The new track from The Black Chord, “Quake Meat,” can be heard now over at metalblade.com/astra. The Black Chord will be available in North America on March 27. Astra will be hosting an album release show in San Diego on March 16. The show will be at The Casbah with Dead Meadow, The Loons and Joy. The show will also feature visuals by Operation: Mindblown. For more info, check out astratheband.com.

Hello there Obelisk readers! So I’ve been asked to do a little beer report for the site. I got an email from JJ asking me to do this just about the time I had plans to visit the Dogfish Head Brewery with my wife and a few friends of mine, so I figured what the hell, why not.

First of all, let me say that I am in no way an expert on beer, but I do LOVE to drink the stuff! And I started out like many a beer drinker does: A snot-nosed little punk drinking the cheapest stuff just for a buzz. But over time (as I’ve, ahem, matured), I’ve gotten to love the higher-quality products and man, is it a good time for beer! So anyway here is my little trip to Dogfish Head…

For those that don’t know anything about this place, and I would imagine many reading this don’t, Dogfish Head is in Milton, Delaware, and specializes in creating some pretty wild craft beers, including a series called Ancient Ales, where they use chemical analysis to create recipes from residues found in ancient pottery. Pretty wild stuff.

They also make one of my favorite seasonal beers, a Chicory Stout, which is a stout brewed with roasted chicory, organic Mexican coffee, St. John’s Wort and licorice root (thanks Wikipedia). Yum yum. We didn’t have this at the brewery, but I have a case of it in my fridge as I type.

Now for the tour: Basically, they whisk you through the facility and show you the various areas, holding tanks, and explain a little bit about the brewing process and tell the tale of how the brewery got its start. Most of it is pretty standard stuff and I snapped a few pics to remember the place, but the most interesting part was checking out the brewing tank made from Paraguayan palo santo wood. The palo santo (“holy wood”) is a wild tree native from Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula to Peru and Venezuela and such a super-dense wood that supposedly when Dogfish Head owner Sam Calagione tried to cut a limb off a tree with a machete to further inspect the wood, could not do so because of the strength and density. Then, to prove the strength of the tree, the South American guide he was with took out a gun and shot it and the bullet bounced off. At least that’s the story they gave us…

In 2006, they built the largest wooden brewing tank in America since prohibition. The 10,000-gallon tank is used to brew their Palo Santo Marron brown ale, imparting caramel and vanilla complexity to the beer. And at 12% ABV (alcohol by volume), it packs a bit of a wallop!

All very interesting but the real reason we were there was for the beer! So after the tour was over, we headed to the bar! We got to check out a few samples of what they were brewing. Nice. Now by law or something they can only serve four three-ounce glasses of beer to try. (Or so they said.) Lucky for us the Palo Santo Marron was one of the beers they were letting us sample. GREAT! I’ve had it in the bottle before, but never on tap. The beer pours dark with a cream color head and an amazing amount of flavor and smells. Vanilla, chocolate (slightly sweet) and coffee come to mind. It is pretty low in carbonation and is easy to drink, pretty smooth for a 12% beer. I like this beer a lot but you can hurt yourself if you drink too many!

Before we had the Palo Santo Marron, we had the 60 Minute IPA. I’m not the biggest IPA guy in the world, but this one is good. Clean and crisp with a frothy white head, with notes of citrus, hops and pine. At 6% ABV you could down a river of these!

Tweason Ale, which is a gluten-free beer, was also on tap. Sounds weird but this was kinda good. Very tart with fruit and citrus flavors going on and slightly sour. Poured a gold color with a white head. Not something I would buy on a regular basis, but an interesting taste and also 6% ABV.

Next up, Burton Baton is an Imperial/Double IPA that comes in at 10% but doesn’t taste that strong. A nice copper color and off-white head, strong hop and citrus flavors with a bit of bitterness and pretty good carbonation. This is good but I would have rather had another tug at the Palo Santo Marron.

Finally, as a special treat, we were offered up some World Wide Stout. At 18%, this stuff kicks major ass! It’s an American Double/Imperial Stout. This one is black as night, with what one would expect at such a high ABV, a very boozy smell and finish. Not unpleasant just strong. Taste of prunes or plums and sweet, almost port wine-ish. Man, I wanted to buy a case of this to take home but at $140, it was out of my price range!

