Forget it, I’m out.
I’ve started three other articles since that Zed review below and they, like that review, all sucked, so I’m punching out early for the weekend. It’s a beautiful day anyway, so I’m going to go try and enjoy it. Thanks to the over 1,200 people who came here yesterday, topping even Wednesday’s numbers. I’ll be back Monday with hopefully a more productive disposition.
The fact is this: I like unsigned bands. Even if I’m not 100 percent into the music, I appreciate that a group of people are willing to come together for a common artistic cause and execute a singular idea with little to no hope of fiscal recompense. So when I get a CD in gorgeous handmade packaging like Feed the Lie, the debut full-length by German post-metal outfit Zed (which lists Kopfhörer/Schalldruck as its label but still marks the band as unsigned, so I assume is a self-release imprint), which isn’t necessarily all that original but clearly shows that a lot of effort and love went into making it, I’m more than willing to give it extra points based on that.
Not that I have a point system.
It’s true, even the artwork on Feed the Lie could be called derivative — Isis’ Mosquito Control EP also having featured an insect splayed and ready for dissection — but the trio of Maik (guitar/vocals), Sven (bass/vocals) and Hannes (drums) are more derailed by their style being played out than by anything in particular they’re doing musically. Feed the Lie, on a basic musical level, rocks. It’s heavy, Sven’s bass tone more or less makes “Réalisme,” but even though Zed take a more rock-based approach to post-metal, it’s still post-metal at its heart. And man, if we haven’t all had enough of that.
It was clear from the last Lamp of the Universe record, Acid Mantra, that Kiwi psychedelicist Craig Williamson was looking to do something a little more structured. Williamson, who cut his riffing teeth playing in underrated head rockers Datura, emerges from the cosmic ether now as bassist/vocalist/etc. in the trio Arc of Ascent, which continues some of Lamp of the Universe’s psychedelic exploration, but puts said psychedelia — which comes on thanks to sitar, tanpura, synths, bells, chanting, and so forth; all of which are credited to Williamson — in a more outwardly heavy context. Make no mistake, we’re still reaching out to the farthest uncharted regions of spiritual innerspace, but now we’re doing it with thick guitar riffs! Never know what you’ve been missing until you find it.
These riffs come courtesy of Matt Cole-Baker, and while it’s clear Arc of Ascent’s full-length debut, Circle of the Sun (Astral Projection) still holds its protagonist in Williamson, each member of the trio proves essential to the band’s sound, whether it’s Cole-Baker starting off the space rock groove of “The Inner Sign” or drummer John Strange falling right into place with that groove and blissing out on a tom-heavy repetition until the song kicks in. For sheer heft, Cole-Baker’s guitar stays weighty even in its lead tone, offering notes that ring out behind themselves in comet trails. Circle of the Sun works out to about 46 minutes, but with the space-themed artwork, space-themed songs and wide open creative breadth, it feels big and open.
I don’t know nothin’ about nothin’, but Brooklyn Vegan’s down at SXSW in Austin, TX, this week, and according to them, Nebula has broken up. Here’s what they had to say about it:
Tee Pee band Nebula broke up, thus changing their plan to head to Austin to play five shows. Naturally one of those shows was a BV (Attitude Adjustment at Red 7). Replacement still TBA, and assuming the break up sticks, full tour cancellation still TBA too.
Given the hundreds and thousands of people who’ve played in the band over the course of its existence, should anyone really be surprised if Nebula called it quits? No. Should we all look forward to the original lineup reunion bound to happen in about three years? Most definitely.
More on this as I hear it. Here’s “Aphrodite” from last year’s Heavy Psych, live at The Ottobar in Baltimore.
Connecticut darkened self-sustaining metallers When the Deadbolt Breaks have announced a partnership with the recently-launched FuzzTown Records. The now-four-piece outfit is responsible for some seriously deranged, murderous, brutally slow doom, and as much as I’d like to give the album a review, ethics and the fact that I sing vocals on the track “As Flies for Flesh” oblige me otherwise. Suffice it to say, Deadbolt play some incredibly fucked up shit and every time I play it I feel like there should probably be pills to stop whatever it is I’m thinking.
Here’s the PR wire with the news and where you can get your free download of the new album, The Last Day of Sun.
FuzzTown Records is amped to announce the signing of psychedelic dirge metal vagabonds When the Deadbolt Breaks. Their devastating new release, The Last Day of Sun, is a double CD that promises to be the darkest and most musically evolved CD this cult of nomads has released to date.
