Portland, Maine, rockers Sun Gods in Exile make no bones about who they are or what they do. Their second album, Thanks for the Silver (Small Stone), is guitar rock all the way through – a dudely amalgam of Southern riffing and solos that puts a figurative edge to the literal “double-guitar” lineup distinction. It’s easy to imagine six-string connoisseurs swishing the work of Tony D’Agostino and Adam Hitchcock around a brandy snifter to air them out – or at very least popping the top of a can and enjoying the hiss and the fizz as a song like “Moonshine” plays out its Southern course. At times Thanks for the Silver is almost a caricature of heavy Southern rock masculinity, and coming from a band located in the northernmost state in the continental US, that has its own issues, but damned if the five-piece don’t do it well, and the sophomore outing shows marked growth from where their 2009 debut, Black Light, White Lines (review here) left off, most notably with the inclusion of Christopher Neal’s keyboards.

The effect Neal has on Sun Gods in Exile’s sound is to add melodic range and complement the riffs with long-sustained notes, as on a song like “Smoke and Fire” on the second half of the album, on which he fills out the verses behind Hitchcock’s lead vocals (everyone but D’Agostino provides backups), or “Since I’ve Been Home,” a classic road song in the same tradition with which labelmates Dixie Witch often align themselves. Despite its liberal soloing and guitar prominence, “Since I’ve Been Home” – as close as the 10-track Thanks for the Silver gets to a centerpiece – is a highlight more for Hitchcock’s vocals and those that back him for what’s probably the album’s most memorable chorus. Earlier cuts like the opening duo “Hammer Down” and “Moonshine” find D’Agostino and Hitchcock, as well as bassist JL (since replaced by his brother, Mark Lennon) and drummer John Kennedy, purposefully making room to account for Neal in the songwriting. The Hammond sounds add flourish to the riffs but are almost always in service to the guitar, as are the bulk of the rhythms, as are the structures, the vocals, and so on. If you’re someone who tunes out solos or thinks they’re needless wankery or if you’re even slightly unimpressed by scorching leads, Sun Gods in Exile simply is not the band for you. Their ballsy classicism – excellently balanced by Benny Grotto’s recording job and mix – won’t so much touch a nerve as get on one, and, frankly, you’ll miss the point of Thanks for the Silver, which if I haven’t yet made it clear, is all in the guitar.

Read more »

They want to riff and they want to rock, and on their self-titled debut full-length, UK trio Stubb do plenty of both. Originally formed in 2006 with a different bassist and drummer alongside guitarist/vocalist Jack Dickinson, the band recorded a demo a year later with Tim Cedar of Part Chimp and, in 2009, reemerged having imported a new rhythm section in the form of Trippy Wicked and the Cosmic Children of the Knight’s Peter Holland (bass/vocals) and Christopher West (drums). This incarnation of Stubb hit the studio with Cedar late in 2010 to lay down the eight songs that would become Stubb and took to the road in 2011 with Stone Axe on a European tour.

The album is released through Superhot Records, boasts a mix and master job by Tony Reed of Stone Axe, and finds Stubb aligning themselves to a rising tide of British heavy rock – that’s not to say “a new wave” – that includes such riff-happy clean-vocal acts as Grifter, Alunah, and indeed, Trippy Wicked, among many others. Fuzz abounds, but Dickinson, Holland and West do more than just follow the guitar through verses and choruses, touching on acoustic freak-folk and heavy rock classicism in a manner that does nothing to upset the overall flow of the album, which gradually reveals a strength of songwriting to complement the initial catchiness of the first couple tracks. Although it’s been six years since Dickinson started the project, one might think of Stubb as a new band, as his chemistry with Holland and West presents itself here for the first time. On either level, though, Stubb’s Stubb gleefully preaches to the choir of Heavy while showing the band has more to them than just riffs and grooves.

Even if that weren’t the case, with the engaging fuzz and ripping leads that open kickoff track “Road,” riffs and grooves would almost be enough. The nod-inducing stomp and Dickinson’s tone remind of when The Atomic Bitchwax took on Core’s “Kiss the Sun” for their own self-titled debut, but Stubb push a strong chorus all their own, Holland offering backing support for Dickinson’s lead vocal while West’s snare pops clearly and crisply, keeping the song upbeat but not too fast. Stubb wind up at their strongest in this middle pace, maximizing the impact of the riffs and still allowing for a laid back, stonerly feel. “Scale the Mountain,” which follows the opener, continues the momentum, making the first nine of Stubb’s total 35 minutes a powerful opening duo, and reeling back in its first second as if to steel itself for the five minutes of riffing to come.

Dickinson again works a solo into the intro as a precursor to the verse, but shifts the method some, stepping back to let Holland take the lead in singing the chorus. The two have enough variance in their diction that the shift is pretty clear, and as they move back and forth throughout Stubb, “Scale the Mountain” is a solid foreshadow of what’s to come. Holland’s vocal work in Trippy Wicked has left him more than prepared to tradeoff with Dickinson, who here adds backing “woo”s to the memorable title/chorus line. A brief break seems to be waiting for a guitar solo to come in, but one never does, and the chorus returns to lead the song to its flange-y finish and Holland’s bass intro to the somewhat more subdued “Flame.”

It’s here that Stubb begin to unveil the classic rock linearity of the album’s structure. They’ve opened strong with “Road” and “Scale the Mountain,” and with “Flame,” they shift the mood a bit – granted, not as much as if they’d put the folksy “Crosses You Bear” in that third spot, but still. A bluesy, winding riff gives Holland the chance to add some choice fills, and West times well his jumps from the hi-hat to the crash, giving way to the driving second half of the track and the combined Dickinson/Holland vocals that mindfully veer from the verse/chorus patterning so far established. Holland’s bass again burns tubes alongside Dickinson on “Soul Mover,” which ingrains the line, “Oh baby, I don’t know what you like/But I’ll keep you satisfied” on the brain like it was branding cattle or internet memes. The pace is faster, perhaps expectedly, but “Soul Mover”’s shuffle is a departure even from “Flame” and further confirmation of Stubb’s classic heavy affiliations.

Read more »

One would be hard pressed to overstate Earth’s legacy. The long-running and relentlessly creative Seattle drone unit led by guitarist Dylan Carlson have, over the last 20-plus years, amassed an outstanding discography of influential work – from 1993’s Earth 2, which helped solidify the grooves now inherent to riff rock, to 2005’s Hex: Or Printing in the Infernal Method, which found a reformed Earth infusing their sound with elements from Americana the ripples of which are felt today in indie rock, dark folk and alternative metal. They didn’t do it alone, but they did it. In 2011, Earth followed 2008’s jazzy and defiant The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull with Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I (review here), which moved further out of the shadow of Hex, bringing in Lori Goldston’s cello as a major focal point musically alongside Carlson’s guitar, the drums of Adrienne Davies and Karl Blau’s bass, and beginning to shift Earth’s attentions toward improvisation. The 20-minute closing title-track of that album was all improv, and with Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II (Southern Lord), Earth continue to expand on the ideas they presented in the first half, while also revealing more of the ever-changing band’s personality in this incarnation. Sonic congruencies abound – as one would expect, considering the two parts were recorded in the same sessions with Stuart Hallerman (who also helmed Earth 2) – but Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II does more than just continue the strain of its predecessor.

