…And if you don’t know why, click here. Or here. Or here. Or here. Yeah, that’s right. I broke out the Lo-Pan links. No better way to let you know the Ohioan fuzz titans mean business. Doubtless that’ll also be the case as they head down to sunny Austin, Texas, to take part in this year’s recently-announced Small Stone showcase at SXSW. Here’s the poster with the dates — click to enlarge as you see fit:

He’s been in and around the Cleveland, Ohio, sludge scene for about as long as it’s been there for him to be in and around it, and as guitarist in bands like Fistula, Ultralord, King Travolta, Necrodamus, Sollubi (in which he played bass), Bibilic Blood and Morbid Wizard, Scott Stearns has helped shape the misanthropic, vitriolic sound of the Midwest. Seated on the left in the picture above of his latest band, Morbid Wizard, Stearns has also contributed album art to both his comrades’ bands and to those outside Ohio‘s borders, and his graphic style is as manic and terrifying as the music.

Credited occasionally as Wizard or Wizardfool or some derivation thereof, Stearns is also intensely prolific. This year, Morbid Wizard made their debut in the form of Lord of the Rats (review here) and his duo Bibilic Blood released their third album in three years, Blood Butterfly (review here). Though the projects are vastly different — the one a who’s who of Ohio sludge players and the other a nightmarish horror-psych two-piece — Stearns brings something unique to both in his playing and his art. There’s no bullshit in either. No compromise of form. No play to accessibility. Any one of his visual works on your notebook would get you immediately expelled from high school, and his music is all viciousness and disaffection — the stuff of landmark sludge.

His mastery of underground forms notwithstanding, I wanted to hit up Stearns with Six Dumb Questions to talk mostly about how Morbid Wizard came together around musicians from Fistula, Rue, Sollubi, Accept Death and others — those being drummer Corey Bing, guitarist Bahb Branca, bassist Mike Duncan and vocalist Jesse Kling — but there was room as well to discuss the terrifying nature of Bibilic Blood and his work with bassist/vocalist Suzy Psycho in that band, as well as his development as a designer and artist. Even so, this is really just the beginning of Stearns‘ portfolio, and for more, you should check out his website at stearnsdog.com.

Please note too that the art accompanying the Q&A is all by Stearns and that any images can be enlarged by clicking on them. Hope you enjoy the following Six Dumb Questions:

1. Morbid Wizard brings in members from many different projects. How do you all find the time to get together and how did the band form in the first place. Is Morbid Wizard the priority for everyone involved?

Morbid Wizard was formed by me and Corey Bing. We had gotten together and jammed a couple times but hadn’t really done anything for a while. The last band we were both in was called Blackwell that was a hardcore band with Larry Gargus from Don Austin on vokills. Blackwell recorded an album and then fell apart but me and Corey were always trying to get something going over the winter and finally we just said fuck it and booked two days at SUMA Studios with Paul Hamman. SUMA is an awesome studio where Grand Funk recorded their first albums, Bloodrock, Shok Paris, Destructor, Integrity and a lot of other classic bands. Paul let us use some of his vintage Marshall cabinets and a HiWatt head, I also used my SICK head and the plan was to just get completely retarded with high volume. Corey got Bahb from Fistula to play second guitar, Mike Duncan from Black Mayonnaise on bass and noise, and Jesse from Sollubi on vokills and noise. Morbid Wizard is not really a priority for anyone, it’s just something we are going to keep trying to do when we get the chance. Everyone has their main bands that they are dedicated to. We are working on new material, so hopefully we will get it done and have an EP or another record out next year.

2. Talk about the sludge scene in Ohio. It seems like there’s a really dedicated group of people (many of whom are in Morbid Wizard) who’ve been in bands with each other for a while now. Did it really all start with Sloth and Nunslaughter? What’s the area like, and where do the best shows happen? How did it begin for you, and what do you think allowed the community of bands that’s there now to develop?

I got into it in the ‘80s when I was in high school. I was into punk at first, like Black Flag, G.B.H., The Bad Brains, X, Suicidal Tendencies, Dead Kennedys, and I would go to punk shows but then I started getting into metal and thrash bands like Metallica, Mercyful Fate, Slayer, Exodus, Venom, Voivod, Hellhammer, Celtic Frost. My favorite local bands were Destructor and False Hope. Destructor is still playing today and some of the guys in False Hope went on to play in Keelhaul and some other good bands. Nunslaughter has been around playing death metal since the ‘80s. I think the people that have been around forever have a true love for making heavy metal, punk, noise, sludge, whatever.

My first band that I played guitar for was Die Hard, with Aaron Melnick, Dwid, Chubby Fresh and Stork, that was the band before they became Integrity. We recorded an album in 1989 called Looking Out for Number One.

I think my first Introduction to sludge metal was doing artwork for Sneak from Shifty Records. He gave me a whole bunch of awesome CDs: Fistula[‘s] Hymns of Slumber, Church of Misery, Weedeater, Abdullah, Cruevo, RUE, Sofa King Killer, Mugwart, Rwake, Beaten Back to Pure. Then I met Corey Bing around 2002 when Fistula played a festival with Weedeater, Soul Preacher, Bongzilla, Red Giant, Boulder, and Mastodon before they were really big. I was playing guitar in Madman Mundt, which I loved but I also wanted to do something much slower so we recorded the first Necrodamus EP at Rock Solid Studio in Cleveland and I called up Corey and asked if he would be interested in singing on it. Then after that, we recorded the first Ultralord record, Act 1.

I live about 30 miles east of Cleveland. Lake Erie is two blocks down the street from where I live. Most of the people are just regular working stiffs, there are a good amount of mutated Chernobyl fallout hillbillies around here but they keep it interesting and give it a creepy 1950s small town feeling. The best place to see bands is at Now That’s Class over on the west side of Cleveland. Peabody’s also has some good big-name metal bands that come through Cleveland and the Beachland and Grogshop have some good bands closer to where I live.

