If the Nation of Doom (as opposed to the Legion of Doom) were to have a national anthem, there’s no question it would be Saint Vitus‘ “Born too Late.” The title-track of the first album of the band’s Wino-fronted incarnation, “Born too Late” sums up the doomer mentality as concisely and as clearly as possible: “I’ll never be like you/And I don’t want to be like you.” Can’t get any less ambiguous than that.

Canadian outfit Sons of Otis are among the most stoned of the stonerly, and they have been since their Spacejumbofudge debut in 1996. They meld a range of spaced-out effects, monstrous fuzz and doomed-out plodding to craft a dankness worthy of Bongzilla without the abrasion. Vocals come gurgled in from infinite echoes believed to have their origins in guitarist Ken Baluke, and when they covered “Born too Late” for their Man’s Ruin Records debut sophomore outing, Temple Ball, in 1999, they followed through on the song’s bullshit-free ethic by naming the track simply “Vitus.”

The idea is beautiful, but they might as well have called it “Life,” since “Born too Late” is nothing if not biographical. I know this is the first Wino Wednesday clip that doesn’t actually feature Scott “Wino” Weinrich at all, either in the main lineup or in a guest spot, but in their own, fully-baked way, Sons of Otis nail “Born too Late” on “Vitus,” and it shows that more than a decade after the fact, the “They don’t know the things I know” ethic had already proved as timeless as it seems today.

Enjoy Sons of Otis‘ “Vitus,” and happy Wino Wednesday:

It’s been a while, but the latest in the series of 2011 Roadburn audio streams comes from Toronto retro occultists Blood Ceremony, the flute-ifiied proto-metal of whom came to fruition earlier this year on their second album, Living with the Ancients. This stream was recorded live at Roadburn at the 013 venue in Tilburg, The Netherlands. Here’s the link to listen:

Blood Ceremony live at Roadburn 2011:
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/45369911#ondemand.45369911

Thanks as always to Walter from Roadburn for letting me host the link. Blood Ceremony‘s Roadburn set was mixed by Danny Gras of Gomer Pyle and Space Jam Records.

Boozy Toronto wah snailers Electric Magma have announced that their new, Scott Reeder-mixed album will be released on vinyl in the early part of next year. No new music from Canadian Samurai II yet, but if their SHoD performance this past August was anything to go by, fuzz can be expected to abound.

Here’s the latest, direct from the band:

Electric Magma celebrates 10th anniversary with first vinyl release; Scott Reeder to mix. A limited edition initial pressing will feature the artwork of legendary fantasy artist Ken Kelley (Kiss’ Destroyer and Love Gun album covers).

An anomaly in its own genre, Electric Magma has been sludging it out in the underground trenches for over ten years. Founding members Tim Reesor (guitars) and Tryg Smith (bass) along with new recruit Mario Lunardo (drums) are poised to unleash Canadian Samurai II in early 2012. This monumental release needed a monumental mind behind the board, and thus, Scott Reeder has been tapped to mix the album in Jan. 2012 at the Sanctuary in California.

Special guest, Justin Wagonner of Mr. Plow provides vocals on the title track.

Canadian Samurai II, the follow-up to Mudshovel (2009), is a continuation of the organic riff machine that is Electric Magma. It’s a natural progression of a band that has defined their own instrumental niche within the riff rock genre. The band is also proud of the term that is often coined when describing their music: Beer Rock. Plain and simple.

Mario Lunardo makes his recording debut with Electric Magma on Canadian Samurai II, and he has brought a whole new dynamic to the sound with his explosive drum style.

