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MP3s of the Week: Dumb and the Ugly

I was first hipped to Dumb and the Ugly sometime last year, via the following blurb from the good folks at Aquarius Records, who had just stumbled across a hidden stash of their 1992 disc, Atmospheres of Metal:
In our experience a lot of the best (and, of course, worst) cds released end up languishing in a forgotten corner of some distributor's warehouse, or under the label owner's bed... It's quite possible for something great but obscure to get released in an edition of 1,000 and then ten years later there's still 700+ copies gathering dust in a closet somewhere. We suspect that this Dumb And The Ugly cd is an example of this (though that's just a guess, maybe it sold well and has been re-pressed). What we do know is that this came out in 1992 in Australia and we liked it then and it's still great and we somehow just got a hold of a few copies. Despite the title, this isn't a "metal" album per se. It IS quite atmospheric, its eight tracks almost alternating between sheer sinister ambience (shortwave sounds, distorted operatic singing, underwatery drones) and heavy-duty guitar riffage a la Helmet or Circle. It's lumbering thud-rock with definite weird arty dark psychedelic pretensions, successfully so. We've only got a few but presumably there's more where these came from...
At the time I was absolutely obsessed with the mighty Circle (who by the way are touring the States this fall!!!), and so jotted this down as a disc to watch out for. Well lo and behold, some three months later, while diggin' around the more obscure corners of ebay, I too stumbled across a copy.

Atmospheres of Metal is powerful stuff, sounding very much like what you might expect from its title. It's atmospheric as hell, loaded with heavy, lumbering, repetitive riffs that cut through the ambience and bludgeon their way into your head. In other words, Earth fans--rejoice!

As a tremendously interesting side note, lead guitarist David Brown was once a member of AC/DC for three weeks in 1976, before being kicked out for "excessive artistic endeavour." I'd love to get some more details on that spat! Nowadays, Brown pals around with KK Null and kicks it with other folks in Melbourne's experimental community.

Check out the songs in the sidebar, hear more samples at Aquarius, or buy the CD direct from Dr. Jim's Records!


N/P Thin Lizzy - Bad Reputation


// posted by Jonathan Wright @ 4:07 PM permalink
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