Avakr – A Word From Within (Sygil Records, 2013)

Of all the labels that have contacted me within the past year or so requesting coverage, Sygil Records is surely among the most interesting.  These guys have an ear for excellence from across the spectrum of extreme music, from drone to doom to black metal, and I’m pretty enamored with all of the various releases they graciously sent me for review.  First and foremost among them is A Word From Within, the debut full length from Bloomington, Indiana black metal duo Avakr.

Racebannon – Six Sik Sisters (Tizona Records, 2012)

The music of Bloomington, Indiana’s Racebannon falls somewhere between the demented sludge metal of the Melvins and the lurching, discordant pig-fuck of the Jesus Lizard, as if those two bands got together to do a fuckload of coke and orchestrate the ultimate noise rock jam session, but ended up getting slaughtered in a standoff with DEA agents while their rehearsal space burned to the ground.  Their latest album, Six Sik Sisters, is a truly unsettling listen, a chronicle of monumental musical depravity that sounds like it could come unglued at any given moment.