Admittedly, it’s a cruel, heartless question to ask, and yet, can there be any doubt as to the answer? Could anything ever top Master of Reality? I ask the question mostly because I want to see if anyone sticks up for Vol. 4, which, apart from “Changes,” is about as flawless as an album can get. With the recent terrible news of Tony Iommi‘s lymphoma diagnosis, I think we’re due for a good time. So let’s have some fun.

Earliest Black Sabbath was nothing if not a coalescing of various elements into a cohesive whole. A kind of cultural distillation, ground down and remade into the singular most formative basis of doom — the album Black Sabbath. Only months later in 1970, they released Paranoid and refined the darkness of the first record, adding range and sonic breadth. While the title-track became the band’s signature piece, “Electric Funeral” and “Fairies Wear Boots” grew into the anthems of a subculture within a subculture, and they remain so to this day.

However, every time I put on Master of Reality and listen to it straight through, with each successive track, I say to myself, “This is the heaviest shit ever made.” And each song proves the prior assessment wrong — yes, even “Solitude” — until finally, “Into the Void” offers clear and indisputable truth of riff. It is pure in its muck, and as perfect as stoner rock has ever gotten. The standard by which the genre is and should be measured: the heaviest shit ever made.

But what about Vol. 4? It seems to have an answer for every challenge Master of Reality throws at it. A “Snowblind” for “Sweet Leaf,” “Supernaut” for “Into the Void,” “Under the Sun/Every Day Comes and Goes” for “Lord of this World.” 1972 found Black Sabbath a more realized beast with a perfected heavy rock that seemed to already know the tropes of the metal genre it was shaping.

I could go on. I won’t. Is “Changes” enough to hold back Vol. 4 from standing up to Master of Reality? There are people who consider “Solitude” a misstep of similar magnitude. I leave it to you to decide in the comments.

You know the scenario. You can only pick one, so which is it?

It had been at least a half-decade since I was last at the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford for a show — long enough for the name of the arena to have changed from Continental Airlines Arena to the Izod Center — but beyond that and the price of parking ($25!), not much was different. The inside was still the same dismal beige, the setup roughly the same, the predominant smell in the corridors still sauerkraut and beer piss. I felt like I’d never left.

The show — a stop on Judas Priest‘s “Epitaph” alleged retirement tour — boasted openers Thin Lizzy and Black Label Society, but I arrived in time to catch only the final song and a half of the latter. I wasn’t heartbroken, and watching the beard-braided Zakk Wylde tebow and thump his chest like a circus gorilla following the end of “Stillborn,” was even less so. That guy’s come a long way to be a cartoon character, but the place ate it up, and I saw more than a few BLS vests in the crowd, so far be it from me to judge. Even though I just did.

There was a decent amount of changeover time between Black Label and Priest, which, like being surrounded by tens of thousands of people at a show, was something I genuinely wasn’t used to. Thoroughly out of my element and just one day removed from watching Premonition 13 rock the Saint Vitus bar in Brooklyn, I watched as a giant “Epitaph” flag was lowered in front of the stage, which was but the first in an unfolding series of grandiosities. I guess if you’re Judas Priest 40 years into your career and on what you’ve said will be your farewell tour, you go big. So be it.

I was lucky enough to scam a photo pass, and prior to the show starting, a collection of professional photographers and I (very much not a professional photographer) were collected and brought into the photo pit. They were playing metal classics over the P.A., Metallica, AC/DC, and the last song they played before Priest took the stage was Sabbath‘s “War Pigs.” I noticed one of the crew who was in position to catch the giant “Epitaph” flag was singing along and we exchanged a quick chatter about the brilliance of playing Black Sabbath before the start of metal gigs. I said it was like the national anthem before a baseball game.