The best part about the tour is while we were at the bar sampling some of the beers, we noticed another group of people at the other end of the bar cracking open all these different bottles of beer. Next thing we know, Sam Calagione is offering our group to join in on the sampling! It seems a guy just happened to come by the brewery with a cooler full of beers that he has been cellaring for years and decided to share them with the staff at Dogfish Head!

Of course, this all took us a little by surprise and since we were not really part of what was going on, we just kind of got random pours of beer, so I was not really able to take notes, but I know we had a cellar-aged 10-year-old Raison D’extra that is 18% and Cornholio — a collaboration with Three Floyds and Dogfish Head. So needless to say we left the brewery slightly more buzzed than supposedly allowed by law!

I dig this brewery on a whole. Some of the beers are bit pricey, but they are always taking chances and trying new and bold things (to differing degrees of success), so if you get to try any of their beers and you consider yourself a beer fan, chances are even if you don’t love the beer you can appreciate what this fine little craft brewery is attempting to do down in the tiny state of Delaware.

And as a post-script, let me apologize for the lack of pictures for the beer we sampled, as it’s always nice to have a peak at what people are talking about, but as I said, these were only three-ounce samples in plastic cups and not very appealing to the camera or eye.

So there you have it. My first beer installment. Please let me know if you have had any of these beers and share your experiences with them!

Till the next time, PROST!!!
Tommy Southard
http://devildick.blogspot.com

Presented on a gorgeous purple platter, The Mission also comes with a CD version called MMIX-MMXI that includes Venomous Maximus’ two-song debut 7”, Give up the Witch/The Living Dead. Even so, the whole thing accounts for a little over 26 minutes and 17 of it belongs to The Mission proper, so it’s a quick listen and the band adhere to pretty straightforward metallic structures, making the songs accessible as well as fast. Stylistically new school in a kind of post-Mastodonic punk, the title-track launches with forward push on the upper end of mid-paced, like doom sped up and energized without losing sight of its bluesy base. The rhythm section of Trevi Biles (bass) and Bongo (drums; duh) do well behind Larson and Higgins’ guitars, setting a bed of groove for interjected leads and adding to the sometimes surprisingly darkened atmosphere. The artwork might be part of it, but something in Venomous Maximus feels darker than the music would be on its own otherwise. Higgins’ vocals play to it as well. He laughs in horrific and metallic triumph in “The Rider” and tops the solos with a drama that’s stylized without undercutting the seriousness of the music. His contributions in terms of singing – which still feel rudimentary in comparison to the potential they show for growth given subsequent studio experience – are the band’s closest tie to doom or traditional metal. While “The Gift” starts off with a bombast that reminds distinctly of Through the Eyes of Heathens-era Dozer, the verses don a different character entirely once the wind begins to blow in the first lines of the song. It’s Higgins’ best performance vocally, and probably the best cut on The Mission altogether, but still just a fraction of what Venomous Maximus seem to offer in terms of their creative range.

Rhode Island riffers Megasus come to mind as a modern comparison point, but Venomous Maximus — despite like-mindedly unabashed metal riffing — are somewhat less intense and more apt to lock in a heavy rock groove. The Mission closer “Wicked Ways” works well in that regard, capping the EP’s loose-but-not-uncontrolled feel with its most condensed, concise attack yet. A memorable chorus bodes well for songwriting to come, and a second-half build shows off some dynamics in the music, speaking to more than just killer soloing on the part of the band’s still burgeoning methods. On the CD, “Give up the Witch” and “The Living Dead” both prove more basic than The Mission’s material, and that’s a good sign too, since it means that in just a year, Venomous Maximus have undertaken some considerable growth. The process doesn’t feel ironed out yet, but that’s part of what makes these tracks exciting, and hopefully as the band explores further what they want to accomplish, they bring in elements that further enhance the atmosphere and classic horror mood. Either way, they’ve begun to nestle themselves into a niche that seems to fit them precisely, and that’s about the best beginning you can get. Given the sense of professionalism already shown with The Mission, it should be interesting to see how they capitalize on it. If they can strengthen some of these choruses and make the most of their structural capacity without sacrificing the energy present in these four songs – probably easier said than done, I know – Venomous Maximus could hit on an excellent balance of familiar and genre-defying, ultimately adding to their home state’s storied legacy of heavy. Recommended.

Venomous Maximus on Thee Facebooks

Cutthroat Records

Enjoy:

A Eulogy for the Damned is due out Feb. 14 on Candlelight.

