Lo and behold, sitting on my desk right now are a whopping FIVE digipak CDs, just waiting to go out the door. If you want one — and I think you do — just leave a comment to this post.

Now, if you’re wondering where the entry form is that I used for the last few times, I’ve spent this whole week deleting an onslaught of spam from the King Giant contest. Safe to say the robots know we’re here. So in an effort to avoid some of that, Slevin suggested comments instead.

You don’t have to say much of anything in the comment, just make sure your email is included with your name so I have a way to tell you you’ve won. If you want to leave your address there, you can, but if you’re iffy about it, that’s fine too. Doesn’t affect me picking the winner either way.

And if you need an immediate refresher course as to Rising‘s potent blend of heavy riffs and melodies, I’ll kindly refer you to the Bandcamp player below:

Winners will be picked next Wednesday, Feb. 15. Happy commenting, and thanks to Rising, Earsplit PR and Exile on Mainstream for making this happen. To Solemn Ash is available now. For more info, check out Rising‘s website or the label’s website.

Founded by guitarist/songwriter Selim Lemouchi and his sister, the powerful vocalist Farida Lemouchi, the Eindhoven-based band were subject to fervent reactions almost immediately. Following a 2007 demo and the 2008 single, The Graveyard Shuffle, their Come, Reap EP was a blatantly devilish call to arms that stood in stark musical contrast with the thematic conventions of extreme metal with which it was toying. On their first full-length, 2009′s The Time of No Time Evermore (review here), The Devil’s Blood set about offsetting classic rock with ethereal psychedelic washes, and on their latest album, The Thousandfold Epicentre (review here), they’ve mastered their form.

With a massive, 74-minute sprawl, The Thousandfold Epicentre makes no attempt to hide its grandiosity or self-indulgence, instead celebrating its blatant atmospherics while also maintaining a strong core of songcraft that can be heard on the flagrant hooks in “Die the Death” or the centerpiece “She.” Through it all, Farida keeps supreme hold of her charisma, and Selim‘s instrumental melodicism behind her makes for one of the underground’s most intriguing pairings. The Devil’s Blood owe more to Coven‘s “Black Sabbath” than Black Sabbath‘s “Black Sabbath,” but as Selim hints in the interview that follows, the band revels in doing what’s unexpected.

And since in order to hold onto an element of Satanic mysticism one must be vague in discussing processes, the word “hints” is all the more appropriate. Nonetheless, Selim, who often goes by the initials SL, was open in acknowledging his band’s theatricality and his own classic pop and heavy rock influences, from The Beatles and Thin Lizzy to Roky Erickson and Black Widow. If you make it that far, a particularly fascinating moment came near the end, in talking about touring and playing high-profile festivals (The Devil’s Blood will be on the Decibel magazine North American tour with Watain, In Solitude and Behemoth this spring; dates included below) as opposed to club shows. Just something to watch out for, if you’re interested.

Please find the enclosed Q&A with Selim Lemouchi after the jump, and enjoy.

Can you talk a little bit about what you think is behind the reaction The Devil’s Blood has gotten since you got together?

The reaction? I think, as with most artists or bands or creative output, we seem to have a slightly polarizing effect on people. I haven’t really heard a lot of people tell me they think we’re okay. They either like us or they don’t, which I think is a good thing. Things are either cold or hot, and the lukewarm needs to be moved out of the way, I think. We’ve been given some really fantastic opportunities in the last couple years, working with very good people in Europe and now Metal Blade has come into play in America, giving us, again, more chances and more possibilities to take it to the proverbial next level. So there’s not a lot to complain about as far as reactions go.

What’s behind the meaning of the title “The Thousandfold Epicentre?”

The ideas The Devil’s Blood works with have always been the same. Everything we do, every song we create or every lyric that manifests itself through us is always some kind of connection to death, to chaos and to Satan. These three basic principles are really what ties The Devil’s Blood together as a unit. The worship of these three is also what the title-track stands for and what it is supposed to arouse within the listener. Of course, there are various levels of interpretation and content possible, and I think it’s always a good thing to allow people as much room for personal interpretation as you can, so I’m always a bit cautious when it comes to the actual lyrics themselves, or titles and stuff like that, but in a very broad way, those three principalities, if you will, are the main inspiration behind The Devil’s Blood, and that has not changed and that will not change.

Do you see setting up the contrast between occult ideas and the upbeat, melodic songs as the central musical idea of the band?

Well, as far as contrasts go, being somebody who’s listened to music like Coven, Black Widow, Roky Erickson, Alice Cooper, KISS, even, to a lesser degree, I don’t really see the contrast myself. I think it’s become commonplace – especially in the metal scene – for people to immediately tie Satanic imagery and Satanic lyrics to extreme music, to death metal and to black metal and stuff like that. Fair enough, I guess, because that’s where a lot of people come from, but let’s not forget there has been a lot of art and music created in the past which could be described as colorful or upbeat, as you just did, which in and of itself was extremely demonic and insidious. I think we more or less ascribe to a longstanding tradition in culture and music that these things are not necessarily kept apart from each other. The other thing is that of course we are very happy to be doing this (laughs). We are very glorious about the music we make, and I think the music itself reflects that, in a way. Even though people might consider it to be upbeat, the music itself is still fraught with dissonance and with darkness. So for me, it’s not so much a contrast, but a unity.

As you say, though, the expectation is that demonic ideas and things like that come with death and black metal. I think there’s something subversive in working against that expectation.

It could be considered as such, but it was never a conscious move. If that’s what draws people in, then that’s fine. But for me, we could have very well been a death metal or a black metal band, because those both are musical extremes that, for me, have been very important as a musician and as a fan. It’s stuff that I’ve listened to since I was very young. But also, I listened to The Doors and Black Sabbath and Thin Lizzy, The Byrds, The Beatles, whatever. I think when you boil it down to its core, The Devil’s Blood makes an amalgam of all these things, and not just one or the other.

With so much going on musically and in terms of influence, do you feel connected to any one genre more than another?

Not really, to be honest. For me, music goes in phases. I could be listening to old Bathory and Slayer and Venom for weeks on end and then make a shift and listen to nothing but The Beach Boys for a month. For me, music is just that. It’s music, and apart from the reasons people made it or whether or not it’s — spiritually inclined or stuff like that, which can be very important in the choices we make when it comes to listening to certain stuff and not listening to certain other stuff – I think I just pick out whatever fits my  taste for the moment. To tie myself to one genre, I think I would have to say just rock and roll in all its forms. For me, death metal and black metal are still rock and roll. It’s still the rebellious music of the youth, of a certain sense of counter-culture, a certain sense of rebellion through art, which they share.

At the same time, The Devil’s Blood has a pretty established aesthetic across the two albums and the EPs. Do you ever feel limited by that aesthetic?

Not at all. Not at all. No. Because the aesthetic is a result of our creative output and not the other way around. It could very well be that we will change in the future, that the style will diverge or evolve into different territories, and these might be [predictable] or not. We don’t know. We are not in charge.

Tell me about the writing process and when Farida comes into it?

The most relevant part, I guess, is it’s a frightfully boring thing (laughs). Just imagine: Usually it starts concentration. With studying, with reading, with meditation, with certain magical rites involving certain occult principles I feel close to or connected to in a certain part of the year or in a certain part of my life, or, you know, just a certain part of the day. From this comes a certain inspirational flow, which I have to follow to its logical extent, and this is just usually me with an acoustic guitar and a piece of paper, humming away, and music and lyrics usually come in almost the same flow. When this has traveled a bit, I start to make sense of what I made – because usually it’s just maybe one lyric line or a few chords tied together with maybe a chorus or a bridge or whatever or a certain melody – and from that point onward, the song starts to manifest itself. It becomes sculpted, in a way. When all the granite is chipped away at the edges and all the excess baggage is cut off and the lyrics are done and the music is done, I contact my sister and we meet up, we discuss very intimately the details of the music, the details of the lyrics, what they mean to us – especially what they mean to her, because for me it’s very important to know that she knows what she is singing. Parts of it, parts of the understanding, she keeps for herself on her own responsibility. She puts them inside of her and locks them away and never talks about them again, to give something completely unique to it. We record the demos in this way, and then the demos are presented to the rest of the band, and we work from there.

Is working with Farida, your sister, ever affected by a family dynamic, or does it affect your relationship as siblings?