Priest‘s set was an impressive two hours and 20 minutes. There were breaks in there, and vocalist Rob Halford seemed to make the most out of his various costume changes throughout, but they did an excellent job of keeping the momentum going. We were allowed to shoot for three songs, and I did, catching “Rapid Fire,” “Metal Gods” and “Heading Out to the Highway” up close before being unceremoniously booted back to my floor seat, which was — of course — occupied by the time I got there, leaving me to stand awkwardly at the end of the row and get bumped into for the rest of the set. I could’ve raised a stink, but screw it.

New guitarist Richie Faulkner, who seems as much a replacement for K.K. Downing physically as for guitar playing, was at stage right and seemed to be in charge of entertaining that entire side of the venue, which he did by playing extensively to the crowd — facial and hand gestures, waving, smiling, making faces, posing out, etc. — and of the rest of the band, he and bassist Ian Hill were probably the most into the show, the latter looking well satisfied during both newer songs like “Judas Rising” and “Starbreaker” from 1977′s Sin After Sin album.

Glenn Tipton and Rob Halford were more professionally detached, which is fair, but they still played well and everything was impeccably presented. Where I stood meant I got a lot of Scott Travis‘ kick drum; could feel it in my chest for the duration, and there were times where it was grating, but for the most part, the balance was as dead on as one might expect. Some of my favorite moments of the show, though, were in Halford‘s stage banter between the songs. While Tipton, Hill and Faulkner were changing out their instruments, Halford gave little snippets of perspective on the band’s landmark tenure in metal, including gems like, “In 1971 in Birmingham, there were only two heavy metal bands: Black Sabbath and Judas Priest” (bit of revisionist history there since Priest weren’t really playing metal until the middle of the decade), and an expression of how the growth of metal has led to the splintering into subgenres — he named black, death and nü metals, among others — and that each generation that’s come up has revised what it means to be metal, and that he approved.

He said of Judas Priest, “We are a classic metal band.” This is indisputably true. As much as anyone ever could be, they are. Their influence over what the genre became, particularly in the ’80s is measured in the number of pretenders to their throne who fell by the wayside while they — in one form or another — persisted. I think though it’s high time doom owned classic metal. In terms of groups to whom the work of Judas Priest and is still relevant, I hear much more of it in traditional doom than I do even in power metal, which seems more bent these days on progressive influences and technical showiness.

So “classic metal,” such as it is — Sabbath, Priest, the whole NWOBHM and the acts from around the world who followed — belongs to doom now. No one else is using it anyway, and while I have no idea what entitles me to make such ridiculous proclamations, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one doing it, so screw off. Let the doomers be the keepers of the old. We are anyway.

Though it’s sacrilege to say, “Turbo Lover” was a high point of the set, despite it being one of several choruses Rob Halford elected not to sing or to sing in part, letting the crowd pick up the slack — of course, they were more than happy to do so. Perhaps most egregious in that regard was “Breaking the Law,” which he didn’t sing at all into the microphone, instead just walking around the stage and putting his ear to different sections of the Izod Center, letting the noise come to him. I probably wouldn’t want to be singing that song anymore either, but man, I can sing along to Judas Priest any time I want. I didn’t pay $25 to park my car to do that with however many other people were there. I paid to watch them perform those songs. Minor gripe, but still.

That was toward the end of the set, following “The Green Manalishi (with the Two-Pronged Crown),” “Blood Red Skies” and “Beyond the Realms of Death,” which was one of several standout ballads included. The Joan Baez cover “Diamonds and Rust” was beefed up at the end, and was the finishing piece of a trio that included “Victim of Changes” and “Never Satisfied,” the latter from 1974′s Rocka Rolla. They closed out the regular set though with “Breaking the Law” into “Painkiller,” which set the stage for two encores and seemed to be the end of Halford‘s voice for the night.

