Year : 2025
Style : Epic Heavy Metal , Doom Metal
Country : United States
Audio : 320 kbps + front
Size : 244 mb
Bio:
The band's name, Cirith Ungol, is taken from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and means "Pass of the Spider". It was a high pass in the land of Mordor where the monster known as Shelob lurked.Formed in California in 1972 and taking their name from Tolkien’s ‘Lord Of The Rings’, obscure avant-garde Metallers Cirith (pronounced Cee-rath) Ungol are a band for whom the word cult was practically invented. I remember being given some advice many moons ago by the staff of London’s legendary record emporium Shades that, if heeded, might tragically have left this band overlooked. The tip-off concerned the first of Brian Slagel’s ‘Metal Massacre’ compilation series and the assertion that Metallica were the only thing on there worth hearing. How fortuitous, then, that I chose to ignore their advice completely. For nestling within its coarsely hewn groove was nothing less than Ungol’s ‘Death Of The Sun’ - the soundtrack to hell itself! But just what in the world, I hear you cry, does Hell sound like? Well, try early Rush meets early Celtic Frost for starters. Favouring complex, some would say cumbersome arrangements, their music is oblique, challenging and at times a truly agonising howl. Bizarre and otherworldly, their short three-album career forms a triangle in terms of creativity as well as in number. Their ’81 debut is a delightfully off the wall affair in which the band lurch from dungeon dirge to Seventies monster Rock-out with nary a flicker. Once slated as ‘the worst Heavy Metal album of all time’ it laid the ground rules for their brand of Fantasy Metal which quickly came to fruition. ‘King Of The Dead’ (’84) really is the ultimate Cirith Ungol album, a masterpiece of originality which virtually defies description. Hear the very Earth crack beneath your feet; feel the frozen claws of the Northwinds tear at your skin as Pterodactyls soar against a crimson sun. In other words - prepare to shit yourself. Come their ‘One Foot In Hell’ swansong they were already making the fatal error of paying too much attention to what was going on around them musically, which in ’86 was Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax. What in Hades could these bands, though each outstanding in their own way, teach Cirith Ungol? From Middle Earth to the middle way in the course of one album and yet still the stuff of nightmares.‘Chaos Descends’ in particular was a distinct nod to earlier works and the title track features one of their most leaden, crushing riffs ever. If you like Fantasy and Metal and like bands that like Fantasy and Metal, exhume these relics now and let chaos descend!
Album:
One of the world's most iconic music venues-the Sunset Strip's Roxy Theatre-hosted a legendary 2024 gig by one of the world's most iconic metal bands-Cirith Ungol. The one-night-only performance was an album release show for the band's 2023 Dark Parade LP. It captured the lineup at the height of its considerable powers, performing Dark Parade in its entirely, along with a set of classic songs including "Join the Legion," "Frost and Fire," "Black Machine" and "Atom Smasher." The end result is a stellar live album and DVD, band co-founder and drummer Rob Garven saying, "I think we are playing better now than we did back in the day, circa King of the Dead. Onstage I wear in-ear monitors and have felt tears in my eyes when the music sounds so accurate to what we recorded so many years ago!" Covetable Live at the Roxy variants include the 20-song digital release; a three-CD set (two CDs and a DVD) with an eight-page booklet; and a two-vinyl, one DVD version in a gatefold format with an insert and poster. Colored vinyl options, including red and white "demon blood splatter" and a virulent green/black vinyl are highly collectible. The DVD of the Roxy concert was directed by David Brodsky and Allison Woest (Whitechapel, King Diamond, Clutch) of My Good Eye visuals, with music production by Night Demon guitarist Armand John Anthony and Cirith Ungol.Cirith Ungol played the Roxy previously, on another landmark occasion: "On January 19, 1983, with Bitch, Malice and Pandemonium," recalls Garven. "Metal Blade founder Brian Slagel