3. Your art graces many of the covers for these releases and of course others as well. How did you get your start as an artist and what can you say about the development of your style? Is there something behind your decision to use color for one piece and not another?

Growing up I was very heavily into comic books, Dungeons and Dragons, Heavy Metal and Epic magazines, Frank Frazetta, H.R. Geiger, and H.P. Lovecraft. Then I went to high school with some of the guys in False Hope and did flyers for them. It wasn’t until a couple years after that Dr. Maxar Berezium from 100,000 Leagues Under My Nutsack asked me to do the cover of his first album Welcome to the Fold. He was a big influence because he was always asking me to do artwork for t-shirts and stickers and posters. He would go all over the country and Europe putting up stickers with my art. Then other people would ask him about the artwork and if they could get me to do something for them.

I have just recently started to experiment with color using Photoshop. Trying to figure out how to do it has taken a while but I think I’m getting better now. For the Bibilic Blood records I used color because Suzy Psycho specifically wanted the alien on the first cover to be green and we liked it a lot so we decided to make them all color.

4. How did you get involved in Bibilic Blood, and how does that compare to the other bands you’ve been in? There’s something so horrifying about Bibilic Blood’s music. Not that I think there are animal sacrifices or anything, but what’s the atmosphere like when Bibilic Blood is writing songs? Where does this stuff come from?

Bibilic Blood is mine and Suzy Psycho’s band, we started out by just making noise on a 4-track, then started recording on a digital 8-track. Bibilic Blood is different because our studio is set up in our living room so we can practice and record whenever we feel like it. We don’t do any animal sacrifices because we love all the furry little creatures that live in the woods, but it is very easy to imagine some of the weirdos that live around us are doing some animal or human sacrifices right now in their living rooms. Part of the atmosphere is that we are always aware that the outside world is full of horrific nightmare people and places, so we are just grateful that we can hang out and have a good time and play music together. We have a black light we turn on, then Suzy comes up with some riffs and we jam them out and record it when we get something we like. Then Suzy does her vokill tracks and then I will do the guitar parts a little at a time over the next couple days.

5. Do you see yourself as bringing something consistent across the board to the many different bands you’ve played with, or do your contributions depend on the other players involved? How does your visual art play into that? Is it harder making covers for a band you’re in or someone who’s hired you from the outside?

Yeah I think all the bands I’ve played in are mostly about coming up with a couple good heavy riffs and tying them together. I always look to my favorite bands for inspiration Slayer, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Mercyful Fate, DIO, Ozzy, Venom, Celtic Frost, Cirith Ungol, Suicidal Tendencies, Black Flag, Saint Vitus. I am always happy to do art for the bands I play in because for me the artwork is a really important part of the band. There is some more pressure doing art for other bands because I always want it to be as sick as possible especially when it’s a band I am a really big fan of.

6. Any other plans, new releases or closing words you want to mention?

We are working on new Morbid Wizard songs for hopefully a 2012 EP or album, Bibilic Blood is going to have two new songs on the SLUDGESAPIENS tape compilation put out by Quagmire located in the barbarian Russian wastelands, and we are working on new Ancient Sickness.

Scott Stearns’ website

Morbid Wizard on Thee Facebooks

 

If the Eastlake, Ohio, duo Bibilic Blood have proven anything about themselves over the last two-plus years since the self-release of their Z’Ha’Doom debut, it’s that they’re totally fucked. Drummer/guitarist/graphic artist Scott “Wizard” Stearns and bassist/vocalist Suzy Psycho have donned capital-d Deranged as their aesthetic, and on their third album, Blood Butterfly (also self-released), they give their most “refined” take on that process yet – with “refined” in quotes because Bibilic Blood’s primal riffing and wailing is so lo-fi that in parts it seems to barely be there. Though that’s proven to be on purpose throughout this and last year’s Pale Face Destroyer (review here), they carry the feel so convincingly as to be genuinely unsettling. The main difference between Blood Butterfly and its preceding installments is in a more distilled feel. Here the songs are shorter, Stearns and Psycho working in two more tracks into a runtime still a minute shorter than that of Pale Face Destroyer, and though I’d hardly thought it possible, Bibilic Blood seem to be becoming even more rudimentary as they develop creatively. As much of their energy here seems to be in deconstructing song structures, they’re simultaneously building creative patterns in which they work. Still, the primary element at work in Blood Butterfly is how completely fucked up it sounds.

More even than on their last outing, however, Bibilic Blood turn that fucked-upness into a wash of malevolent psychedelia, accomplishing through different means what Midwestern black metal has done for its genre. The production on Blood Butterfly is beyond demo raw, but over the course of their to-date trilogy, that’s become almost as much a part of the style as Stearns’ riffs and Psycho’s deep-mixed wails. Were she screaming, Bibilic Blood might veer into sludge territory, and given Stearns’ past or ongoing tenure in Sollubi, Fistula, Ultralord, Morbid Wizard and others, that influence is bound to be present, but Blood Butterfly is geared toward something more definitively horror-based, and the 13 tracks are beginning to expand the formula. Psycho’s vocals are layered on “Black Star,” and later cut “Spider Guts” (the longest on the album at 5:02) devolves into noise before a guitar-led solo jam that’s Blood Butterfly’s most outwardly psychedelic stretch, perhaps rivaled by the earlier 2:19 instrumental “Acid Eyes.” The growth is subtle, and you have to wade through the intended muck of the recording to get to it, but it’s there. “Black Star” displays some burgeoning complexity in its interweaving layers of guitar and bass (I don’t mention the solo section at the beginning of that song only because it sounds like it might be sampled; if not, it also certainly supports the argument in favor of development on the part of the band). As Bibilic Blood becoming increasingly aware of the sonic field they’re working in, they can only progress further within it.

