Dark Flowers

CANDIRIA

So what if the name sounds like a yeast infection? The hungry young cats in Candiria aim for nothing less than a total redefinition of metal. Swinging like the Benny Goodman orchestra one second before a gaggle of MCs drop braggalicious rhymes over creepy found-sound snippets -- only to cream you with bagpipes after you grog out of a didgeridoo trance -- this Brooklyn quintet is one slick genre-melding machine. Amazingly, the stylistic hopscotching doesn't distract from the six-string tug o' war waged by guitarists John LaMacchia and Eric Matthews. "We love aggressive music, but most of it is so fucking boring," says bassist Michael MacIvor. "If we weren't gonna push it as far as we could, then we weren't gonna do it at all." It seemed that Candiria had disappeared into the four-year stretch that followed '95's Surrealistic Madness (Too Damn Hype), a serious wake-up call to anyone who thought metal couldn't be both highbrow and savage. Then -- two years ago, out of nowhere -- came Process of Self-Development (MIA) and, less than a solar cycle later, the supercompressed follow-up 300 Percent Density (Century Media). Why doesn't Candiria's chugging guitar chop induce generic tedium? Rapper-shrieker Carley Coma, whose unintelligible rasp is mixed co-equally up front, is part of it. But what really keeps you reeling on the crust of grind is the jittery tectonic plate beneath: the wigged-out time signatures of jazz-trained percussionist Kenneth Schalk, oiled with MacIvor's stretchy, slippy five-string low end. (Andrew Lentz)

WILL HAVEN

Imagine a slo-mo atomic detonation, and maybe you'll have a clue to the oppressive vibe Will Haven can emit. After the bipolar sludge-groove of El Diabloand the arctic migraine that followed it, WHVN, these Sacramentals dropped the power-chord obviousness for pretty advanced aggro experiments -- Jeff Irwin's guitar forging crunchy textures, Grady Avenell's voice leaching through dirty filters, Wayne Morse's drums (now replaced by Mitch Wheeler's) bouncing lethargically on a bed of shimmery cymbal wash, and Mike Martin's drop-tuned bass flatulently puttering like a VW bus with a shot muffler. Irwin is quick to credit studio hermit Eric Stenman, one of the few producers who could wrap his mind around the user-unfriendly digital-audio software Acid; Stenman tweaked so royally with WHVNthat the band re-recruited him for the upcoming Carpe Diem. "We like to dabble in pure noise," says Irwin. "We wanted something that would fuck with people a little bit." You got that right, Jeff. (Andrew Lentz)