Goldston’s cello, again, is in a featured role, and superficially, the two Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light albums don’t vary much in mood or overall tone. Earth’s patience is just as prominent throughout the centerpiece “Waltz (A Multiplicity of Doors)” as it was on “Father Midnight” on I. The drive toward juxtaposition in track titles – songs like “Descent to the Zenith” and “Hell’s Winter” – seems to have dissipated on Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II, however, as “Sigil of Brass,” “His Teeth Did Brightly Shine” and “The Corascene Dog” are working, linguistically, in another vein. Perhaps it’s ironic or nitpicking to talk about language on an album that’s entirely instrumental, but titles and themes are an important part in how Earth sets the mood for a record or even a single track. One reads the minimalist interplay between Carlson and Blau differently as “Sigil of Brass” opens the album because of the track name. It’s also among the album’s moodiest pieces, and the shortest by nearly five minutes; the last could also lead to one seeing it as an introduction, but there’s enough substance to it to argue to the contrary as it gives way to the nine-minute “His Teeth Did Brightly Shine,” which, however “jammed” it might be – the quotes there to mark the distinction between what Earth are doing here and the usual ebb and flow of guitar-led jamming – still retains some clear compositional elements. If they’re improvising, they’re working from a base of prior construction – a starting point to get them going – and on “His Teeth Did Brightly Shine,” they’re doing so without Davies. As the song develops, that lack of clear drums can leave it feeling somewhat unhinged, but it’s hard to imagine that isn’t what Earth were going for, or at very least, that Carlson was pleased with the outcome when it was over.

Read more »

As one might expect, Los Angeles rockers Caveman Voicebox don’t exactly play it subtle on their debut EP, Strippers, Mullets and Beer. Released through what appears to be their own Faceslapper Records in December 2011, the five-songer is a quick 15-minutes, and though there are few surprises sonically in that time – the longest song, the closer “Mindset,” caps at 3:20 – and though the first word on opener “Forsaken Place” is “whiskey,” Caveman Voicebox still are less sleazy than one might think going into a first listen. That’s either a positive or negative, depending on your personal taste, but with the Orange Goblin by way of Motörhead burl they offer instead, it’s hard to complain. The songs, written by bassist/vocalist Graham Wilson, are structurally simple but varied in mood and over fast enough to hold even fickle attention, and the vocals touch on melody without overdoing it or sacrificing a natural feel to get some kind of misguided commercialism. A song like EP centerpiece “After What She Said” strikes a decent balance between catchy hooks and riffy groove, and as far as straightforward American-style heavy rock goes, Caveman Voicebox give a strong first showing, if one perhaps overly mindful of the aesthetic concerns of their genre.

By that I mean that even unto its title, Strippers, Mullets and Beer seems to be reaching for a specific idea of what boozy stoner-style rock and roll is, rather than focusing itself on crafting the songs and worrying about where they fit genre-wise after the fact. The beer I’ll give you, but the strippers and the mullets? Well, maybe, maybe not. In that regard, “Mindset” is actually the strongest of the songs here. Although it doesn’t come close to the infectious octane of “Forsaken Place,” Wilson positions the EP’s final statement lyrically as a kind of insider nod to the heavy rock scene – “You’ve got the time and the money/Ain’t got the mindset” – and placed with self-awareness in a genre looking out, it works better than “’72 Nova,” which seems to turn a blind eye to its unoriginality rather than acknowledge it. We all know it’s not the first song ever written about a car and a girl, and where “Mindset” offers some personality on the part of Caveman Voicebox by saying in effect, “we know exactly what we’re doing and it’s all on purpose,” the earlier cut wants to pretend that’s not the case. It’s a kind of anti-pretense pretense, and it’s only not more of an issue than it is because of the strength of Wilson’s songwriting. Joining Alfred Cruz and Mike McKnight’s guitars is a bluesy slide guest spot from Eric Dover (Slash’s Snakepit) that adds character to the already barn-burning energy, and though the Doug Carrion (Descendants) production doesn’t quite beef up the guitars as one might think, the added feeling of rawness winds up an asset working in the band’s favor.

Read more »

With their signature crushing emotional weight in tow, French post-black metal forerunners Alcest return in 2012 with their third album, Les Voyages de l’Âme. The eight-track record, the title of which translates to “the journeys of the soul,” keeps its focus musically on Alcest’s well-developed melodic wash, toying with blastbeats, screams and other black metal genre conventions in the interest of exploring the kind of head-down melancholy that brought such notoriety to past efforts Écailles de Lune (2010; half-review here) and Souvenirs d’un Autre Monde (2007) and placed Alcest multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Stéphane “Neige” Paut at the head of a melodic movement championed by the label Prophecy Productions and acts like Les Discrets, Arctic Plateau and Lantlôs, of which Paut is also a member. Along with drummer Winterhalter (also of Les Discrets), who joined in 2009, Paut has long since established the sonic course of Alcest as a band. Indeed, even on the two extended tracks of 2005’s Le Secret EP, it seemed a specific aesthetic was driving Neige’s songwriting, and that has remained true and consistent across the ensuing releases – in conjunction with a steady touring schedule, that consistency is part of what has allowed Alcest to attain the profile they have. At times, it has felt like that adherence to aesthetic has trumped the actual songwriting in the creative process – songs have been more about the mood they generate or add to – and where that might also be the case given the overall affect of Les Voyages de l’Âme, there’s no question that the third full-length has Alcest’s most directly memorable material to date.

As compares to the relatively jagged guitar sound of Écailles de Lune, Les Voyages de l’Âme seems to have more in common with Souvenirs d’un Autre Monde in terms of its production. Neige’s guitar, bass and keys come through clearly and smooth, and right away on opener “Autre Temps,” it’s apparent that Alcest had definite structural ideas going into this album. “Autre Temps” was chosen as the lead-off single/video cut, and rightly so with its balance of catchy wistfulness and gracefully unfolding melody. The vocals are prominent without being overbearing, and play a considerable role in making the chorus so ethereal. Guitars are layered in acoustics and electrics, and Winterhalter’s drumming maintains a metallic percussive edge without sounding out of place amid the song’s gradual build. As ever for Alcest, “Autre Temps” evokes a feeling of longing and a contemplative kind of classical sadness. “Là Où Naissent les Couleurs Nouvelles” follows and revives the black metal screams that “Percées De Lumière” from Écailles de Lune explored, in this context using them to complement the melody in the chorus and eventually take the fore. Winterhalter adds blasts, and were the guitars not so unabashedly gorgeous and the melody not still so prominent, “Là Où Naissent les Couleurs Nouvelles” would essentially be traditional black metal. It’s not, and the song’s later minutes emphasize a propulsive post-rock feel, capping the nine minutes with fading guitar that brings on the title-track’s headphone-worthy density. Squiggly guitars serve as a chorus amid more subdued, lower-register verse vocals, and the initial sway breaks after three minutes to embark on Les Voyages de l’Âme’s most effective musical and vocal build, on which both Neige and Winterhalter contribute to a vast, stirring sprawl. Side A wraps with the winding verses of “Nous Sommes l’Emeraude,” a fitting (if short addition) to Alcest’s worship of nature and the passage of time within it.

