The Links Are Dead But We Are Not

As you may have noticed many mediafire links here and elsewhere are down (most of the high traffic links) and big blogs are dropping all over the place so I felt that an update was appropriate.

We will not be replacing the links that are dead as, for me personally, I'm pretty busy as it is and the amount that are down are too numerous for me to search out and replace. There are posts that get less traffic that have the links up for now (but I can't say they'll stay like that for long) and the bandcamp links obviously still work.

However we are not dead. Equivoke will be taking example from JGD at The Living Doorway and continue hosting, reviewing, supporting, and promoting albums and bands (requests or not) until it's just no longer possible.

Equivoke is small relative to other popular music blogs out there so it's not a huge blow to the music sharing community if we disappear, but I and others here enjoy doing this and want to continue. Maybe if Sagi and others want to turn this into something else when that happens (maybe something like the guys over at HSS have done) we'll do that but for now we're keeping shit alive.

Enjoy it while it lasts and thanks for reading our posts, supporting the bands, and following our blog guys!

EDIT:

Just wanted to add a little info on what's happening to the file sharing sites, according to Finsternis (and various tech news sites) who just recently declared they're shutting their blog down due to the link purging that fellow blogs such as The Elementary Revolt, Coffinpslams, The Living Doorway, Forever Cursed, I Don't Care About Sleep, and many others are reeling from. No word on rapidshare (they're claiming to be completely legal) or Zshare at the moment but I'm sure they're soon to follow.

From Finsternis:

The Aftermath of MegaUpload takedown →

• - MegaUpload - Closed.
• - FileServe - Closing does not sell premium.
• - FileJungle - Deleting files. Locked in the U.S..
• - UploadStation - Locked in the U.S..
• - FileSonic - the news is arbitrary (under FBI investigation).
• - VideoBB - Closed! would disappear soon.
• - Uploaded - Banned U.S. and the FBI went after the owners who are gone.
• - FilePost - Deleting all material (so will leave executables, pdfs, txts)
• - Videoz - closed and locked in the countries affiliated with the USA.
• - 4shared - Deleting files with copyright and waits in line at the FBI.
• - MediaFire - Called to testify in the next 90 days and it will open doors pro FBI
• -Org torrent - could vanish with everything within 30 days "he is under criminal investigation"
• - Network Share mIRC - awaiting the decision of the case to continue or terminate Torrente

Alda - : Tahoma : (2011)

Full Length, Eternal Warfare
January 9th, 2011

Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal
Region: USA

This is one that I sadly missed last year. I had heard Alda's previous 2009 self-titled album and while it was a decent effort I felt that there was certainly some room for improvement. With Tahoma I can say that they have clearly grown and stepped up their game tremendously.

Falling into the "cascadian" atmospheric black metal scene with a slightly folky twist one might compare to the Canadian Skagos, however Alda manage to set themselves apart by crafting Tahoma: a soulful and majestic record from beginning to end. Offering 5 tracks which have moments of tranquil acoustic guitar, soft and clean singing (as well as other stringed instruments and an accordion at one point I believe)  between the howling vocals, tribal drumming, and frigid yet beautiful tremolo waves that wash over you all throughout this journey.

Overall Tahoma is paced and arranged superbly, the calm or clean moments strike you just as hard as the harsher elements do creating a wonderful balance. It opens with a beautiful acoustic passage and closes with a dark and chilling ambiance, and spread throughout is the occasional sample of the ocean or of native chants and crackling fire which do much to thicken the already very dense cascadian atmosphere.

A killer record that will place you directly into the vast wilderness. Many have probably overlooked this one but it is an excellent release worthy of attention and highly recommended. Tahoma will be especially interesting for those of you who are into Ash Borer, Skagos, early Panopitcon, and Wolves in the Throne Room.

You can listen to and download this record on bandcamp, or pick up the cassette over at Eternal Warfare once they have restocked it, or you may still be able to get one over at Singularity Publishing. It's being pressed on vinyl soon as well by Replenish Records.

DOWNLOAD (Mediafire)
DOWNLOAD (Bandcamp)

Numb - Numb (2011)

EP, Unsigned
March 1st, 2011

Genre: Hardcore/Grindcore
Region: USA

Pretty savage release with a dark and sludgey edge. It's a self-titled EP with 14 slamming tracks composed of some serious grooves and conservative use of evil, heavy and ugly breakdowns laced with some cold dissonance when they're not hitting blast territory. I think these guys use crushing breakdowns and slams perfectly — placing them in a calculated manner amongst the blistering riffs, making them shift smoothly into dissonance and creating a huge and devastating sound for the brief moments they rear their head. A great example would be in Bloody Fingers about 1:17 minutes in, afterwards picking up the pace briefly before it trudges to the finish line. Man is that some heavy stuff.