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The recommendation to check out heavy space rock trio Eye came from Lo-Pan‘s Jesse Bartz, and man, was he right. On their self-released Center of the Sun debut, Eye — nearly impossible to locate via Googular means — blend half-speed low-end Hawkwind with organ-era Clutch and are partial to the occasional excursion into minimal drone worship, harmonized vocal or military march — and seriously, that’s just on the 19-minute opening title-track, which has a scope that even that all-over-the-place description only touches the surface of. It’s exciting to know people are doing this kind of stuff.

Guitarist/vocalist Matt Auxier and drummer/vocalist Brandon Smith both come from the Columbus psych outfit The Pretty Weapons, and bassist Matt Bailey was a member of post-Mastodon crushers Teeth of the Hydra, who released their Greenland album on Tee Pee in 2006, so the combination was bound to result in something interesting. As Eye, the three-piece indulge in extended, blinding washes of thickened psychedelics. The songs feel born of jams but not unstructured, even as the languid plod of “Usurpers” gives way to the frantic guitar jabs of “Restorers,” there’s a cohesiveness and a plan at work behind the madness. They can and do go anywhere, and there’s an underlying intensity that keeps hold of the attention however far out Eye might be spiraling.

Plus: mellotron. Well utilized mellotron, at that. Where it shows up as contributed by Adam “Smitty” Smith (who also engineered the record), it gives Eye that feeling of being the life-changing obscure 1974 vinyl you pick up at a garage sale and soon quit your job to worship. Center of the Sun is blown out where it needs to be, but not afraid of being classy either, and the jazzy shuffle of “Restorers” in its latter half proves it, Auxier‘s killer wailing solo included. As closer “Rik Rite” moves from blues rock classicism to epic cosmic proclamations, the journey feels like coming through a wormhole. In an instant you’re somewhere else, you have no idea how you got there, and any sense of time you had has been evaporated.

Much thanks to Bartz for the recommendation. If you want to check out Eye — and you do — feel free to hit them up on Thee Facebooks. They’ve also got Center of the Sun for sale as a pay-what-you-want download on their Bandcamp, the proceeds from which they’re hoping to use to press a limited CD run. A band after my own heart. Here’s the album for streaming goodness:

At first glance, you might be surprised to find that Thorns — the new album on Shifty Records from Ohioan sludge metal mainstays Rue — clocks in at 13 tracks/64 minutes. Seems like a lot. But when you consider it’s been eight years since their self-titled full-length debut, and that even that was only 29 minutes, it’s easy to think maybe the four-piece has something to get off their chest. It’s like they’ve been saving up on vitriol this whole time.

Rue are traditional only in construction. The band is a traditional single-guitar four-piece with standalone vocals in the form of Jeff Fahl, whose grunts, growls and screams underscore the pulsating heaviness coming from the other three members — guitarist Mike Burns, bassist Mike Faucher and drummer Greg Cook. Sonically, they’re more bent on blending hardcore, heavy rock, doom and sludge than adhering to any single tradition, and on Thorns, the resultant brew isn’t just aggressive; it’s aggressively aggressive.

The formidable output of Ohio sludge over the last decade (discussed here as recently as yesterday) has been made possible thanks in part to Rue‘s influence, and Thorns proves their time hasn’t been misspent. I was lucky enough to get permission to stream the track “Brown” from the album — the opener, following the introductory title-track — which you’ll find on the player below.

Please enjoy:

Thorns will be available on Shifty Records on Nov. 15, 2011. For more info, hit up the label’s website or find the band on Thee Facebooks here. To celebrate the release, Rue will be playing Saturday, Nov. 12, at The Outpost Concert Club in Kent, Ohio, with Chapstik, The Unclean and Breakneck Creek. Check out the venue’s page here.

The dudes that comprise Cleveland dirt-worshiping sludge outfit Morbid Wizard have long been kicking around the Midwestern underground in bands like Fistula, King Travolta, Sollubi, Bibilic Blood, Ultralord and Rue. Drummer Corey Bing, for example, has been in all of those bands and others. Vocalist Jesse Kling was/is also in Pennsylvania Connection and helms Land o’ Smiles Records, whose anti-CD stance is heartfelt enough to relegate Morbid Wizard’s debut, Lord of the Rats, to a self-release, and guitarist Scott Stearns provides artwork here for the DVD case and has also lent his manic style to several of the bands listed above as well as to Centinex, Nunslaughter and others. It is an impressive, if self-contained, pedigree, and speaks volumes of the dedication of the members of Morbid Wizard – which is rounded out by guitarist Bahb Branca (all the bands above save Bibilic Blood and Pennsylvania Connection) and bassist Mike Duncan (ex-Fistula) – and if Lord of the Rats is anything, it’s the latest installment in an ongoing series of visceral sludge releases from these players. One could obviously consider it coalesced in some way, since the five-piece are obviously familiar with each other’s work but have now emerged in this form, but that doesn’t necessarily speak to the seven songs that comprise the album itself, which bear the stylistic fuckall typical of this scene and so sound loose, harsh in their production and adherent to any number of prescription pharmaceuticals as well as the lessons passed down from Grief, Buzzov*en, Crowbar (who especially shine through on the title-track) and the ever-present Eyehategod.

At its heart, Lord of the Rats is of its genre, but Morbid Wizard inhabit the nastiest, most abrasive corners of sludge. There’s no bringing in elements from other extreme metals, no real fucking with the formula unless you want to count varying the pace from the lethargic (see opener “Choked Out by the Hand of Doom”) to the vaguely less lethargic (see the later “Death Sun”), but they have a habit of incorporating shredding solos over the chugging riffs, and that does well to break up the monotony and present an illusion of motion. Kling adds periodic samples and noises, as on the near-12-minute closer “Incantation” and unrepentantly plodding “Puke God,” not so much offsetting his vicious unipolar screams as adding to the overall fucked up sensibility of the record. As a rhythm section, Duncan and Bing are relatively straightforward – the former sticking mostly to the riff for guidance and the latter grounding some of the more horrifying material on Lord of the Rats by keeping time on the bell of his ride cymbal – but at no point is any other approach warranted or even appropriate. A song like “Mutilation,” which follows the opener, is so simple in its basic undulations that to doll it up with indulgent technicality could only detract from the effect on the listener. Like the best of sludge, the bulk of Lord of the Rats is basically punk rock played at quarter speed by misanthropes. Both “Mutilation” and “Death Sun” (the two shortest cuts, hovering on either side of three minutes) stick to one central riff, and even where Morbid Wizard offer some versatility in the relatively fast tempo “Lord of the Rats” takes on toward its end, the vibe is so consistently wretched and ugly that it’s over before you notice it. Or maybe that’s the pills kicking in.