Read more »

Near as I can tell, the plot in the lyrics of Evil Cosmonaut’s “Boris Yeltsin vs. Giant Ants” is that huge bugs come and attack the world. Buildings fall, people die, and then Boris Yeltsin shows up, does an evil dance, and saves the planet. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that’s fucking awesome. Much of the Moscow three-piece’s R.A.I.G. debut, We Have Landed, follows that kind of course – not always to such heights of badassery, but nonetheless with a notable degree of charm. “My Moustache” calls its titular subject, “My present from God,” and “Armageddon” playfully name-checks the stars of the 1998 blockbuster, even going so far as to mention Steve Buscemi. That, in combination with the clay artwork, the crunchy tone of guitarist/vocalist Alex “Kaza” Kazachev and the bluesy groove of “The Song We Will Never Play Again,” seems to make We Have Landed a record that gets by more on personality than innovation, but whatever does it does it. The album’s nine tracks and 42 minutes feel quick, songs vary enough to hold interest, and periodic bursts of punkish energy keep the pace from being mired by sleepy stonerisms. A mostly dry production keeps Evil Cosmonaut grounded from where some of the space-program thematics might otherwise take them, giving the album a garage-esque feel at times, but between Kazachev and bassist Denis “Memphis Dead” Petrov, the tones are thicker than most of what passes these days for that aesthetic. It’s all rock.

And if anything, it’s hard to pick a highlight from among We Have Landed’s fare. “Armageddon” certainly makes a case for itself, with its rudimentary chugging riff and live feel, as well as its lyrics, but “Old Guy Neil,” which recalls the moon landing and Neil Armstrong’s first steps out of the craft, starts the album off with a crisp (if somewhat misleading) aggressive bent and foretells a lot of the perspective to come. Drummer Konstantin Sosnin, the only member of Evil Cosmonaut without a nickname, is straightforward in his approach and well-suited to Kazachev’s riffs, which for the most part lead the way. The upbeat shuffle of “Marvin” – either an inside joke or a reference I don’t get to an old man who lives in a cave – features some of We Have Landed’s best fuzz, to be later complemented by closer “The Golden Apples of the Sun,” and maintains the forward motion of the opener, leading to the even more rocking “Big Super Mega Monsters,” which earns its chorus shout of the title line late in the track. The song can’t help but be memorable with a name like that, but the music stands up to it with a marked simplicity of approach and a cheeky self-awareness that matches Kazachev’s vocal. However simple the album might seem, Evil Cosmonaut have a clear mindfulness of structure, as “The Song We Will Never Play Again” shows by slowing down the momentum of “Big Super Mega Monsters” and giving way in turn to the middle-pacing of “Armageddon.” Given the tongue-in-cheek nature of most of the lyrics – here a drunken alien abduction is recounted – I’d doubt the veracity of the title “The Song We Will Never Play Again,” or at least hope it’s not true, since the song’s relatively lumbering groove is among the album’s most fascinating assets.

Read more »

Something about Severin Allgood’s delivery of the chorus lines in “Wine Witch” – the cadence of, “She’s the wine witch/Purple teeth/Six-six-six” – reminds me of Suplecs at their most fun-loving, but I can’t quite figure what it is. Backed on vocals by his fellow guitarist Shawn Apple, Allgood fronts Memphis, Tennessee, four-piece Hosoi Bros for the course of their brief Wine Witch debut 7”, ripping quickly through the aforementioned title-track and “Yellow Fever,” which follows an even speedier course. The band formed in 2010 has shared the stage with the likes of The Sword, Skeletonwitch, Red Fang and Totimoshi, and though they come off young as a unit, Allgood, Apple, bassist Drewbie Crenshaw and drummer JimmyJames Blasingame seem to have all been kicking around Memphis as members of various projects and bands. Hosoi Bros – one must resist the temptation to put a “The” before the band’s name – are cohesive across their first two tracks, however, and have a clear idea of where the core of their sound lies, and that’s mostly in their riffy punk influence. Wine Witch is pressed to a limited-to-300 edition of glow-in-the-dark vinyl, and shows immediately that the band – whose logo is remarkably similar in shape to that of Danish thrashers HateSphere – threatens nothing when it comes to taking themselves too seriously. Their Red Fang-esque video for “Wine Witch,” included below, confirms this as well.

What Hosoi Bros most have going for them is the energy in the material. Both “Wine Witch” and “Yellow Fever” teem with an unforced quickness of pace that only further highlights the excitement conveyed. The stuff is fairly basic stylistically, but that’s the point of it. Even with the two guitars, Hosoi Bros aren’t looking to make Wine Witch a prog record; they keep the formula simple and get right to the point. Bolstered by the humor in the lyrics – lines like “Merlot: Steals your soul” from “Wine Witch” – the songs are all the more memorable as a debut showing from the band. I don’t know if they’d be able to keep it up for a full-length without presenting some shift in sound, but a first 7” is certainly no time to worry about such things, when what Hosoi Bros are clearly trying to do is punk out and have a good time. They do it. Both “Wine Witch” and “Yellow Fever” – which is, near as I can tell, a variant on that of the jungle – are a lot of fun in their immature way, and delivered with a strength of performance from the band that shows they’re not just jokes. Crenshaw’s bass has its work cut out for it in keeping up with Apple and Allgood on guitar, but he more than manages, and Blasingame adds consistent snare rolls to “Wine Witch” while laying back more to ride the groove on “Yellow Fever” to show a bit of diversity and give a sense of adaptability. “Yellow Fever” borders on offensive, but stays on the side of cheeky, which is where it belongs, and its chorus of “I’m young/I’m ready/Yellow fever’s got the best of me” is undeniably catchy, while the verse – seemingly shouted by both Allgood and Apple – is harder to discern.