A very nice tone on the guitar, and satisfyingly low especially with the occasional bouts of clean intermissions in songs, which can bring it all down to a creepy almost doom or sludge level (as Psalm shows), or be more bouncy (like in Fading Lights) before ratcheting up the intensity again. Vicious vocals that hit both terrifying low growls and angry rasps over-top of the explosive percussion and sometimes crawling/sometimes ripping leads makes for a slamming good time.

Quite a powerful and draining record from this little-known three piece. You can download the whole thing for free on bandcamp.

DOWNLOAD (Mediafire)

Fall For Your Creation

 
Despite the fact that SOPA was temporarily stopped, Megaupload was shut down recently and it is very possible that other file-sharing sites like Mediafire, Zshare, Rapidshare, RGhost, etc. will be next.

While this may be overly dramatic and we still have (and probably will always have) some alternatives, blogs like ours might being having a slightly tougher time as these events unfold. Even if we start using alternatives don't be surprised if they get taken out in the near future. Most of our Mediafire links should be up for now.

On the topic of SOPA/PIPA, I would like to direct you to the great Maddox's most recent article as it suggests some important and obvious steps those of you who live in USA (and even international people) can take to not just stop shitty bills like SOPA/PIPA but actually bring about systemic change which will be significant. This is something far more important and which has been needed for a very long time.
 

"SOPA is the "Stop Online Piracy Act." It's a shitty piece of legislation put together by puppetmaster lobbyists and politician puppets who don't know IP addresses from their assholes. My problem with this huge online protest against SOPA, and the reason I rarely take part in such protests, is because it doesn't address any problems, only the symptom. The problem isn't this shitty bill, it's the people who sponsored it. So we protest this bill today, bang enough pots and pans to shame a few backers into not letting this bill pass, then what? Those same dipshits who wrote this legislation still have jobs. They're going to try again, and again, and again until some mutation of this legislation passes. They'll sneak it into an appropriation bill while nobody's looking during recess, because there's too much lobbyist money at stake for them not to. We defeat SOPA today, only to face it again tomorrow. It's like trying to stop a cold by blowing your nose. It's time we go after the virus. 

There have been many bills attempted (and some passed) like SOPA before it. There's the DMCA act of 1998, PRO-IP Act of 2008, the 2011 Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, and now the PROTECT IP Act of 2012. Think this victory means anything? A new bill gets introduced every year or two like clockwork. Check back in a few years, and there'll be another SOPA or Protect IP Act being squeezed down the lower intestinal tracts of congress. And then what? We black out our websites again like a merry band of idiots?"

— MADDOX

He has a list of companies that support shit like SOPA/PIPA as well as ways to contact them to voice discontent. I understand that you guys only come here for the music and posts like these are getting tiresome. Still, do what you can.

We'll still be posting. I've been busy but I'll have a few posts up in the next couple of days.

Thank you.

TotorRo - All Glory to John Baltor (2011)

Artist: Totoro
Album: All Glory to John Baltor

Genre: Post-Rock / Post-Metal

This is some of the best-sounding post-rock I have heard in ages. Unbelievable drum, bass, and guitar tone. The production is incredibly wet and downright pleasing to the ears. The riffs are excellent - this is like combining the best of Year of No Light, Russian Circles, and Light Bearer. Absolutely gorgeous.

Listen to it on bandcamp, support them at Tokyo Jupiter Records.

Download (Mediafire)

ZOM - Demo (2011)

Demo, Invictus Productions
December 29th, 2011

Genre: Black/Death Metal
Region: Ireland

Coming from the depths of Ireland is a new death metal act by the name of ZOM, and what a great demo they've unleashed. It treads the oldschool ground that Beherit, Archgoat, Morbid Angel, early Death, and Possessed once tread but with a few twists to keep it fresh and gripping.

ZOM's demo contains echoing rasps over thrashy blackened riffs moving at a frantic pace which flip to powerfully groovy, dark hooks that break up the former expertly. Each track ends with a spiraling, foreboding sample that heightens the grim atmosphere and prepares you for another volley of delicious orthodox death metal

Fans of the oldschool and stuff like Katharsis, Ritual Necromancy, Grave Ritual, etc. will be interested in this. The tape released by Invictus Productions is completely sold out but can be heard over here.

DOWNLOAD (Zippyshare)

Obolus - Demo (2011)

Demo, Sunyata Recordings
November 11th, 2011

Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal
Region: USA

A very short but promising 2 track demo from this young band.

