Hull Plays CMJ Tee Pee Showcase at Union Pool on Friday, Oct. 21st

DOWNLOAD: Hull - "Beyond the Lightless Sky" (hosted on Pitchfork.com)

Brooklyn three-guitar led sludge rock collective Hull will play the Tee Pee Records CMJ showcase this Friday, October 21 at Union Pool in Brooklyn. Also appearing on the show will be Naam, The Fucking Wrath, ELKS, Mirror Queen and Unstoppable Death Machines. Tickets are $8.

Hull will kick off a long-awaited, near month-long U.S. tour on Wednesday in support of their monolithic Beyond The Lightless Sky full-length released via The End Records last week. The band will be joined by The F*cking Wrath on select dates. See updated tour schedule below.

Called "...a concept album for the ages" by Metal Army America, Beyond The Lightless Sky features guest appearances by vocalist Jarboe, keys/ambiance by Fade Kainer (Batillus/Jarboe/Inswarm ) and is raising the eye brows of fans and critics alike for its delicate balance of staggering heaviness and poetic grace. Exclaim hailed the band saying: "Hull have made something immense and nimble, ponderous and powerful," while CMJ noted
of the guitar sound in particular, "They're downright elegant at times, a fantastic contrast to the otherwise intense soundscape." The Obelisk called the band "crushingly heavy in a cerebral sense," adding that "Hull have come into their own and not only join the ranks of forward-thinking American metallers, but position themselves at the front of the pack with a few moments of unabashed, unashamed modern metal," and The Village Voice (NYC) commended the band's seamless versatility: "[Beyond The Lightless Sky] veers between motorcycle-revving D-beat, bog-trawling doom, sinister black metal, Neurosis drum-offs and hypnotic passages that gnash like a venom-dripping cousin to the final Isis album."



Hull Fall 2011 Tour:
10/19/2011 Valentines Downstairs – Albany, NY*
10/21/2011 Union Pool - Brooklyn, NY (HULL at 11:00pm!)
10/22/2011 Mojo 13 – Wilmington, DE
10/23/2011 Golden West Cafe – Baltimore, MD *
10/24/2011 Strange Matter – Richmond, VA *
10/25/2011 Milestone – Charlotte, NC *
10/26/2011 Drunken Unicorn – Atlanta, GA *
10/27/2011 Wormhole – Savannah, GA *
10/28/2011 The Snooze – West Palm Beach, FL *
11/01/2011 Siberia – New Orleans, LA *
11/02/2011 Brian Street Tavern – Dallas, TX *
11/03/2011 Red 7 FFF Kickoff Party – Austin, TX *
11/04/2011 Bash Riprocks – Lubbock, TX *
11/05/2011 The Open Source Project – Phoenix, AZ *
11/06/2011 Que Sara – Long Beach, CA *
11/07/2011 Vacation Vinyl (early show) – Los Angeles, CA
11/07/2011 Mountain Bar (late show) – Los Angeles, CA
11/08/2011 Hemlock Tavern – San Francisco, CA
11/10/2011 Highline – Seattle, WA
11/11/2011 Plan B – Portland, OR
11/14/2011 Bar Deluxe – Salt Lake City, UT
11/15/2011 Old Curtis Street – Denver, CO
11/17/2011 Downtown – Little Rock, AR
11/19/2011 Nightlight – Chapel Hill, NC
11/20/2011 Johhny Brendas – Philadelphia, PA
* w/ The F*cking Wrath

Links:
Hull

Hull: Beyond-The-Scenes Footage of the "Beyond the Lightless Sky" Video Posted

DOWNLOAD: Hull - "Fire Vein" (hosted on VillageVoice.com)

Metal Injection is currently hosting an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the creation of Hull's upcoming "Beyond The Lightless Sky" video, the title track from the band's new full-length. Set for North American release on October 11, 2011 via The End Records, the follow-up to the band's critically-acclaimed Sole Lord debut was co-produced by Brett Romnes and mixed by Billy Anderson (Sleep, Neurosis, Melvins, et al).