Read more »

The basic assumption on the part of filmmakers Joerg Steineck and Christian Maciejewski going into their rock-doc Truckfighters is that, if you’re watching it, you already know who Truckfighters are. Honestly, that’s probably the best approach, since if you’ve tracked the feature-length movie down, you’ve probably done so on account of your fandom of the Swedish outfit, but I’d imagine that even if your interest was based elsewhere – even if you were just watching it for the story or because you have a documentary fetish or whatever else – Truckfighters would still satisfy on that level. Billed as a “fuzzomentary,” it’s a human story rather than rock and roll glorification, and that is bound to expand the reach of its appeal, and apart from the humor and sadness, and yes, the fuzz, it’s also incredibly visually stylized and holds the attention that way as well. Shot on Mini-DV and Super 8, its look is a big part of what ties everything together – along with spectacular editing and a few cartoonish or otherwise humorous montages – and though the retro visual feel doesn’t necessarily mesh with Truckfighters’ actual sound, which however influenced by ‘70s rock it might be is more modern, it still works. Narrated by original Kyuss bassist Chris Cockrell, who also shows up late into the film under his alias Vic du Monte, the story is broken into nine increasingly loosely presented chapters that wind up intertwining to tell the tale in a manner not nearly as fractured or disorganized as life actually is when dealing with a group of people working together toward a common end.

Steineck and Maciejewski (also responsible for the documentary Lo Sound Desert) don’t insert themselves into the actual film, instead leaving it to the band to talk about their lives in and out of Truckfighters, touring, recording, family, etc., with additional setup from Cockrell’s narration at the start of each chapter and at various points in between. Live footage features heavily, as one might expect, and since Truckfighters put on such an energetic show, it adds to the classic rock feel of the movie. At home, though, it’s quiet, and that’s where we start. Following an opening narration from Cockrell – who seemed to have in mind what Sam Elliott brought to The Big Lebowski as The Stranger in his reading voice — the film first shows us vocalist/bassist Oskar “Ozo” Cedermalm going to work at a ski shop in what looks like a cold Swedish winter. Chapter one is called “Common,” and it’s not long before guitarist Niklas “Dango” Källgren is seen in the studio recording a local hardcore band from Örebro, also Truckfighters’ hometown backdrop, which they discuss as boring and Ozo compares to The Matrix even as they splice in footage from a show with Witchcraft and Graveyard. It’s not until chapter two, “How to Get Things Done,” that drummer Oscar “Pezo” Johansson is introduced as being perpetually late, and the band’s shaky relationship with him is made apparent for the first time. He winds up being sympathetic and likeable, as do both Ozo and Dango over the ensuing two contradictory chapters, “Road” and “Home.” Stylized live footage and discussion of the hardships of van travel for touring should be pretty familiar to anyone who’s seen this kind of band-based documentary before, but a timeline montage takes us quickly through the history of Truckfighters and the past members of the band, Fredo and Paco – the latter who came in as a replacement for Pezo, whose drug problem, leaving the band and subsequent return and conversion to Christianity is touched on but never really explored deeply; although later we do see him discuss prayer as the band warms up for a show – and proves necessary for anyone who might not have followed them over the course of their years together and their three albums, Gravity X (2005), Phi (2007) and Mania (2009).

It turns out to be the making of the latter that Truckfighters is chronicling in part. We see the band in their Studio Bombshelter at various points recording, later on dealing with Pezo’s lack of dedication to the project and the band as a whole. Some of the most compelling footage, however is in the “Home” chapter. We meet Ozo’s and Dango’s sons and find out Ozo is a single dad. Dango’s son is an infant he calls “Mini-Dango,” and as we watch them cooking, doing dishes, cleaning up holiday wrapping paper – there’s even a shot of Pezo vacuuming spliced in to drive the point home – it’s clear the interest of Truckfighters is in portraying the band as human beings rather than rockstars. That said, they do admit to partying some, and a pretty funny semi-psychedelic montage of drunk antics ensues, leading to chapter five, “Issues,” which discusses van breakdowns, missed flights and tells the story of Ozo throwing a loaf of bread during a playful “bread fight” with the guitarist of Valient Thorr and hitting his eye, causing some apparently temporary damage. Both bands were on tour with Fu Manchu, which is also discussed later as the movie begins to veer away from the chapter narrative to take in the whole picture. In the midst of that bread-fight story, chapter six, “Family Fights” – which Cockrell can’t finish introducing without laughing – begins, and over the course of that and “The Body Burden,” which follows with a look at the wear and tear of Truckfighters’ high-impact gigging (already in the film we’ve seen Dango jump up and down on stage a number of times) and how they prepare for shows, stay fit, eat well, etc., the Pezo story really begins to develop. In the midst of watching Dango warming up and a funny scene of he and Ozo jogging while eating fruit (soon contradicted by footage of them drunk), we shift to the band in the studio and as Pezo records drum parts, it becomes clear all isn’t well within the band.

Read more »

Issued in 2011 in Europe via German imprint Ván Records, mysterious Dutch outfit The Devil’s Blood release their second full-length, The Thousandfold Epicentre, via Metal Blade in North America. Their 2010 debut, The Time of No Time Evermore (review here), was put out by Profound Lore, and if anything, the amount of people who’ve gotten behind The Devil’s Blood shows the kind of dedication their cult rock inspires. With a penchant traditional witchy melody – bands like Coven and Black Widow are appropriate points of reference – taken to the Satanic extremes of European black metal (the band has close ties with Swedish outfit Watain, among others), the core brother/sister duo behind The Devil’s Blood, guitarist/songwriter Selim and vocalist Farida Lemouchi, have been able to hammer out a sound that is at once foreboding and unashamedly accessible. In light of the aforementioned early ‘70s cult folkies, this isn’t such a contrast, but given the avenues of heaviness and extremity in which such themes are more prevalent today, The Devil’s Blood stands out. At the same time, they belong to a growing league of bands – Ghost, Sabbath Assembly and even, to a more distinctly doomed extent, the latest incarnation of The Wounded Kings – who’ve been able to successfully blend that school of classic melodic thought with modern Satanic or occult ritualizing. Farida’s vocals, however, along with Selim’s apparently growing fascination with darkened psychedelia, give The Thousandfold Epicentre a strong individual feel even within this burgeoning context. It is a powerful and creative work.

It’s also really, really long. At 74-plus minutes, The Thousandfold Epicentre is beyond what might usually qualify as expansive, but the atmosphere of ritual it creates – one can almost smell the dry-ice fog coming through the speakers – more than accounts for and justifies that expanse. Where The Time of No Time Evermore took the (in hindsight) formative elements of 2008’s Come, Reap EP in a more traditionally metal direction, The Thousandfold Epicentre seems bent in highlighting melodic grandeur. Following the intro “Unending Singularity” that builds to it, “On the Wings of Gloria” is resplendent. Farida’s vocals echo above a rocking riff from Selim and thudding drums. Among the varied approaches The Devil’s Blood take on the album’s 11 tracks, “On the Wings of Gloria” stands among the most effective combinations of the elements that make their sound their own, breaking after a ripping guitar solo into a vocal-led ritualistic invocation that in turn gives way to a wash of chanting and psychedelic noise, all anchored and given structure by drums and an overall forward movement. The duo of cuts that follows, “Die the Death” and “Within the Charnel House of Love,” are shorter and more geared toward highlighting Farida’s prowess as a frontwoman, while “Cruel Lover” takes rhythmic cues from ‘80s metal (as did a decent portion of the last record) and is less pop-based. Talk of possession and “tongues of fire” allures and adds sexualized danger without feeling outwardly exploitative, and the music behind chugs with a clear sense of structure without being as predictable as either “Die the Death” or “Within the Charnel House of Love.” Nonetheless, indulgence prevails.

