Black Metal.

I am listening to the Xasthur/Leviathan split. Mind you I never listen to this, I am amazed. Seriously, this is some dark as fuck stuff and offers tons of interesting black metal strangeness.

It's my favorite production by both bands. Incredibly atmospheric and it encompasses the listener more than any other album by either band (that I've heard, at least).
 
Speaking of Leviathan, everybody needs to run out and buy The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide. That is atmosphere. It's thick, dark, oozing and above all miasmic. It's misanthropy and hatred. It's sublimity and indecency and apices and nadirs and everything in between. Simply put, it will eat you alive.
 
I heard the new Leviathan twice so far, very good album I must say, better than Tentacles, it sounds more "metal" because Wrest use a real drums instead of drumcomputer and the album also has more metal songs than ambient songs.

An interesting note, the sample posted on the battlekommand website about the upcoming Lurker of Chalice - Perverse Calculus is the same song as track number 3 on the new Leviathan record, it's now clear that both album are the same.
 
The Xasthur side smashes Leviathan though

Not by much. "Unfailing Fall into Naught" is arguably the best song on the split, just edging out the Xasthur tracks.

Speaking of Leviathan, everybody needs to run out and buy The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide. That is atmosphere. It's thick, dark, oozing and above all miasmic. It's misanthropy and hatred. It's sublimity and indecency and apices and nadirs and everything in between. Simply put, it will eat you alive.

Agreed.

I saw Tentacles of Whorror at the store today, but I didn't get it because I'm getting Verrater, pending a successful eBay auction. Instead I bought a copy of the Antaeus album Blood Libels, which from myspace samples sounds like a great album for DsO fans.
 
Speaking of Leviathan, everybody needs to run out and buy The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide. That is atmosphere. It's thick, dark, oozing and above all miasmic. It's misanthropy and hatred. It's sublimity and indecency and apices and nadirs and everything in between. Simply put, it will eat you alive.

Yeah, awesome album.
 
Recall to me the evils of such label.

I'm not sure of the details in the matter, though there are plenty of stories surrounding Wrest and his problems with Moribund. However, Morubund is claiming full ownership of anything leviathan releases because he's in debt or hasn't filled out his contract with them (something like that). In short, it doesn't appear that wrest is making any money from the stuff that Moribund is realeasing of his so I refuse to buy anything they put out.
 
Then what's the story with the Xasthur self-titled?

All I know is he just realeased that to fill out his conract with them so he could realease "Subliminal Genocide" on Hydrahead. There's nothing wrong with is really. It's just some older songs he never put on an album.
 
Malefic was quite unhappy with Moribund as well. Apparently not getting much money at all despite what must have been really good sales. Regarding Southern Lord, I guess he didn't feel like he was fairly compensated for vocal work touring with Sunn 0))). I don't know how much he could have expected to get for that anyway. Although he's a strong live vocalist, I doubt he had that much impact on ticket/merch sales.

I think part of what looks like Xasthur's prolific release output is an attempt to get out of that contract as fast as possible, hence the many releases in 2004, and those releases having a fair amount of rerecordings. This somewhat validates the sameyness complaints about Xasthur releases. There's a good chance he was just trying to rush them out. It's most obvious with To Violate The Oblivious. The material on Subliminal Genocide was way better. The material on the non-Moribund splits is also really good.

Leviathan seems to have better material on splits not by Moribund as well. I would probably choose all the splits over the two albums. Howl Mockery at the Cross seems a lot like a try at getting off of that label by throwing some old demo songs on a cd. Perhaps part of the dispute had something to do with that release being debatable as a new Leviathan album?
 
Moribund isn't the kindest label to their bands, let's put it that way. They're also notoriously inconsistent as far as their communication and distribution quality is concerned.