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I can barely figure out how to work a WordPress back end, but — ever ones for innovative releasing techniques — Ohioan rockers Threefold Law have just announced a new app for their latest album, Revenant (review here, interview here), that features the music of the band, the written story from guitarist/vocalist J. Thorn, and probably a dozen or so other technological wonders my luddite ass will never understand. Way to go.

In addition, they’ve got (what I’ve just learned is called) a QR code, which you can scan with your fancy phone and go to a special version of their website with exclusive clips and more. Check it out:

Threefold Law, Cleveland’s doom pioneers, announce the launch of their new mobile website and Revenant app for the Droid. Go to http://www.threefoldlaw.com or scan the QR code from any mobile device and get automatically routed to a customized version of the full website with streaming music, live performances, and album reviews.

In addition, Threefold Law present the Revenant app for Droid users. With an intuitive interface and clean design, stream the entire album, read the story, and more. Users of the iPhone, Blackberry, or any handheld device can access Revenant through the mobile site.

Enjoy all of the enhancements, free of charge.

The carton from which Lo-Pan frontman Jeff Martin is drinking in the candid picture above reads “Boxed Water is Better.” There’s a life lesson in there somewhere, but mark my words, I have no clue what it might be.

After bolting from a school obligation in Newark and stopping only to grab sushi takeout on my way to Brooklyn for the BrooklynVegan/The Obelisk-presented gig at Union Pool with The Brought Low, Lo-Pan and Suplecs. I was excited to see the bands and glad it had stopped raining from earlier in the day, but more than either of those, I was just in a hurry to get there.

Being involved in booking and promoting shows is nerve-wracking work, and to those who do it on a regular basis — and that includes Fred from BrooklynVegan, who invited me to be a part of the show out of the blue and the kindness of his heart — much respect. I can’t imagine being responsible for making people show up somewhere, trying to draw a crowd. I have a hard enough time getting my own ass off the couch, let alone anyone else’s.

That said, if e’er a rock bill in Brooklyn was going to do it, it was this one. With the two-day Small Stone Records showcase in Philadelphia this weekend featuring all three of these bands (and many others), I was thinking of the show as an unofficial warm-up, a kind of unofficial mini-showcase — but really, however you phrase it, it was a killer night. The Brought Low went on at 9:30, and if you looked back from there, you wasted your time.

I don’t know how many times I’ve said it at this point, but every time I see them affirms my opinion that The Brought Low are the best rock band in New York. They played a set that felt short, but pulled probably the night’s biggest crowd. The two faster cuts from their recent Coextinction Recordings EP, “Army of Soldiers” and “Black River” — on which bassist Bob Russell took lead vocals from guitarist Ben Smith — sounded great, and the material from last year’s Third Record was no less thrilling than when I heard it the last time I saw them in December. Nick Heller‘s drumming behind Smith‘s come-a-creepin’ guitar line on “My Favorite Waste of Time” gave me a newly-revitalized appreciation for that song.

That was about as subdued as they got. The rest of their time was devoted to energetic, upbeat songs like “Blues for Cubby” off of 2006′s Right on Time, which was another highlight. They were probably the perfect way to kick off the show, and set a high bar for Lo-Pan, who I don’t even know how many times I’ve seen this year at this point (another to come Friday in Philly). Union Pool‘s sound suited them well as they ran through tracks from the instantly classic Salvador, released earlier this year.

Guitarist Brian Fristoe played probably the best and most engaged set I’ve seen from him — Lo-Pan‘s stage configuration puts the instruments out front and the aforementioned Jeff Martin in the rear, and Fristoe is usually pretty subdued compared to drummer Jesse Bartz and bassist Skot Thompson, seemingly preferring to let the fuzz and the riffs do the talking — but it didn’t wind up doing him any favors. Late in the set, he broke a string and the considerable momentum Lo-Pan had built coming off “Bird of Prey” took a substantial hit.

It didn’t stop them. Jokes were tossed back and forth in the break while Fristoe changed out the string, and Lo-Pan was tight enough that when they picked back up and closed out with “Generations,” I didn’t hear another word about the string. In talking to the band before and after they played, they said they were well rested, and they played like it. Comparing it to a few weeks back at Stoner Hands of Doom XI, they were pretty great then, but better last night. Clearly just a band at the top of their game making the most of their time on the road. It’s exciting to watch them.

And what to say about Suplecs? The New Orleans trio’s bassist Danny Nick mentioned from the stage that it was the band’s first time in Brooklyn since opening for Clutch and The Hidden Hand at L’Amour in 2004. Last time I saw them was right around then as well, at South by Southwest that year. So seven years and two albums later, they loaded onto the Union Pool stage and let loose with songs from across their discography. I missed the start, but came back in shortly thereafter in time for the anthemic punk chorus of “Stand Alone” from 2011′s Mad Oak Redux, which carried even more heft live, Nick and guitarist Durel Yates sharing vocal duties and driving the rhythms nailed down by the stellar drumming of Andrew Preen.

“White Devil” from 2001′s Sad Songs… Better Days made my night, plain and simple. And that Suplecs followed it up with their take on The Beatles “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” which was included on the same album tacked to the more shuffling “Unstable” was even more righteous, but what was most striking about their performance wasn’t even how tight the band was — 15 years of a solid lineup will do that — but just how much diversity there is in their material.

