Otherwise known as the heaviest thing to come out of Belgium since Chimay blanc, the guitar/drum duo SardoniS (there’s one capital S for each band member) shared the following clip of a new song called “Emperor,” captured live in Westmalle — otherwise known as the home of one of the world’s seven true trappist breweries. Doom in the land of beer-making monks? You’re damn right I’m posting this video. Not sure when the album’s out, but enjoy this in the meantime.

If you missed Ripple Music‘s reissue of Poobah‘s Let Me In, it was definitely one of the highlights of the year as far as that kind of thing goes. Killer ’70s heavy rock topped off with the virtuoso guitar of Jim Gustafson. Hard to beat.

The band just released a live CD of their set from the concert at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland from 2004, and Gustafson sent out the following email about it, which I post here in case anyone wants to get a copy from the Poobah website:

Hello, this is Jim Gustafson of Poobah. I have recently released a very rare collectible live CD, from the Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Poobah concert in 2004. This CD is 68 minutes of blazing guitar work. In addition to the 12 songs recorded live, there is also a bonus track of the newly recorded song, “Smokin’ with a Bottle of Rum.”

Poobah has signed a record deal with Ripple Music, in southern California, so there are many new projects that are headed your way. The recent re-release of Let Me In on double vinyl records with 12 bonus tracks, along with a beautifully done CD package, has been reviewed by several magazines, garnering the highest rated reviews , including Goldmine’s raves of Let Me In as the reissue of the year!

This live set burns with furious and wild guitar. Featuring, the classic Poobah songs, and recent new originals full of powerful psych-out sounds.

The second full-length from Detroit horror-obsessed doom and rollers Acid Witch might be the most aptly-named album of the year. They called it Stoned. Their first release through the extreme metal imprint Hell’s Headbangers (an appropriate home given Acid Witch’s deathly leanings), Stoned follows on the hooves of the Midnight Mass vinyl-only EP, released just a couple weeks prior, and fleshes out the ideas nascent on 2008’s Witchtanic Hallucinations debut. In many ways, the opening track, “Satanic Faith,” says it all. Spooky organs, horror movie samples, gleeful reveling in devil-worship; it’s all in good fun for the duo of Shagrat and Slasher Dave, and with the level of riffly mischief they get up to on tracks like “Trick or Treat,” there’s plenty of heaviness to back up the lighthearted approach.

It’s riff-led all the way. “Witchfynder Finder” sets the tone with Sabbath-worship and Trouble’s classic straightforward structures, but the death growled vocals give Stoned an atmosphere like a Hammer Horror version of Carcass’ Heartwork LP. Acid Witch know their doom, clearly, and they’re obviously not shy about showing off a stoner rock influence. “Trick or Treat” is among the catchiest songs on Stoned and an early highlight, but “Thundering Hooves” — its title line delivered in a cadence reminiscent of Electric Wizard’s “Dunwich” from Witchcult Today – proves no less exciting. Samples have been done to death and we all know it, but Acid Witch is so much fun to listen to, and so self-aware, that the cliché aspects of Stoned are more than half of what’s to enjoy. While I doubt either Shagrat or Slasher Dave sit around and pray to Satan, they’re not being ironic either. Rather, Acid Witch seems hell-bent on paying homage to the horror culture of the ‘70s in a way similar to a band like Hooded Menace, though their doing so takes a much less extremely metallic form. The organ on “Live Forever,” following the guitar into the solo as it does, is straight-up Deep Purple and not a move Hooded Menace would make.

Read more »

Click on the Paypal button above to purchase a copy of And the Rest Will Surely Perish by Brooklyn doom outfit Kings Destroy. The cost is $10 for domestic American orders and $12 for international (you’ll recall last time it was $14). The album comes in a full jewel case with stunningly doomed artwork by Seldon Hunt and, in all honesty, I think it’s the best traditional doom record of the year.

You get your elements of Saint Vitus and Sabbath, but there’s a dirty rock edge to it too, some Church of Misery riffing and this badass ultra-groove that you just have to hear to understand. Sanford Parker did an amazing job bringing out the best in the band (the drum sound is unreal), and there are even some shades of the band’s collective NYHC pedigree in acts like Killing Time and Uppercut.