Stepping somewhat outside his role as the frontman and guitarist for Toronto psychedelic pasture-izers Quest for Fire, Chad Ross is the sole figure behind the unsurprisingly more minimal Nordic Nomadic. He released a self-titled album under the moniker after starting the project in 2007 and makes his debut on Tee Pee (also Quest for Fire’s label, by odd coincidence) with Worldwide Skyline – an album whose title speaks to its breadth. Fans of the bedroom neo-folk of Comets on Fire guitarist Ben Chasny’s ongoing Six Organs of Admittance will recognize and delight in at least some of what Ross has on offer with these nine songs, the drone and subtle interweaving of electric and acoustic guitars and still somewhat lush feel undercutting the notion of Nordic Nomadic as a “solo project.” It is that, though, on the most superficial level; Ross is the only one in the band and is responsible for all the material. Anyone who was touched by Ross’ gentle melodicism on either Quest for Fire’s 2009 self-titled or last year’s Lights From Paradise will find spiritual companion in his work here, as the vocals are brought even more to the forefront by the inherent lack of other layers surrounding. Nordic Nomadic, for its relative want of personnel, does still sound lush, and could just as easily be branded psych as folk. As such, no reason to limit it to one or the other: Psychedelic folk.

There’s a self-consciousness at play on Worldwide Skyline, or at very least some self-awareness in how it’s structured. Ross opens the album with its title-track, which in turn is introduced by large swinging gates of distorted guitar that seem to open to the field of the acoustic song itself. It’s hard to imagine the grandeur of the electrified opening wasn’t intentional on Ross’ part. To his credit as a songwriter, he blends the acoustic and electric guitars gorgeously throughout, playing them off each other in well-constructed, well-mixed layers beginning right with “Worldwide Skyline.” His vocals follow a similar course, somehow managing to sound lush and humble at the same time on the shorter, more solo-feeling “The Future’s Fear” (2:30). Like most of the work here, it’s not upbeat or hooky enough to really qualify as “catchy,” but the standout quality (and surprising diversity) of the songwriting makes some of these tracks genuinely memorable. That might be true of “Worldwide Skyline” more than “The Future’s Fear,” but the finger-plucked strings of Ross’ acoustic toll like bells and excellently transition back into the droning electrics of “Growin’ Horns,” which highlights the major ambient crux of Worldwide Skyline with an atmosphere that’s open to interpretation either as bright, sunny and sepia or lonely. The wistful melody in the vocals comes through strikingly in the verse, but the soft inclusion of synth and the memento mori of effected electric guitar does well to add an element of darkness. It’s a sunset over some landscape that never existed, and Ross takes time with “Growin’ Horns” that he didn’t on “The Future’s Fear” to revel in the instrumentation.

“Bite to Chew” opens with the line “I read the news today,” which inevitably sets off the Beatles alarm (Quest for Fire showed some Beatles influence in the guitar work late on Lights From Paradise as well), but the song is altogether more psychedelically lush and less poppy than “A Day in the Life” or anything else from that era of the band’s discography. Interestingly, the song forms a sort of linear progression to Worldwide Skyline of longer tracks that begins with the opener and ends with later album highlight, “Listen to the Leaves.” The three are Ross’ only cuts over five minutes in length, and each sets a kind of landmark for the rest of the songs to hinge themselves upon; it’s easy to listen to the songs surrounding in the context of their position relative to the longer songs, in other words. The runtime disparity isn’t so huge – apart from “The Future’s Fear,” everything is within the three-to-five-minute range – but Ross fleshes the longer material out more (maybe this is obvious, since he’s taking extra time to do it, but the arrangements seem more complex as well) and really hones in on a creative vibe with these three tracks in a way that the rest of Worldwide Skyline seems to complement. And if that’s true, then the two-song to three-song ratio between “Worldwide Skyline” and “Bite to Chew” and “Bite to Chew” and “Listen to the Leaves” speaks to Ross’ expectation of the listener being that much more engaged in the album by the time it shifts through its sweetly bluesy “Summer Friends” centerpiece. That turns out to be precisely the case.

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It’s not the greatest band name in the world. You might go so far to say it’s el terri-blay, but heavy rocking trio Free Range Humanz have bigger things on their mind than coming up with a catchy moniker, and whatever they go by, there’s probably a decent contingent of people who are going to call them “that new band with Ruben Romano in it” anyway.

