I’ve said a couple times now that I only like comps after the fact. When they’re first released and they need to be reviewed, they’re a pain in my ass, and they sit and sit and nag on me until I finally write them up. It’s not until a few years later, when the material is rare as hell and a few of the bands have collapsed, that I’m even remotely interested. You say Welcome to MeteorCity has a different version of a song from Lowrider? Sign me up.

For a while now I’ve been trying to chase down a copy of Bastards Will Pay: A Tribute to Trouble to absolutely no avail. Amazon, eBay, Gemm, physical stores, stoner and doom distros — nobody’s got this friggin’ thing. And yeah, I know I can just type it into Google and download it. I don’t wanna do that. I want to own it. I like my little plastic discs, thanks. You keep the cloud.

To quell my tributary jones and in the meantime hear a couple badass bands, I recently placed an order on the cheap for a copy of Blue Explosion: A Tribute to Blue Cheer on Black Widow Records out of Italy. Released in 1999 and featuring the likes of Drag Pack and Norrsken, among others who don’t exist anymore, it fits my law of comp appreciation perfectly. I don’t even know Garybaldi, but their version of “Fresh Fruit and Iceburgs” is killer and doomed and gives me something to look up tonight while I’m sitting on my ass, so that’s an immediate plus.

Perhaps best of all, though, is that Blue Explosion is bookended by Pentagram. And not just any Pentagram — it’s Joe Hasselvander on all the instruments and Bobby Liebling on vocals, and that’s it. They were working with Black Widow at that point (released Review Your Choices in ’99 and Sub-Basement in 2001 with the duo lineup), and so the disc opens with a nine-minute version of “Doctor Please” on which Hasselvander pretty much just jams with himself. It’s amazing, and his tones are unbelievably heavy. Internal Void follows with “Parchment Farm” and it’s like a one-two punch out of the Doom Capitol.

And Norrsken (the Swedish band from which both Witchcraft and Graveyard were born) are indeed a highlight — they present “Pilot” with expectedly killer vintage sounds — but Natas doing “Ride with Me” and Rise and Shine‘s take on “Sun Cycle” are also standouts, and “Peace of Mind” might be the most purely psychedelic I’ve ever heard Ufomammut sound. Whether it’s the boozy Euro-rock of Space Probe Taurus or the loose organ jamming of Standarte, I’m into it, and the fact that it’s all Blue Cheer material makes it even better.

So yeah, if it was coming across my desk for review now, I’d probably be all huffy-puffy about it and bitch about how compilation reviews are basically just plugs for the bands involved and there’s never any flow or basis for any overall analysis of the release, but in buying something like Blue Explosion: A Tribute to Blue Cheer, I don’t give a shit. It rocks and the rest is secondary to that. For something that was a consolation prize, I definitely feel like I won out.

Still gotta find that Trouble tribute, though.

I thought we’d end this week with a clip from Los Natas, because over the course of the last week, the mainstay Argentinian heavy rockers have re-uploaded a boat-load of their videos to the Tubes of You. Check out their channel here, if you’re so inclined. The video above is for the song “Patas de Elefante,” which comes from the ridiculously underrated Corsario Negro from 2002.

It’s not what I most often reach for when I’m grabbing Los Natas off the shelf — that’s probably Delmar, the debut — but I look at Corsario Negro in the context of what the band’s done since as a great transitional record. It’s like Dozer‘s Call it Conspiracy (coincidentally released the same year) in that it showed the band as having mastered the form of their earliest work even as they began to progress beyond it. Anyway, I’m a dork for Los Natas, so I hope you enjoy the video.

Tonight I went and saw Judas Priest on their “Epitaph” farewell tour at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey. It was the biggest concert I’d seen (in terms of crowd-size) in I don’t even know how long. I may write it up Monday or I may just post some pics I took — I scammed my way into a photo pass — and leave it at that. Either way, the show was killer and I’ll have something on it come Monday.

Also next week, stay tuned for a by-request stream of some of Electric Moon‘s heady psych jamming, and before the Thanksgiving holiday, I’ll also have some audio from the HeavyPink 7″, as I’ve heard from a couple people at this point saying they’d like to hear how the tunes came out before investing $11 to buy a copy. Seems perfectly reasonable to me, so sometime shortly I’ll have some sounds from that up.