And to be fair, if he blew it out there, it’s understandable. “Painkiller” is a tour de force for a metal vocalist, and Halford sounded excellent throughout, but right at the end, in that series of wails, there was one that made me cringe, and sure enough, his voice wasn’t the same afterwards. I don’t know and won’t speculate on whether he was using any kind of backing track or modulation other than the natural compression that comes from a wireless mic, but he sounded right on in his higher screams, and even the mid-range verses had presence and force in the delivery.

Everything was crisp, clean. The lighting was perfect, the fire, the periodic blasts of lasers, the sequined robe Halford donned with a Priest-logo trident for “Prophecy” from the Nostradamus record. It was all tight, flawlessly executed and built for maximum metallacy. Even as the band members were introduced it was, “Glenn Tipton on the heavy metal guitar,” “Richie Faulkner on the heavy metal guitar,” “You’ve been a great heavy metal audience,” and so on. And all around me, husbands and wives, fathers and daughters, fathers and sons, dudes and dudettes, rocking out till the dawn. Or until a little past 11PM, anyway. It was heavy metal utopia.

Two encores, like I said. The first was “Electric Eye” into “Hell Bent for Leather” and “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’.” They brought out the motorcycle for “Hell Bent for Leather” — as if there was any doubt — and Halford draped himself in a sewn together American/British flag before “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’,” walking around the stage doing a sequence of “Whoa, whoa, whoa, yeah” and “Yeah-yeh-yeah, yeah, yeah” vocalizations that the audience matched note for note. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure they were just vocal warmup exercises (one could see also throughout the set that he was metering his breaths before and after the highs), and if that’s the case, the people answering him back were already plenty warmed up. Still fun.

Faulkner took a surprising solo during “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’,” and when the band left the stage again, Travis got on a mic and told everyone that if they made enough noise, the guys would come back out and do one more song. Chaos ensued. Heads rolled. Limbs flew like it was Mos Eisley. Glasses shattered, dogs within a 10 mile radius of the Izod Center howled, and finally, Tipton, Halford, Hill and Faulkner retook the stage for the finale of “Living After Midnight.” Another epic sing-along, some extended soloing, and a massive heavy metal finish later, and they were done. I was home by midnight.

I’ve seen Priest before, and if Scorpions‘ farewell tour is anything to go by (three years and running?), I’ll have an opportunity to see them again, but it’s hard not to read something special into catching Judas Priest with even the possibility of it being the last time. Make no mistake, there were parts that were so flat-out silly that I laughed out loud — some of Halford‘s costume changes, the giant Priest trident logos with the motorcycle lights in them, etc. — but if there’s one thing I’ve learned to recognize in this world it’s that just because something is silly that doesn’t mean it’s devoid of meaning or that it can’t also be important to you or, say, 10,000-plus people around you.

Music is as close as I come to religion, and there was a point at which I did a side-to-side sweep of the venue and said to myself, “This is the life I’ve chosen.” I’m not going to say “no regrets,” because I have plenty, but it could’ve been way worse.

Extra pics after the jump. Click any to enlarge.

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Mike H. posted the link on the forum to a Billboard article of the announcement. I guess I should be excited about this, since it’s Sabbath, but really, does a Rick Rubin-produced new Black Sabbath record with Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward sound like a good idea? I was kind of hopeful for an Iommi collaboration with Ian Gillan after the Whocares single was released earlier this year, but Ozzy-fronted Sabbath? As much as I hate to say it, I’m skeptical.

That said, any excuse to see Geezer Butler play bass is good enough for me…

Here’s the news, pilfered from the above-mentioned industry trade:

Black Sabbath is reuniting to record its first studio album with original frontman Ozzy Osbourne since 1978, and will support it with a massive 2012 tour, sources have confirmed to Billboard.com.

The group made the announcement during a press conference today (Nov. 11) at the Whiskey A-Go-Go in Los Angeles, where Sabbath played its first show in the city exactly 41 years ago. Black Sabbath will headline Download Festival, which will take place between June 8-10 in Donington Park, England. Meanwhile, Rick Rubin will produce the group’s comeback album, which is expected to be released in fall 2012 through Vertigo/Universal.