Obolus play a familiar style of atmospheric black metal and very well too, something akin to Ash Borer and Fell Voices but in a very distilled format. The tracks here barely reach the 4 minute mark but manage to embody all the sorrow and intensity that a 15-20 minute track would. Bleak and melancholic, a very simple and effective formula on display.

You can listen to this demo over at their bandcamp page. They also have a new full length called "Desolation" coming out soon, a new track was sent up for streaming at Cvlt Nation not long ago (download it here) so keep your eyes peeled for news on that as it will surely be an interesting release. You can pick this up over here or at Sunyata Recordings when it's pressed on cassette later this year.

DOWNLOAD (Mediafire)
DOWNLOAD (Megaupload)

Teitanblood - Purging Tongues (2011)

EP, Norma Evangelium Diaboli
December 21st, 2011

Genre: Black/Death Metal
Region: Spain

Post #400! Big thanks to my friend Haxan over at Forever Cursed for the link on this one, saving me some work once my copy arrives.

Who wouldn't want new shit from Teitanblood? This is a single 15 minute track of horrendous, writhing, putrid, pitch black death metal from these Spanish sorcerers. Heavily distorted, frightening and dark in all aspects with plenty of angry and ominous Spanish ranting about the apocalypse strewn throughout the disturbing chaos of swirling riffs and incredibly muddy production.

Teitanblood has truly carved out something worthy of following their insane Seven Chalices debut with enough blinding, searing fury to turn your face to ash and leave you in a crumbled, burnt mound. Unparalleled in their dedication to raw filth.

Ugly shit. Pick it up directly from Norma Evangelium Diaboli or from The Ajna Offensive on vinyl, cd will be out later this year. Do it.

DOWNLOAD (Mediafire)

Enemies List Home Recordings - Santa Is Real (2012)

Full Length, Enemies List Home Recordings
January 7th, 2012

Genre: Industrial/Shoegaze/Post-Punk/Pop/Electronic/Noise
Region: USA

"For the first time ever, the misanthropes and bedroom weirdos of ENEMIES LIST HOME RECORDINGS have banded together to celebrate the disappearance of the sun from the skies of New England with a completely free digital release featuring disturbing and turgid meditations on holiday gloom." - Enemies List Home Recordings

I was waiting for this. The only Christmas album worthy of spreading around.

The strange dudes over at Enemies List Home Recordings have composed 9 tracks for this album, 4 covers and 5 originals that read as follows:

1. Guggenheim Wax Museum – HAVE A NICE LIFE
2. Marches – Sleep In
3. The Icon and The Axe (HAVE A NICE LIFE Cover) – Giles Corey
4. Basic – HAVE A NICE LIFE
5. Way Down In The Hole (Tom Waits Cover) – The Flowers of Saint Francis
6. TALK AGAIN – Sleep In
7. A World Well Lost – America Addio
8. All Teeth (Afterlives Cover) – HAVE A NICE LIFE
9. Just Like Christmas (Low Cover) – Giles Corey

Yeah that's right: among the greatness there's 2 new Have A Nice Life tracks plus a Afterlives cover, a Have A Nice Life cover and Low cover by Giles Corey, and a Tom Waits cover by Tim's noise project The Flowers of Saint Francis. Those two Giles Corey covers man — wow. New Have A Nice Life is excellent and a perfect gift for the holidays, and everything else is just a tasty bonus for any ELHR fan.

They put this up for free and only ask in return that if you can, donate to the Enough Project. Enjoy and support ELHR however you can.

DOWNLOAD (Direct via ELHR)

Circle of Ouroborus - Armon Keitaalla (2011)

Demo, Kuunpalvelus /Versets Noirs
October 31st, 2011

Genre: Black Metal
Region: Finland

More Circle of Ouroborus! There's a cassette rip of this floating around but this is the vinyl version that was just released by Kuunpalvelus.

Armon Keitaalla is a 14 track demo of more traditional styled black metal which Circle of Ouroborus has touched on in earlier releases in their discography. It's still strange, very lo-fi and lots of bendy riffs that have a similar unique groove found on Eleven Fingers and their Moonflares split with far less post-punk/shoegazey touches and virtually no clean vocals, while still retaining that cold, dreamy and isolated air. At times its distorted and blanketed in soft atmospheric chords and soaring leads while in others its more upbeat and bouncy, hitting a faster tempo with sharp tremolo riffs.

Highly recommended, this is some excellent material. If you didn't like the post-punk elements of Eleven Fingers then this may be far more interesting to you. This is another one that should've made it on my "best of" list. The cassette set is sold out but the vinyl was just released and is available over at Kuunpalvelus (site is temporarily down) and Versets Noirs.

DOWNLOAD (Mediafire)
DOWNLOAD (Megaupload)