It strengthens our relationship, if anything. Family is one thing. It can be a good thing or a bad thing. I think we all have certain elements in our family that we’d rather not think about or talk to or be around and some others that we feel more comfortable with, just basically like our friends or whatever. Our social structures. But in our case, being forced to work together in this way has actually given us a much clearer understanding of each other as persons and individuals and creative entities. We can be completely brutally honest with each other, to the point of extreme insults (laughs) and violence and everything that comes. It’s very much a dynamic form of love/hate, that never sticks in one place for too long. For outsiders, it can be a little bit strange to behold (laughs), because it tends to be unforgiving and at the surface, it seems to have absolutely no consideration for each other’s feelings or emotions, but because we are so close to each other and know each other so well, we don’t need to express the consideration, because we already know it’s there. For us, it works. I don’t think I would be able to do it with anyone else, basically, in this way.

“Everlasting Saturnalia” seemed to really stand out on the record. It’s so atmospheric, and so much focus seems to be on mood, moving away from that – to use the word again – upbeat sound, that rock and roll influence. Can you talk a bit about where that came from?

(Laughs) I think the lyrics explain it the best, and I think should someone be really interested in that, that is the best place to start looking for any kind of explanation. The problem with The Devil’s Blood – well, for me, it’s not a problem, but from a journalistic standpoint it’s a problem – is that the answer about the creation of any lyric or music that we’ve ever made is always the same: That’s the way it came out. That’s the way it happened. That’s the way the thing wanted to be. You could very much say that at the moment of fertilization and gestation, you have some influence about how it will come out, but the moment it’s born, you are yourself surprised with its appearance and its structure. You have to learn to love it. The one thing that I can say is that was the song that I was most convinced of its power immediately, even though it’s a very simple and straightforward, to the point exercise. It really, for me, it captured the entire atmosphere and, you know, progress and process of the band.

Was it any coincidence putting that next to “Fire Burning” with the relation to Saturnalia Temple?

Oh! You know, that’s a good question (laughs). I really don’t know. The thing is that when you start compiling a record and when you start figuring out the structure of a record and not just the structure of a song, but very much the relationship of each song connected to every other song – where does it need to be, how long does it need to be, how will the cut of the record look like on vinyl, all stuff like that – it usually ends up that there is only one possible running order. There are no other options, and in the case of this record, especially as opposed to the previous one, where I did move around a lot of the songs for a long time before I really set on one certain running order, this time around I had the first song, I had the last song, I had the song in the middle, and everything else just really wanted this one certain place on the record and there was no discussion possible. In the case of “The Fire Burning” and “Everlasting Saturnalia,” they just seemed to be connected in a way. This was even before the lyrics to “The Fire Burning” were actually there, because they came a little bit later.

I know you’ve done a good deal of European touring in support of the album already. Will there be more leading up to the summer festivals?

Well, festivals, we’re going to be doing Hellfest, Bang Your Head and a few other things. Some high profile festival in Norway as well. Some other smaller stuff as well. Metal Magic in Denmark I think is confirmed. We’re coming to the United States for the Maryland Deathfest and we’ll also be doing an American tour in April, just before the Deathfest, so yeah, we’re looking at big plans. We’ll probably go home for like one week and then fly back in to do Deathfest. That’s just the way it goes (laughs). The thing is that I’m just excited that there’s no overlap. We don’t have to cancel anything. We can just keep going, which is a good thing.

Are you writing?

Not at the moment. I really deliberately – more or less the same thing as after the previous record – after being so engrossed in a work of this magnitude, in my case, I fall into almost a lethargic state where creativity seems to dissipate and seems to bleed away from you. The previous time, this really upset me, and it really frustrated me to an extreme point of self-loathing and everything that comes with that, but this time around, I kind of expected it would happen and I simply allowed myself to become null and void for a while. Just empty. Doing the promotional thing is a good way to keep my mind off it and doing a lot of concerts allows me to have my rituals and my connection to what it is we’re doing, and when the whole thing calms down a little bit, I’m pretty sure the voice will find me again and there will be more to say.

So there’s a difference for you between the sense of ritual in writing and in performing.

Yeah, definitely. I feel much more at home in my own little temple, at my own little altar, working in my own little way, and then taking that into the studio and perfecting and molding and shaping than I ever have on the stage. I truly appreciate being on the stage, and I think it’s a very important thing to do, but in a perfect world, I would just keep making records (laughs).

Is there an according difference between doing shows in smaller venues and these high-profile festivals?

There is, obviously, yeah. In a way, I think I still feel most comfortable in a 300-400 [capacity] venue with no support acts – just us, our music playing the entire night and then us coming to do the ritual and then leaving again and having this very close-knit, harmonious sense of togetherness with everyone who’s there and trying to capture as much of the energy as we can, as opposed to going on a very big festival and being one of many different bands and people wandering in and out. Then again, there are very strong benefits to that as well, because it’s a very good way to reach people that you otherwise wouldn’t reach. Doing that in 2010 in Europe garnered us a lot of support from what you might call unexpected people. Overall, it’s all a good thing.

The Devil’s Blood’s website

Metal Blade Records

Flash forward a couple months later and guitarist Andy “Dinger” Beresky announces on the forum that he’s quitting the band and proceeds to go on a months-long bridge-burning expedition, trolling his own threads with pseudo-mysticism and purposeful confusion, sending misleading emails to Black Pyramid industry contacts, behaving in a manner so paranoid and disruptive it results in being the first-ever ban on the board. As great as it felt to see the trio at Roadburn, the unraveling that ensued following their return from a European run alongside Blood Farmers was equal parts painful and sad, on both a personal and critical level.

For all intents and purposes, the band was done. And yet, they stood on the eve of the release of their second full-length, II, through MeteorCity. Bassist Gein and drummer Clay Neely were left in the awkward position of having to decide whether to press on and and try to replace Beresky or cut the band’s life short just as it seemed to be hitting its stride creatively. In the end, Neely and Gein opted to continue Black Pyramid, bringing in respected Massachusetts guitarist Darryl Shepard (Milligram, Hackman, Blackwolfgoat) to fill the vacant slot, and pressing forward almost immediately with writing new material, which will see release this year as part of a split.

And as the summation of what the original incarnation of the band was able to accomplish, II is an utter triumph. Produced by Neely himself and mixed by the band in conjunction with Justin Pizzoferrato, it revels in the glory of battle as did the preceding 2009 self-titled, but adds melodic depth and a range of composition less limited by the confines of genre or expectation. With II (review here), Black Pyramid were becoming their own band. Now moving past it, they have to become a new one. And quick. The announcement that the band would continue came packaged with word of an impending performance at this year’s London Desertfest at the start of April.

In what I later found out was his first phoner interview, Neely discussed these issues of Black Pyramid‘s demise and rebirth, as well as the processes of writing and recording II and bringing Shepard in to be a part of the Mk. II lineup. There was some more said off the record about Beresky leaving, but for the purposes here, I wanted to keep the focus on the fact that Black Pyramid, true to the warrior nature fused into their lyrics, are fighting their way forward despite what others might have expected to hold them back. I hope that comes though.

Complete Q&A with Clay Neely is after the jump. Please enjoy.

When did you know you’d keep the band going after Andy left?

I guess it was really just a matter of a couple weeks. We just chose to sit on it, because we were basically waiting to see how long the shitstorm would last, to be honest. When it appeared like it was just not gonna end, we started talking to Dan, and we were like, “Look. We don’t want to fan the flames here or anything to make matters worse, but we just thought because of the circumstances surrounding everything, we’re gonna keep the band going.” We just didn’t want to add more gas to the fire.

How did Darryl enter the picture?

He actually sent a private message on Facebook or something saying hey, asking what was going on, offering condolences and seeing if we ever wanted to jam. He never implied he wanted to be in the band at all – he just wanted to see if maybe we wanted to get together at some point and work on some stuff. That’s when I just countered it and said, “Would you be open to playing with us?” And he was really open to it and said, “Yeah, it’s worth a shot. Let’s give it a go.” We had a practice, and all the systems were go. It was really nice. Really relaxed and laid back, and it felt like an enormous weight had been lifted off our shoulders. The light at the end of the tunnel and all that other good stuff.

Have you heard from Andy at all? Do you have any sense of what happened there?

Yeah, I talked to him a couple times. When everything first happened, he sent out a letter to both me and Gein, saying he was tired of the industry and this, that and the other, and that he was going – basically the same stuff that he said on the forums – that he was going to go with his fiancee and live with his mom out in Belchertown, which is kind of far from here, and just retire from music. And we were just kind of like, “Okay…” All the gear was at the practice space, so I went and got all that stuff and kept it up at my studio, and basically I didn’t hear from him too much between the last couple months, except for just trying to orchestrate a time for him to get the gear. He doesn’t have a car, and to make a long, boring story short, yeah, I’ve talked to him a couple times. He seems okay, but you know, he even said it himself. I said, “I kind of miss talking to the guy I used to be in the van with,” and he said, “Well, he doesn’t exist anymore. I’m a different person now, so there’s no reason to think you could ever speak to that person again.” Just really weird, cryptic stuff like that, and I was like, “Okay, good luck with that” (laughs). Sure, I’ve talked to him a couple times, but it’s just basically email trying to tie up loose ends in terms of getting his gear and wanting to donate or give it away. Now he’s selling it. I don’t know what’s going on.