I didn’t get to post my Elder interview this week, which was disappointing, so I’ll try to have that as soon as I can, and Wiht sent back their Six Dumb Questions Q&A, so I should be able to get that up as well. It is Thanksgiving though, and I’ll be in Connecticut to celebrate with my wife’s family, so I’m thinking about swinging down to Redscroll Records for their Black Friday earlybird sale. I think it’s at 6AM or something like that. Could be fun, but a lot depends on where the evening and the wine take me.

Beyond that, stick around for reviews of VRSA and Cathedral and as many more as I can fit. As always, I hope you have a great and safe weekend. I’ll be spending mine doing homework, so you can pretty much expect I’ll spend significant amounts of time dicking around on the forum. Hope to see you there and back here Monday for more adventure.

I’m not really sure what my delay on this one was, but I found out a few months ago about the 2010 split between Argentinian mega-trio Los Natas and more metallic side-project Solodolor. It’s the second one the two bands have done — small wonder since they share guitarist Sergio Chotsourian in common — and with Solodolor vocalist El Topo Armetta (also Dragonauta and Eight Hands for Kali) singing on three of Los Natas‘ total seven tracks, the effect the split has is more like a family/semi-collaboration than the usual one band on this side, one on the other. Because Los Natas‘ music is so fluid tonally anyway, it works.

Solodolor get the last three tracks. The lineup of Chotsourian, El Topo, drummer Gustavo Rowek and bassist Billy Anderson (yes, that Billy Anderson) showed the same three songs on the last, vinyl-only split, so it’s basically a chance for anyone who didn’t hear them then to do so now. They’re heavier than Los Natas in the traditional metal crash and bash sort of way, more High on Fire than desert rock, but even the unhinged feel of “The Battle of Mocha Poo” meshes well with the surrounding material.

Five of the seven Los Natas songs are covers, and the hardest part about them is choosing a highlight. For original material, they do new versions of their own “Soma” from the first album and “Rutation” from the second, but with “Thumb” and “Green Machine” by Kyuss, T.S.O.L.‘s “No Time,” Danzig‘s “I Don’t Mind the Pain,” and a Spanish-language take on the all-time classic of classics, “Ace of Spades” by Motörhead — redubbed “El Ass de Espadas” — it’s the covers that win the day. And that new “Soma” rules, don’t get me wrong, but come on, Los Natas playing the opening riff of “Thumb?” Life doesn’t get much better than that.

The only drawback to the covers is that it isn’t Chotsourian singing. He still plays guitar, and he, bassist Gonzalo Villagra and drummer Walter Broide are as tight as ever instrumentally, but a host of vocalists are brought in to cover duty. El Topo was already mentioned, and he does well on the Kyuss songs and “I Don’t Mind the Pain” — which might be my pick of the bunch, depending on my mood — while Argentinian singer Boom Boom Kid makes the T.S.O.L. song work surprisingly well and Ricardo Iorio (V8) manhandles “El Ass de Espadas.” It’s pretty clear Los Natas chose friends and people they wanted to work with, and it’s hard to fault them that.

I’ll stop short here without going into full review-mode and just say that if like me you’ve waited to check out the Los Natas/Solodolor split, consider that time wasted for not having a voice in stuck your head constantly yelling “El ass de espadas! El ass de espadas!” Awesome.

As 2010 makes ready to jump into the double-digit months, it occurred to me the other day to go back and take a look at my Top 10 of 2009. I remembered a few of the albums that rated off the top of my head, if not the order they were put in, but I thought it might be fun to look through the list and see where I stand on the albums 10 months later. Let’s check it out:

1. YOB, The Great Cessation (Profound Lore)
Yup, this is still the best album that came out last year. Check.

2. Los Natas, Nuevo Orden de la Libertad (Small Stone)
Also still rules. Like YOB, I keep this one on me almost all the time.

3. Masters of Reality, Pine/Cross Dover (Brownhouse)
I think I was just really happy Chris Goss put a new album out, although I’ve started to listen to it again now that it’s getting a domestic US release and there are a couple really quality tracks.