Hailing from the streets of Brooklyn, New York, Hull has yet again emerged with a creation to outlive the ages with latest saga, Beyond The Lightless Sky. Digging further into the past, the Mayan epic takes the listener through a division of two brothers and the struggles that they are faced with. One finds salvation amongst the stars and the wisdom of a stranger, while the other is mesmerized with the bloodthirsty belief of sacrifice and self mutilation. In silence lies a realm that exists outside the plane of fear.

Beyond The Lightless Sky features guest appearances by vocalist Jarboe, keys/ambiance by Fade Kainer (Batillus/Jarboe/Inswarm ) and cello by Joe Merolla with artwork by Tamara Waite-Santibanez. Pre-order Beyond The Lightless Sky HERE.

Links:
Hull

Hull Plays Club Europa with Pentagram in January // Sole Lord CD Review

Hull’s debut disc Sole Lord (The End) was released last year but somehow I missed this disc first time around. Getting straight to the point, this disc will be on my ‘End of Year’ best-of list.

Not to start with a diatribe about the music industry but my belief is that weak product and iTunes have done more damage than illegal downloading ever will. If you take a band like the Rolling Stones, iTunes allows you to selectively purchase the one, two or three decent songs from each of their recent releases rather than forcing you to muddle through the other nine tracks of dross on each release. I’m old enough to remember the days when music (like Pink Floyd’s Meddle and Genesis’ Lamb Lies Down on Broadway) required an active commitment. Thanks to iTunes, music is now a lot more disposable and consumed in “bite-sized” three minute chunks. Pink Floyd felt their songs weren’t meant to be consumed on a song-by-song basis on iTunes and Hull’s Sole Lord falls into similar territory.

Sole Lord takes me back to the early Pink Floyd days as the band combines the ambient psychedelic (or perhaps a better descriptor is “psychosis”) of Meddle-era Pink Floyd with the sludgy doom of bands like The Melvins. While some bands release discs that are consistent from start-to-finish, Sole Lord comes across as one body of work that just happens to be divided across ten tracks. Songs seamlessly flow into the next and some riffs are reused across songs which add to the overall impression that this is one 47 minute body of work.

I wouldn’t use the word “prog” to describe Hull but Sole Lord is a rolling opus of gentle instrumentals which segue into groove-oriented walls of distorted guitars before returning back to another instrumental. The ‘light’ and ‘dark’ elements of this disc are pretty evenly balanced as there are an equal number of instrumentals balanced with songs that make use of roared/chanted multi-part vocals. Hull’s use of contrasting tempos across this disc makes for engaging listening so this is the sort of disc that you are going to want to block some time to actively listen to.

Below is a video from Hull’s “secret show” at Public Assembly in Brooklyn. Hull is playing with Pentagram at Europa on Jan. 06, 2011. Tickets are $15.



Links:
Hull

Rumpelstiltskin Grinder (Relapse), Hull (The End) and Ravage (Metal Blade) are Playing A Free Show Tomorrow at Lit Lounge

Tones of Death.com (metal ringtones) and Precious Metal are putting on a pretty big free show tomorrow night at Lit Lounge.

I've been wanting to check out local boys Hull for quite some time. Hull got some great press for their SXSW shows and their first full-length disc, Sole Lord, is coming out May 26th on The End Records. Metal Maniacs described Hull as having "all the crush of early Mastodon met with the ambient fire of Neurosis, but somehow [Hull] avoids sounding like either one of them."

Boston metallers Ravage are also on the bill. I haven't heard the band play live but all the write-ups on the band cite the strong NWOBHM and thrash influence in their music. The band just signed to Metal Blade and their new disc The End of Tomorrow will be out this summer.

Ravage - "Night Crawler" (Judas Priest cover)


Last (but not least) is Philadelphia's "most extreme criminal thrash quintet" Rumpelstiltskin Grinder. RsG released their second full-length studio disc, Living for Death, Destroying the Rest, on Relapse Records earlier this year. Rumpelstiltskin Grinder are playing a few area shows before heading out on the road with Candlelight Records' bands Absu and SoThis next month.

Rumplestiltskin Grinder - "Nothing Defeats the Skull"