Was the album release ever in jeopardy?

I don’t think so. I spoke to Dan as soon as I got the email, and I was like, “I just wanted to let you know as soon as possible, because I know people aren’t in the business of releasing albums from broken-up bands or dysfunctional bands, but since you’re the one sinking money into this, I thought you should know as soon as possible, and if it’s a no-go, I totally understand and no bad feelings or anything like, that.” But he was like, “No, we’re still 100 percent going with it, no matter what arises.” That was a huge relief, because we’d spent all summer working on it, and I don’t know if it was [Andy]’s insecurity about it, having to bottle up whatever overblown debut CD that we did or whatever, but I don’t know if he thought that if he completely disassociated himself with it and called it crap that he would be free of any criticism directed towards him. I don’t know, man. There’s a million possibilities out there, and it doesn’t really change anything.

In the meantime, though, you guys did Roadburn, you did Europe with Blood Farmers, you came back as the conquering heroes and made this killer record. Are you thinking of this album as the culmination of the band to this point?

I would think so, yeah. This year was definitely the high-water mark as far as where we went and what we were able to do. It’s obviously definitely a closing of a chapter. It’d be foolhardy to be like, “Nah man, the best is yet to come!” but that’s the thing, the tour was a success. We actually made money on the European tour. We had a blast. Everything was taken care of over there, and Roadburn was Roadburn. I don’t know who doesn’t have a good time over there. We played a great set, it was a fantastic adventure, but I think as soon as we got back here – I think Andy even mentioned it in that interview, in his last one – coming back and voluntarily going into a mental hospital or whatever. I think he was going really manic over in Europe. At the time we just chalked it up, because we’re all coffee drinkers, and we’re all really excited and whatnot, but I think when he got back over to the States, something didn’t click right. Something happened with his job too, but I don’t know what happened. I think it was at that point things started going downhill in his mind or whatever. I don’t know. But yeah, this year was just aces, man. I had a blast (laughs).

Tell me about recording yourself for the album. If you can step back from all the bullshit that’s ensued, I’m thinking of the process of putting this record to tape.

When we were over in Europe, we had plenty of time in the van to devise what we were going to do. Basically, what we’ll do – due to the geographical distance between the band members – we’d have Andy come in and lay down a rough track of a song. A real bare skeleton. Then I’d go in there and lay down the drums and then bring in Andy to fill in the guitar, and then bring in Gein to fill in the bass, then Andy would finish the vocals and whatever extraneous solos or whatever, if I needed to do keyboards, things like that, I would put those on and make sure everything was in place – check it off, “Yup, everything’s good” – and then once everything’s checked off, we bring in a fresh set of ears to help mix, because at that point, it’s not that you lose objectivity, but you want that fresh set of ears to hear something you maybe didn’t or who might have a different idea of a direction the song could take. It’s just things like that. It’s nice, because you’re not dealing with a full-on producer, but at the same time, you’re with someone you can ask, “Was that good? What do you think?” Justin’s a good mix, I would say, and just to make sure everything’s hunky-dory, I would say. But everything was pretty methodical. Just drums, bass, guitar. We never did anything live, just due to the geographical things, and my studio’s kind of small, so just doing drums by themselves, I can open up a lot more doors that would’ve been shut for isolation purposes and get a little bit of a bigger sound. So that’s another reason I like doing it that way. Plus, I can get all Steely Dan with my drums and criticize myself (laughs). All drummers hate themselves anyway, so I can go in there and just do take after take until I’m like, “Well, I guess that’s the best one out of all the bad ones” (laughs).

How would you compare the process of recording yourself to doing the Elder record? I know that was a little bit ago at this point, but even so.

The thing about the Edler record was the clock was ticking on them as far as getting it done before Nick split for Germany. So they came in and busted out, over the course of the weekend, they knocked out  bass, guitar and drums, and got those done in the span of about three-four days. And then Nick would come in a couple weeks later or whatever to try to do some vocal work. The thing that took longest on the Elder record was the keyboards (laughs), and there’s really not that many in there, but the three of them were in the control room just twiddling the knobs on this Italian synthesizer, and one was like, “Nah, nah, you’re doing it wrong,” and they’re all just huddled around it, and you’re sitting there like, “Well, alright. They’re know what they’re doing, I guess” (laughs). But doing basic tracking with them was excellent. I think they knew too that it was like, “We need to get this done,” and they banged it out, and like I said, the stuff that took longest was the small, extraneous stuff. But yeah, it was a blast, just because we’d played live with them so many times, and you kind of get a bit of an idea of their overall sound and what they’re going for. Also, they did a community television thing up in Greenfield, and I wound up doing live sound with that, so that helped out too. They were relatively easy, man (laughs). They just get in there and they knock it out.

Do you have any other recording projects coming up?

Nah, we’re just kind of working on the new stuff with Darryl right now, just hashing out demos in the studio. At the moment, no, not really. No one that would be of any – I don’t want to say “significance,” but it’s just local people around here who aren’t really doom or anything like that. That’s basically it.

How is the writing going with Darryl?

Really smooth. Like I said, there’s way less tension in the air, and so there’s a lot more ideas that are being thrown around, and things just seem a little bit lighter. The sound is relatively the same. Darryl’s got his own style, so he’s not going to be the mirror image or anything. We’re really psyched with the way the vocals are going and the way Darryl’s interpreted the older songs on guitar. They sound great. Basically it took three practices and we probably could’ve gone out and played a 20 or 30-minute set. He learned the stuff really, really quick, and that really was helpful because it gave us all a lot of extra time to start working on new stuff, which is where we are now. I was really grateful we were able to get the old set knocked out in such a timely fashion. Writing with him is great because I’m such a huge fan of Blackwolfgoat and I’m trying to get him to incorporate aspects of that into the new stuff as well. We’ve only had three practices and he’s come out to the studio just to jam and work out some ideas, and it’s been super-positive and great. I’m really glad it all kind of worked out.

Black Pyramid is no stranger to the 7”. Will do guys do singles to set the ground for the next EP or album?

That’s what we’re trying to get knocked out. Right now all we need to do basically is track the bass and the vocals for the 7” that we’re gonna be doing in March. It’s a split 7”. So that’s cool to have. We’re chomping at the bit to get that out. Can’t wait. But also, we’re aiming to have – hopefully, if it all works out – at least an EP by summer or by the end of the year. We’re writing pretty quick. Things are coming out pretty fast and furious, and it’s nice. It’s pretty cool that there’s no weird writer’s block or “What do we do now?” sort of stuff. Everything’s just kind of continuing. In fact, I think we’re doing a little better lately as far as the writing than the last couple months with the old lineup. Things are a lot more fun now, that’s for sure. The tension’s just gone, and it’s just more open. You know how Darryl is (laughs). It’s just so much more fun, and that has a lot to do with it. No one is feeling uptight about having to defend their ideas or anything. It’s just like, “You like this? Cool. Right on.” Same kind of principle that we’ve always used, we just don’t have to be as defensive about it (laughs). It’s nice.

How did Desertfest come about?

I just got an email from Reese asking if we’d like to play. It was around the time that we still were unsure about acknowledging our continued existence because we didn’t want to see things going the way they were, but it was around that time we said yeah. We went ahead. That was probably early October or late September when we got the email from him. We were just like, “Absolutely. No problem.” That’s basically how it worked. That easy (laughs).

Will you do more European touring around that, or is it just there and back?

We work with Vibra Agency over in Germany, but the thing is, right now, we talked to them and we were like, “We’re going to play Desertfest, any possibility for future dates?” because last year, they were like, “We’ll take care of you in Europe,” so when we got the Desertfest, I talked to Klaus, and was like, “Do we need to go through you with this?” and he was like, “Let me check it out. That sounds good. Okay.” But as far as additional dates right now, they have a surplus of bands over there around April, so they’re like, “Maybe at another point, but right now there’s way too much going on.” I remember when we were over there last year, Zoroaster was over there, Graveyard. We were basically playing the same clubs three nights before or after they were there. There’s no shortage of stoner doom over there in April, that’s for sure. Everyone’s trying to piggyback dates on top of Roadburn or Desertfest or whathaveyou. This year, we might get to squeeze in an extra date in Holland with Roadsaw. We don’t know yet. It’s still kind of up in the air.

Any chance of touring in the US?