4. Truckfighters, Mania (Fuzzorama)
Every time I listen to this album, I’m reminded of how much I dig it. It’s in the same CD wallet as YOB and Los Natas, but I don’t reach for it as much.

5. Shrinebuilder, Shrinebuilder (Neurot)
I hardly ever listen to this anymore, but killer album, killer performances, killer personnel. Can’t wait to get swept up in the hype for the next one, then do the same thing.

6. Crippled Black Phoenix, The Resurrectionists/Night Raider (Invada)
I like the art so much for this album, I don’t even touch it because I’m afraid of screwing it up or leaving fingerprints. It’s gathering dust on my shelf. Pretty dust though, so that’s alright.

7. Wino, Punctuated Equilibrium (Southern Lord)
Am I the only one who thinks maybe Wino meant “punctured” instead of “punctuated?” I just happen to be wearing my t-shirt of the album cover today, so I guess it still curries favor. “Smiling Road” rules.

8. Yawning Sons, Ceremony to the Sunset (Lexicon Devil)
This one still gets listened to regularly, is in that CD wallet. If I was making this list today, it might be number three.

9. Om, God is Good (Drag City)
Cool album, but I never put it on anymore. Maybe I will now.

10. Them Crooked Vultures, Them Crooked Vultures (Interscope)
Josh Homme could take a dump on my brand new cupcake and I’d still have a man-crush on him, so this one was bound to show up. Needless to say, I went back to the first couple Queens of the Stone Age albums shortly thereafter.

If I had the list to do over, I’d put Blood by Snail on it, and maybe Church of Misery‘s Houses of the Unholy, which has kept its appeal pretty well. Other than that, I stand by most of the picks above. Let me know if there’s something I missed out on or anything you can think of that you never returned to once January hit.

It’s 10PM and I’m due awake in six hours to begin a drive to Michigan. In case you didn’t know I sing in a band (I usually make a point not to talk about it, but we’re called Maegashira, and we fucking rule) and in addition to playing two shows while we’re out there — one in Lansing, one in Detroit — we’re hopefully going to be recording a new album (our second) completely live. We’ll see how it goes. In the meantime, I’m about to pick discs off the shelf to bring along on the road trip, so enjoy the above Los Natas video while I figure that out.

Sorry about the site downtime today. I don’t really know what happened, but I’m glad I was able to bring it back without really losing anything and I’m glad the internet didn’t totally succeed in its seemingly ongoing mission to eat The Obelisk. We live yet another day, my friends. Let’s be thankful while we can.

Next week we’ll close out April and I’ll give the numbers and post an interview with Primordial‘s Alan Averill, as well as the usual bunch of reviews and so forth. T-shirt news is coming soon, I promise, and Roareth are hitting the studio this weekend as well, so we should have more on that forthcoming as well. I say this all the time, but it remains true nonetheless: good things ahead, so stay tuned.

This and the number one still to come feel pretty obvious to me, but I guess it’s a lot easier to say that from this side of the keyboard. Los Natas‘ Nuevo Orden de la Libertad on Small Stone was my number one of the first half of the year, and my appreciation for it hasn’t diminished at all with the additional time. If anything, the Argentinian freedom rockers’ fifth album (not counting numerous other collections, the Toba Trance series, etc.) has gained esteem over the course of the last few months. In the context of the year’s releases, this, the number one and the number three are pretty much interchangeable in my mind, but when you way in all the factors, Nuevo Orden de la Libertad was the penultimate combination of quality, listenability and pure rock enjoyment.

I did a search on this site for Los Natas, and came up with more hits than I care to count, most of which can be boiled down to the simple phrase, “Los Natas kick ass.” From the review, to the interview with guitarist/vocalist Sergio Chotsourian and the sundry other nerd-outs, that’s what it all comes down to. As someone who spent the better part of 2008 popping on the band’s first album, 1999′s Delmar (Man’s Ruin), each morning on his way to work, I found Nuevo Orden de la Libertad to be more streamlined than its predecessor, 2006′s El Hombre de Montaña (also Small Stone), but still carrying the banner of creative jamming freedom for which the band’s work throughout releases like München Sessions has made them known.

