is "Dead As Duck" by JABLADAV. While you can tell that the title is in reference/homage to what could be the ULTIMATE in "Kvlt" Black Metal bands, Jabladav strips down the Weakling worship to a tingly, electric buzzed-out fuzz that - while it is BLACK & HEAVY - still meanders through some lilting parts with some crazy stripped-down-and-jagged-out SHRED!!!"
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- http://www.spirit-of-metal.com/album-groupe-Jabladav-nom_album-Black_As_Pitch-l-en.html
- "Jabladav is much in line with Weakling, as far as the riff-as-drone theory and the smart-mark approach. Weakling came from smart-mark metalheads Fucking Champs. Thankfully, this never gets smarmy-clever. This is amazingly heavy and creepy for a guy counting talk radio and The Simpsons among his influences. Dial this up."
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