Romano, of course, is the former drummer from Fu Manchu and Nebula. In Free Range Humanz, he’s joined by bassist Kenny Cunningham and guitarist Kurt Van Lifeson — who’s also credited with vocals, although in listening through the cuts on the band’s ReverbNation page, I’ve yet to hear any singing. Maybe they’re hedging their bets for later on. Smart play.

What’s already in the Free Range Humanz tracks is no small amount of Californian-style riffy groove. Cunningham donates choice fills to “Anchor” and “A Passage” as Van Lifeson‘s guitar leads the way through a slew of jams. They sidestep the rehearsal-room feel in this initial batch of tracks for the acoustic piano cut “The Dream” and a few others (there’s some dance music on there too; things get weird toward the end of the playlist). It’s a surprise given the lighthearted feel of the rest of the material, but it’s pretty clear all the way through that Free Range Humanz are still pretty nascent and exploring their sound.

For where that might lead them as much as for their pedigree, they’re definitely worth keeping on the radar. You can check them out on Thee Facebooks here or at ReverbNation, from whence these songs were snagged:

There’s something unassuming about Mammoth Grove’s Mammoth Grove EP. Tracked completely live in one session and released by the band in conjunction with Lazyman Records, the five-track offering has a humble, soft psychedelia to it, vaguely indie, but altogether more grooving and without the lofty apathetic posturing that seems to make up so much of the fashionista scene. Mammoth Grove is raw, and one can hear in listening the room that an organ or some other manner of psych swirling might fill, but that’s also part of the appeal of the release – where so much psychedelia is hell bent on lush noise and sounds so full they border on overwhelming, this Canadian trio has been able to affect a soothing and natural atmosphere with just guitar, bass, drums and vocals. Their material isn’t especially complex, but it has a calming effect that works well with the organic-mindedness the band shows in their name and in closing duo “Black Ocean” and “Deep Cove.”

Opener “Generation” (which is listed second on the CD) immediately links Mammoth Grove to a late-‘60s feel with the lines, “It’s about that time again/A generation’s sick of war again.” Guitarist/vocalist Devan Forster never really goes into full-on fuzz with his tone, but his bluesy lead work is both technically fascinating and grooving, and his voice, free of any discernable effects apart perhaps from some reverb, is well balanced in the songs. He clearly strains his voice in singing “Mammoth Grove,” reaching for some of the notes, but given that the EP is live and given the overall mood of the tracks, it works.

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Canadian metal! Saskatoon heavy four-piece Lavagoat defy expectation almost immediately on their 2010 self-titled by not just reveling in punkish Eyehategod-style sludge, as their name would lead one to expect they might. Rather, Lavagoat’s Lavagoat draws liberally from the well of post-Mastodon metallicism, mostly shirking off the “progressive” snobbishness in favor of raw angular pummel. In other words, drummer Graham (the whole band is first-name-only) keeps his feet busy. But even that isn’t the whole story with Lavagoat. The Cathedral-esque clean vocals that come across on cuts like “Magma,” the later “The Witch,” or even a bit cadence-wise on opener “Puritan” show that not only is Lavagoat offering more than the gruff, throaty, rhythmic growls of “Old Man and the Sea,” but that perhaps multiple songwriters are at play behind the material. The liner notes credit the full band, and both bassist Sean and guitarist Graeme handle vocal duties – Lavagoat is rounded out by guitarist Jimi – but there’s enough diversity at play here to make me think the riffs driving the songs have more than one source. Provided a band can pull the different parts together enough to make something cogent from it (which I’d argue Lavagoat do pretty well here), that’s never a bad thing.