Yeah, we’re kicking around a possible tour right now with Backwoods Payback and Order of the Owl in late March. It’d just be a little five-day run from Atlanta up to New York. We’re trying to see how the numbers would work on that. If we don’t lose money, then we’re totally down with doing it. That’s currently on our radar. That and it would help in getting ready for Europe and whatnot. Oh, and King Giant, too. They’d be on the lineup. So it would be us, Backwoods, Order of the Owl and King Giant. It would only be five dates in March. I don’t think we have anything lined up as far as extensive US touring at this time.

Fair enough. I know you’re still kind of getting settled.

(Laughs) Four practices with Darryl. Don’t want to be too cocksure (laughs).

Black Pyramid on Thee Facebooks

MeteorCity

But the announcement yesterday that this lineup of C.O.C. will headline Sunday night, April 8, at the London Desertfest is just the latest endorsement it has earned. Dean, Weatherman and Mullin toured twice in 2011 with Clutch, including their New Year’s tour last month, and played the 2011 Maryland DeathFest and Roadburn festivals (among others), supporting the single Your Tomorrow on Southern Lord. The track “Your Tomorrow” would wind up as one of the strongest on the album Corrosion of Conformity as well, but the record does an excellent job meeting and surpassing any aesthetic expectations that could be put on it.

Because, hey, let’s face it, if you’ve got a trio lineup of C.O.C., they’ve got a lot to live up to. Animosity is a crossover classic, and coupled with everything the band was able to accomplish after Keenan joined, then Corrosion of Conformity needs to cover a lot of ground to be a success. The album’s greatest attribute, however, is that it seems to ignore all of that in favor of just rocking out on some killer songs. As a result, cuts like “Rat City” and “Leeches” and “What We Become” hone in on the band’s hardcore past without seeming like a put-on while “Psychic Vampire,” “The Moneychangers” and “Come Not Here” bring in elements of the riffy Sabbathian groove that was always present in their sound, however prevalent it may or may not have been.

If you’re interested, the full album review is here. Just prior to their heading out with Clutch to put 2011 to bed, Dean and I spoke about what brought C.O.C. back together in this form and how it was composing the new album without Keenan, recording it with longtime producer John Custer, his own process for composing lyrics, and much more. Like the music on the self-titled, he was honest and straightforward in his responses, as you can see in the interview that follows here.

–Special thanks to Candlelight Records for letting me give away THREE copies of the new C.O.C. album on vinyl! Enter to win by sending your name and address below. Contest runs until Jan. 20!

[Please note: This contest is now closed. Thanks to all who entered.]

Complete Q&A is after the jump. Please enjoy.

Take me back to what got you guys jamming. What put the idea in your head to really pick up C.O.C. again?

Well, I mean, we didn’t really put it down, in theory, but it’s just in practice, we were waiting around to work with Pepper, because we’d done some good stuff with him and we were looking forward to the opportunity to get him and Reed back together and do some stuff. He was pretty occupied with Down, but what put the idea in our head was him actually saying, “Let’s go play some festivals. We could do well.” And then it turned out he couldn’t do it, so we just suggested in jest that we should do it as a three-piece (laughs). I kind of blurted it out and nobody was laughing, so it was like, well, maybe we should pursue this. Then, once we got into that process, it seemed a little lame to be going out there to play the nostalgia circuit. Obviously, as a three-piece, our last record was quite a while back, so we’d be learning an Animosity set that people wanted to hear, but at the same time, we didn’t want to play the nostalgia circuit, so it was kind of a condition of mine that we would get some new material together, and while we were dusting it off, do a recording, so it wouldn’t be just exploitation of past deeds.

And that was the Your Tomorrow 7”.

Yeah. That was pretty much what we could get together to have a little something to sell on tour and to have something to take to the media or whatever. We kind of immediately had four new songs in our set. Four brand new songs.

When did Reed come back into the picture?

About three years ago, I started jamming with him in a band called Righteous Fool. We still do that, we just recorded an album. So we got him to break out the drums and get back with playing a little bit on that. Once I saw that he was really running on all cylinders, we talked about the C.O.C. thing. It just kind of worked out.

Can you talk about the change in dynamic between C.O.C. working as a three-piece as opposed to having Pepper involved while you’re writing?

Everybody has a lot of ideas to contribute, and the more participants involved, the less direct individual contributions everybody’s gonna make in the realm of songwriting. Take one person out of the equation, and it’s that much more everybody has to contribute and gets to contribute. That’s interesting. That’s a good thing. I thought we all rose to the occasion. Another thing is, we were doing it with this format a really long time ago, when we were literally still in high school, so it was kind of like reverting to something that we hadn’t done for a while, but it was very natural to us and kind of reminded us (laughs) of old times. In a good way.

Yeah, I saw those old pictures on Facebook. You look like you’re about 12.

I think Reed was 15 when he got that drum set. He’s still got the same Tama drum set. It’s ridiculous how old it is. He really ought to think about putting it in cases, because it’s probably worth something just based on its antique status.

Were you surprised at all at the reaction you got initially to coming back as a trio live?

Nah. There’s so many different incarnations of C.O.C. and the various incarnations have covered a lot of stylistic ground along the way. People will become alienated with some new thing that we do, and they’ll pine for whatever came before, so there are a lot of people that were anxious to hear the hardcore thing, or the hardcore-punk-metal-crossover-type of thing or whatever. We were getting a lot of requests to do that, and people spouting off about how that was better or they wanted to hear that. So I think we expected a good reaction. We expected there to be interest. It was about what we expected.

On the album, you kind of cover all the bases, sound-wise.

Yeah. It’s not just a crossover nostalgia record at all.

Were you conscious of that as you were putting the songs together? Did you have the shape of the album in mind?

I think once we had a few songs written, then we could be a little more calculating. We started off with some real natural exploration of ideas and just moving quickly to write some lyrics and craft a couple songs. Once we saw where it was going, then maybe it was a little but more calculated, like, okay, we want to show the scope of what we can do with this lineup and not have it just be pigeonholed to be going backwards to old times, even though we wanted to demonstrate that we could still play fast.

Given all the years since, has your opinion changed at all about the Animosity-era material? Do you feel differently about those songs now than you did then?

I felt pretty good about them. I think I feel about the same way. I think that’s one of our strongest recordings, and as far as from a performance standpoint and an idea standpoint. I think it holds up pretty well. It was fairly unique among that kind of music.

What do you think has let the album endure? It seems like there’s always the C.O.C. debate. Everyone has their favorite record that they’re going to champion.

Oh yeah. It was a good balance of young energy kind of getting to the point where there was just enough experience involved that there was agile performances, capable performances. Still maintains some of the amateurish energy, but there’s capable performances as we were, in our own way, becoming pretty good at the instruments. There just happened to be some good performances captured.

Was there ever any doubt you’d be recording with John Custer again for this record?

Perhaps. We knew he’d be into it. We were considering possibly doing it all ourselves, but ultimately I thought that he could really add some ideas and add some perspective to it. A little bit of depth. He kind of likes to sit back a little bit and let the band be the band a little more than he probably did with Blind or he did with Deliverance, certainly. He’s pretty much just trying to enable us. He’s not trying to mastermind, really, anything. I enjoyed working with him this time. It was kind of John Custer and C.O.C., really, that produced it. It was a good collaboration. He was remarking that we were kind of working like one organism, and I thought that was apt. But I think for a moment there we were thinking about trying to just entirely produce it ourselves, and I don’t know how that would’ve turned out. At this point, I’m glad we did it the way we did it.

One thing I’ve noticed in listening is a balance between a raw, natural sound, and still being clear and full. Did you know you wanted that kind of natural vibe?

We wanted something organic. We wanted a pretty organic performance. We weren’t looking to record something that was put on a grid with real prominent drum samples that sounded like a machine, although there’s some music like that I might enjoy. We wanted honest performance, and something that invoked a real live but also powerful rock band-type of thing. I’m still digesting how it turned out. We mixed it pretty quickly and I know I’m happy with it, but I don’t really have that much perspective on it yet. I’m very happy with the results… I’m just not sure what’s making me happy (laughs). I can hear everything. The idea was to have something a little bit vibe-y, a little bit real, but still presentable.

Tell me about the song “Leeches” and when that came along in the writing.

That’s something that Reed stood out on. That’s his vocal, that’s his lyric. He kept belittling it and describing it as, “I guess I have this punk rock song.” Listen to that opening progression, it’s kind of like early Black Flag or something, but it has a couple real melodic parts to it; real almost anthemic-sounding chorus that has a little bit of depth beyond the type of song that it is. He showed that to us, and we assimilated it kind of quickly, and we worked pretty fast on that. That has kind of a throwback vibe to it, but there’s some melody there. The lyrics seem a little bit cut and paste hardcore, but in a good way.