The first 20 orders come with a thank-you card. No bullshit. I bought thank-you cards, and I have them ready to go. They have a turtle on them. There were 300 discs pressed, and I have 100 to sell. You’ll note the purchase link is in the sidebar as well as above; I’ve kept two copies for myself, given one away and sold two already since putting that button live last night. 95 copies left to go out.

Thank you for your support of The Maple Forum, of Kings Destroy and of The Obelisk.

[Please note: This post will be in the top spot for the next week. New ones will appear underneath.]

You might recall I first saw the name Hollow Leg on a t-shirt of a fellow show-goer when Earthride played NYC earlier this year. If you don’t, the original post is here. If you’re too lazy to click, they’re a duo from Jacksonville, Florida, with a penchant for guitar thickness and ass kickness. I’ve been following them on the Book of Face and it turns out they’ve just released their debut album.

It’s called Instinct, and in the true modern fashion, Hollow Leg has put the entire thing on Bandcamp for free listening. Since it’s Monday afternoon and I’ve got some listening time, I thought maybe you might too. Here’s the record and here’s the link where to buy it:

Sounds to me like this generation of hardcore kids is starting to grow up…

Massachusetts ambient-sludge masters VYGR (pronounced “Voyager”) have announced the release of their highly anticipated full-length debut, Hypersleep. The Double-LP/CD release will hit stores on Jan. 25, 2011 via Creator-Destructor Records.

The band entered Planet Z studios with acclaimed producer Zeuss (Shadows Fall, The Acacia Strain, Arsis) in Massachusetts for the production of Hypersleep. Guitarist PJ Mion states: “Working with Zeuss was a great experience for us. From the start he was on board with wanting to capture our live sound, getting everything to sound huge while avoiding the use of click tracks/sound replacement/re-amping etc. that seems to increasingly be the norm for most ‘heavy’ music these days. The end result is a heavy, spaced-out metal record that actually sounds like it was played by human beings. Coinciding with this release we’re planning for a much more active show schedule, always playing as loud as humanly possible.”

Hypersleep tracklisting:
1. Solar
2. Flares
3. Orbital Hallucinations
4. Galactic Garbage
5. -
6. The Hidden
7. Shapeshifters
8. Unmoved Mover
9. Path to the Unknown
10. Event Horizon
11. We Drift
12. A Distant Beacon

VYGR plans to support the release of Hypersleep with heavy regional touring, and a run of West Coast shows shortly after the release of the record. For all tour-dates and updates, visit http://vygr.bandcamp.com/

Perhaps the most striking thing about Earth’s A Bureaucratic Desire for Extra-Capsular Extraction — which combines the band’s 1991 debut EP, Extra-Capsular Extraction with cuts from their 1990 demo previously available as bonus tracks from No Quarter’s 2001 reissue of 1995’s Sunn Amps and Smashed Guitars Live (you get all that?) — is that if it came across my desk today and I popped it in for review, it wouldn’t be at all out of date. I wouldn’t call it innovative, or laud it for how it will change riffy drone forever, but this kind of stuff is most definitely still being made. It goes to show that whatever the venerated Olympia, Washington, outfit get up to, they seem to be ahead of their time. Certainly they’ve continued to prove that throughout their career, from the low frequency noise of Earth 2 in 1993 to the beginning of a new era with 2005’s Hex: Or Printing in the Infernal Method. Even now, as main songwriter and guitarist Dylan Carlson prepares to enter his 21st year operating under the Earth moniker, the push is still toward innovating and refining the creative process.

I don’t doubt that it was a bureaucratic desire that led to the album’s being reissued, perhaps by Southern Lord, perhaps by Carlson or the band wanting to mark the 20th anniversary of some of this material, but whatever it is, the new visitation of Extra-Capsular Extraction finds it no less relevant for the time passed. In fact, given the trail of influence Earth has left behind them, they’re probably more relevant now than they ever were at the time. Nonetheless, the “bureaucratic desire” is also obviously a play on the two-part piece that makes up half of the original EP, “A Bureaucratic Desire for Revenge.” On both “Part 1” and “Part 2,” Earth prove they were ahead of the game entirely, evoking an atmosphere that not even Godflesh would come close to touching for some years yet. Carlson, joined in Earth at the time by bassist/percussionist Joe Preston (Melvins, High on Fire, Thrones, etc.) and bassist Dave Harwell, provides landmark riffing that’s slow enough (especially compared to most of what was coming out of their geographic region at the time) to be called drone, but still somewhat groove-based. Sabbath heads and experimental geeks would have been on it, but the grunge kids must have shit their pants.