As well it should for a band like The Devil’s Blood. They move from a long bridge back to the verse in “Cruel Lover” and end with the central riff, moving briskly onto centerpiece “She,” an immediate highlight. Layers of Farida’s vocals weave between each other to make The Thousandfold Epicentre’s most memorable chorus, while the verse singing has more clarity and make use of her range, which has impressed since the band’s beginnings. Sandwiched between “Cruel Lover” and the title-track, “She” is both a worthy single and a deep cut, adding to the atmosphere of the record without sacrificing the quality of songwriting or structural crispness. A final chorus stomps its way into the cerebral cortex and the song gives way to mellotron and keys that set the stage for “The Thousandfold Epicentre,” which tops nine minutes and is the longest song apart from 15-minute closer “Feverdance.” Like the album itself, the title-track does well with the time it’s so purposefully taking. Gone is the immediacy of hook that drove “She,” but instead, The Devil’s Blood begin to immerse the listener in the ambience that will typify the album’s back end and still have room for catchy delivery of the chorus line, “I call your name/Devil of a thousand faces,” though it doesn’t arrive until more than three minutes in. Like the opener and like the closer still to come, though, the build is what makes it work. Selim skillfully incorporates acoustics and gives a fullness to do more than just complement his sister’s vocals, and breaks into one of The Thousandfold Epicentre’s most impressive guitar solos just after 6:30. They named the album after the right song – pretty much every accomplishment of the whole is summed up in some way on the title-track.

Read more »

There are a few things that remain consistent throughout Against Nature releases, and chief among them is that it’s never too long until the next one. To wit, the Maryland trio’s latest, Ground Down, was released late in 2011. It was their second album of the year behind Stone Over Stone, and their 18th record overall since 2005. They are staggeringly prolific and almost completely self-contained. Guitarist/vocalist John Brenner handles most of the writing, all of the engineering and mixing, creates the artwork that accompanies the internet and limited physical releases, and puts them out at his own pace on his Bland Hand Records label. Perhaps most amazing of all is that Brenner, in all my interaction with him over the last several years, has never shown any sign of pretense, of rockstar fantasizing or of being sustained in his creativity by anything other than the love of what he does. Against Nature – the three-piece including the rhythm section of bassist Bert Hall, Jr. and drummer Steve Branagan – does not change its lineup or stray too far from its subdued and classical aesthetic, and perpetually, what you see is what you get. It’s rare you’d think of heavy rock as having a sense of humility, but Against Nature have done it 18 times now and already announced their next album, Fallen Rock, which is slated for release early in 2012.

Self-reliance taken to such a degree can have its perils, but Against Nature fall prey to almost none of them on Ground Down. They don’t have time to give into over-indulgence as some self-recorded, self-released bands might – they’re too busy already writing the next album. Yet none of their material ever sounds rushed or as manic as you might think. Ground Down opener “First Things First” offers mid-paced blues and is among the album’s more active tracks, Hall throwing serious groove into a start-stop bassline that’s pure Marylander, and Brenner picking away at a lead that’s the perfect complement to the song’s downtrodden vocal. By and large, “First Things First” sets the tone for Ground Down, but they work in and around the bluesy aesthetic. Brenner’s keys give “Written in Bone” a semi-Southern feel, layered in with the guitar, put the production here, as ever, highlights a sense of restraint in the music that connotes a peaceful mood no matter where the album actually goes, and that includes the more rocking “Sky up, Ground Down,” from whence the record takes its name. Where in the hands of Stone Axe, it might bristle with Thin Lizzy-esque energy (and anyone with a soul will tell you there’s nothing wrong with that), Against Nature make it almost pastoral and keep that vibe into “Evergreen,” which grooves out a sincere ‘70s influence while asking nothing more from its audience than a few nods for Brenner’s solo, which is among the album’s best.

Read more »

After garnering a welcome reception with a digital Bandcamp release during the summer of 2011, Indianapolis heavy punkers The Hedons repressed their excellently-titled debut EP, Earth on My Nerves, on CD via ResinHit Records as a precursor to their forthcoming first full-length. The trio stand in league with the current crop of up-and-coming Midwestern straightforward heavy rockers – bands like The Heavy Co. and Devil to Pay – but set themselves apart on Earth on My Nerves with a song like “Intergalactic Prism” or “Helluva Ride,” which takes head-down trad punk drive and thickens it tonally. It’s a fairly well-known adage that stoner rockers are often just grown-up punkers, and if that’s the case with The Hedons haven’t totally grown up yet. The six track/21-minute release showcases clear ideas and a genre-minded approach, but still retains a garage-style edge that comes through a rougher digital production, the limitations of which are mostly heard in Jace Epple’s drums. Epple’s playing is markedly suited to The Hedons’ sound, which veers into space rock and more weighted grooves on “Swimming the Witch,” but the cymbals sound thin and compressed as compared to Jeff Kaleth’s guitar, which is more open on that track than anywhere else on the EP.

But they’re a new band putting out their own material – ResinHit Records is a project of Kaleth’s to help promote fellow Hoosier artists – so it’s hard to hold sonic issues against them even if they do affect the listen. Earth on My Nerves still gives a solid impression and idea of what The Hedons are about, offering a glimpse of their appreciation for punk’s formative elements as filtered through grunge and desert rock’s budding tonal burl. Bassist Robert Ryan Strawsma, who also joins Kaleth on vocals, provides much of the ground for the band’s genre blend, taking the warmth of stonerly bass and the pacing of punk and making it organic and clear. The band’s overarching lack of pretense in what they do makes Earth on My Nerves a quick listen, but from “Big Bang”’s motoring groove and dual vocals, it’s clear right away that The Hedons have potential working in their favor, and among the influences they draw from punk seems to be the notion of not taking themselves too seriously, from which “Intergalactic Prism” – if there’s such a thing as space punk, this is it – greatly benefits. “Atomic Blue” continues the momentum “Big Bang” established as the opener, keeping an awareness of genre but making the meld seem natural anyway, which actually gives the EP something of a European feel, and though “Intergalactic Prism” seems to have a riff in common with Tool’s “Part of Me,” The Hedons are working in a completely different vein, as the second half of the track shows with a swirling guitar break that seems to meander to the point of oblivion before drawing back in for a final chorus.

Read more »

There was a moment, as I made my way around the block of North 6th St. in Brooklyn last Friday night, that I thought I’d never be able to find parking, and that I would just spend the rest of my days driving in that circle, like something out of The Twilight Zone. Maybe it would be some bitterly ironic punishment for having one time inadvertently dicked someone out of a spot, masterminded by that person secretly like Saw. I don’t know. Either way, I was sure I’d never get to the Music Hall of Williamsburg in time to see Monster Magnet, Naam or Quest for Fire, let alone LadyKiller, who were opening the show.