may have had something to do with the show, as it was four bands from Metal Massacre 1, which was released the previous year." There was no choice other than the Roxy for Cirith Ungol to record this momentous live collection. "It's owned by a Hollywood music legend, Lou Adler, and next door to the famous Rainbow Bar and Grill. It's a landmark Hollywood club, which includes the Whisky and The Starwood (now gone) so every time we played one of these historic venues, it was a special occasion," Garven says. "It was great to see many of our friends and fans from all over the world at the show." Cirith Ungol are thrilled that another Michael Whelan masterpiece, "Demonslayer" is gracing the Live at the Roxy cover. Each studio album's cover art is taken from the cover of a DAW Books edition of a book in Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné saga; the art is by Michael Whelan. The backstory on the Live at the Roxy art is classic: "Around 1984, Michael was at a fantasy convention in Los Angeles and came up to Ventura for a visit. He brought this illustration 'Demonslayer' to my parent's house, the location of our original band room, and we left it on the staircase, and went out to dinner, not knowing that someday it would grace another one of our album covers!" The classic Cirith Ungol tracks played at the Roxy meshed perfectly with Dark Parade songs, which drew raves from the packed crowd. In writing Dark Parade's songs, vocalist and lyricist Tim Baker recalls, "Like the best horror writers, our main goal has always been to make something totally dark and doomy all the way through -- an unrelenting journey into the particular chaos which is Cirith Ungol." That album garnered press praise, including on that noted Dark Parade's "enormous pieces of classic proto-metal, on par with and as vital as their early works." Baker's inimitable, scorched nails-on-chalkboard voice has earmarked all of the band's albums across the canyons of time, from their audacious 1981 debut Frost and Fire to their triumphant 2020 comeback Forever Black, which followed a 29-year-long recording hiatus. Dark Parade's singles, including "Velocity," offers a metallic soundtrack of societal decay and environmental collapse that foreshadows nothing less than total extinction. Despite the fantasy-inspired art on the band's albums and their Tolkien-derived name -- Cirith Ungol stopped exploring sword and sorcery-related themes in the mid-'80s. Most of the subjects they've addressed since then have been far more real and frightening than any ravenous make-believe creatures fighting sword-wielding warriors.Cirith Ungol's Live at the Roxy holds its own against other legendary live records. "The Who made an extremely powerful album with Live at Leeds, and my favorite band of all time, Mountain, had several pretty spectacular live albums. And 1993's Uriah Heep Live is another outstanding live album! It's hard to capture accurately all the sound and feeling of a live concert. I think these bands achieved that, and I think our Live at the Roxy does also." Thrilled as they are about the Live at the Roxy double album set and DVD, Cirith Ungol is already looking forward to making a new record., as Garven concludes, "This will make fans happy until our next devastatingly heavy seventh studio LP!"
Line-Up:
Tim Baker - Vocals, Whistle
Greg Lindstrom - Vocals, Keyboards, Guitars, E-bow, Bass - See also: Falcon, ex-Titanic
Armand John Anthony - Guitar
Jarvis Leatherby - Bass - See also: Night Demon, ex-Jaguar (live), ex-Satan (live), ex-Black Opal, ex-Jeff Hershey and the Heartbeats, ex-No Motiv
Robert Garven Drums, Percussion, Vocals (backing) - See also: ex-Titanic
Tracklist:
CD1:
01. Velocity (S.E.P.) 05:17
02. Relentless 04:25
03. Sailor on the Seas of Fate 07:32
04. Sacrifice 04:53
05. Looking Glass 04:33
06. Dark Parade 06:14
07. Distant Shadows 05:54
08. Down Below 05:28
CD2:
01. Atom Smasher 04:26
02. I'm Alive 05:17
03. Frost and Fire 03:48
04. Black Machine 04:19
05. Blood and Iron 04:03
06. Chaos Descends 04:48
07. The Frost Monstreme 05:24
08. Fire (The Crazy World of Arthur Brown cover) 02:53
09. Death of the Sun 03:57
10. Master of the Pit 07:26
11. King of the Dead 08:20
12. Join the Legion 07:05
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