They’ve transcended any simple genre tag, moved well beyond the Kyuss influence that typified their earliest work, and become a powerful and influential force all their own. Nuevo Orden de la Libertad was more than just a combination of killer songs; the cohesion and drive behind it became evident in every playback, and with each listen, the deceptive complexity of tracks like “Ganar Perder” and “Noviembre” showed themselves to excellently balance rich fullness of sound and raw intensity. More than some of the albums on this list, I know that Nuevo Orden de la Libertad is a record to which I’ll be returning over the years to come, and that’s exactly why it is where it is on the top 10 of 2009. Now if only we could get them to tour the US…

Stepping outside his identity as one third of Argentine free riffers Los Natas, guitarist/vocalist Sergio Chotsourian formed the solo outing Ararat as a means for expressing experimental tendencies that did not otherwise fit into his main outfit. Ararat‘s debut, Musica de la Resistencia, crosses cultures and sonic norms en route to bleeding ambience and sometimes dark psychedelia. Based as much around acoustic guitar as noisescaping, the outing defies expectation in almost every way and produces an unsettling, challenging atmosphere.

Chotsourian, joined in his endeavor by his brother Santiago, El Topo (Dragonauta) and others, has shown there’s more to his musical personality than riffs, solos and singing about revolution. With Musica de la Resistencia, a new sonic direction is established and the boundaries seem limitless for what Ararat can accomplish. Sergio was kind enough to once again answer some email questions, and the resulting interview is after the jump. Enjoy.

Read more »

Even looking at the two titles with which he?s chosen to represent his first solo outing apart from Los Natas, it?s plain to see Sergio Chotsourian is working to reconcile two sides of himself. For a band moniker, he?s chosen Ararat, the highest mountain in and national symbol of his ancestral Armenia (actually it?s located in Turkey now, but everyone pretty much considers it Armenian anyway), and for an album title, Musica de la Resistencia, which is inextricably linked to the Latin American revolutionary ideal. The Argentine guitarist/vocalist lets loose this cross-cultural interplay across seven mostly experimental tracks on Ararat?s MeteorCity debut, making a marked sonic departure from his main outfit — at least mostly.

There are two extended tracks on the mostly instrumental Musica de la Resistencia, and the first of them is opener ?Gitanoss,? named for the Romani peoples of Spain. The song begins with an echoey sample and high desert tones with drums underneath before devolving into more ambient territory. Chotsourian wastes no time establishing the fact that Ararat is not going to be a band with one particular approach and a darker track such as the organ-infused ?Gitanoss? is only one face he might choose to show at any given time. Surprisingly, he follows it with an exact port of ?Dos Horses? from Los Natas? latest album, Nuevo Orden de la Libertad (Small Stone). The tones that began and ended that record appear here almost as a flotation device to keep listeners from drowning in the dreariness of the 14 minutes prior, although one wonders if Chotsourian was looking to connect Musica de la Resistencia with Nuevo Orden de la Libertad, he couldn?t have taken the central musical theme of ?Dos Horses? and put it into a new context. The piece has already shown itself malleable enough to be used for multiple purposes, but this is a small gripe.

Read more »

Yeah, this was fairly obvious after the interview with Sergio Chotsourian went up last Thursday night, but I’m pretty sure nobody’s paying attention anyway and even if they are, it bears repeating that Los Natas‘ Nuevo Orden de la Libertad (Small Stone) is the finest album to come out so far this year. Number one on the Top Five of the First Half of 2009. The multi-directional Argentinian rockers have stripped down their sound to its barest essentials and rawest form yet, lending the music an intensity never before attained in the band’s storied 16-year tenure.

The songs are approached with a revolutionary fervor and a feel of overdriven underground punk that complements the Los Natas sound perfectly. There’s a dirty sophistication to the heavy parts, and the several acoustic and Western or South American-inspired interludes show that although Nuevo Orden de la Libertad is clearly a record with something to say, time and thought have been given to aesthetics as well. As I mentioned previously, it wasn’t an easy call between this and Wino‘s Punctuated Equilibrium, but in the end, it was the immediacy of these tracks that put them over the top.

By way of sampling the album at its finest, here is the video for the title track of Nuevo Orden de la Libertad. Whatever else you do today, make sure you listen to it and please, please, don’t miss out on this record.