But they are heavy. Whatever road they take to get there, Lavagoat don’t ever lose sight of the metal side of stoner metal, even working a section of crushing riffs into “Magma” and a scathing solo into the building instrumental part collection “Interstellar Deserts Azathoth” – perhaps the most aptly-named track on Lavagoat for its varying moods. The aforementioned “Old Man and the Sea” and middle-album slice “The House” find the band at their most metallic, the latter playing off it with a kind of self-aware use of pig screaming (that could be a sample, or it could be guest vocalist Simon Braun). That said, “Rome,” which starts out more ethereally doomed, later boasts death growls amid one of the most Leviathan-derived riffs Lavagoat here concoct – so it’s not necessarily just a case of compartmentalizing the band’s heaviness into this track or that – the metal can show up anywhere. When it does, it’s well met by Lavagoat’s stoner side, “The Witch” meeting the aftermath of “Rome” head on and complementing it with thick groove and a heathen lyrical schematic.

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A well-suited pairing between Finnish and Canadian outfits, Eyes Like Snow’s recently-issued split between Lord Vicar and Funeral Circle is doom for traditional doomers. It’s available in a variety of vinyl editions as well as CD, and with a total runtime of 22 minutes across three tracks, it’s a decent opportunity for anyone who hasn’t yet to get to know either band. Lord Vicar, with former members of Reverend Bizarre and Saint Vitus/Count Raven, is obviously the higher-profile act of the two, but Funeral Circle, who formed in 2007 in Vancouver, give a solid showing of themselves and even cover Witchfinder General to add memorability to their side of the record. It’s over quick, either way, but both Funeral Circle and Lord Vicar have something to offer doom heads: Namely, doom.

For Lord Vicar, this split with Funeral Circle follows one from this past winter with Swedish act Griftegård and will lead into one with Maryland doomers Revelation and the follow-up to 2008’s Fear No Pain debut full-length, reportedly titled Signs of Osiris. One thing that should be abundantly clear right away, then, is that Lord Vicar likes to keep busy. And why not? Guitarist Peter Inverted has been able to maintain the steady momentum of limited releases that helped Reverend Bizarre’s cult and sphere of influence grow as wide as they did and continue to do, and his pairing with vocalist Christian “Lord Chritus” Lindersson – who sang on Saint Vitus’ underrated C.O.D. album after fronting Count Raven for their 1990 debut, Storm Warning – has led to one of the most formidable partnerships in the current European scene. Here, Lord Vicar offers the 13:50 woeful epic “The Fear of Being Crushed,” which unsurprisingly finds Peter taking the lead on guitar with bassist Jussi “Iron Hammer” Myllykoski and drummer Gareth Millsted (ex-Centurions Ghost) adding righteous thickness behind. The song weaves its way, slowly, through longer heavy sections and offsetting acoustic breaks that do more to complement the atmosphere than detract from it, also – in the case of the middle one as opposed to the song’s intro or outro – allowing for Lindersson to show his emotional range in a kind of existential “how low can you go?” verse before the driving electric riff kicks back in with the bass and drums. Even without the context of Lord Vicar’s pedigree, it’s easy to hear in “The Fear of Being Crushed” why they’re among European trad doom’s forerunners; their overall melodic sensibility, Peter’s riffing, the tonal strength of Myllykoski’s bass (as heard when everything else cuts out 12 minutes in), Millsted’s steady plod and Lindersson’s sparse but effective vocals are not only paying homage to the foundational principles of their genre, but are helping to refine them as well. With crisp, clear production and the stateliness of their approach, the “duh” factor is high, as in, “Well, of course it rules. Duh.”

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We’ve been following the saga of Toronto bizzaros Godstopper for a couple months now. You might recall a little while back the song “Bent” from their Empty Crawlspace cassette EP was posted here, and they were On the Radar-ized before that, so maybe you’ve seen the name around, maybe not. Either way, I dig their songs and their creepy approach, so when the band let me know they made a video for the track “Clean House” from the EP, it seemed only appropriate to post it here for anyone else interested to check it out.