Read more »

You know all those other Frydee posts the past couple months where all I did was bitch about how much I didn’t want to spend the weekend doing homework? None of them even compares to this weekend. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much what I’ll be doing the whole time. To help me find some Friday inner peace after a long work week (even one that was short by a day) is this clip of Yawning Man playing on the street in France. The song is “Blue Foam” from their excellent Nomadic Pursuits record, released earlier this year.

Speaking of excellent records released this year, can you believe it’s almost December? I’ve got a month-long “best of the year” countdown that’ll be starting next Wednesday and running through to New Year’s (holidays included), so definitely stick around for that. This coming week we’ll also wrap up November’s numbers, have an interview posted with Virginia doomly upstarts Cough, and I’ll have the Kings Destroy full-length, And the Rest Will Surely Perish, for sale on Tuesday. The Roareth sold 12 of the total 50 copies in the first 24 hours. Think we can top that?

And, who knows? Maybe that Electric Wizard CD will show up and I’ll finally get to review it. I gave in and ordered a copy from All That is Heavy, which I’m reasonably certain will be here before the one I bought direct from the label, and there were a couple other goodies in there as well, so I’m sure I’ll get a Buried Treasure post out of it one way or the other.

Good fun to come. Have a great weekend and be safe — and don’t forget — Kings Destroy is for sale on Tuesday!

I have next to no information about Toronto weirdo outfit Godstopper. There’s a quizzical Tumblr page with some pictures and clips, a Bandcamp site (so we can deduce they’re at the forefront of musical social networking), but no bio, lineup info or any of that kind of thing. Given the strangeness of the avant garde doom they get up to on their aptly-titled Demo 2010, I think that’s probably for the best. Keep a little mystique about them. Better than picturing a bunch of dudes with beards in black t-shirts and their hands in their pockets.

There are three tracks on Godstopper‘s Demo 2010, and what rings true in each of them is that the band have a keen melodic sense to what they do. It comes out in the mix-dominating guitar on “Clean House,” and some of vocals of “Don’t Walk Home.” Godstopper manage to keep a balance between quirkiness and hooky accessibility that keeps you wanting to hear more. Even if you don’t like it, you want to sit through it and see where it goes.

The Yawning Man-style guitar tone of short instrumental “SAARENTTO” round out the 7″-length release, and though it’s just about 15 minutes long, Demo 2010 holds much promise for oddities to come. It will be interesting to hear whether Godstopper stay more or less in the same vein of experimentation, go even further into dissonance or start upping the melody and blending it with Melvins-style plod. Judging by the three cuts on Demo 2010 (which you can hear below), they could really go any way they please.

Probably should have seen this one coming, since the Animosity lineup also played the Southern Lord fest out in California earlier this year, but the confirmation that this legendary incarnation of Corrosion of Conformity will be at Roadburn 2011 is welcome news nonetheless. Here it is, straight from the Roadburn site:

The reunited classic Animosity lineup of Corrosion of Conformity — Mike Dean (bass, vocals), Woody Weatherman (guitar) and Reed Mullin (drums) – has been confirmed for SunnO)))‘s curated event at Roadburn 2011, set for April 15 at the 013 venue in Tilburg, Holland.

Also appearing on the bill are Winter, Earth, Scorn, Beaver, Hooded Menace, Menace Ruine, Aluk Todolo, The Secret, Atilla Csihar’s Void ov Voices and SunnO))).

As curator, SunnO))) (Greg Anderson and Stephen O’Malley) are personally selecting the bands that will play during their special event, as well as performing a headlining show. SunnO))) is Roadburn’s fourth curator, following David Tibet in 2008, Neurosis in 2009 and Triptykon’s Tom Gabriel Warrior at this year’s festival in April.