Rumors of new Sabbath activity have been swirling for months, with Osbourne recently telling Billboard.com that new material was “a very, very strong possibility. It’s in the very early stages, so we haven’t recorded anything yet.”

Guitarist Tony Iommi, who wrote extensively about the band in his new book Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven & Hell With Black Sabbath, also told Billboard.com that he regrouped with Osbourne, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward at Osbourne‘s California home earlier this year to play some music, “For a bit of fun, and to see if we could all play. It was good, but it was just purely, ‘Let’s have a go and see what happens.’”

Since the 1994 release of their now-classic full-length debut, Epistemological Despondency, formidable UK outfit Esoteric have never given any ground or sacrificed any of their forward-thinking, avant garde approach. Their albums — all but two of the total six are double-CDs — are massive, expansive slabs of divergent doom. They may hail from the home of the genre in Birmingham, but the only tradition Esoteric have ever adhered to is their own tradition of innovation.

Long established as an influential and guiding act for others who would be of their ilk, Esoteric return this month with their third outing for Season of Mist. Titled Paragon of Dissonance, the name could easily be extrapolated into a statement of intent on the part of the five-piece. Led by guitarist, vocalist and sole founding member Greg Chandler, the seven-song/94-minute collection not only renews Esoteric‘s spirit of willful progress, but continues their push into creative discomfort. On the verge of marking 20 years as a band in 2012, Chandler and Esoteric still refuse complacency at every turn.

And one thing about those turns: They are s-l-o-w. As much as Esoteric have maintained this musically adventurous spirit while skillfully weaving dirge melodies into oppressive, drawn-out doom, they’ve always taken their time doing it, and Paragon of Dissonance is no exception. To wit, the second-disc closer “Torrent of Ills,” unrepentantly tops 17 minutes.

In that time, Esoteric lurch their way through vivid atmospheres of wretched depression, never quite losing the sense of what also makes the bleak beautiful — at least until the destructive noise of the last several minutes rises to engulf the song, the album and seemingly everything else in its path. “Torrent of Ills” is an abyss to get lost in, and Season of Mist was kind enough to let me stream it for one week only on the player below. Hope you enjoy:

Paragon of Dissonance is out Nov. 11 in Europe, Nov. 15 in North America on Season of Mist. More info can be found through the label’s site or the band’s page.

Last night, The Patient Mrs. and I went to see the new documentary God Bless Ozzy Osbourne at its New Jersey “special premiere event.” I had posted the press release on the news forum last week, but the short version is the movie was produced by Jack Osbourne, directed by Mike Fleiss and Mike Piscitelli, and promised “the most honest portrait” of his father (Ozzy, duh) through his years with Black Sabbath and as a mind-blowingly successful solo artist.

Now obviously, to tell the whole story would require a 17-hour Ken Burns special and then some — as Ozzy has simply led that much life — but though God Bless Ozzy Osbourne started out promising by charting his childhood and Black Sabbath‘s formation and first several records, the movie soon took a turn and abandoned that method of storytelling, jumping directly from a scene of current Ozzy watching and being disgusted by the video for “The Ultimate Sin” to the first season of the MTV reality show The Osbournes, which came some 16 years later, and shifting the focus from his sundry triumphs and inebriated antics to his getting clean and, as Sharon Osbourne put it in one of her many dime-store-therapist-lingo interview segments, “growing up.”

That’s fine. I went into God Bless Ozzy Osbourne thinking it was probably going to be a one-sided take on the man’s life, perhaps some effort to restore the dignity that the last decade has stripped him of (The Osbournes playing no small part in that, but by no means being the only misstep), and that’s precisely what it was. The fact is that he’s an entertaining interview — I’ve never been so fortunate myself — and that alone is worth watching. Tony Iommi appeared three or four times, and since the movie-current live footage sprinkled throughout had Zakk Wylde on guitar, I’m guessing it was from 2008-2009, right around the time Iommi and Osbourne were embroiled in that lawsuit over the rights to the name Black Sabbath. I guess they were lucky to get him at all, if that’s the case.