I think it sums up some of what’s going on with the record, because it’s familiar for anyone who’s heard the trio C.O.C., but it’s not really a throwback.

A lot we were thinking of when we first began the songwriting process is that we weren’t necessarily going to do Animosity again. We were going to look at the things that were influencing us at the time of recording Animosity, some things that came before us, and some of our young contemporaries at that point. So we were looking at Bad Brains, Black Flag, and even early Slayer, Metallica, Mercyful Fate and stuff like that. I think a song like that is almost more indicative of some other hardcore of the era than a C.O.C. song, per se (laughs).

How does the writing break down? That’s Reed’s song. I’m not going to ask you to go track-by-track, but how did things shake out this time around writing-wise?

A lot of things happen. Sometimes people will come in with what they think of as a complete idea, and they present it to the band, and sometimes, that’s the arrangement and that’s the idea. Other times, on bass, people will bring a song in, and I’m kind of big on throwing a wrinkle into a bridge or turning it around and making it resolve somewhere different or something like that. That’s the sort of thing we started to think about when we were working with Custer, and also working with Pepper. He has a good ear for those finishing touches on a song like that. I kind of jumped on board that bandwagon. I’ll have a lot of those if someone brings a piece in. But a lot of times, someone brings in a complete song. Four or five of them were real collaborative. Me and Woody trading riffs and saying, “Okay, well, now we need a bridge, now we need to do this.” A lot of times then we would come up with a completely instrumental collaborative piece and then coming up with the vocals was kind of a dirty job, but someone had to do it. Usually falls to me, so I’ll be coming up with a vocal melody and lyrics for somebody else’s initial musical ideas. That’s kind of a challenge. It’s kind of fun. It’s almost more fun to come up with the vocal part for someone else’s musical idea than your own. But this time I had a lot of complete songs of my own. Four or five, six of them. Pretty collaborative, though. The song “Come Not Here,” that’s 90 percent Reed’s music and his concept for a song, but we collaborated a lot. He had a real strong vocal melody that he would hum all the time and try to get us to harmonize on. I think we collaborated on the actual lyrics themselves at the last possible minute we could’ve been working on them and still had the song on the album. Like a month ago or something (laughs). That was real collaborative. I think the middle part was probably Woody’s idea, and we thought that we would get Custer to help us with some insane overdubbing ideas to make the middle part sound like Wings. Make it sound like “Live and Let Die” (laughs). Without hiring an orchestra or resorting to keyboards. It had to be a guitar-based thing we could never do live. If you’re making an album, you want the lion’s share of the stuff to be things that you can pull off live, and I think we really stuck to that. A minimum of overdubs, or overdubs that reinforce the basic thing that you wouldn’t miss live. But there’s a couple exceptions and that would be the most notable, the middle of that song. That and “Rat City” would be the most collaborative stuff, where we really just traded off ideas, and be like, “Here, you think of a part.” So there’s a couple different approaches and all levels of collaboration there, from the megalomaniac to the completely consensus-based.

What’s your process of writing lyrics?

I’ll tell you what, sometimes I start off with an idea and I just try to channel whatever comes into my head on that matter and step away and look at it. Sometimes it starts to take on an alternate meaning, and if it seems too direct or on the nose, I try to go back and be a little more vague so that there’s the possibility for people to have other interpretations. That way, when you have it all written and said and done, people will mention their really involved interpretations of it and make you sound like a genius. Then you’re just like, “Yes. Yes.” You just adopt their mythology for it, so the next time I’m giving a – you got an early interview here, so I don’t really have much to say – but in about six weeks, I’ll have all these really elaborate explanations for the songs that, by virtue of being vague, I get from people who come to me and tell me what it’s about and I’m like, “Oh yeah, yeah. That’s what I was thinking.” But really, I just try to leave it a little bit up to interpretation. I think that makes the songs a little more enduring. Some of the stuff is pretty on the nose, and I’ll have a concept that’s set in stone, but it’s a little inexact, and if I’m not just channeling what I’m hearing directly, I find it hard to work deliberately and literally in a straight line. It’s one of those things that just has to happen. I’m not that good a writer. I’m just a receiver of randomness, and I try to assemble it in a meaningful and entertaining way.

You’re doing the New Year’s tour with Clutch.

Yeah, it’s genius. We’re driving due north to do Portland, Maine, and then we’re gonna do sunny Syracuse at the end of December. Great idea (laughs). Whose fucking idea was that? Last year, Righteous Fool opened for them. The same run last year, and we were in Cleveland, and we got to Asheville, North Carolina, on New Year’s Eve, and that was pretty cool. This year it’s C.O.C. and New Year’s Eve in Philadelphia.

You guys toured with them earlier this year too. I was in Flint, Michigan, and you had dropped off the bill last minute. What happened there?

Drummer fell out and had a seizure in Pittsburgh, and we were kind of concerned about him. He bounced back and we were back out there about the time they hit Columbia, Missouri. We were kind of not very excited about Flint, because that’s always a good show for us, and a very good show for Clutch. That kind of sucked.

Any other solid touring plans for 2012 yet?

Oh yeah, starting in March, we’re gonna do a bunch of US dates [NOTE: Those dates have since been announced]. Still finalizing who we’re playing with. But we’re gonna do a little brief headlining tour of the US and we have some plans to go to Chile and we definitely have some festivals in Europe in the summer, and that’ll be interesting to see if they still have Euros to pay us or not. I’m sure it’ll be fine (laughs).

Corrosion of Conformity’s website

Candlelight Records

Over the course of several cassette releases and two full-length CDs — those being the interrelated Ritual and Ceremony (2010, review here) and Grief and Incurable Pain (2011, review here) — the initials-only two-piece of bassist N.B. and drummer/guitarist/vocalist S.M. have inflicted upon unsuspecting (or possibly suspecting) ears a sound that is pure in its misanthropy and songs that range between excruciating and unlistenable. The two albums develop ideas one off the other, but there’s an undercurrent of cruelty that remains no matter what might be happening in any given five-minute stretch.

Wanting to find out just what it is that could be behind such utterly demented musicality, I figured it was time to hit up Blut for Six Dumb Questions. Below, S.M. (joined by N.B. for the last question) provides answers to some of Blut‘s drives and motives. Please enjoy.

1. How did the two of you get together and start the band? Did you know what you wanted the sound to be going into it? There’s so much mystery around the band, with just the initials being given for the two of you. What’s the reasoning behind keeping that info so sparse?

We met whilst playing in a black metal band and decided to start Blut as a side-project, the sound of the band comes from our obsession with records like Earth 2 and Nightstick’s Blotter, also bands like Brighter Death Now and Deadwood. The basic idea was a style of music with heavy passages of psychedelic noise and drone with some doom riffs and slow minimal drums. In this band we basically are free to experiment with noise tapes, walls of guitar and bass distortion with no real boundaries or rules, if we want to write a 40-minute song, we will. The band is kind of a direct reaction against most modern types of extreme metal music, which have become stagnant, old, repetitive and boring.

As far as the initials-only thing, well, that was a necessity at the outset of the band due to a few problems with certain individuals. FUCK. After that the initials-only thing just stayed, and also this band isn’t really about posing or anything like that, we don’t even tell people we play music. It’s just not necessary.

2. Take me through your writing process for the first album and for Grief and Incurable Pain. When you’re writing these huge walls of noise, how do you know a song is over? Was there something new you wanted to try the second time out?

The first album we had no real idea, we had a bunch of riffs and some ideas for drones so we sort of just pieced it all together over time. We rehearsed that record a lot more and it wasn’t as spontaneous-sounding as the newer material. On Grief and Incurable Pain, it was decided to have a less accessible sound. We wanted to delve deeper into the dark black metal-style psych drones. Also, the bass guitar was a lot higher in the mix than the rhythm guitar, actually nearly all the riffs on the structured drum led parts of the new record are played on bass, allowing the guitar to then be used as an outlet for noise solos and heavily-delayed feedback improvisations. We basically wanted Grief and Incurable Pain to sound less like a metal record and more chaotic and even less organised than anything we’ve ever done before.

3. Do you record live? The albums sound so harsh. What were you trying to accomplish in the studio, and how much of the material is improvised?

The drums are recorded first then we play over them together, so I guess it’s half-live. We wanted to make these records sound real murky and dark. Absolutely nothing is polished or clean-sounding, everything is pretty much first take. If an instrument drops out or we make a mistake, it’s kept, and I’d say almost all the drones and noise sections are improvised or played loosely around like one or two riffs.