This collection marks the next two twisted chapters in the audio mindfuck of producer/vocalist/guitarist Aaron Lewis. The band (rounded out by Mike Connor on drums, Jon Harrison on guitar and Roman Garbacik on bass and vocals), brings new levels of aggression to the songwriting all the while bathing The Last Day of Sun with endless depths of low-end riffage and trippy psychedelia.
To mark the launch of FuzzTown Records, a label dedicated to bringing new and innovative music to the public, we’re releasing When the Deadbolt Breaks’ The Last Day of Sun as a free download, exclusively through FuzzTown Records! Tell your friends, spread the word! Enjoy!
Download When the Deadbolt Breaks, The Last Day of Sun here.
I always try to pay attention to international exchange rates. Aside from being interested in the political implications thereof, it’s interesting to see what our tiny pieces of paper are worth compared to everyone else’s tiny pieces of paper. Occasionally you can get a bargain too, if you play your cards right.
As of today, the euro is worth $1.36, which isn’t bad. Of course, the market is turbulent (if you don’t believe me, search your favorite news site for the words “Greece” and “economy”), but I managed recently to hit up The Stone Circle, the 
mailorder of Spanish label Alone Records and come out of it on the positive side of the equation. Not financially, of course, but existentially.
It was Fatso Jetson’s 1999 outing, Flames for All, that hooked me. Aside from being a Man’s Ruin release — anyone who’s been around this site for a while should know of my Kozik fetish — it’s also the only record they did as a four-piece, the lineup including Mario and Larry Lalli, drummer Tony Tornay and, as the fourth for doubles, Gary Arce of Yawning Man. It’s like a desert party pressed to plastic and I had to have it, so after a relatively exhausting search for comparison prices/conditions, The Stone Circle won out.
And I figured, hey, while I’m on the site, might as well see what else they’ve got lying around, right? If you could have just one CD, they wouldn’t have shaped them so similarly to potato chips (krinkle-cut notwithstanding).
Special thanks goes to out Blabbermouth for posting snippets of the Bobby Liebling interview below. With their support (and the support of the sundry news sites that feed from them like birds on the backs of rhinos), The Obelisk was able yesterday to surpass 1,000 page views in a single day for the first time. That’s even more than when I interviewed Dave Chandler from Saint Vitus. The final tally was 1,182 for the day.
According to Google, we had visits from 50 countries, including as far away from the valley as Morocco, South Africa, Chile, Argentina, India, The Philippines, and New Zealand. And hey to the one dude in Panama who checked in too.
Many thanks to all who stopped by. Hope one or two of you dug it enough the first time to come back and see this. Doom on.
On the opening track of his ninth solo album, Gods and Goddesses, Brant Bjork sings, “What you’re hearing is exactly what was heard, yeah.” The former Kyuss and Fu Manchu drummer and songwriting force behind the short-lived Ché project isn’t wrong either; like each of his records since 1999’s debut, Jalamanta, Gods and Goddesses has a righteously natural feel. As ever, the songs sound like solo material, as in, they feel written by one person — which I never saw as a problem — but Brant (and here I’ll veer from my usual last-name-only method to save anyone being confused as to of whom we’re speaking) has adopted a methodology for coping with that. He’s put a new band together.
For those who’ve followed Brant Bjork’s career as an independent solo artist (and if you haven’t, you’ve missed some very exciting records; Jalamanta, Keep Your Cool, Local Angel, Tres Dias and its companion piece Somera Sol among them), the immediate difference you’re going to notice with Gods and Goddesses is the upswing in production value. Like most of his records, he’s releasing this one himself — through the still relatively new incarnation of Duna Records called Low Desert Punk — but he’s chosen to work with producer Ethan Allen (The 88, Luscious Jackson), and in so doing has added an air not necessarily of professionalism to his sound since if you’re not professional-sounding nine albums in, you shouldn’t be doing this, but definitely one of fulfillment. Tracks like the dune-ready “The Future Rock (We Got It),” the elaborately constructed “Radio Mecca” — on which Brant seems to be doing a vocal call and response with himself — and the later, more ethereal “Porto” sound complete and fully realized.
To quote legendary Pentagram frontman Bobby Liebling, speaking about himself, “I’m one of the original dinosaurs that made it through the ice age.”