I’m sure there’s more to come on these guys, but enjoy “Clean House” in the meantime:

Godstopper‘s Empty Crawlspace EP is available for streaming on their Bandcamp page, and their website is here for further investigation.

Labyrinthine flute-worshipers Blood Ceremony released their sophomore full-length, Living with the Ancients, in early March via Rise Above/Metal Blade. The album is chock full of ’70s atmospherics and acid-forest-prog riff and flute interplay, and has justified the considerable buzz Blood Ceremony received after their 2008 self-titled debut. They made the switch from working with Billy Anderson on that album to Sanford Parker on this one, and unsurprisingly, came out of it with exactly what they were looking for. Light up your candles.

In case you haven’t yet heard the record, I was fortunate enough to receive permission to host the track “My Demon Brother” for your aural enjoyment. Check it out on the player below, and dig the quote underneath from guitarist Sean Kennedy about the song’s origins:

“‘My Demon Brother’ is a song of invocation; it’s an entreaty to a dark spirit that doesn’t seem to want to appear.  Imagine a Hammer Horror-style black mass and you’ll have an idea of the vibe we were going for.” — Sean Kennedy

I mentioned last Saturday the self-titled album fro Icelandic proto-heavies Icecross that I picked up at the monthly Second Saturday Record Show in Wayne, but that was by no means the only piece of buried treasure I managed to unearth. Along with new albums by Mogwai (meh; people keep telling me I need to like them, I keep meh’ing out every time I hear them), Arbouretum (fuzzy freak folk that’s way too hip to see in person but not awful on record), Charlie Parker (I’m taking a class on him this semester), Primordial (Metal Blade‘s reissue of Storm Before Calm) — and perhaps most notably, three other heavy ’70s delights: Warpig by Warpig, Megaton by Megaton, and Wonderworld by Uriah Heep.

Some might recognize Warpig‘s Warpig from the reissue Relapse gave it in 2006, trying to keep a little momentum going in that direction after the success of unearthing the material for Pentagram‘s First Daze Here compilation. It didn’t really work out in terms of sales, but I dug Warpig well enough to grab the original CD release this weekend. The Canadian band, who reunited in 2004 and may or may not have put out an album since (they have a cover, but I couldn’t see anywhere on their website to buy it), only put out this one album before breaking up in 1973, so it’s not like I’m embarking on a massive discography, but for the pre-NWOBHM gallop of “Sunflight,” it was worth picking up. This may actually be a bootleg version, and that’s fine too.

Knowing literally nothing about the band, I bought the self-titled Megaton CD solely based on its cover. Not much is really known about the band — there may be some connection to Les Humpires (which sounds like the French TV Guide‘s description for True Blood but is/was apparently a person) — but I officially have no idea. There’s a couple cool tracks, but nothing really landmark, and among the canon of the decade, it fits in more than it stands out. Whatever. I got my money’s worth out of the cover alone, which is as good an argument for LP over CD as I’ve seen. I’d love to hang it on my wall. The Patient Mrs., probably not so much.

By the time they got around to putting out 1974′s Wonderworld — amazingly, their seventh album since 1970′s debut Very ‘eavy, Very ‘umble — British rockers Uriah Heep had long since “gone prog,” and there’s no looking back to the band’s bluesy start across these nine drama-filled and technically intricate tracks, though “Suicidal Man” doesn’t lack for heavy crunch in its central riff. The seminal outfit apparently will have a new album out in 2011, and while I don’t know if I’ll stick with Wonderworld the way I did the first record or 1972′s Demons and Wizards, it’s definitely worthy of future investigation as the weather begins to let up. No regrets, in any case.

The Icecross record might still have been the highlight of the haul; so much darker than everything else and a complete out-of-nowhere surprise as it was. I got that, the Megaton and the Warpig from the same vendor, all ridiculously overpriced. I talked the woman down to an acceptable ask for all three, but I think doing so puts me in a different category of “record show asshole,” so there’s an additional cost there. You pay the price one way or another, I suppose. At least my way left me with enough cash for lunch afterward.

