As of 11:00AM, this site had 6,649 hits for the month of August. I know that’s not much in the grand scheme of things, but it’s the most The Obelisk has seen since March when that Monte Conner interview got picked up by Blabbermouth and MetalSucks and both were kind enough to link it back here.

Anyhow, I wanted to say thanks for reading. Class starts tomorrow and I don’t really know what September is going to bring, but it genuinely means a lot that you’ve taken time out of your day to check in and see what’s going on here. Much, much appreciated.

Whether you choose to call them 35007 or Loose (which is their numerical moniker flipped upside down), the Dutch psych rockers went underrated in their time together — which, according to their MySpace, is finished. I haven’t managed to get a copy of their final offering, Phase V, yet, but its predecessor, 2002′s Liquid EP is just right for unwinding on a quiet, rainy Friday evening in the valley. As such, I thought I’d share. Here’s “Tsunami,” the opening cut from Liquid, in all its YouTube-ular glory:

Novembers Doom have always been the American champions of a predominantly European sound. Formed in a tandem timeline with the likes of Paradise Lost, Katatonia and My Dying Bride, the Chicago outfit didn?t release a full-length until 1995?s Amid its Hallowed Mirth, when the Euro scene was already well established, and never really got their full due of credit or influence. Having of late adopted a less lavish, more immediate death metal sound, the band complete their second decade of existence with their seventh LP, Into Night?s Requiem Infernal (The End Records).

Even those who heard 2007?s The Novella Reservoir will be surprised at how much Novembers Doom have upped their deathly approach. The first two minutes or so of the opening title track are virtually indistinguishable from Amon Amarth, such is the thickened weight of Larry Roberts? and Vito Marchese?s guitars. Only when vocalist and lone original member Paul Kuhr switches from growls to his clean approach can they be told apart. There are two solid, weepy doom ballads on Into Night?s Requiem Infernal — ?The Fifth Day of March? and closer ?When Desperation Fills the Void? (the latter gets heavy at the finish) — but the larger portion of the record is geared toward a classic US death metal sound with flourishes of melancholic ambience. Sonically, it?s more Opeth than Anathema, though of course Novembers Doom was a band before either of them, so take that for what it?s worth.

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Sheavy is one of those bands who I never really listen to, but whose records I inevitably pick up when I find them used. It’s like we keep bumping into each other, Sheavy and I, and we have a little bit of awkward conversation — “Oh hey, didn’t see you there, guess I’ll buy you because you’re stoner rock and I’m the stoner rock guy…” — and then they sit on my shelf and gather dust. Blah.

Nothing against them, I’m just not that into it, and to be fair, I don’t have Blue Sky Mind, which as I understand it is their best work. But, already owning Synchronized and The Electric Sleep, I picked up 2005′s Republic? for five bucks a couple weeks back at Vintage Vinyl here in Jersey, thinking the worst that could happen would be the record sucked and I wouldn’t listen to it again.

Well, I’ve listened to it once — not even the whole way through — and that’s it. I don’t know why, since I get off on all kinds of generic stoner stuff, but Sheavy doesn’t do it for me. Vocalist Steve Hennessey‘s Ozzy impression is spot on, the riffs are cool and there’s nothing wrong with the sound of the band, but I have a hard time convincing myself I care. Republic? is no different.

Am I way off on this one? Is there something I’m missing? Maybe when they drop their new album, The Golden Age of Daredevils, this fall, I’ll give it another shot. Or maybe I’ll just wait a year or two, find it used, and be underwhelmed. One never knows how these things will work out.

Looks like California‘s foremost purveyors of distortion — on the cusp of 20 years as a band — have a new record coming up. According to the story on Blabbermouth, Fu Manchu will release Signs of Infinite Power on Oct. 20 in the US. If it’s anything like their last record, 2007′s We Must Obey, then I’ll take it. Bring on the fuzz. Here’s the story:

Californian rockers Fu Manchu will release their tenth studio album, Signs of Infinite Power, on October 19 in Europe and one day later in the US via Century Media Records.

Commented guitarist/vocalist Scott Hill: [The new CD] turned out very fuzzy and heavy!!! A few faster, tweaked songs are in there as well.”