It doesn’t really matter that the dinosaurs died millions of years before the last ice age, because Bobby’s right anyway. Not only for a rock and roller, but for any human being at all to have survived the life he’s led so far into his existence is beyond fantastical. The stories he has to tell are guaranteed to blow your mind like the first time you heard “Forever My Queen,” and having spent an hour with him on the phone to conduct the nearly 5,400-word interview you’re about to read, I can honestly say that you don’t even have to ask him about them; he’ll just tell you. Bobby Liebling is an open book.
Three years sober, married to wife Hallie with a full touring schedule, a movie about his life, the prospect of a new album and a baby on the way, Liebling’s drug years — decades, really — now serve him as vital memories of everything he’s come through to get where he is today. He says he’s blessed and I don’t know how many other explanations there are for it than that, because to hear him tell it, he probably should have died multiple times over by now.
Throughout the course of our conversation, Liebling went from laughing raucously about the mob guys in the Philadelphia neighborhood where he and his wife now live to audibly welling with tears talking about last year’s untimely passing of Blue Cheer bassist/vocalist Dickie Peterson. And even as Pentagram guitarist Russ Strahan announced his departure from the band on March 14 (which Liebling hints at in our conversation), it leaves the door open for new lineup opportunities that will supposedly be announced soon. For now, Pentagram is rounded out by bassist Mark Ammen (Unorthodox) and drummer Gary Isom (Spirit Caravan, Valkyrie).
What you’re about to read is probably the most honest and, again, open, interview I’ve ever had the pleasure to do (and I barely asked any questions!), and it is with great honor that I present it to you, as true to how it happened as possible, in Q&A form after the jump below. Please enjoy.
Because things have been discouragingly slow around here this week, and because it’s pissing-rain miserable outside, I’ve decided to cap off the week with Khanate, who, during their time together, were likewise slow and miserable. Enjoy the above shortened version of “Dead” from the 2003 Things Viral album, complete with the visual accompaniment of a dude blowing his brains out.
Spring break has come not a moment too soon.
Thanks to the few and proud who did stop by the site this week, most notably the debaters going back and forth on the Moth Eater live review — for the record, I’m a fan — but also to everyone else who did and didn’t comment on the various happenings.
As alluded above, I’m on break next week from my writing program at Rutgers. I have school work to catch up on, but Monday I’ll be posting my interview with Bobby Liebling of Pentagram, so please, look forward to that. Also in the can and coming up in the next couple weeks are chats with Erik Larson about his new band Might Could, former Amorphis bassist Olli-Pekka “Oppu” Laine (he was in the band when they ruled) about his prog-death project Barren Earth and, conducted this very afternoon, a brief check-in with Matt Pike from High on Fire, who despite a crappy phone connection was as pleasant and accommodating as ever. There’ll be more, as well. There always is.
If you’re in Jersey this weekend, I’ll be throwing down tomorrow night (March 13) with my good friends in Clamfight and Rukut at The Saint in Asbury Park, and I’m sure we’d all love it if you stopped by.
Vancouver riff mongers Bison B.C. are gearing up to release their new album, Dark Ages, next month, and as we all know, the new way to roll out singles and album highlight tracks is by putting them on websites that aren’t The Obelisk. It’s an important marketing move for any act looking to make themselves known.
Accordingly, the song “Stressed Elephant” premiered via something called ExploreMusic, whose standing in the heavy rock underground I’m sure is unquestionable and who make a wholly appropriate outlet for music as riffy and bastardly as that of Bison B.C.
“Bitter?” you ask? Yes. Here’s “Stressed Elephant,” because I can:
If there’s one thing that stands out about the Polish scene we’ve been exploring one band at a time (past installments here and here), it’s a universal hunger to be heard. Hell, the main reason this whole thing kicked off was because one of the dudes in Satellite Beaver was like, “Hey man, you need to check out all these other bands too,” when I reviewed Luna Negra. Likewise, Belzebong, an instrumental outfit from Poland, dropped a line in the comments and said to hit up their MySpace. I’m nothing if I’m not the trained monkey of stoner rock and doom metal. Just tell me in what direction to dance and I’m there.
For what it’s worth, Belzebong are the most definitively stoner of the acts 
from the Polish scene we’ve yet encountered. The two tracks on MySpace are instrumental (with samples) and rely on hyper-grooving riffs to carry the band. It’s a formula that should be familiar to fans of Bongzilla and Electric Wizard, as well as the sundry other acts whose sound basically rounds out to “riffs plus” — riffs plus vocals, riffs plus samples, riffs plus solos, and so on. The guitar is definitely the vocal point, and there are solo/lead lines running throughout “Bong Thrower” that are varyingly lyrical, but Belzebong are a riff band. Any changes they make or flourishes they add, their songs are still based around riffs and riffs and, well, riffs.