Turns out the opener was the only act I actually missed. I wound up finding a spot right outside the Academy Records Annex and rushed down the block to the venue with just enough time to spare to get my ticket and head in for the start of Quest for Fire. I felt like I lucked out. The room wasn’t too full as they got going, and as they opened with “Greatest Hits by God” from 2010′s Lights From Paradise (review here), it seemed like the universe was suddenly in the business of doing me personal favors. Amazing how fickle luck can feel.

I remembered standing outside the Bat Cave at Roadburn while Quest for Fire played, getting up on the bench along the wall opposite the open door of the room and trying at least to soak in some of their set and being tragically unsuccessful. To see them now, especially alongside labelmates Naam, was enough for me to make the difference between catching Monster Magnet in Brooklyn or going one night later to see them at the Starland Ballroom on a bill populated by pay-to-play openers. Seems like an easy call, but when you factor rolling into Williamsburg on a Friday night, you gotta really like Quest for Fire to make that weigh out.

Playing on Naam‘s equipment, the Toronto psych rockers justified the trip — both mine and theirs. Their songs were heavier in person, and rawer without the layering that comes through so lush on Lights From Paradise and its 2009 self-titled predecessor. Part of that is probably due to the fact they were down a guitar. Chad Ross, who also handles vocals, was playing bass, but even with just Andrew Moszynski‘s guitar, their psychedelia was subdued and moody where it wanted to be and never out of control when heavy, and drummer Mike Maxymuik gave each piece a dynamic pulse.

When they finished, I went out front to look for their merch, hoping to find a copy of Worldwide Skyline from Ross‘ solo-project, Nordic Nomadic, or maybe some other goodies, but no such luck. Monster Magnet had a tour-exclusive EP called Dopes for $15 that I’m still not quite sure why I didn’t buy, and neither Quest for Fire or Naam had anything for sale. Oh well. I didn’t get a shirt either. Or beer. All things considered, it was a pretty austere night. A $4 bottle of water and gas on the way home. Go figure.

Having seen them twice at Santos Party House in Manhattan last year (here and here), I knew enough to be sure Naam would do well in the role of the hometown heroes, and joined by the keys that seem to be more and more a regular fixture, they did just that. I had been hoping for some new material and it came in the form of “Starchild,” the title-track of their next EP, reportedly due in May. I’d heard the song live before, but it’s grown some in the months since, both in jammed-out presence and actual length. Naam have done a fair amount of touring at this point (most recently in Europe with Black Rainbows), and it showed in their performance.

They didn’t play many songs for time constraints, but guitarist/vocalist Ryan Lugar seemed more at ease on stage and bassist Ryan Preston Bundy‘s vocals were both better mixed and more confident than any other time I’ve been fortunate enough to see the band play. If they’re the hometown heavy psych heroes, it’s because of the wandering they’ve done in the past.

And maybe it’s just because with the Monster Magnet kit backlined behind him he was pushed further toward the front of the stage, or maybe it was following Maxymuik, but drummer Eli Pizzuto seemed to be especially crisp in his performance. Through the newer stuff and Naam‘s standard closer, “Kingdom,” from the EP of the same name, his fills served more than basic percussive function, and his focus was intense to the point of intimidation. While Lugar had his sway to the riffs and Bundy was ready at a moment’s notice to tilt his head back and hoist his beard aloft like an offering to the gods of facial hair who’ve blessed him with it, Pizzuto a little bit looked like he wanted to kick someone’s ass, and the variation in stage presences among the four players on stage only enriched the experience of their set.

It was almost like two shows rolled into one, though. You had Naam and Quest for Fire on one side, and then Monster Magnet coming from somewhere else completely. Sure, this was the tour where they were performing 1995′s Dopes to Infinity in its entirety, and you won’t hear me deny that record is a classic of American heavy psych rock, but where Naam and Quest for Fire both feel like they’re just getting to that point in their careers, that they’re really getting a handle on their aesthetic and the creativity they can bring to the form, Monster Magnet have long since moved onto something different, sound-wise, so for them to revisit it in Brooklyn was, in light of everything they’ve done since on their subsequent and more straightforward hard rock records, a bit incongruous.

For example, after Naam was done, the mood in the room changed. It was packed by then — a diverse crowd of fans young and old, some hard rockers and some heavy rockers — and as Monster Magnet‘s crew set up and checked the gear, it was like the air got colder, more clinical. It’s been a long time now since Monster Magnet decided they were a professional band, and the thing about Dopes to Infinity and their material preceding it is that they weren’t really professional albums, so as the crew taped down setlists all over the stage on all four sides, taped down wires so they wouldn’t get tangled, shifted monitor positions and warmed up the amps for guitarists Garrett Sweeny (of Riotgod) and Phil Caivano and bassist Jim Baglino (also Riotgod), I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if Monster Magnet just came out and played?

I realize that at this stage in the band’s career, that’s an unreasonable expectation. It’s not what they’re about. They’re about a more commercial brand of hard rock — one with a bent in the songwriting that appreciates the structures of late ’60s and early ’70s classics and with no shortage of personality thanks to the lyrics and vocals of band founder and principal songwriter Dave Wyndorf — but still a huge step away sonically from the band’s beginnings. Once they got going following a long stretch of house lights down, no one on stage and sitar drones coming through the P.A., watching Monster Magnet in 2012 play Dopes to Infinity was like seeing a completely different band.

Because it was a different band. Their last connection to that era, apart from Wyndorf himself, was lead guitarist Ed Mundell, who left following the release of 2010′s Mastermind (review here). Rounded out by drummer Bob Pantella (also Riotgod and The Atomic Bitchwax), the latest Monster Magnet lineup around Wyndorf is built to rock the way new Monster Magnet rocks — and they’re good at it, but it’s enough of a difference from what they did on Dopes to Infinity to be notable and definitely affected their interpretations of the material on stage at the Music Hall of Williamsburg.

One can’t really fault them for it, since they’re different musicians with different modes of playing than those that originally appeared on the album, and I won’t deny that Monster Magnet rocked the Dopes stuff hard, playing it out of the original order to better account for it being a live show and saving “Negasonic Teenage Warhead” for the encore. “Look to Your Orb for the Warning,” the title-track, “Dead Christmas” and “All Friends and Kingdom Come” were highlights as they are on the record, but the apex of the show came with “Third Alternative.” Wyndorf, ever one for killer stage banter, prefaced it by saying, “As this thing goes on, it gets darker — kinda like life, huh?” but then laughed it off and said, “But we won’t talk about that.” Why not? For a song that says, “I’ll stuff myself in a pit of darkness and slam till I can’t see home,” it’s not like there’s any beating around the bush going on. Own it.