He added, “2010 will be Fu Manchu‘s 20th year of being a band. We have some very special releases and shows planned for that.”

UK riff rockers Grifter understand. Life is complicated, and hey, sometimes music doesn?t need to be. Sure, we all love post-ambient blackened Viking drone with a subtle industrial influence, but every now and then you just want guitars, bass, drums, vocals, a beer and a groove. On their Catacomb Records extended player, The Simplicity of the Riff is Key, Grifter show there?s nothing wrong with rock for rock?s sake, resulting in a familiar yet refreshingly upbeat take on semi-Southern guitar-led ?70s-style jams.

Were it any longer, they might need something to break it up, but if Grifter?s focus is on simplicity — which according to the title of the release (and I see no reason for them to lie), it is — then they?ve got that down. Four songs, no lush intros or outros. In and out in about 16 minutes. The disc opens with a riff and closes with someone shouting, ?Fucking cunt,? in a charming British accent, leading to inevitable giggling. You get verses, choruses, bridges and endings. They supply the stoner groove, you supply the head bobs, everyone gets loaded and that?s the way it goes down.

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I know this Associated Press story has literally nothing to do with stoner rock, doom, drone, psych or anything else covered on this site, but man, the thought of a planet 10 times the size of Jupiter falling into its star and being so huge as to gravitationally create tides of fire is some of the coolest shit I’ve seen all week. Certainly beats all the hemming and hawing over that guy who killed Mary Jo Kopechne. In order to make it semi-relevant, I decided to include some listening music from Ufomammut, because when I think of planets crashing into the sun, theirs is the first sound that comes to mind. Please click play above before you read:

Astronomers have found what appears to be a gigantic suicidal planet.

The odd, fiery planet is so close to its star and so large that it is triggering tremendous plasma tides on the star. Those powerful tides are in turn warping the planet’s zippy less-than-a-day orbit around its star.

The result: an ever-closer tango of death, with the planet eventually spiraling into the star.

It’s a slow death. The planet WASP-18b has maybe a million years to live, said planet discoverer Coel Hellier, a professor of astrophysics at the Keele University in England. Hellier‘s report on the suicidal planet is in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature.

“It’s causing its own destruction by creating these tides,” Hellier said.

The star is called WASP-18 and the planet is WASP-18b because of the Wide Angle Search for Planets team that found them.

The planet circles a star that is in the constellation Phoenix and is about 325 light-years away from Earth, which means it is in our galactic neighborhood. A light-year is about 5.8 trillion miles.

The planet is 1.9 million miles from its star, 1/50th of the distance between Earth and the sun, our star. And because of that the temperature is about 3,800 degrees.

Its size — 10 times bigger than Jupiter — and its proximity to its star make it likely to die, Hellier said.

Think of how the distant moon pulls Earth‘s oceans to form twice-daily tides. The effect the odd planet has on its star is thousands of times stronger, Hellier said. The star’s tidal bulge of plasma may extend hundreds of miles, he said.

When I proposed to 12 Eyes guitarist/vocalist Ryan Lynch the interview that follows, I pitched it to him as an exit interview, like human resources does when you leave a corporate job, to find out how your experience was working there. I wanted to know how 12 Eyes, now that they were leaving it, felt about the scene in their native NYC. With Lynch in the city proper and drummer Joe Wood (also of long-running sludge rockers Borgo Pass) and bassist Joe Rega out on Long Island, their perspective on Manhattan and beyond was bound to be worth investigation.

Sure enough, I was right. Lynch, whose relocation to New Mexico has put the band on hiatus if not actually broken it up, took the time to reflect on some of 12 Eyes‘ glories and follies. Having seen them more than several times myself and been lucky enough to consider each member of the band a friend, I can attest that the good-time vibe to which he alludes on behalf of himself, Wood and Rega is true and was always a big part of what made a 12 Eyes show so unique. No irony, no bullshit, no posturing, just a bizarre positivity cloaked in doomed-out riffs and blood-curdling cackles. They were like Bongzilla if Bongzilla drank three cases of Red Bull and started making up songs as they went along.