But even so, the “most honest portrait” it wasn’t. Scenes of Ozzy‘s kids from his first and second marriage saying he was a shitty father popped up and were gone with little examination or criticism, flashing back and forth to a current interview thread of Ozzy talking about it, and he still couldn’t remember what year his first daughter was born. In addition, in talking about his relationship with Sharon, they laid out the timing that it began roughly two years before he divorced his first wife, but never mentioned it as an affair, the two of them laughing instead that they were either in bed, on the bus, or on stage at that point in their lives. Har har. And when talking about their marriage, Ozzy says he wanted to start a family and that’s why he married Sharon, completely neglecting to mention his two prior children, who just a few minutes ago, were remembered as begging him not to leave them.

So really, it’s got its issues. Leaving the theater, I couldn’t help but wonder about the footage they left out. They didn’t even interview Zakk Wylde! Robert Trujillo, who played bass with Ozzy‘s band for a while, is never mentioned as having done so, instead showing up as a representative of Metallica — which is laughable — and since you apparently can’t say anything about Black Sabbath these days without Henry Rollins showing up, he was there. Tommy Lee told a few choice stories of touring with Ozzy in 1985, and Rudy Sarzo gave a heartfelt reminisce of the day Randy Rhoads died, but there was a lot they left out, both positive and negative. Here are the five things that most stuck out to me:

1. Master of Reality
After recounting the first two Sabbath albums, they mentioned 1971′s Master of Reality, showed the cover, and then brushed it aside to talk about Vol. 4. Not for nothing, but Master of Reality has been scientifically proven to be the greatest album of all time. They’ve done tests. In labs. Nothing is better. I suppose I shouldn’t complain, because Technical Ecstasy didn’t get mentioned at all. Seriously. Like it didn’t exist. No love for “Rock & Roll Doctor.”

2. Ozzfest
This was a real surprise, especially with the time spent giving the highlights of Ozzy‘s career. The festival of which he was the namesake? Nothing about it ever appeared in the movie.

3. Jake E. Lee
Nope. The guy basically saved Ozzy‘s post-Randy Rhoads career. And nothing.

4. The second, third and fourth seasons of The Osbournes
You’d imagine in watching God Bless Ozzy Osbourne that someone tricked the family into filming their lives for MTV. I think it’s Kelly at one point (might be Jack) who says something about people thinking it was funny, but it was really watching their family fall apart because of her father’s drinking and drug use. Meanwhile, they raked in shitloads of cash on that and kept it going for three years! If it’s that awful, even if you’re contractually obligated, pull out and take the lawsuit. Aimee Osbourne continues to look like a young woman who has her shit together.

5. Any music after 1986.
No No More Tears, no Ozzmosis. In the live footage, Ozzy sings some of “No More Tears,” but no studio album after Bark at the Moon is discussed in detail, and neither is the reunion with Black Sabbath in 1997, the retirement tour, or even the names of the people in the current (as of the movie) band. Mike Bordin is shown playing drums a few times, and Wylde makes regular appearances on stage, but it looks like the camera is actively trying to avoid Rob “Blasko” Nicholson.

I’m glad Ozzy Osbourne is sober. In God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, toward the end of the film, he is shown driving, talking about getting his driver’s license and wanting to have his shit together, feeling like he loves himself for the first time in his life. He speaks clearly and stands up straight and looks nothing like the bumbling man in the garden yelling, “Sharon!” This is all wonderful. I mean it. I also think that part of having that ability to truly be comfortable with who you are means accepting your failures as well as your successes. You could easily say he didn’t make the film, and he didn’t — Sharon is listed as executive producer and Jack is given the aforementioned producer credit — but there’s no question it’s a favorable take rather than a genuine examination of his career and life.