For us, doom and black metal have become far too acceptable now. The danger is gone, the badly-recorded noisy element has died and instead people are polishing their sound way too much. We recorded our first two albums in an attic onto old Dictaphones a Korg cassette 4-track and a beaten up old computer for digital transfer and some looping tasks. Some of the vocals were recorded in a crawlspace under old blankets by candlelight. We have old valve P.A. systems as our guitar amps, shitty old cabs and a collection of fucked microphones, this adds to the overall rotten ambience and is something that more mainstream musicians will never understand. We have also recorded samples and improvised instruments in actual forests and woods.

Another thing is the lack of creativity with bands now, a lot of bands seem to think a digital amp and a Line Six multi-effects pedal is the holy grail. Well, the way I see it is Hendrix had a valve amp that was simple as fuck, a fuzz pedal and a wah and he did more with that than these new bands can achieve with an arsenal of unlimited digital shitty affects.

4. To date, everything you’ve put out has been available on cassette. What is it about the format that keeps you loyal to it? So much focus seems to be on vinyl these days. Is there something in particular about the way Blut sounds on tape that you enjoy?

People buy vinyl but they don’t seem to listen to it. It ends up in a box and they just download the album as mp3. Why? Vinyl and tape sound way better — CD still sounds good to me also — but cassette is a real passion for us. It’s just that cool heavy sound, the background hiss, the fact that tapes play at slightly different speeds on different cassette decks as well, awesome!

5. How do the titles Ritual and Ceremony and Grief and Incurable Pain relate? Both have the “and” in there, but are they meant to be a summary of what the albums convey, or is there something else behind picking them? Put side by side, the two album covers seem to be staring at each other.

Well both these albums are part of a trilogy. The next record is called Drop Out and Kill. It’s our farewell punk rock-kind of record. After this one we intend on changing our sound again, make it darker sounding, more noise and less drums, maybe. As far as the album titles go, Ritual and Ceremony came from an occult encyclopaedia and Grief and Incurable Pain came from a biblical text. The art is supposed to look the same, actually when you spread the sleeves out next to each other it looks like some fucked up comic book. Unintentional but cool.

6. Any other plans or other closing words you want to mention? When is the split tape with Decaying Citadel due out?

S.M.: Split tape with Decaying Citadel should be out next year. We have recorded covers of The Melvins, “Leeech”/”Boris” and Doom’s “Lifelock” for that split. It was good to record some covers. It’s actually probably some of our more listenable material, we were going to record a Bauhaus cover but never got round to it. Maybe next time. “Hollow Hills,” maybe. A live show would be good next year or some sort of performance. Drop out and fucking kill.

N.B.: Well this is the first time I could be bothered to say anything for this interview. I just have this to say… Buy a valve amp and ditch your shitty Marshall combo, throw away your Mac with its fancy fucking GarageBand program. Steve Jobs is dead. His life has become a toilet book to be stacked in with your cheap porn collection. Move on. You will be ok. Delete your Facebook and try to have at least one ounce of integrity. The underground is not meant to be pretty… Fuck life…

Blut’s Blogspot page

Bubonic Productions

It’s the kind of thing that, centuries from now, some puffy-haired weirdo (not the good kind) will get on tv and say must have been the work of ancient aliens. These things have a habit of not working out as planned, but even the thought is staggering.

These releases have all been announced one way or another, so like I said last year, I’m not breaking any news, and unlike yesterday, I haven’t actually heard any of them yet. Basically I just wanted to nerd out for a bit on cool stuff that’s supposed to be coming out in 2012.

So here goes:

Ufomammut, Oro: Their 2010 effort, Eve, was a defining moment, both for them as a trio and pivotal act within their genre, and for the genre itself. With Eve (review here), Italian three-piece Ufomammut took cosmic doom to new reaches of psychedelic complexity, and though I know I’ve said it a few times, it’s worth repeating that it was a true work of mastery. It’s only grown richer with time, and Ufomammut‘s two-part follow-up, Oro — which will be divided into Opus Primum and Opus Alter, both of which are set for issue on Neurot in 2012 — is set to expand on the form, if such a thing is possible. We’ll find out.

Saint Vitus, Lillie: F-65: I wouldn’t be surprised if it showed up under a different name, and likewise if it didn’t show up in time for its currently-slated March 27 Season of Mist issue, but whenever and however it arrives, the first Saint Vitus album since 1995 and the first with Scott “Wino” Weinrich on vocals since 1990 is easily the most anticipated doom release of the year. Put to tape by Tony Reed — with whom I was fortunate enough to recently speak about making the album — most of the record was recorded live, and since that’s where Vitus has shined since coming back in 2009, I’m definitely looking forward to hearing how they translate their momentum into a new studio outing.

Colour Haze, She Said: I can’t imagine how frustrated the German heavy psych progenitors must be by now. Seriously — She Said was on my list last year. The trio, led by guitarist/vocalist Stefan Koglek, who also helms the Elektrohasch label, spent all of 2011 hindered by technical problems, and though we did a track premiere back in October for the song “Transformation,” the album has yet to materialize around it. It’s a heartbreaker every time Koglek sends an update, and we can only hope at this point that they continue to stick with it, because if there’s ever been a worthy cause, it’s a new Colour Haze record.

Greenleaf: According to reports, the Swedish trad-rock supergroup with members of Dozer, Truckfighters and Demon Cleaner started recording the follow-up to 2007′s fucking incredible Agents of Ahriman in November, and the latest is that Oskar Cedarmalm was set to start vocals on Dec. 26. I’ll tell you flat out that when this record arrives, I’m gonna be such a dork for it that you’re going to be tired of hearing about it. You’re going to load up this page and be like, “Ah Jeebus, not another post about how much ass Greenleaf kicks.” They’re the reason I’m going to London Desertfest in April and the prospect of a new album kept me from jumping in front of a train on several occasions throughout the recent holiday season. No shit.

High on Fire: The prospect of a new High on Fire album in 2012, on the other hand, wasn’t all that exciting to me initially, but when it was announced that Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou was manning the production at his GodCity studio, that was more than enough to change my mind. My whole complaint with High on Fire‘s last album, 2010′s Snakes for the Divine, was that it sounded too watered-down and there wasn’t enough grit in the production. If anyone’s going to fix that, it could be Ballou, who recently brought Black Cobra‘s massive thrash intensity to bear on the excellent Invernal. Either way, will be interesting.

Neurosis: I don’t even remember where I saw it at this point, whether it was Thee Facebooks or the forum or what, but the news that Neurosis had started preliminary recordings with Steve Albini for their next album filled me with enough dorkish glee that I chose to include them as the sixth in a five-band feature, despite having zero confirmation either that such has actually happened or that the album will be out by the close of this year. And really, it doesn’t matter. If Neurosis are possibly making a new record, then I’m definitely looking forward to it, and that’s just the way the universe works. Hard to believe it will have been half a decade since Given to the Rising was released, since I feel like I still haven’t digested that record, but if it takes the rest of my life to catch up (and it probably will), then I know my time won’t have been misspent.

Ditto the Pt. 1 post: there’s more. Full-lengths to (possibly) come from Kyuss, Ancestors, Conan, Trippy Wicked and the Cosmic Children of the Night, Samothrace, Crippled Black Phoenix, Earth, Wight, Curse the Son, Cathedral, Wino/Conny Ochs, Shrinebuilder, Om and I don’t even know how many others set up 2012 as an incredible year yet to unfold, and tired as I am even just thinking about all the adjectival phrases it’s going to take me to get through it, I can’t fucking wait.

Because, really, it’s the music. If we don’t have anything else, we’ve got that, and it’s comforting to know that on the hardest days this year will bring — and I don’t doubt that for many of us it will bring no shortage of hard days — we’ll still have music. I look forward more than I can say to hearing these creative works, and hopefully sharing them with you as much as this weird internet portal makes me able to do so.

If I’ve missed anything, I hope you’ll leave a comment to remind. The only thing better than a bunch of records to look forward to is even more records to look forward to, so have at it.

If you don’t recall last year and didn’t already click that link in the paragraph above out of curiosity, here’s how it works: I take five records I”ve heard and five I haven’t, and over the course of two days, we get a list of 10 albums reportedly to come in 2012 (these things don’t always work out, as we’ll get into more tomorrow with Colour Haze) that hopefully most people can agree with or at least be only mildly outraged at.

Today, it’s the sure bets. These are records that’ll see release early this year that I’ve already heard and can vouch for. I haven’t reviewed all of them yet, but I will, so consider this a precursor to that if you want. They’re not in any order but that in which they occurred to me to write down. In any case, here goes:

Snail, Terminus: Their 2009 reunion album, Blood, has stood the test of the going-on-three years since its release on MeteorCity, and the four-piece are set to follow it up this year with Terminus, an album that hopefully doesn’t live up to its name in being their last. The songwriting, which made for ultra-memorable tracks on Blood, is just as epic here, and each cut seems to have a personality of its own while still flowing together as a whole. What you really need to know about it — it’s heavy as hell. I wouldn’t be surprised to see myself typing about it again come list time this December.