Their MySpace page still in tact and their current status unknown — which is somehow fitting their laid back, see-what-happens ways — The Obelisk proudly presents this interview with one of New York‘s few quality bands. Q&A is, as always, after the jump. Enjoy.

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If you’d asked me, I’d have sworn the departure of guitarist Clayton Mills meant the end of the seminal Austin rockers, but apparently Dixie Witch are moving on with a new guy named JT and a Texas-style weekend tour. Woke up this mornin’ and saw the news on StonerRock.com, and figured if anything warranted a cut and paste, it’s this:

The mighty Dixie Witch is back and will be playing four shows this weekend through Texas with thud rockers Weedeater.

Dixie Witch will be playing new material with a shout out to new guitarist JT. DW has been working all summer with JT and will begin regional touring this fall as they write more songs for an upcoming 2010 new record! Keep posted as new pics and website overhauls are under way…

Dixie Witch/Weedeater Tour Dates:
08/27/09: Dallas, TX - Double Wide, with Blood of the Sun
08/28/09: Austin, TX - Red 7, with Iron Age
08/29/09: San Antonio, TX - Rock Bottom Tattoo Bar, with Iron Age
08/30/09: Houston, TX - Walter’s on Washington, with Iron Age

Trafficking in pure audio oppression, French post-doom outfit Overmars are the heavy?s heavy. Their second full-length, Born Again, follows a path of bleak sludge, painting an atmosphere of horror and violence and inner turmoil with multiple vocals, male and female, screamed and clean, and a sonic reach that goes well beyond the usual smartypants would-be artistry. Into somewhere that hurts.

Born Again, manifesting aurally all the pains of the process as it happens the first time in its natural state, was originally released in 2007 by Appease Me Records, the label founded by avant black metallers Blut Aus Nord. There isn?t much sound-wise to link the two bands, but Overmars? capacity for unnervingly doomed ambience is clear from the outset, and as the different movements of the album?s lone, 39-minute track come and go, the crush they provide is obviously hewn from a variety of styles, from industrial to death to post-metal and so on. They mostly play slow, though, so for lack of a better word, we?ll call it ?doom.?

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Though somewhat less musically foreboding than the album art would have you believe, the four very-extended tracks (plus an untitled secret track) joining forces to make up the MeteorCity debut of young German trio WhiteBuzz are no less stoned. Zagging around a bee line to hypnotic riff repetition and Om-style spiritual communion, Book of Whyte is one psychedelic shift after another, offering quiet ambience one minute (two minutes, three, four, five) and forceful riff metal the next. Definitely graduates of the School of Cisneros, WhiteBuzz maintain a casual, flowing atmosphere wherever the song takes them.

Perhaps the most Om of the four main tracks of Book of Whyte is the 16-minute ?A Journey through the Orchestral Labyrinth of the Wide Plateau,? the beginning, bass-led moments of which could have easily come off of Conference of the Birds. The subtle touches of guitar from Cris, who also handles vocals, make all the difference, however, and as the song rolls onward, WhiteBuzz jam their way to an individuality still based on a familiar foundation, but split into different means of expression. That is to say, you feel kind of like you?ve been there before, but with WhiteBuzz driving, you get a chance to look out the window at a new angle. The track ends with whispering and birdsong that largely serves as an intro for the closer ?Antipocalypse,? itself a considerable presence on the disc at just over 12 riffy minutes.

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Straight out of the “Why the hell haven’t I interviewed this band yet?” file, Floridian duoomo (that’s a doom duo; ? The Obelisk, 2009) Dark Castle are hitting the road with Black Cobra-esque regularity. Well, maybe not quite that much, but they’ve still done a good bit of touring this year and as the PR wire informs, it ain’t over yet. Looks like they’re playing with some pretty good bands too, so right on. Here are the dates:

9/05/2009 *TBA – Charlotte, NC
9/06/2009 The Triple – Richmond, VA w/ Windhand, Akris
9/07/2009 Lit Lounge – New York, NY w/ The Body, Orphan, Malkuth
9/08/2009 Machines with Magnets – Pawtucket, RI w/ The Body
9/09/2009 Daniel Street – Milford, CT w/ The Body, Sea of Bones
9/10/2009 Evacuate Warhouse – Roxbury, MA w/ The Body, Gigan, Lecherous Nocturne, Closed Casket
9/11/2009 Geno?s – Portland, ME w/ The Body
9/12/2009 *TBA – Amherst, MA w/ The Body
9/13/2009 Lost and Lulu Gator Bar – Brooklyn, NY w/ The Body, Tournament, Ramps
9/14/2009 Basement Show – Philadelphia, PA w/ The Body, Bubonic Bear
9/16/2009 *TBA – Louisville, KY
9/17/2009 Wise Guys – Somerset, KY w/ Old One, Alegionnaire, Eyelid Conspiracy
9/18/2009 Little Hamilton – Nashville, TN w/ Salome, Hull, Sacaea
9/19/2009 *TBA – Fayetteville, AR w/ The Unbeheld, Sons of Tonatiuh
9/20/2009 Buccaneer - Memphis, TN w/ The Unbeheld, Sons of Tonatiuh, Supercollider

It was a three-night tour and I, being a colonel among the weekend warriors, missed Friday night in Boston, but hopefully made up for it Saturday and Sunday in Maryland and Connecticut, respectively. Afforded a chance to catch the likes of Cortez, Ichabod and When the Deadbolt Breaks live two nights in a row, it was not an opportunity I was going to pass on. They called it the Amped for the End tour. Pristina was on the bill as well, but fuck Pristina. They blew Saturday, played their wannabe Meshuggahcore first and then split before the next band even went on. It’s not there were so many people there; it was basically the bands playing to each other and a few sporadic others. Splitting was a dick move.

Sunday they didn’t even show up. They live in Connecticut. Screw those guys. Who names a record Boner Jams?

The other three bands, by contrast, were killer. The sound at Krug’s Place in Frederick (where Stoner Hands of Doom X will be held next weekend) was a little muddy, but everyone seemed to be having a good time anyway, and it’s not like Deadbolt was about to break out the catchy corporate number that required absolute clarity. This is doom. Muddy works. It was clearer at the El n Gee in scenic New London the next night anyway, so in watching the three bands, you got a taste of both worlds.

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The limited acoustic Starve the Dead EP aside (and that’s not one you actually want to push to the side, because it rules; see “Hate this Town” for irrefutable proof), the 10-year story of Virginia‘s Throttlerod has been one of going from noisy to noisier. Over the course of their four full-lengths — including the latest and recently reviewed Pig Charmer (Small Stone) — the Richmond trio has become continually more aggressive and more streamlined, sounding at last as though they’ve stripped their music of any and all frills and honed their most effective balance yet of melody and anger.

Guitarist/vocalist Matt Whitehead, bassist Andrew Schneider (also the Brooklyn-based producer for Cave In, Puny Human and many others) and drummer Kevin White have seen their reputation grow in tandem with their shifting sonic approach, and though they’re a decade into their career, their music has never sounded fresher than it does now. Whitehead took some time out over his lunch break to answer the email interview that follows the jump. Enjoy.

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Even since before the release/non-release of Trouble?s would-have-been comeback album, Simple Mind Condition (it?s a non-release if you?re in the US, thanks to Escapi Music biting the proverbial big one), there?s been no small amount of teasing for the release of their unplugged EP. For a while there, it grew into one of those, ?Yeah, that?ll be out one of these days? phantom albums, until the legendary Chicago outfit finally made it available in limited numbers on their website, late 2007. The first 100 pre-sold were signed by the band.

Now seeing wider issue via Germany?s SAOL imprint, Unplugged boasts four bonus demos with the original six tracks, making it a full-length compilation-type release. Two of the original six songs are ?new,? and two of the bonus tracks were previously available on the Demos and Rarities Pt. 2 (1984-1994) collection, so there are four presumably yet-unheard cuts, two of which were on the prior Unplugged, four alternate versions and the two other bonuses, ?Waiting for the Sun? (not the Doors tune) and the Yardbirds cover, ?Heartful of Soul.?

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