Maybe it’s harder to hear on their records (though I would and have argued that their studio stuff has much to offer in terms of personality), but throughout the course of their time, it occurred to me just how many different roads Suplecs was taking the audience, from the hardcore punk of “Stand Alone” to the ultra-stonerly riffing of “White Devil” and “Dope Fu,” to the extended jams and solos they fused into the latter half of their set, to the off-the-cuff take on early Metallica — I think it was “Four Horsemen” — they threw into their finale. Yates, Nick and Preen made all these changes and shifts work, so that if you weren’t paying attention, you hardly even noticed the movement from one to the next.

On a night of impressive feats, that of Suplecs was as appropriate a finish as The Brought Low‘s was a start, and for that, and for the utterly transcendent fuzz of Lo-Pan in between (yeah, yeah, I know, I’m a nerd for Lo-Pan), the show was perfect. The crowd was filled with good people, Union Pool‘s sound is killer, and I even managed to make it back to my foggy river valley in New Jersey without running out of gas. I couldn’t possibly have asked more from the show than I got.

And for that, I owe Fred from BrooklynVegan thanks. I’m no promoter, and I don’t know squat about putting on shows, but Fred was cool enough to ask me if I wanted to be involved and it was hugely appreciated. Thanks too to everyone who came out and made it as special as it was. If I needed another reason to be stoked for Philly this weekend (I didn’t), this was it.

Extra pics after the jump, as always.

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Fresh off their third Dude Locker fest in their native Columbus, Ohio, fuzz rock champions Lo-Pan are set to kick off their latest tour tomorrow, Sept. 15. In case you’ve forgotten, this run of shows will not only take them through both upcoming Small Stone Records showcases (Philly and then Chicago), but also will find them hitting the Sept. 20 show at Union Pool in Brooklyn with labelmates Suplecs and The Brought Low that’s being presented by BrooklynVegan and The Obelisk together.

More info on that show — which I hope you’ll attend — is here. The event page on Thee Facebooks is here, and please, consider yourself invited for a throwdown like none you’ll see this or any other year.

Joining Lo-Pan for most of the tour will be regular tour/labelmates Backwoods Payback, who also do more than their fair share of ass kicking. Here’s the info:

There’s no rest for the Ohio road dogs known as Lo-Pan. Having recently completed the successful Let Freedom Ding tour (allegedly named for the many bells that mysteriously occupy the dashboard of the band’s van), the band will set out on another trek through the Northeast and Midwest alongside Small Stone labelmates Suplecs and Backwoods Payback. The journey will include two separate Small Stone showcases in Philadelphia on Sept. 23 and Chicago on Oct. 1.

Lo-Pan Fall Tour 2011:
09/15 The Empty Glass Charleston, WV
09/16 The Jewish Mother Virginia Beach, VA w/ Freedom Hawk, Crimson Electric
09/17 DIVEBar Raleigh, NC w/ Suplecs
09/18 The Velvet Lounge Washington, DC w/ Suplecs, Weed is Weed, Nitroseed
09/19 Mojo 13 Wilmington, DE w/ Suplecs
09/20 Union Pool Brooklyn, NY *BrooklynVegan and The Obelisk Present* w/ Suplecs, The Brought Low
09/21 AS220 Providence, RI
09/22 Church Boston, MA w/ Gozu, Gunslinger, Planetoid
09/23 The M-Room Philadelphia, PA Small Stone Showcase w/ Suplecs, Backwoods Payback, Freedom Hawk, Infernal Overdrive
09/24 31st Street Pub Pittsburgh, PA w/ Suplecs, Backwoods Payback
09/25 Ace of Cups Columbus, OH w/ Suplecs, Backwoods Payback, Freedom Hawk
09/26 The Mockbee Cincinnati, OH w/ Suplecs, Backwoods Payback
09/27 Now That’s Class Cleveland, OH w/ Suplecs, Backwoods Payback
09/28 Mac’s Lansing, MI w/ Supecs, Backwoods Payback
09/29 Corktown Tavern Detroit, MI w/ Suplecs, Backwoods Payback, Freedom Hawk
09/30 The Intersection Grand Rapids, MI Prospecto Showcase
10/01 Double Door Chicago, IL Small Stone Showcase w/ Sasquatch, Suplecs, Gozu, Backwoods Payback, Freedom Hawk
10/02 Fubar St. Louis, MO w/ Suplecs, Backwoods Payback
10/03 Hi-Tone Memphis, TN w/ Suplecs, Backwoods Payback
10/04 TBA Nashville, TN w/ Backwoods Payback
10/05 TBA Lexington, KY w/ Backwoods Payback
10/06 V Club Huntington, WV w/ Backwoods Payback
10/07 The Bluestone Columbus, OH *Columbus Alive Rocktober Show*
10/08 The Stone Tavern Kent, OH w/ Backwoods Payback

The new full-length from Cincinnati doomers Beneath Oblivion is called From Man to Dust (out Sept. 27), and if you think the title sounds crushing, you should get a load of the trailer for the record they just posted. Gurgle gurgle.

Dig it and some choice selections off the PR wire:

The album was recorded during a sweltering heat wave in a massive, formerly abandoned warehouse in Cincinnati, OH, by Andy Perkins, with samples, mixing and additional tracking done at his own Perkins Ranch in Erlanger, KY. The natural reverb from the multitude of room microphones in the gargantuan space further conveys the ambitious grandeur of the record. After the mixing of the album was completed, the whole thing was sent off to the legendary engineer/producer Billy Anderson to master (Neurosis, High on Fire, Melvins), the resulting sound confidently captures the devastating nature of the material itself.