With their sophomore full-length, Terminal, Annandale, Virginia-based sludgers Salome make what might just become their definitive statement of intent. The bass-less guitar/drum/vocal trio blast out seven torturous tracks of blisteringly demented doom, seeming to revel in the misery they propagate. The guitars mask the otherwise missing bottom end, and though what the band bring to sludge innovates more in terms of overall aesthetic than sound, their ultra-hateful atmosphere and penchant for the dynamic is even more what contributes to the success of Terminal.

My go-to comparison point for this kind of über-doom is generally Khanate, and while Salome are less minimalist in everything but the lyrics and vicious screams of Katherine Katz, there are some similarities. Perhaps a more appropriate analogy could be made to New Orleans madmen Thou, who affect a similarly unstable ambience in their music yet maintain a lofty air of artistry. With Terminal, Salome presents thoughtful if openly-structured songwriting in a style bent on extremity, and their balance of noise and monstrous riffing shows itself right from the beginning of “The Message.” The track (and thus, the album) begins with Echoplex noise that gets cut off by the guitar of Rob Moore and the drums of Aaron Deal, who begin the song with Katz following shortly behind on vocals. It’s a technique they use several times throughout Terminal, perhaps most noticeably as the 17-minute noise-only fuck-you  “An Accident of History” leads into the decidedly more active “The Witness.” It’s a way for Salome to make their songs more memorable, and despite being telegraphed by the time you’re mostly through the album, it works.

If you’re the kind of person to skip a song, however, it’s all the more likely you’ll just pass by “An Accident of History” altogether, since it’s genuinely hard to sit through. Moore offers some changes in his guitar noise, amp hum, droning, etc., but it’s all abrasive and it’s a challenge I’ve only managed to meet a couple times in listening to Terminal. The shorter bursts of noise, like that which ends “The Message” and bleeds into Deal’s starting the title track, seem more purposeful, but it’s obvious Salome didn’t have accessibility in mind when putting together the album. That said, the rhythmic pulse driving “Master Failure” and Katz’s near-perfect cadence of “We tried, we failed” accompanying make for one of Terminal’s strongest and hardest-hitting moments. At 6:45, it’s second only to the title cut as the shortest song on the record, but it’s also the tightest structurally, so the change is noticeable in more than one way. I wouldn’t look for it to be a hit single anytime soon, but it’s bound to stick with lovers of the gruesomely extreme in sludge.

Read more »

I haven’t done one of these in a while (it might actually be since last Thanksgiving), but today’s the perfect opportunity for it. Maybe you’re stuck in the house with your entire family and you want to get away for a little bit — no better way to do it than with the clips below.

For the puritan in all of us, there’s the creepy heavy ’70s rock of Salem Mass, for the doomer, The Obsessed live in 1992. Steven Seagal shows up in the Masters of Reality video. Christopher is bound to fill your psych needs, and if it gets more stoner rock than Fu Manchu doing “King of the Road,” I don’t know how. And finally, if you don’t feel like listening to or watching music at all, there’s Ian Gillan telling stories about his time in Black Sabbath. Hope you dig it and Happy Thanksgiving (or whatever day it is when you see this).

Yeah, I know there were probably better ways to spend my time at 2AM last night than watching reruns of The Wire and making the flier below for The Obelisk, but screw it, without a little “me time,” we’re all sunk. I grabbed the drawing from an image search — you’ll never guess which one — screwed with the contrast, added some text and came out with the below. It’s not the most complex thing in the world, but I think it’s good sometimes to keep things simple. It gets to the point.

I’ll probably print some out and take them to record stores, maybe keep a few on hand for appropriate shows and such, and in the meantime, I thought you might like to see. Click the image to make it full-size:

On the afternoon we spoke (Friday, Nov. 12, in case anyone’s feeling precise), Crowbar guitarist, vocalist and driving-force Kirk Windstein turned in the final approved version of the artwork for his band’s first album in six years, Sever the Wicked Hand, which is due out Feb. 8, 2011. It’s their E1 Music debut, and as Windstein has seen his profile grow to new heights the past several years in bands like the supergroup Down and his Kingdom of Sorrow project with Jamey Jasta of Hatebreed, the planets look to be aligning for the most successful run Crowbar‘s had yet in their 20-plus years together.