That was the darkest part of their show, and among the most honest. Wyndorf nailed the delivery of the vocals — he called the song a “21st Century blues,” which was a little ironic since it came out in ’95 — and then left the stage as the band transitioned into the instrumental “Theme From ‘Masterburner’” before regular-set closer “King of Mars.” The crowd was in their pocket the whole time, and didn’t thin out at all when they finished “King of Mars” and went backstage, where they stayed long enough for me to get distracted and let my mind wander. It was late by most show standards these days, getting on 1AM, but there was no way I was missing the encore.

My perpetual hope is that at some point I’ll see them do “Spine of God” and have my consciousness fractured by it, spending the rest of my days in blissful, devastated catatonia. The reality — no doubt in part due to the circumstances of the band I described above — would no doubt be different, but if reason had anything to do with it, it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun. Nonetheless, no such luck on the encore. They did “Negasonic Teenage Warhead,” a welcomed plodding rendition of Mastermind opener “Hallucination Bomb,” “Powertrip” and, naturally, “Space Lord,” their biggest hit and most unavoidable single. Even if they didn’t want to play it, they couldn’t not.

Wyndorf himself acknowledged this, giving the most concise summation I’ve ever heard of a band’s view on their own material. As Sweeny and Caivano began the riff to “Space Lord,” he said, “Obvious? Yes. Necessary? Yes!” He was right. For whatever reason, Monster Magnet had to do “Space Lord,” and everyone knew it was coming, and everyone dug the hell out of it. I spent all of the subsequent Saturday with the chorus ringing in my ears — it’s simply undeniable.

So too is Monster Magnet‘s legacy. They may have departed sonically the field in which their influence is most felt, namely heavy psych and stoner rock, but their stage presence in the current incarnation is remarkable, and the players with whom Wyndorf has surrounded himself are masters at what they do — Caivano and Sweeny on guitar, Baglino like some kind of born rock and roll salesman on bass and Pantella on drums. I left the show and went back to my car outside the Academy Annex, stared down the block at the luxury riverfront condos that stood where once there had been vacant lots and run-down warehouses, and had to recognize for a moment that nothing is static, nothing stays undeveloped and that to ask the present to be the past is foolish. Dopes to Infinity had its day, Monster Magnet were as faithful to it as they wanted to be 17 years later. You either enjoy it for what it was or sulk, and sulking seemed to me a waste of time.

Extra pics after the jump, and thanks for reading.

Read more »

Pompous as it sounds, I consider myself pretty affected by the atmosphere in whatever given space I’m occupying, and last night the Bowery Ballroom was all douche. There were hipster douches, douchey douches, ladydouches — an entire Baskin Robbins 30-howevermany flavors of douche served as dessert for a sold-out beardo flannel fashion show, and though the place wasn’t full when former Year Long Disaster frontman Daniel Davies took the stage opening for Radio Moscow and Graveyard, it wasn’t long before the whole room was springtime fresh and I was fucking miserable.

Davies earned his stoner rock cred through a multi-album collaboration on vocals with Karma to Burn that, like most things that band touches, seems to have fallen apart. Sorry, and nothing against them, but Karma to Burn has the shittiest luck I’ve ever seen. Anyway, Davies reportedly got Brad Davis from Fu Manchu to play on his new solo record, Hidden Faces, and though I’d hoped Mr. Davis would join him on stage as well, no dice. Instead, it was Davies (who is the son of Dave Davies of The Kinks) joined by drummer Jess Margera and bassist Matt Janaitis, both of CKY. Small world sometimes, and it only occasionally makes sense.

The music was heavily indebted to ’90s-style alt rock, and not bad for what it was — Davies is a more than capable songwriter — but without even the vague notions of heaviness that Year Long Disaster hinted at in their chic way or the involvement of Davis‘ unfuckwithable tone, my attentions wandered elsewhere, and mostly in the direction of beer. I bided my time waiting for Radio Moscow to hit the stage and watched as the room gradually got fuller and fuller of people I was embarrassed to have anything in common with, especially music.

It’s been a hell of a week for Parker Griggs. The Iowan guitarist/vocalist of Radio Moscow was going to replace his rhythm section after this tour anyway, but on the seventh, he took part in an ugly on-stage meltdown that turned violent with drummer Cory Berry, who, after Griggs threw his guitar into his drum set, launched it back at Griggs‘ head, splitting it open and requiring a reported 14 stitches. The resulting video was a big hit Monday and Tuesday. I got two separate press releases about it, and though it doesn’t really make either Griggs or Berry look like they’re in the right, that’s rock and roll, so whatever.

But backed by new bassist Billy Ellsworth and new drummer Lonnie Blanton, neither of whom threw anything nor had anything thrown at them, the stitched up Griggs sounded dead on as he tore through a set of swampy whiteboy blues. I’d never seen Radio Moscow before, but they’ve been one of those names that there’s been no avoiding for a couple years now, and they served as a decent lead-in for Graveyard, with a clear affection for and (to an extent) emulation of ’70s rock. Listening to them jam out on material from their latest offering, The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz, you’d never know they’d only been a band for five days.

The Bowery Ballroom was full by the time they finished. I stood in the back by the door for most of their set and would remain there for the duration, on either side of the open doorway to watch Graveyard (once I was done taking pictures), who, in the interest of understatement, I’ll say were well received. They started out subdued with “Blue Soul” from the self-titled, but the momentum soon picked up with “Buying Truth (Tack och Förlåt)” from last year’s excellent Hisingen Blues, with which the crowd seemed more familiar and more ready to groove on.

Whatever you can say about their fanbase (and given the paragraphs I cut out of the beginning of this review, I could say plenty), Graveyard were killer. Guitarist/vocalist Joakim Nilsson seems to still be in the process of coming into his own as a frontman, but the band was charismatic and the songs sounded excellent. Rawer than on record, particularly the Hisingen Blues material, but “Ungrateful are the Dead” might have been the high point of the night. I know it was for me, and although for many bands, there’s no way in hell I’d have put up with staying in a place that packed, Graveyard kept me there the whole time. I even tried to leave once and couldn’t bring myself to do it.

And I’m not interested in holding being popular against them — hell, that’s how a band like Graveyard gets to afford to come do a North American stint in the first place — but god damn. This tour’s in Philly tomorrow (Saturday, 01/14), and I just know that the demographic down that way would be totally different if I decided to get in my car and truck it south. I’d probably hit less traffic too. Rest assured, lesson not learned.

They finished after midnight, which was a surprise given Manhattan‘s curfewed norms, and sent the crowd out into the cold. By the time I got back to meiner bescheidenen flußtal, the rain that had been falling for the better part of the last 48 hours was thinking about turning to snow. I took out the garbage, ate some leftovers and crashed out with “Ain’t Fit to Live Here” stuck in my head, where it remains still.

Extra pics after the jump.