Artwork design for the album was handled by the band’s own Allen Lee Scott with layout duties taken care of by N. Shumaker / Northerlightsindustries.com. The vinyl version of the 80-minute epic will be a 2xLP on colored vinyl with heavy, thick gatefold jackets containing spot gloss and a lyrics insert. The CD will come in a thick, recycled stock five inch cardboard gatefold jacket. The album will be released worldwide Sept. 27 via The Mylene Sheath. “Inner and outer conflicts have grown, mental, global, crumbling and too far gone.”

It’s hard to get a handle on Cleveland doom rockers Threefold Law. Embroiled in a curious mysticism, and not exactly forthcoming in the totality of their thematics, the four-piece seem old school in more than just their sound, working to restore some of the mystique to bands that social networking and immediate accessibility have undone. Their latest (and recently-reviewed) release, Revenant, went so far away from today’s lack of emphasis on physical product as to include a printed novella by guitarist/vocalist J. Thorn.

But there’s more to Threefold Law than just reaction against trend and interesting packaging. The music of Revenant, broken up into five tracks named for the classic elements (earth, air, fire, water) with an interlude splitting the middle, follows a surprisingly varied course. Their shifts in sound are subtle, but Thorn and his cohorts — none of whose names are a matter of public record — unfold a gradual growth in complexity so that, by the end of the album, the beginning is far less recognizable.

There’s a lot to ask an outfit like Threefold Law, about why they do what they do and why they do it how they do — or even just who they are — but I figured this would be a good place to start. J. Thorn was more than accommodating, as you can see, and I hope you enjoy the following six dumb questions.

1. Tell me about how you were exposed to the concepts behind Threefold Law? What is your relationship to wicca? Did the band come together around those ideas, or were you playing first and the themes came later?

We relate to many Wiccan themes, such as the Rule of Three. It basically says that whatever you do comes back to you three times over, a variation on the “Golden Rule.” The idea that we’re accountable for our actions, good and bad, is really a universal concept. Wiccans recognize it as a rule of the universe, sort of like gravity.

2. What inspired the story for Revenant? Do you do a lot of fiction writing? How do you feel the story complements the music and vice versa?

A relative of mine passed away last year and we were cleaning out his attic when I came across a dusty copy of Omar Khayyam’s The Rubaiyat. I could tell the book was pretty old and saw that someone scribbled “1904” on the inside cover. I sat on the floor and read it from start to finish. Edward Fitzgerald translated the poem in Victorian England and it has this flowery, epic tone that really drew me in. I immediately began formulating a concept around the piece, which in turn inspired the music. When I brought the idea to the band, they ran with it. At that point, Revenant took on a life of its own. The story and the music are intricately tied together. The vision was to have our fans read the story while listening to the album, from start to finish. It’s a throwback to the days when bands tried hard to create a piece of art instead of a single for iTunes. If you remember reading liner notes while listening to a band’s new record, you’ll appreciate Revenant. We’ve included the entire album and story on our website which is free to listen and read. You can purchase it from our merch page.

In addition to Threefold Law, I write novels. I currently have one novel on Amazon.com in their Kindle store titled The Seventh Seal. I have five more that I’m in the process of formatting for the ebook readers. My writing tends to fall into two general genres. The Seventh Seal and my new novel, Preta’s Realm (coming Fall 2011) are both contemporary horror/suspense stories in the style of Stephen King or Richard Laymon. My other novels are epic fantasy (three of which are a series) that have the same vibe as Revenant.

Like music, I’m a compulsive writer. An addict. After sending dozens of queries to agents with the hopes of having a publisher pick up one of my novels, I abandoned the idea. Agents and publishers want mass appeal. I write what I love to read, and that’s a highly specific target audience and it ain’t soccer moms or beach paperbacks. With the demise of booksellers (Borders just announced it’s closing all stores), I felt it was time to embrace the future and prepare to sell my novels directly to readers in an electronic format. I know who they are and I don’t need a publicist or an agent to find them.

3. Between the CD/book combo and the double-EP collection/USB key, you’re building quite a catalog of special editions. What’s the appeal of that for you? Are you a collector yourself?

We’re really thoughtful about everything we do. The blessing of the mp3 age is that anyone can get music directly to fans. That’s also the curse. There is no question that the music is the priority, and it has to be killer. But there are a lot of bands making killer music. We want to create an experience for our listener, something that will resonate, something that connects. By offering releases that are all “special editions” we’re providing a unique product in an otherwise oversaturated market.

I own over 1,500 CD’s, cassettes, and albums. I’m a collector and purchasing the “special editions” has always been a blast. I remember searching record stores for import versions of my favorite albums, just for that bonus track or different artwork. One of my favorite release mediums was the “box set.” I own the first edition Led Zeppelin box set and the original Live Shit: Binge and Purge released by Metallica in the early ‘90s. Even though it was shitty Black Album-era Metallica, the box set has live performances of early Metallica and tons of cool extras in it.

4. What was behind structuring Revenant with the titles of the four elements? How did that play thematically into the story (acknowledging that the story was also broken into chapters that way), and how closely related were the lyrics of the songs to those elements?

Again, the Rubaiyat gave us a loose structure for Revenant, but we created our unique take on it. There isn’t anything directly connected to the elements in Khayyam’s work, but we felt it lent a signature vibe to each track. “Earth” and “Fire” are heavier, more grounded tunes while “Air” and “Water” have a lighter, more fluid feel. “Interlude” gives the listener context and something very different from everything else we’ve recorded. We care greatly about dynamics. I get fatigued by a recording that is 10 tracks of double-bass drum at 180 bpm. The elements in the story, as chapters, help to push the themes through different written dynamics as well.

5. Any chance you’ll reveal the identities of the rest of the band? Is there a philosophy behind keeping proper names out of it?

No. Yes.

6. What’s next for the band? Any more recordings this year or anything else you want to mention?

We’ve been writing material for our next record, which we’d like to have done by the end of 2011. We have a concept, but we haven’t fully developed it yet. We’re also in the process of scoping out studios in Cleveland. Chances are we’ll track the next record in a commercial studio.