It’s one side of a story to which there are probably 50 other sides, and I’m sure you could make a 90-minute documentary about the first Sabbath album and it would seem too short, but if the project is too much to chew, then what’s accomplished by putting it out there anyway is a few entertaining stories, choice interviews, some live footage (the 1974 California Jam is always welcome), and nothing approaching the raw analysis promised. So it was.

I’ve been insanely jealous of Bill Ward‘s Never Say Die-era double-braids ever since watching the above video for that title-track from Black Sabbath‘s 1978 Ozzy Osbourne-period cap-off, and finally, after so many beers on last night, The Patient Mrs. saw fit to grace me with the aforementioned braids, and in case you’re wondering: Yes, it’s all I could ever want from a hairstyle.

In honor, we close out this week with Sabbath doing “Never Say Die” from Top of the Pops in ’78. Someone posted the video on Facebook earlier this week too, I think it might have been Joe Hasselvander. And if it wasn’t, I’ll give him credit for it anyway, since  he deserves it. The song was stuck in my head anyhow since reviewing that Karma to Burn album earlier this week. Here’s that review, in case you didn’t see it before.

I actually started this post last night as “Frydee Black Sabbath” but “fell asleep” before finishing it. A four-hour office happy hour led to a trip to the bar led to the hangover I woke up with not so long ago. Nonetheless, tonight in Manhattan, the mighty (and recently interviewed) ORANGE FUCKING GOBLIN are set to lay waste to an unsuspecting Santos Party House, and you can bet your ass I’ll be there early to catch Kings Destroy opening the show. Righteous times shall be had. If you’re looking for me, I’ll be the dude with the braids.

Next week we’ll wrap up May with the numbers, and I’ll have a sales update on Blackwolfgoat (thanks to everyone who’s bought so far, and if you haven’t, you can here), a brand new interview with T-Roy Medlin from Sourvein, plus reviews of Lights at Sea, Faces of Bayon and several others, not to mention some live notes from the aforementioned Orange Goblin show tonight, to which I’ve been very much looking forward, if you couldn’t tell. It’s also getting on podcast time, and if I don’t do it this weekend, I might try and make it happen sometime this week, so either way, sooner than later.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. If you’re in the States, happy Memorial Day, and please drive safe. See you back here next week.

Congratulations and heartfelt best wishes to riffy UK doomers Alunah, who sent a message on the Books of Face to spread the word that they’ve signed not one, but two record deals in the last week. Honestly, one label probably would have been enough to earn them a “way to go and all the best,” but two! Well, that’s nothing short of “good job, you”-worthy. So, yeah, good job, you.

Follow the riff. Love the riff:

It has been announced that Birmingham based Alunah have signed a deal with PsycheDOOMelic Records; an Austrian label dedicated to doom metal who have worked with such notable bands as Ramesses, Pale Divine, Penance, Orodruin, Voodoo Shock and Wall of Sleep etc. In the same week the band also signed a re-release deal with Seattle based Doom Metal Alliance Records.

Alunah , who formed in 2006, have become known for their relentless gig and touring activity off the back of their Fall to Earth EP (Nasoni Records, Germany) and debut album Call of Avernus (Catacomb Records, UK). The band will release their second album in 2012 through their new deal with PsycheDOOMelic Records, and will re-release Call of Avernus on vinyl later in 2011 with Doom Metal Alliance Records. Alunah will be touring in August 2011 with sludge legends Sally (ex-Rise Above Records, Mistress, Penance) and doom metallers Lifer (ex-Acrimony, Black Eyed Riot).

Along with their 1974 performance at the California Jam and the glorious 1975 Asbury Park show, Black Sabbath‘s December, 1970, performance in Paris, France is among the group’s most famous bootlegs. Various snippets have made the rounds over the years — mostly video — but the soundboard audio from the show, coupled with the fact that it’s the original lineup in their Paranoid-era, was too good for me to pass up on eBay recently. Maybe it was posting the “N.I.B.” video last week that did it. Maybe it was the wine. Could go either way.