From posting the mp3 of the title track to my review of Los Natas‘ new album, Nuevo Orden de la Libertad (Small Stone), I’ve made it abundantly clear that the more aggressive approach the band takes with songs like “Las Campanadas” and “David y Goliath” is a-okay in my book. The music is vital, immediate and soulful. It may not have the spontaneity of their improv/jamming work on records like Toba Trance, but the sweet plucking of nylon acoustic strings on “Bienvenidos” and the raw driven punk of “10,000″ are an easy trade.

The Argentina trio — Sergio Chotsourian, the main songwriter, vocalist and guitarist is joined by bassist Gonzalo Villagra and drummer Walter Broide — have been together since 1993 and have proven to be in possession of an ongoing willingness to push their sound. Nuevo Orden de la Libertad is a powerful example of what happens when a band grows in tandem with its members.

Enough of my prattling and gushing. Sergio was kind enough to take part in the email interview after the jump and discuss the band’s past in the stoner rock genre, creative future, and why Nuevo Orden de la Libertad sounds so darn solid as an album. Enjoy.

Read more »

Along with the chance to meet two of the dudes in Cavalcade and to see Balboa MI (feature coming soon) in both Lansing and Detroit on consecutive evenings, this past weekend’s excursion to Michigan afforded me a little bit of shopping time, which, at the wizened behest of native/all-around-great-dude Postman Dan, was spent at Flat Black and Circular (“FBC” to the locals — website here), in the very much MSU infested Campus Town Mall in East Lansing.

It was my first time in the state let alone the store, which was well organized by genre and alphabet. Prices weren’t cheap for CDs or vinyl, but they had some stuff worth paying for. The discs were in bins high enough so it didn’t hurt my back to lean over and look and had been meticulously alphabetized, despite a lack of “Ab-Af” type separators. I scanned my way through the rock section and managed to come out of it with VALIS, a Type O Negative (I’m on a kick) single, the last Uriah Heep record, the 2005 Place of Skulls EP Love Through Blood (that Victor Griffin sure loves him some Jesus) and — the one that I’d have gladly driven to Michigan for in the first place — the first of the two Toba Trance releases by Los Natas.

I think I’ve made it pretty clear since starting this site I’m a fan of the Argentinian rockers in both their free-form and more straightforward incarnations. Pretty much whatever they’ve got going on is cool by me, and since I already owned Toba Trance II, I knew what to expect going into its predecessor. The album track listing is as follows:

Read more »

I’ve been giving some thought the last week or so to doing an Obelisk podcast. Only thing is it would take a shitload of time and I don’t know if anyone would bother listening. Let me know what you think in the comments thread, and in the meantime, enjoy these six songs.

It was originally only going to be five, but then I figured in the fine spirit of old school C.O.C., I’d add one more. Feel free to minimize and listen that way as you go about work or whatever.

Lowrider – Dust Settlin’

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Natas - Adolescentes

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Alabama Thunderpussy – Three Stars

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Nebula - Anything from You

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sasquatch – Rattlesnake Flake

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Kyuss – Supa Scoopa and Mighty Scoop

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

So because I’m definitely not stalking Argentina‘s Los Natas on MySpace or anything like that, I just happened upon the page for Sergio Chotsourian side-project Santoro not too long ago. Those of the remembering type will recall their self-titled album put out by People Like You Records in 2001. I picked it up a while back, and since as anyone who’s checked this site more than once since it’s been up knows I’ve been on something of a Los Natas kick lately, I was interested to see what the Santoro dudes were up to nowadays.

Turns out Santoro vocalist Topo Armetta and Chotsourian have a new band going called Venosidad. Their MySpace page only has two songs up, and Armetta plays bass in addition to singing, but from what I can tell it’s a bit more metal than what Santoro was doing — something like desert rock meets Neurosis. Bluesy post-metal. Just thought I’d point them out in case I wasn’t the only one interested. Hopefully we’ll get a full demo from them sooner than later.

I don’t have any real reason for posting this video, but like beauty, Los Natas are their own excuse for being, and this song rules, so I don’t expect any complaints.

In honor of the new Los Natas album, El Nuevo Orden de la Libertad hitting iTunes today, Small Stone has generously granted The Obelisk permission to host the title track for your listening pleasure. Click the album cover above to dig into the song and here to read the review. Enjoy.