As your readers are probably aware, we won the Soda Shop/Heavy Planet March Bandness contest this past spring. “Earth” is featured on the second Soda Shop Compilation coming out soon. We’ve just struck a deal with a Swedish distributor who is getting our product into over 1,400 record shops in Europe, and we’ve had interest from one of Cleveland’s finest metal bands to collaborate on a project in the near future. This fall we’re considering a regional tour with another killer Cleveland band that could take us through Chicago, Columbus, and Cincinnati. Eventually we’d love to head east through Pennsylvania and into the New Jersey/New York metro area. I used to live in your neck of the woods and know there is an appreciation for heavy music in the Garden State.

Threefold Law is keeping us very busy.

Threefold Law’s website

Threefold Law on Thee Facebooks

Admittedly, it’s kind of cheap for me to post this press release, since I wrote it, but what the hell, it’s Lo-Pan. The fuzzsome foursome are headed out on the road again, this time hitting the Midwest with some killer bands — when, oh when, will Bloodcow put out a new album? — and they’ll be bringing the new vinyl edition of Salvador with them.

To be fair, it did come in on the PR wire. Here goes:

Ohio rockers Lo-Pan have unveiled their latest slew of tour dates in support of their Small Stone Records debut, Salvador. After scores of shows across the country with the likes of Truckfighters, Dixie Witch, Gypsyhawk and Fight Amp, Lo-Pan’s “Let Freedom Ding” tour – allegedly named for the many bells that mysteriously occupy the dashboard of the band’s van – will find the outfit bringing their fuzzed-out soul rock bliss to the Midwest alongside heavy hitters like Chapstick, Bloodcow and Droids Attack.

In addition, Small Stone’s 180-gram vinyl pressing of Salvador is available now in white and red/blue clear swirl. Whatever flavor you choose, it’s delicious, and available now at smallstone.com/store. The band will also have copies with them on the road, and they take credit cards. Seriously.

Lo-Pan‘s “Let Freedom Ding” Tour:
08/17 Iowa City, IA The Mill w/ Snow Demon
08/18 Omaha, NE The Waiting Room w/ Bloodcow
08/19 Denver, CO Tennyson’s Tap w/ Low Gravity, Black Lamb
08/20 Salt Lake City, UT Burt’s Tiki Lounge w/ Muckraker, Dwellers, Top Dead Celebrity
08/23 Fargo, ND The Aquarium
08/24 Minneapolis, MN Triple Rock Social Club w/ Droids Attack
08/25 Lacross, WI JB’s Speakeasy w/ Droids Attack
08/26 Madison, WI Club Inferno w/ Droids Attack
08/27 Chicago, IL Red Line Tap – w/ Heaving Mass, Droids Attack
08/28 Detroit, MI Small’s w/ Chapstick, Knife

Though we drove through Canada to get to Michigan, the plan for the trip back to New Jersey was to make it happen as quickly and as painlessly as possible. That meant jumping on I-75 and meeting up with I-280 in Toledo, Ohio, and from there, picking up I-80 East, which The Patient Mrs. and I would be on for the next however many hours until we could get off 80 literally 10 minutes from home. Toledo to home on one road. Not an exciting drive, by any stretch of the imagination, but easy enough to navigate.

And wouldn’t you know that in Toledo there resides Ramalama Records, from whose logo alone I knew was someplace I wanted to shop? As The Patient Mrs. and I paid for our breakfast at the newly-remolded Original House of Pancakes and the girl behind the counter asked us what we were doing in town, she recommended Culture Clash, another shop that I probably would have wanted to stop at had the wait at said pancakery been the 20-25 minutes we were quoted and not the 45-50 it was. Nonetheless, arrival back in the valley would just have to wait, because Ramalama wouldn’t.

About a minute after I walked in the shop, the dude working there put on YOB‘s The Great Cessation, and I knew that in the whole stretch of Toledo, Ohio — which, like a lot of Midwestern cities, reminded me viscerally of Rt. 46 in Parsippany, NJ — I was in the right place. The store’s used metal section was more than impressive. There weren’t any discs in it, but the fact alone that they had a spot for Trouble was massively encouraging, and the general vibe was that the place was well organized and reasonably priced. A store like that is always a welcome find, even if I don’t end up buying anything.

That, however, would not be the case at Ramalama. I picked up a slew of goodies from the aforementioned used section, up to and including a copy of the self-titled Sod Hauler EP, which was a surprise, since I wouldn’t necessarily expect to find a Seattle local band’s disc at a store more than halfway across the country. Noosebomb‘s Brain Food for the Braindead, released on Shifty Records, from Akron, made more sense. I grabbed both, as well as the Southern Lord reissue of Burning Witch‘s Crippled Lucifer, just for the hell of it.

I made my way through the alphabet in reverse and was surprised to find both Enslaved and Opeth discs. I didn’t buy them, because I didn’t need to, but usually people who purchase those records do so with the intent of keeping them. It was that kind of store; had me thinking at several intervals, “Who gave this up?” The 2000 Koch reissue of Judas Priest‘s Sad Wings of Destiny sounds poorly remastered, but the original issue Screaming for Vengeance is just right. And in light of their being a band I always kind of overlooked and the swirling rumors of a reunion at next year’s Maryland Deathfest, I snatched the Hydra Head reissue of Cavity‘s Supercollider. I own the original, but figured it was a chance to revisit the record, and seriously, how often do you see a used Cavity CD sitting around?

At that point, I could have wrapped it up and let it stand at that, but honestly, after finding that much good shit, I wanted to support the store, and so I picked up new (unused) copies of The Local Fuzz by The Atomic Bitchwax and the 2011 Heavy Rocks by Boris. I probably could have gotten those discs somewhere else, or online, but for a brick and mortar independent store to be featuring both in its “recent releases” section, and to be playing YOB, and to have the Cavity, the Sod Hauler, the Burning Witch — well, at that point, here, please take more of my money. Just keep doing what you’re doing.