If you’d like to know more about the band, Wizard’s Beard were kind enough to answer Six Dumb Questions back in September. Four Tired Undertakers is available for pre-order here.

Germany being a hotbed of heavy psychedelia, one might expect those elements to show up in Bushfire’s sound, but they don’t. Even though a cut like “The Fiend” has a slower, groovier, more open feel to its verse, it’s grounded stylistically, and that current runs strong throughout Black Ash Sunday. That has its ups and downs as regards the overall listening experience, in that even a song like “Hundredsixtysix,” which has a break in the middle from the forward-pushed riffing, is back to it soon enough, and though Bushfire prove to work quite well within the formula – in that song in particular adding a kind of Helmet-style crunch to the overall sound without sacrificing melody in the chorus – it’s too easy as the record plays out to lose sight of which tracks stand out for what reasons. Fans of Washington D.C. heavy rockers Borracho will recognize a lot of what Bushfire are doing here, tonally and in terms of approach – though it’s worth noting that Borracho’s Splitting Sky was a 2011 release and this is 2010 – and ultimately, Black Ash Sunday falls prey to a similar first-album misstep as that record did: too much of a good thing. The ripping biker metal solo on “Little Man” wastes not one move in kicking as much ass as possible, and the late-album boogie of “Forget Regret” is a high point of the whole listening experience – one of the best riffs here, hands down – but getting there feels like twice the trip by the time you arrive. It’s not necessarily a question of songwriting as one of abundance.

Production is a part of it, in that even when Bushfire’s songs are dynamic – as “Forget Regret” and  “You Should Have Known” certainly are – they don’t sound it, but Black Ash Sunday is crisp and clear and for a band self-releasing their debut, I wouldn’t ask more of it than that. As the album is virtually broken in half by the aptly-titled “Interlude,” which is a minute-plus return to the humid climes of “Midsummer Porch View” nestled between “Little Man” and “Useless in So Many Ways” – itself the longest song on Black Ash Sunday and perhaps the most stylistically effective – it seems to make more sense to take Bushfire in the halves they present as a means of better getting to know the material. That’s easier on vinyl, but one finds with the LP version, four of the songs have been cut for time, and Bushfire, by all accounts, chose wisely the ones to leave off. If that even subconsciously speaks to some level of editorial thinking on the part of the band, it bodes well for the follow-up to Black Ash Sunday, which on has an unquestionable flow but gives up some of the impact of its individual songs to get it. There are all kinds of reasons that happens, particularly for a band making their first record with a collection of quality songs who are excited to get their material out there, who’ve just recorded and who are hungry to have as much heard as possible, but I wouldn’t be surprised if, with a vinyl release of Black Ash Sunday now under their collective belt, Bushfire didn’t emerge next time around with a tightness of presentation to match that which is already present in the performances here.

Bushfire’s website

Bushfire on Thee Facebooks

Usually, I’d wait to wrap up the week until tonight, when, probably at least mildly intoxicated, I’d pull my laptop up off the floor onto the bed while The Patient Mrs. sleeps and post the above fullscreen-worthy Been Obscene clip from the On the Rocks festival in the band’s native Austria. The track is one of two that drummer Robert Schoosleitner was kind enough to bring to my attention this week — the other, “Endless Scheme,” is here — and the laid back grooves from their latest offering, Night o’Mine (review here), are just the thing to wrap up a hectic few days. Well, that and a couple office beers, anyway.

But like I said, under general circumstances, this would all — including the beer — be happening much later tonight. Fact of today, however, is that there’s too much going on next week that I want to plug and I don’t want to forget anything, so here we are, wrapping the week with the work day. Granted, in going for maximum consciousness, I’d probably have been better off three hours ago, but I’ll do the best with what I’ve got. I think you’ll agree it’s a pretty considerable list.

Barring any emergency gotta-review-it-now-type of intrusions (Stubb walks by and waves, charmingly), the plan is to write up records from Bushfire, Fire Faithful, Venomous Maximus and Pallbearer, along with that Hail!Hornet/Zoroaster/Slow Southern Steel show in Brooklyn. I’ll hopefully be interviewing Joey Toscano of Dwellers early in the week, and if that comes together, I’ll have it posted by the end of Friday, and on Tuesday, I’ll have a track premiere from Snail‘s excellent new album, Terminus. The band let me take my pick of the songs and, of course, I chose the longest one of the bunch. I think you’ll agree when you hear it that my decision was justified.

