Monday, November 9, 2009

A Long Overdue Update From Archive

Likely due to slow sales and downturn of the economy, Archive CD has been relatively quiet this year for releases. But as long as Scott Slimm doesn't fold up shop, I don't mind the sparse release schedule.

The Goslings return with a collaboration effort. From the Archive website: "Originally released as a 5 track small run collaborative CD between the Goslings and Roxanne Jean Polise recorded in 2004-05. The current resurrection of this release features 4 of the original tracks with an actually proper mastering job from James Plotkin. The backend of the disc features 4 new traxs that were cultivated between the Goslings and Warmth (name change for the mid-west Steev Thompson) between 2007-08."

This release takes them back to their earlier days with more sparse instrumentals mixed in the crushingly dense riffs. Unlike similar groups (*cough* Nadja *cough*), The Goslings keep the quality high on every release.

Almost every batch of releases has an artist I've never heard before and this time it's from Purling Hiss, a project from Birds Of Maya's guitar player. A combination noise rock, garage rock and psych rock make this a joy of a listen. It the type of album that's different from the rest of the Archive catalog yet it fits perfectly. A nice surprise with this one.

From the Archive distro I picked up one of the new Suishou No Fune albums 'Phantom Of The Eternal Night'. It's a full band effort on this one and each of the four 15+ minute songs is a trip.