I’d brought more than a handful of discs along for the rides to Detroit and back, but I was more than glad for the additions to the playlist. Cavity tested The Patient Mrs.‘ titular virtue, but Boris was most welcome alongside the Blue Cheer, Black Sabbath, Buffalo and Dio albums that — along with the Cleveland Indians losing to the Chicago White Sox — provided accompaniment for our long ride home.

With the widespread availability and relative affordability of recording software, it’s pretty easy for a band to make a decent-sounding record these days. You hear a lot of albums that sound clear, but ultimately flat; albums that give little more than a general sense of what the personality of a band might be. It’s all the more encouraging, then, when a band like Cincinnati, Ohio, trio (they may have been a foursome at the time) Valley of the Sun present a collection of tracks like their five-song The Sayings of the Seers EP. Without a label backing them, the rockers aligned themselves with producer John Naclerio, who’s worked on albums for the likes of Bayside and My Chemical Romance – say what you want about those bands, despite being wretched, they’re professionally produced – and put The Sayings of the Seers to press in a limited vinyl edition of 250. Then, to support, they booked a run of American dates alongside Truckfighters, pairing themselves with one of the most potent heavy rock acts today. You have to really believe in what you’re doing to partner with a band like that, and with the professional presentation of The Sayings of the Seers, it’s clear Valley of the Sun stand behind what they do. In short, they’re going for it.

That’s respectable in itself, but what’s even more noteworthy are the songs they’re going for it with. Valley of the Sun’s 2010 EP, aptly-titled Two Thousand Ten, had clarity of sound and formidable stoner rock fuzz – more of the latter even than does The Sayings of the Seers – but what “Hearts Aflame,” “Deep Light Burns,” “Mariner’s Tale,” “Aquarius” and “Riding the Dunes” lack in genre tropes, they make up for in excellence of songwriting and execution. Guitarist/vocalist Ryan Ferrier leads the charge on “Hearts Aflame” with a John Garcia-esque vocal dexterity, and though that track is more Hermano than Kyuss in how modern it sounds, there’s no question that Valley of the Sun are placing themselves at the forefront of the new generation of American heavy rock. And in the case of “Hearts Aflame,” the distinction between heavy and stoner rocks feels like it needs to be highlighted, because it’s definitely the former over the latter. Where fellow Ohioans Lo-Pan have taken up the fuzz mantle and injected the sound with a soulful edge, Valley of the Sun, take the groove and are less reliant on tonal weight than catchy hooks and riffy drive.

It seems like a fine line, and I suppose it is, but on a cut like the stripped-down barn-burner “Deep Light Burns,” it’s virtually a world of difference. Valley of the Sun might share their countrymen’s penchant for upbeat, energetic songwriting, but they take it in a different direction altogether. With the straightforward punch of bassist Ryan McAllister and drummer Aaron Boyer propelling the song, Ferrier offers madman riffs and another Garcia-inspired inflection (the most Kyussian moment of The Sayings of the Seers is yet to come) vocal, but the appeal of the song is more the overall movement of it than any single performance within. It allows Valley of the Sun to up the momentum from “Hearts Aflame,” so that by the time “Mariner’s Tale” kicks in – only about nine minutes into the EP – you’re already locked into it.

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When last heard from, Cleveland, Ohio, double-guitar four-piece Threefold Law released their EP compilation, MMX, on CD and USB key (review here), effectively bridging the gap between the desire for physical media and the movement forward into the digital era. MMX, for all its innovation, was roughly produced in the manner of digital recordings – everything clear, but flatly mixed – and the same could be said of the outfit’s follow-up effort, Revenant. Like MMX, Revenant is self-released, and also like its predecessor, it is available either on disc or USB. Where the two find their major difference is that the special edition of Revenant also includes a professionally-bound short story by Threefold Law frontman J. Thorn – essentially a pocket-sized book with a glossy cover – as well as the CD version of the five-track Revenant release.

The story is set in ancient Persia and tells the story of an unnamed traveler (appropriate enough, since Thorn is the only one whose name the band makes public) dying of thirst who, after smoking hashish, meets the ghost of a sultan and discusses the afterlife he’s soon to see. Thorn’s writing is rife with description and epically-toned language – on page 17 we get, “The man’s sunburnt face spread into a reluctant smile,” and on 30, the sultan declares, “You will now hear of my journey and of the circumstances that brought us together.” It’s a tone fitting of the tale, but as the dialogue of gods and kings wears on, it feels weighted by the extraneous language. Still, the most powerful moment in the story is reserved for the ending, and as the written piece is broken, like the Revenant disc proper, into sections surrounding the four classicist elements – “Earth,” “Air,” “Fire” and “Water” (on the album, an interlude splits the middle between “Air” and “Fire”) – it only speaks further to the band’s highly conceptual nature. Threefold Law, it seems, don’t do anything without a big idea behind it.

That’s admirable enough in itself, but where Revenant most succeeds is in translating those ideas into the music of the five audio tracks. For the most part, it’s a similar blend of influences as heard on MMX – the classic doom of Trouble and Black Sabbath filtered through a modern dual-guitar approach – but Threefold Law also inject Eastern influences into Revenant to match their stated theme. “Interlude” introduces raga percussion and Eastern scales, but even before that, “Air” has an open feel to its riffing, and Thorn offers a gentler touch on his vocals than on the gruff, chugging opener “Earth,” reminding a bit of a more doomed-sounding Against Nature in the process. “Earth” establishes the course of Revenant nicely, reaching well over eight minutes with an extended intro and solo work that hints at the scope of the Persian concept. There are several solos on “Earth,” and room for them in the song’s runtime, but the variance in atmosphere between “Earth” and the more spacious “Air” is remarkable. Listening to Revenant, it sounds like Thorn and Threefold Law are really trying to embody the titular elements while also telling the story.

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