There’s more. Tommy Southard‘s beer column, which is to be called “Drinking with the Devil (Dick),” will go live on Wednesday and boldly blaze a trail into territory The Obelisk has never covered before, and I’ll both announce the winner of the King Giant giveaway and have a new giveaway for copies of the Rising album, To Solemn Ash, which was streamed a couple weeks ago. Couple that with the prospect of news, videos, audio and whatever else I forgot to write on my little post-it note here, and you’ve got a pretty busy few days. You see, I hope, why I didn’t want to forget anything.

And before I go, let me add too that if you haven’t checked it out, there’s a whole slew of news that’s gone up on the forum in the last couple days. Everything from Antigama re-signing with Selfmadegod to Tenacious D putting out a new album to the new Saint Vitus single and more. Worth investigating if you’ve got a couple minutes, anyway.

Whether you do or not, I hope you have a great and safe weekend. I’ll see you on the forum and back here Monday for more space truckin’. We do it every day.

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

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.

Hell, I like riffs, and I like solos, and there were still parts of the album where I felt like I was being tested. Seven out of the 10 of these songs start with guitar, and only one begins with another instrument solo (that’d be “Moonshine,” and the drums), and most follow the same kind of structure and pacing so that, by the time the 55-minute album is over, it’s easy to feel like parts of it are a mash of boozy leads. Songs like “Climb Down” and the more grooving “Smoke and Fire” rock and rock hard, but Thanks for the Silver starts to feel samey after a while, and although the title-track is a Black Crowes-style ballad and a marked change of mood and tempo, it’s also the second to last song on the album in front of closer “I Buried My Bitch’s Car” and comes well after it should in the overall progression of the record. These songs flow – and the titular one easily has Neal’s best performance on keys; leaving behind the organ for genuine piano sounds – but are bloated at around 4:30-5:45 apiece (the first seven, anyway – “Nobody Knows” is a barn-burner at 3:17 and the last two are longer) and wind up detracting from Sun Gods in Exile’s obviously capable songwriting through methodological similarities and consistency in pace.

Add to that the feeling that the band is still adjusting to the inclusion of Neal to the lineup in terms of their craft, and Thanks for the Silver can seem off-balance as compared to the first album, which was nothing if not assured in its whiskey-breath swagger. That said, I think it’s also stronger from a songwriting standpoint, and an interesting beginning of a new era for the band, with added potential from the keys for sonic variety and more breadth of mood. They’re not there yet, though. Sun Gods in Exile still have some growing to do in terms of honing their Southern rock craft, but after two albums, I’m still pulling for them, and I still think there’s a lot of potential here. As it is, they’re good at what they do – if they weren’t, these solos would fall completely flat, and they don’t at all – but Thanks for the Silver comes off more as a collection of decent tracks than the cohesive whole one might want it to be. Still, one can’t argue with a killer riff, and there’s nothing to Sun Gods in Exile if there isn’t a steady supply of those.

Sun Gods in Exile on Thee Facebooks

Small Stone Records

The following PR wire info doesn’t exactly give the answer to that question, but it does add further intrigue in a quote from guitarist Justin Maranga. Check it out:

Los Angeles psychedelic prog-rock band Ancestors will release its new album In Dreams and Time on April 10 via Tee Pee Records. Recorded in east L.A.’s Infrasonic Sound (Queens of the Stone Age, Best Coast, Xasthur), the record showcases the band’s most accomplished music to date and a creative sound that morphs from thunderous cacophony to soul-searching peaks and valleys as towering riffs collide with bleak beauty and deep wells of light and dark.

“In Dreams and Time feels like the culmination of everything we’ve done so far,” says Ancestors guitarist Justin Maranga. “The record incorporates elements of everything that we’ve come to feel that Ancestors is, as well as new things that we’ve never tried. We’re hoping that it will tie together fans of our previous albums Neptune with Fire, Of Sound Mind and Invisible White who may or may not have connected one release or the other, while hopefully helping us reach a new audience. We’re excited about it.”

The track listing for Ancestors’ In Dreams and Time is as follows:
1. Whispers
2. The Last Return
3. Corryvreckan
4. On the Wind
5. Running in Circles
6. First Light

Ancestors have also announced the addition of new drummer Daniel Pouliot (Horse the Band, ex-Bleeding Kansas) to its ranks and have been confirmed for both the 2012 Desertfest and the 2012 Roadburn Festival, where the band will share the stage with Killing Joke, Michael Gira, Chelsea Wolfe and more.