With several months of sobriety under his belt and a cross-band support system of family and friends to back him, Windstein embarks optimistically on this new era in the band with whom he first made his name. In our discussion, he mentioned several times “leaving the negativity behind” as a theme present on Sever the Wicked Hand, and he seems to have done just that. For a guy with a reputation for such downtrodden tones and whose emotional and existential struggles have been documented lyrically across three different decades now, he seems awfully happy.

And who could begrudge him that? He’s certainly earned it, and if the leaked advance track on the album, “The Cemetery Angels” is any indicator, in addition to getting his personal life together, he hasn’t lost touch with what made Crowbar the pivotal sludge act they’ve always been. I’m sure there’s bound to be some of his trademark Crowbar ballads on Sever the Wicked Hand, but one listen to “The Cemetery Angels” and it’s clear Windstein hasn’t left out their special brand of heaviness. When he says “Bring it down!” two minutes and 20 seconds into the song (which you can hear in a YouTube clip at the bottom of the interview), he’s not just talking about tempo.

Sludge from the master thereof. Crowbar is rounded out by guitarist Matthew Brunson (a Kingdom of Sorrow bandmate), bassist Patrick Bruders and drummer Tommy Buckley, but as ever, Windstein‘s guiding the chaos. In the course of our conversation, he discussed returning to Crowbar after working for the last several years exclusively on Down and Kingdom of Sorrow, getting sober, balancing his time between bands, recording Sever the Wicked Hand, touring and much more.

The full Q&A is after the jump. Please enjoy.

Read more »

About a month ago, when I was slathering over the brilliance of Alcest‘s Écailles de Lune, John from the infamous Ripple Effect blog noted that he preferred the work of fellow French black metalgazers Les Discrets, and the name stuck with me. I finally checked out a couple tracks on YouTube and yesterday, while also trying yet again to get my hands on a copy of the new Electric Wizard (failure), I grabbed Les Discrets‘ only full-length to date, Septembre et Ses Dernières Pensées, at Vintage Vinyl.

Those familiar with the Prophecy Productions label know they specialize in the melancholic, and Les Discrets is no exception. One thing that surprises me about post-black metal is how much it seems to have in common ideologically with the emotional European doom of bands like Paradise Lost or mid-period Anathema. It’s a connection I haven’t heard many people make, but it feels fairly obvious to me as comparison point sound-wise. In any case, much of that same candlelit ambience seems to have been inherited by the likes of Les Discrets, and they put it to good use.

Septembre et Ses Dernières Pensées is an atmospheric piece through and through, but I think what I enjoy most about it — more than the drama, more than the emotional or tonal weight of the songs — is that the vocals are low in the mix. It seems like the simplest thing in the world, and it seems like a silly reason to think a record rules, but Fursy Teyssier is balanced just right with the music. He and Audrey Hadorn stand out when they need to, as on “Sur les Quais,” but when the music gets heavy, as on the doomly-paced but gorgeous “Chanson d’Automne,” they’re no farther forward than the guitars or Winterhalter‘s drums. It really is one of the strongest aspects of the album.

Teyssier, who is also a member of Amesoeurs with Neige of Alcest, leads the band on Septembre et Ses Dernières Pensées and provides the stunning and dark album art (he also did Écailles de Lune and has done other Prophecy releases as well), but as much as Les Discrets may be a one-man spearheaded project, there’s nothing lacking in terms of fullness of sound or space in the production. It’s probably not going to be everyone’s go-to listening experience, either for the drama, the French lyrics, the melodic emotionality, or the fact that closer “Une Matinée d’Hiver” sounds like the soundtrack to the “she’s leaving but everything’s going to be okay” sensitive moment in every teen comedy ever, but as a mood piece, Septembre et Ses Dernières Pensées is a strong outing in a burgeoning style that’s really only beginning to see exposure. Thanks to John for the killer recommendation.