Read more »

After releasing their self-titled MeteorCity debut in 2009 to a more than warm reception from the heavy underground (review here), Northampton, Massachusetts, battle doomers Black Pyramid proceeded to hit the road on several tours and unleashed a tide of singles and splits. 2010 saw a split with Old One issued (review here), and 2011 followed with a slew of vinyl: the Mercy’s Bane single, the Stormbringer single – a CD compilation of wax-only material would soon follow on Hydro-Phonic under the same name – and a split with Tenspeed Warlock. The three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Andy Beresky, bassist Gein and drummer Clay Neely headed out on a European tour for the first time alongside reborn East Coast doom magnates Blood Farmers, and including a stop at last year’s Roadburn, seemed to be on the verge of their greatest triumph yet with the MeteorCity release of their second album, II. Long story short, the band imploded. Beresky split, and after some soul-searching, Neely and Gein decided to continue Black Pyramid, bringing on board guitarist/vocalist Darryl Shepard (Hackman, Blackwolfgoat, Milligram) late in 2011 and setting almost immediately about writing new material. This puts II in something of an awkward position, release-wise. The album is at once obsolete already and the creative high point of the band to date. Its nine component tracks explode with confrontational energy, and it seems Black Pyramid were really just coming into their own as they made what would be their final statement in this incarnation.

That’s especially true of Beresky, whose performance throughout II is easily the best of his career either in this band or in his prior outfit, Palace in Thunderland. Whether it’s the more scripted-sounding leads of “Dreams of the Dead” or the layered acoustic work of the interlude “Tanelorn,” or the High on Fire-esque bombast of the later movements in “Sons of Chaos,” he handles it all deftly and with poise, and his vocals – a subject of some debate among followers of the band – show development both melodically and in terms of the confidence in delivery. His descending semi-melodicism in opener “Endless Agony” begins to display itself as a genuine style by the end of II, and similar to the way Slough Feg incorporates progressions out of Celtic folk, Beresky brings a drinking-song cadence to his lines that only enhances the battle-minded lyrics. Neely, who also engineered II, has him layer the guitar effectively, so that leads are backed by rhythm tracks in addition to the bass and drums, and the resulting sound is full and engaging – “Mercy’s Bane” beginning with Neely’s own thundering toms and moving quickly to stand itself out as a highlight of the album following the immersive and catchy “Endless Agony,” a well-placed opener for its memorable lyric and musical hook. “Mercy’s Bane” is longer by more than two full minutes, but expands on the ideas in the album’s beginning without losing sight of the structure that makes it so effective. Black Pyramid are heavy – certainly tonally and thematically weighted – but still unflinchingly accessible, and they remain so even in the varying moments of indulgence that the hour-long II presents.

A slowdown caps “Mercy’s Bane” and acts as lead-in for the chugging “Night Queen,” which rounds out a strong opening trio of memorable choruses and riffs. Gein’s bass follows Beresky’s guitar for the most part, handling the winding transitions between cycles in “Night Queen” well while the vocals come on in effective near-gang-chant layers. A longer instrumental break starts quiet and finds Neely rolling on his snare while Beresky tops with a relatively-restrained wah solo, one of II’s bluesiest and best. At 6:48, “Night Queen” is the longest of the record’s “regular” tracks – and by that I mean the ones under 10 minutes and that feel purposefully extended – of which there are two. The first is “Dreams of the Dead,” which follows “Night Queen,” effectively rounding out the first half of II (though “Tanelorn” could just as easily be an outro to the first half as an intro to the second on the CD; the time divide is actually more even that way) and making for one of the album’s most accomplished moments melodically. It seems to be Black Pyramid stepping out of their doom-stomping comfort zone, though that element is still there, and it’s worth noting that after the second chorus ends at about three minutes in, the remainder of “Dreams of the Dead”’s 12:12 runtime is devoted to expansive instrumental parts, breaking following a driving riff and solo at almost precisely five minutes to effect a grandiose build from the ground up. It’s effective, and the part works, but can also feel a little tacked on when looked at from the structural perspective. I’m not sure the longer part wouldn’t also have worked following “Mercy’s Bane” or “Night Queen,” in other words, and why, despite its increased melodic focus, it needed to be “Dreams of the Dead” given the ultra-epic treatment on an album full of epics.

Read more »

Heavy rocking Italian trio Underdogs got together in 2005 and released their Go Down Records debut in the form of 2007’s Ready to Burn. That record was rife with straightforward desert-hued rock and fuzz, and their sophomore outing following 2009’s unplugged download-only EP, Dogs without Plugs, Revolution Love, continues the thread started by the first album. Underdogs – joined here by new drummer Alberto “Trevi” Trevisan – ably capture their appreciation for the sound of the Californian desert. The guitars of Michele “Jimmy” Fontanarosa have a crunch and compression to them that will be familiar to anyone who’s spent time with Songs for the Deaf or Lullabies to Paralyze-era Queens of the Stone Age, and though bassist Simone “Sabbath” Vian (also vocals) has a punkish bent to his playing at times and a cleaner, less directly fuzzed tone, the three-piece work well together in carrying across their musical ideas and influences. Vian’s vocals remind in places of earliest Dozer, and though they’re not blindingly original, the songs have a sense of character to them that comes out over the course of repeat listens, be it the sub-psych brooding stonerism of “Into the Wild (O.W.K.)” or the catchy upbeat drive of opener “Prove You Wrong” and it’s “Burn motherfucker, burn motherfucker, burn,” chorus. Perhaps unsurprisingly, sex is a regular feature on Revolution Love, “Devil Dancing (Pyramida)” opening with a solid bass groove and some “Oh baby, slowly” moaning from Vian. It kind of felt like listening to someone getting a blowjob in that verse, but I guess that’s probably what Underdogs were going for. Fair enough.

That song picks up into one of Revolution Love’s most complex structures, running from one rocking riff to the next and only returning to the bass-led opening part for its outro section. As a late-album sidestep from the well-established (by then) ethic of straightforward songwriting, it works well and is made all the more effective by its still-catchy chorus. In general, the second half of the album begins to move away from some of the earlier cuts’ methods, but the accessibility of “Prove You Wrong” and “Beautiful Optional Girl” remains high throughout, and as “(Feel Like) Mad Cow” puts Vian’s bass in the leadership role for the first time, Fontanarosa driving the chorus but stepping back for the verse, their moves aren’t entirely unannounced. Interplay between the guitar and bass, maybe even more than between the bass and the drums or the guitar and the drums, proves to be the crux of Revolution Love – whether or not that’s due to when Trevisan came on board, I don’t know – and that’s not a slight on the drummer’s playing. However, as Vian lays down a warm groove for the more subdued, quiet Truckfighters-esque “Helpless,” I’m more drawn to Fontanarosa’s accenting notes than Trevisan’s drum work. On the whole, the trio works well together, but one gets the feeling that there’s more integration to come from this lineup, though by the time the start-stop verse of “Half a Blowjob” hits, it hardly feels like a concern at all.

Read more »