Orange Goblin, A Eulogy for the Damned: Another foreboding album title, this seventh full-length from the London doomers (review here) finds them embracing the anthemic on “The Filthy and the Few” and going full-on spooky for “The Fog.” It’s a mature album, and maybe a little too clean in terms of production, but these guys never fail to deliver, and A Eulogy for the Damned can only add to the increase in profile the last couple years has seen for Orange Goblin. When it comes down to it, they’re one of the best live acts in doom, so they can’t lose in bringing this material to the stage.

Dwellers, Good Morning Harakiri: Iota, the prior outfit of Dwellers guitarist/vocalist Joey Toscano, found a small but loyal cult when they released Tales on Small Stone in 2008. I’d expect no different for Dwellers, which teams Toscano with the rhythm section of SubRosa‘s last album, bassist Dave Jones and drummer Zach Hatsis. The album balances bluesy riffs and spacey ambience with terrifying ease, saving expansive jamming for its two side-closers while bolstering a classic songwriting feel elsewhere. A great mix and a welcome return from Toscano. Full review here.

Corrosion of Conformity, Corrosion of Conformity: I’ve got this slated to be reviewed tomorrow, and next week I’ll have my Q&A with bassist/vocalist Mike Dean posted, so between that, the live review Monday, and the announcement of their headlining tour, it’s an awful lot of C.O.C. around here lately. Can’t say they didn’t earn it. Their upcoming self-titled seems to distill about 30 years of growth into 11 high-quality tracks that not only recall the trio’s Animosity-era glory days, but push them further into places they’ve never gone before. It’s a fascinating and surprising album on a lot of levels, and I think once people have a chance to hear it, they’re going to really embrace what the band is doing.

Black Pyramid, II: A song from this went up just yesterday, so I admit, it’s on my mind lately, but the second LP from Massachusetts trio Black Pyramid is one of early 2012′s highlights for sure. If you don’t believe me, you can get it yourself ahead of its release date from MeteorCity at All That is Heavy, and when you do, I think you’ll find that it’s the melodies making the songs as epic as the riffs and the tales of battles and conquests. As the final statement from this incarnation of the band, it’s also the strongest work they’ve done yet.

There’s more, obviously. No matter how much you do, there’s always more. Records from The Devil’s Blood (which had its Euro release last year but will be out in North America this month), Infernal Overdrive (review here) and Sun Gods in Exile come to mind as being particularly killer, and in the “heard some already” category, the field expands to include the likes of Blood of the Sun, Pagan Altar, Stubb, Crippled Black Phoenix and others as well, so it already looks like it’s going to be a busy year.

The real challenge though is going to be narrowing tomorrow’s speculation picks down to just five. Not sure I’m going to be able to do it, but I’ll try my best.

Stick around — more tomorrow!

Remember when I said the last list was the last list? I lied.

Probably the first thing you’re going to notice about this top 20 is that there are 36 bands on it. Go figure. There were a bunch of bands that tied, and I didn’t think it was fair to leave anyone out, so there’s a couple number nines, a few 18s. You know how it is.

For those, I just put them with the same number in alphabetical order, and left it at that. I was glad to have a definitive number one and two though, and I was super surprised what the number one pick was, but I checked and rechecked the numbers, so it’s right. You should’ve seen me doing the math yesterday — a very sad picture of me counting on my fingers. But the numbers don’t lie: It’s Graveyard all the way.

I was sure it’d be YOB. The whole time, YOB was in the lead, but in the end, they just didn’t win out. Here’s the full list with the numbers of votes:

1. Graveyard, Hisingen Blues – 69
2. YOB, Atma – 64
3. Red Fang, Murder the Mountains – 42
4. Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, Blood Lust – 36
5. Elder, Dead Roots Stirring – 34
5. Lo-Pan, Salvador – 34
6. Mastodon, The Hunter – 33
7. Weedeater, Jason… the Dragon – 30
8. Orchid, Capricorn – 25
9. The Gates of Slumber, The Wretch – 23
9. Rwake, Rest – 23
10. Premonition 13, 13 – 22
11. Blood Ceremony, Living with the Ancients – 21
12. The Atlas Moth, An Ache for the Distance – 18
12. Wo Fat, Noche del Chupacabra – 18
13. Sungrazer, Mirador – 17
14. Opeth, Heritage – 16
14. Radio Moscow, The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz – 16
14. The Wounded Kings, In the Chapel of the Black Hand – 16
15. Mars Red Sky, Mars Red Sky – 14
15. Roadsaw, Roadsaw – 14
16. Black Cobra, Invernal – 13
16. Dark Castle, Surrender to all Life Beyond Form – 13
16. 40 Watt Sun, The Inside Room – 13
16. Tombs, Path of Totality – 13
17. Lord Vicar, Signs of Osiris – 11
17. Wolves in the Throne Room, Celestial Lineage – 11
18. The Atomic Bitchwax, The Local Fuzz – 10
18. Indian, Guiltless – 10
18. Sigiriya, Return to Earth – 10
18. Pentagram, Last Rites – 10
19. Grails, Deep Politics – 9
19. Monkey3, Beyond the Black Sky – 9
19. Russian Circles, Empros – 9
19. Sourvein, Black Fangs – 9
20. Freedom Hawk, Holding On – 8
20. Serpent Venom, Carnal Altar – 8

A big thanks to the 190 people who participated by submitting a list. I’d actually forgotten that there was a readers poll in 2010, but looking back at the results now and seeing Ufomammut won with 11 votes, it’s good to know there was some growth between then and now. Happy New Year to you and yours, and please know that your contribution here is appreciated.

Reactions varied to this year’s top 20 list when it went up, which was to be expected, and I appreciated it that people felt strongly enough to point out things I missed or things they felt deserved inclusion. That’s awesome. It gives me more records to hunt down, and well, what the hell is the point of all of this if not that?

Reserving the right to either purchase or not purchase these albums in the future depending on my cash flow, momentary impulse and fluctuations in taste, here’s the list. You should probably note that, since I didn’t hear any of them, the numbers are basically meaningless.

1. Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, Blood Lust

When this didn’t make the top 20, the response was so immediate and horrified that I actually went and bought the damn thing off eBay. Import price, no less. Seriously, people were pissed. Windows were broken by flying bricks of disgust. Cars were flipped over and set on fire. “Oh my god it’s retro British occult doom how could you not have it on your list?” The hype being as massive as it is, I only hope my contrary nature (read: prickishness) doesn’t get the best of me and actually prevent me from enjoying it when it comes. Either way,  I’ll write on it. Not a full review, but something.

2. Orchid, Capricorn
One of several releases on The Church Within Records that I would’ve preferred to have been able to review (looking at you too, Serpent Venom and Lord Vicar), but I’m only one man, I only have so much money, and I feel bad chasing stuff down when there’s a list of records waiting to be written up. Plus, after a nasty one-liner about their performance at Planet Caravan in 2009 and a meh writeup on their Through the Devil’s Doorway EP, I don’t think I’m even on their radar for people whose opinions they care to hear about a full-length. Fair enough. I’ll probably pick up Capricorn eventually regardless.

3. Tombs, Path of Totality
Years ago, I interviewed Mike Hill for the Aquarian when the former Anodyne guitarist/vocalist was releasing that band’s The First Four Years compilation on his own Black Box Recordings. He was a nice guy, and he talked about starting a new band in Brooklyn that was in a heavier direction. That turned out to be Tombs. And then they signed to Relapse, and then they were really popular. I wasn’t too huge on their first record, and this one just kind of fell through the cracks, but by all accounts it’s fairly amazing. I don’t doubt it.

4. Hammers of Misfortune, 17th Street
While I’m reliving irrelevant memories (see #3 above), at SXSW in 2007, I was at a merch table for a show Weedeater were playing. Maybe it was Om. Or both. Slough Feg were also on the bill, though I’d missed them, and I wound up drunkenly buying everything Hammers of Misfortune had for sale from Sanford Parker, who assured me they kicked ass. I don’t recall ever finding out one way or the other, and neither did I manage to keep up with the band’s 2008 double release, Fields/Church of Broken Glass, but each time they put out a record, I feel like I should get aboard, and this one’s no different.