…And the best part about it (aside from the music) is that you don’t have to try to put a tape in your computer to make it play.

Toronto oddity rockers Godstopper, who were On the Radar-fied this past December, have assembled the songs from their demo and added a new one called “Bent” to the mix to put together a new cassette/digital release called Empty Crawlspace. The band was kind enough to grant me permission to host their latest work, and as a fan of cassettes, things that don’t sound like other things, and streaming songs, I now present “Bent” for your listening pleasure:

True to the fashion of the earlier demo, “Bent” is more or less as the name describes. The sounds are angular, irregular and downright unsettling. Godstopper has made the whole EP available for listening at their Bandcamp site (for now), and if you want a cassette, you can either head down to Sneaky Dee’s in Toronto tonight to catch them with Creeper, or look them up via their Tumblr page. Either way, prepare to be creeped out.

This one speaks for itself. Or at least the PR wire speaks for it:

Canadian stoner metallers Bison B.C., who were scheduled to play a special one-off show at Seattle‘s El Corazon this past weekend with NOLA sludge heathens Eyehategod, were unable to cross the border and thus, did not play the gig.

Comments guitarist/vocalist James Farwell of the ordeal: “Due to our vicious plot to undermine the American economy and to destroy the citizens of the United States of America‘s belief in freedom and baseball or whatever, we weren’t allowed to cross that fascinating imaginary line. More likely due to a fucking clerical error somewhere in Corporate America, the fine people at Homeland Security had no choice but to keep Americans secure from us dirty fucking Canadians. But fear not my fellow poser Canadians, we will get our fucking paper work in order soon enough and be down destroying things before you can say, ‘Does Celine Dion shit in the fucking woods?!,’ — and yes indeed she does. Peace on Earth.”

They may be relative newcomers, but Ontario trio Monobrow have their collective hands in a number of heavy rock tropes on their self-titled Meatlocker Records debut. Though the album feels long in this age of attention deficit at just under 54 minutes, Monobrow manage to keep things interesting with a number of different approaches brought to bear, including the occasional jam part, crunching riffs and occasional psychedelic flourishes. Entirely instrumental, their approach won’t seem revolutionary to veteran ears, but as they formed in 2009 and are really just figuring out their sound, they make a good go of it on these eight tracks anyway.

The shortest song on Monobrow’s Monobrow is just over five minutes, and what that means to the listener is that the three-piece – Paul Slater (ex-Sir Hedgehog) on guitar, Sam Beydoun on bass, Brian Ahopelto on drums – allow the material its due time to develop. Right away on opener “Naught Witch,” it’s Slater in the lead, layering solos on top of rhythm tracks with Beydoun and Ahopelto following behind, the former with fills that come out even better on headphones, and the latter driving the turns and changes that the song calls for. The ultimate test for an instrumental band is, “Are the vocals missing?” and indeed there are a few spots on Monobrow where they are – even Beydoun and Slater’s lyrical interplay on second cut “From the Brown Sun” not completely erasing the feeling that more should be there than is.  The somewhat longer “Ministry Queen” (7:53) introduces the more jam-based elements, and it becomes clear through listening that the three players have developed a genuine chemistry between them, especially Beydoun and Ahopelto. Slater’s fuzzier tone, brought appropriately to the fore by Paul “Yogi” Granger’s mix, gives way about five minutes into the song to airier tones and more highlight low end. In the case of trios, and even more so when there aren’t vocals to hide behind, every member has to really contribute, and in Monobrow, each definitely does.

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If you missed the previous announcement (I did, oddly enough), German heavy psych-outs Samsara Blues Experiment and Canadian über-stoners Sons of Otis are hitting the road together at the start of next month. By now, the former should be in — if not finished with — the recording process for their second album, which as anyone who heard their Long-Distance Trip debut knows, is good news.

In case your day wasn’t “stoner rock” enough, get a load of this: