Bohren & Der Club of Gore

In the '90s, when the blip that was the slowcore movement was enjoying its time under the arctic sun, groups like Codeine, Low and Red House Painters took rock's pitch control way to the left. Who knew that the jazz world had its own snail pacers? Well, apparently Mike Patton did and he's given them a new platform with his Ipecac label. The current group evolved between 1988 and 1992 from Bohren (German for drilling), a grindcore outfit, to play their current style of noise, self-described as "doom-ridden jazz." Delores, their sixth full-length, maintains the inexorable crawl of their earlier works but they've somewhat lost that sinking feeling. Thank Cologne's Christoph Clöser, who joined the band in 1997 and substituted saxophone, vibraphone and Fender Rhodes for the previously dominant guitar sound. Added to the existing drum, bass and organ, he is the top layer of a slow-moving avalanche of minor keys. Imagine Twin Peaks' Laura Palmer was never found and stayed frozen under the river, this is what Angelo Badalamenti's score might have sounded like. Meditative, melancholy and safe to waltz to, if someone spikes your Cosmo with Librium.