5. Argus, Boldly Stride the Doomed
I was given a free download of the album, I got the .zip file, and then it sat there. And in the end, I didn’t not review it because I didn’t want to listen — I didn’t review it because I didn’t want to listen, dig the hell out of it and then have to go buy it. That’s the truth. It’s nothing against Pittsburgh trad doomers Argus, whom I’ve seen live and whose sound I dig a lot — I just didn’t want to have to shell out the cash for another record. Would be a different scenario if they were playing a show, and hopefully I’ll run into them over the course of the next year and be able to make fiscal amends for my neglect.

Honorable mention goes to Seven that Spells, The Heavy Eyes and probably six or seven others I can’t think of. You know, I was kind of hoping that doing this feature would make me feel better about missing out on some of this stuff, but nope. I just feel lame and out of touch. Maybe in 2012 I’ll be cool enough to keep up, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Credited occasionally as Wizard or Wizardfool or some derivation thereof, Stearns is also intensely prolific. This year, Morbid Wizard made their debut in the form of Lord of the Rats (review here) and his duo Bibilic Blood released their third album in three years, Blood Butterfly (review here). Though the projects are vastly different — the one a who’s who of Ohio sludge players and the other a nightmarish horror-psych two-piece — Stearns brings something unique to both in his playing and his art. There’s no bullshit in either. No compromise of form. No play to accessibility. Any one of his visual works on your notebook would get you immediately expelled from high school, and his music is all viciousness and disaffection — the stuff of landmark sludge.

His mastery of underground forms notwithstanding, I wanted to hit up Stearns with Six Dumb Questions to talk mostly about how Morbid Wizard came together around musicians from Fistula, Rue, Sollubi, Accept Death and others — those being drummer Corey Bing, guitarist Bahb Branca, bassist Mike Duncan and vocalist Jesse Kling — but there was room as well to discuss the terrifying nature of Bibilic Blood and his work with bassist/vocalist Suzy Psycho in that band, as well as his development as a designer and artist. Even so, this is really just the beginning of Stearns‘ portfolio, and for more, you should check out his website at stearnsdog.com.

Please note too that the art accompanying the Q&A is all by Stearns and that any images can be enlarged by clicking on them. Hope you enjoy the following Six Dumb Questions:

1. Morbid Wizard brings in members from many different projects. How do you all find the time to get together and how did the band form in the first place. Is Morbid Wizard the priority for everyone involved?

Morbid Wizard was formed by me and Corey Bing. We had gotten together and jammed a couple times but hadn’t really done anything for a while. The last band we were both in was called Blackwell that was a hardcore band with Larry Gargus from Don Austin on vokills. Blackwell recorded an album and then fell apart but me and Corey were always trying to get something going over the winter and finally we just said fuck it and booked two days at SUMA Studios with Paul Hamman. SUMA is an awesome studio where Grand Funk recorded their first albums, Bloodrock, Shok Paris, Destructor, Integrity and a lot of other classic bands. Paul let us use some of his vintage Marshall cabinets and a HiWatt head, I also used my SICK head and the plan was to just get completely retarded with high volume. Corey got Bahb from Fistula to play second guitar, Mike Duncan from Black Mayonnaise on bass and noise, and Jesse from Sollubi on vokills and noise. Morbid Wizard is not really a priority for anyone, it’s just something we are going to keep trying to do when we get the chance. Everyone has their main bands that they are dedicated to. We are working on new material, so hopefully we will get it done and have an EP or another record out next year.

2. Talk about the sludge scene in Ohio. It seems like there’s a really dedicated group of people (many of whom are in Morbid Wizard) who’ve been in bands with each other for a while now. Did it really all start with Sloth and Nunslaughter? What’s the area like, and where do the best shows happen? How did it begin for you, and what do you think allowed the community of bands that’s there now to develop?

I got into it in the ‘80s when I was in high school. I was into punk at first, like Black Flag, G.B.H., The Bad Brains, X, Suicidal Tendencies, Dead Kennedys, and I would go to punk shows but then I started getting into metal and thrash bands like Metallica, Mercyful Fate, Slayer, Exodus, Venom, Voivod, Hellhammer, Celtic Frost. My favorite local bands were Destructor and False Hope. Destructor is still playing today and some of the guys in False Hope went on to play in Keelhaul and some other good bands. Nunslaughter has been around playing death metal since the ‘80s. I think the people that have been around forever have a true love for making heavy metal, punk, noise, sludge, whatever.

My first band that I played guitar for was Die Hard, with Aaron Melnick, Dwid, Chubby Fresh and Stork, that was the band before they became Integrity. We recorded an album in 1989 called Looking Out for Number One.

I think my first Introduction to sludge metal was doing artwork for Sneak from Shifty Records. He gave me a whole bunch of awesome CDs: Fistula[‘s] Hymns of Slumber, Church of Misery, Weedeater, Abdullah, Cruevo, RUE, Sofa King Killer, Mugwart, Rwake, Beaten Back to Pure. Then I met Corey Bing around 2002 when Fistula played a festival with Weedeater, Soul Preacher, Bongzilla, Red Giant, Boulder, and Mastodon before they were really big. I was playing guitar in Madman Mundt, which I loved but I also wanted to do something much slower so we recorded the first Necrodamus EP at Rock Solid Studio in Cleveland and I called up Corey and asked if he would be interested in singing on it. Then after that, we recorded the first Ultralord record, Act 1.

I live about 30 miles east of Cleveland. Lake Erie is two blocks down the street from where I live. Most of the people are just regular working stiffs, there are a good amount of mutated Chernobyl fallout hillbillies around here but they keep it interesting and give it a creepy 1950s small town feeling. The best place to see bands is at Now That’s Class over on the west side of Cleveland. Peabody’s also has some good big-name metal bands that come through Cleveland and the Beachland and Grogshop have some good bands closer to where I live.

3. Your art graces many of the covers for these releases and of course others as well. How did you get your start as an artist and what can you say about the development of your style? Is there something behind your decision to use color for one piece and not another?

Growing up I was very heavily into comic books, Dungeons and Dragons, Heavy Metal and Epic magazines, Frank Frazetta, H.R. Geiger, and H.P. Lovecraft. Then I went to high school with some of the guys in False Hope and did flyers for them. It wasn’t until a couple years after that Dr. Maxar Berezium from 100,000 Leagues Under My Nutsack asked me to do the cover of his first album Welcome to the Fold. He was a big influence because he was always asking me to do artwork for t-shirts and stickers and posters. He would go all over the country and Europe putting up stickers with my art. Then other people would ask him about the artwork and if they could get me to do something for them.

I have just recently started to experiment with color using Photoshop. Trying to figure out how to do it has taken a while but I think I’m getting better now. For the Bibilic Blood records I used color because Suzy Psycho specifically wanted the alien on the first cover to be green and we liked it a lot so we decided to make them all color.

4. How did you get involved in Bibilic Blood, and how does that compare to the other bands you’ve been in? There’s something so horrifying about Bibilic Blood’s music. Not that I think there are animal sacrifices or anything, but what’s the atmosphere like when Bibilic Blood is writing songs? Where does this stuff come from?

Bibilic Blood is mine and Suzy Psycho’s band, we started out by just making noise on a 4-track, then started recording on a digital 8-track. Bibilic Blood is different because our studio is set up in our living room so we can practice and record whenever we feel like it. We don’t do any animal sacrifices because we love all the furry little creatures that live in the woods, but it is very easy to imagine some of the weirdos that live around us are doing some animal or human sacrifices right now in their living rooms. Part of the atmosphere is that we are always aware that the outside world is full of horrific nightmare people and places, so we are just grateful that we can hang out and have a good time and play music together. We have a black light we turn on, then Suzy comes up with some riffs and we jam them out and record it when we get something we like. Then Suzy does her vokill tracks and then I will do the guitar parts a little at a time over the next couple days.

5. Do you see yourself as bringing something consistent across the board to the many different bands you’ve played with, or do your contributions depend on the other players involved? How does your visual art play into that? Is it harder making covers for a band you’re in or someone who’s hired you from the outside?

Yeah I think all the bands I’ve played in are mostly about coming up with a couple good heavy riffs and tying them together. I always look to my favorite bands for inspiration Slayer, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Mercyful Fate, DIO, Ozzy, Venom, Celtic Frost, Cirith Ungol, Suicidal Tendencies, Black Flag, Saint Vitus. I am always happy to do art for the bands I play in because for me the artwork is a really important part of the band. There is some more pressure doing art for other bands because I always want it to be as sick as possible especially when it’s a band I am a really big fan of.

6. Any other plans, new releases or closing words you want to mention?

We are working on new Morbid Wizard songs for hopefully a 2012 EP or album, Bibilic Blood is going to have two new songs on the SLUDGESAPIENS tape compilation put out by Quagmire located in the barbarian Russian wastelands, and we are working on new Ancient Sickness.

Scott Stearns’ website

Morbid Wizard on Thee Facebooks