Whatever the case, it was one of those shows I had downloaded forever ago, but definitely of a quality worth owning physically. Even as Ozzy butchers the lyrics to nearly every song — “War Pigs” and “Hand of Doom” are especially brutal — the energy with which he does so practically punches you in the face through the speakers, and Bill Ward holds down “Black Sabbath” like I haven’t heard in any other era of the band. All the material was fresh, immediate, and fortunately, the sound on the War Pigs bootleg is good enough to capture that.

I’m pretty sure it’s a home-print job, inkjet, burner, whatnot, but it’s a silver-backed disc and I paid less than $20 for it, and in this age of sabboots, each of those is rare enough on its own that to have them both at the same time feels like getting away with something. If you’re into Sabbath bootlegs, you probably already have this show one way or another — I’ve never had much interest in collecting bootleg videos, but I know plenty of people who do — but if you don’t, it’s an essential piece to the catalog.

Interestingly (or maybe not), the track list on the back of the CD is wrong, and “Black Sabbath” is not the closer of the show, “Fairies Wear Boots” is. “Black Sabbath” comes after “Iron Man” — written as one word on the CD — though it kicks enough ass it could have just as easily ended the set. “Behind the Wall of Sleep” is another highlight, for Tony Iommi‘s hypnotic solo if not Geezer Butler‘s running bass, which is low on “War Pigs” to the point of needing to be adjusted on the EQ, but well worth the minimal effort of doing so.

There are plenty of other copies out there, and even if it’s a cheap inkjet knockoff that you’re getting, the War Pigs bootleg captures young Sabbath at their most vital and as they never would be again. If you see it, get it.

I know it’s Sunday, but some news just won’t wait for the weekend to end. This from the Roadburn website:

Roadburn is elated to announce that Birmingham’s seminal post-punk/industrial behemoths, Godflesh, will perform their seminal debut full-length album, 1989’s Streetcleaner, in its entirety at the 2011 Roadburn Festival, Thursday, April 14th at the 013 venue in Tilburg, Holland. Not only will founding members Justin Broadrick and Benny Green play Streetcleaner in full and in track order, they will be playing the Tiny Tears EP, which was conceived as part of the overall Streetcleaner vision, in full as well.

Amongst doomers and headbangers in general, Birmingham, England is a town whose legacy need not be elucidated, and while stoner sludgers Sonic Lord probably aren’t about to inspire the same multi-generational appeal as Black Sabbath or Napalm Death, they do alright with the Goatsnake riffs and the C.O.C. vocals. The two songs on their Catacomb Records 7”, Trawling through Sludge each have a solid, if expected, presentation of stoner boogie and heavier aggression. It’s nothing what hasn’t been done before, but if we condemned every band who took Sabbath as an influence, there’d be no point to life.

I don’t find Trawling through Sludge to be wholly redundant, though no doubt some others will. Their blend of Sleep-style stoner metal riffing and shouted vocals makes for a decent listen at least across the 10-plus minutes of this 7”, with both “The Fallen” and “The Prophecy” delivering meat and potatoes sludge. They keep a groove locked in throughout and don’t seem to ask more of their audience than up and down nodding and vague appreciation, both of which are easily enough earned.

As it was released in 2008 and limited to 250 copies (the first 100 of which came with a Sonic Lord guitar pick), I’m not sure as to the availability of Trawling through Sludge at this point, but if nothing else, take this review as notice that Sonic Lord are out there, riffing into the ether. The four-piece aren’t changing the world, but they seem to do just fine as they are, and should they decide going forward to expand on the feedback-laden, grueling pace of “The Prophecy,” they’ll have no problems making friends in the heavy underground.

Sonic Lord on MySpace

Catacomb Records