It seems like a familiar formula and it is, but like Satellite Beaver, Broken Betty and Luna Negra, if Belzebong aren’t groundbreaking so much in their sound, there are several explanations behind it. First and foremost, there wasn’t a Polish scene to speak of before these bands came along. Consider the Scandinavian lineage of heavy music. Sure, these bands would have access to outsider rock from the internet and word of mouth, buying records, etc., but that’s nowhere near the same as having your own scene. Second, Belzebong (and everyone else covered in this series) are a demo band, just getting their start. If they still have developing to do, that’s to be expected. For what it’s worth now, they’ve got a goat-devil holding a bong with their logo and they’ve got the will to do some serious ear-damage. That’s a pretty killer start if you ask me.
Above the title on the back side of French mayhem rockers Gunslingers’ second album, Manifesto Zero (World in Sound) is the question, “When a Disc and a Head collide and a hollow sound is heard, must it always have come from the Disc?” Each time I’ve sat and listened through this record, which follows in their catalog the critically successful No More Invention, I’ve puzzled over that question. Not because I think a head can’t be hollow – at least in the sense they mean: “Isn’t it possible you’re a fucking moron?” – but a disc is inherently flat. There’s no room for it to be hollow because there isn’t any space in a disc. Especially “disc,” ending with a ‘c,’ which in this context implies a compact disc. If a disc had space between its two sides it would be a cylinder.
This is my fucking life. These are the things I obsess over.
At least, while I ruminate on these big questions of life I have the recorded-live freakout of Manifesto Zero to accompany, which in a cold post-modern way is very little comfort and yet somehow gets the job done anyway. The six tracks of the album (at about 31 minutes, we’ll call it a full-length because the marketing doesn’t say otherwise) offer a jangly and jagged garage retroism, bouncing murderously through the first several songs until slamming into the 8:15 of “An Eye for a Knife,” which is mean-man noise for a good couple minutes following some deceptive rock simplicity. The fronting work of guitarist/vocalist Gregory Raimo leads this stylish anti-fashion charge, leaving bassist Matthieu Canaguier and drummer Antoine Hadjioannou to keep up, which they do avec enthousiasme.
As if there was ever a bad time to be on the West Coast of the US, when Earth and Wolves in the Throne Room roll into town, life must seem especially sweet. Trapped in the perpetual gray of a Jersey Spring, I wouldn’t know, but I can only imagine it involves the stripping away of clothes and the giving away of vast sums of cash. And hoverboards, dammit.
Our dear friend the PR wire confirms the varying levels and interpretations of paradise:
Earth have joined up with label mates Wolves in the Throne Room for a week-and-a-half long West Coast tour for this April. The string of dates will also include opening support from cellist Lori Goldston, who will also be part of Earth’s live lineup for the tour.
Earth have been finalizing material for their next full-length to be released on Southern Lord Recordings by early 2011, and will be showcasing some of these new songs on the tour. The Earth lineup on these dates shall consist of:
Dylan Carlson – Guitar
Adrienne Davies – Drums
Karl Blau – Bass
Lori Goldston – Cello
Wolves in the Throne Room have just completed their first Australian tour, 
alongside French doom unit Monarch!, and will appear alongside Shrinebuilder at a special one-off East Coast appearance in New York City tonight.
Earth / Wolves in the Throne Room / Lori Goldston April 2010 Tour:
4/14/2010 The Oak Street Speakeasy – Eugene, OR
4/15/2010 Noctrum – Eureka, CA
4/16/2010 Slim’s – San Francisco, CA
4/17/2010 Brookdale Lodge – Santa Cruz, CA
4/19/2010 Ché Café – San Diego, CA
4/20/2010 The EchoPlex – Los Angeles, CA
4/22/2010 Rotture – Portland, OR
4/23/2010 Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
4/24/2010 Capital Theatre – Olympia, WA with special guests Mount Eerie and Ô Paon
Yet again, The Obelisk asks the big questions.
Speaking of British bands whose songs get irreparably caught in my head and in whose riffs I want to immerse myself for weeks at a time and who are allegedly releasing a new album this year, fucking Electric Wizard, man. I don’t really have a point other than that. Fucking Electric Wizard. In an effort to better your afternoon at work or wherever the hell you are, here’s “Stone Magnet” from their 1995 self-titled debut:
