Some diligent internet research on Dwellers (and by that I mean looking up their ReverbNation and Bandcamp pages) will result in a couple tracks already available from their Good Morning Harakiri debut full-length. The album is also already available on iTunes for those inclined to download it there, and will be pressed to CD by Small Stone at the end of January.

It hasn’t yet been a full week since I reviewed Good Morning Harakiri, so I’ll spare the long-winded descriptions of how the album as a whole functions and just say that the pairing of former Iota guitarist/vocalist Joey Toscano with the rhythm section of bassist Dave Jones and drummer Zach Hatsis — both of post-metal unit  SubRosa — results in a unique mixture of riff-driven heaviness and thickened jam explorations. While this elements aren’t necessarily uncommon, Dwellers‘ blend of space and blues winds up being almost entirely their own.

Case in point, “Vultures” is the longest track on Good Morning Harakiri at just over 10 minutes. It’s got a bluesy semi-Southern riff and Toscano‘s vocals are graveled as they deliver the initial verses, but the song soon opens up to an expansive heavy jam with a waltzing progression that feels born as much from willful exploration as from its classic rock soloing.

Small Stone was kind enough to let me host “Vultures” for your streaming pleasure, and you’ll find it on the player below. Hope you enjoy:

Dwellers‘ Good Morning Harakiri is available now on iTunes through Small Stone Records, and is set for CD release at the end of January. The band will be playing Burt’s Tiki Club in their native Salt Lake City, Utah on Jan. 21 with YOB and Old Timer, and will also take part in Small Stone‘s annual showcase at SXSW in Austin, Texas, on March 16. More info on that is here, and you can check out Dwellers on Thee Facebooks here.

Also written as “seppuku,” the traditional Japanese practice of harakiri is a form of samurai ritual suicide wherein one plunges a short blade into one’s own belly and slices the blade from left to right. A second person stands behind with a sword and, at a previously-agreed-upon time after the person has disemboweled himself, strikes a decapitating blow. How the notion came to be incorporated with the debut full-length from Salt Lake City, Utah, heavy trio Dwellers, I don’t know, but if there’s some tie in with the theme of “spilling one’s guts,” I’d believe it. Good Morning Harakiri (Small Stone) rocks heavy and naturally for its vinyl-ready 41-minute duration, and is not without its sense of ritual. The band, which unites guitarist/vocalist Joey Toscano of Iota with the same rhythm section that propelled SubRosa’s excellent 2011 offering, No Help for the Mighty Ones – that being bassist Dave Jones and drummer Zach Hatsis – is surprisingly assured in its approach for Good Morning Harakiri being the first album, and the six tracks play out with an organic, blues-based steadiness offset by genre-straddling excursions into psychedelia and doom.

In that way, Good Morning Harakiri is a fitting follow-up to Iota’s excellent 2008 Small Stone debut and swansong, Tales, which melded heavy and space rock together seamlessly and added psychedelic flourish even in Toscano’s vocals, which were melodic echoes from the deep reaches of the Andy Patterson mix (the label’s go-to knob-twiddler, Benny Grotto, also got a word in that regard). Patterson, who also drummed in Iota, handled production for Dwellers (he also did the SubRosa), and dials back that echo somewhat on Toscano’s singing, bringing him forward more early in the album so that, aside from closer “Old Honey,” the singing sounds more confident. And as much as one can read Good Morning Harakiri as an extension of some of Iota’s ideas – Toscano presumably being at the fore creatively in both bands adds to the validity of that read – there’s no discounting the fluidity and the depth of Jones’ and Hatsis’ contributions. Not only do they hold down the extended side A and B closers “Vultures” (10:12) and the aforementioned “Old Honey” (9:53) but they do so with range and personality befitting players well accustomed to working with each other. Also, rather than let Toscano range, so that it’s melody on one side and rhythm on another, with Dwellers, it’s the guitar, bass and drums working together as a solid unit, which is the power trio ideal, so that although every cut on Good Morning Harakiri begins with guitar, the album never strays too far in its indulgences.

Rather, it keeps somewhat to the sort of duality Iota showed in songwriting on Tales, balancing shorter, more straightforward material against longer pieces. With the exception again of “Old Honey,” the songs on Good Morning Harakiri are less space-oriented (and certainly less space-thematic), and though opener “Secret Revival” sets a bruising course after its crisply-strummed intro, the overall affect is more like an expansion on Facelift-era Alice in Chains, particularly given the tone of Toscano’s vocals. Hatsis’ kick is prominent but not dominating, and the already-considerable fuzz in Toscano’s guitar is given low-end boost by Jones on bass, which is smoothly toned and rich. Still, the song is notable in comparison to “New Mantis,” which opened Tales, for the intensity it doesn’t have. Where that song and “We are the Yithians” seemed almost in a rush get through themselves, both “Secret Revival” and “Black Bird,” which follows, replace that intensity with a firm grasp on a bluesy approach, and in the case of the latter, dead-on grooving stomp to match a semi-Southern riff. Not to belabor the point, but Good Morning Harakiri’s clear LP-minded presentation (that is, the two distinct sides that come through even on a CD or digital listen) marks another departure from Iota’s method, which bunched its longer songs together in a linear flow. Both work, but Dwellers shows more diversity in songwriting, so that while “Black Bird” veers into psychedelic guitar layering in its second half, “Vultures” is out of place neither with that nor the verses and chorus preceding, despite being longer and providing more room to jam.

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Highly-stringed Salt Lake City five-piece SubRosa released their Strega full-length debut in 2008 on I Hate Records. Making the jump to Profound Lore for the 2011 follow-up, the band, which includes two violinists, guitar, bass and drums, now unveils No Help for the Mighty Ones, a varied 59 minutes of melancholic doom that, despite its inherent drama and “extra” instrumentation (I put “extra” in quotes there because the violins don’t actually feel extraneous or tacked onto the surrounding music), remains definitively American. No Help for the Mighty Ones was recorded by Andy Patterson (Iota, etc.), and though the structures are mostly open, SubRosa culls together a couple genuinely memorable moments throughout the eight tracks, the vocals of guitarist Rebecca Vernon having a haunting quality, backed by both violinists Kim Pack and Sarah Pendleton, and prove capable of more than the kind of post-metal sub-melodic monotony so many experimental outfits seem willing to settle for.

Drummer Zach Hatsis starts off album opener “Borrowed Time, Borrowed Eyes” with a war stomp and is soon joined by Vernon’s guitar. The song, which according to the liner notes is based lyrically on Cormac McCarthy’s novel 2006 The Road, is among the shorter of No Help for the Mighty Ones’ tracks at 5:51 (only “Whippoorwill” and “House Carpenter” are shorter), but still serves as a decent introduction to the wide breadth of the album. Aside from its “Hey, we read books” appeal, the rich tonality and textured feel of its ending movement is the first show of SubRosa’s melodic prowess. As the track leads directly into the brown-note bass intro of “Beneath the Crown,” handled by Dave Jones, it’s readily apparent SubRosa are casting a wide sonic net. It’s not so much a gradual build as a lull into soon-smashed security, but the band pulls it off well anyhow, Hatsis driving the move into faster revelations about three minutes in capped by frantic violin work and combined clean singing and screams. Magnus “Devo” Andersson, who also mixed Strega, does an excellent job balancing clarity among the instrumentation (not easy with some of the effects that come up) and the creation of an overall aural wash. The linear path “Beneath the Crown” follows is well worth following.

Structure, which has been alluded to already, is more of an issue when it comes to the track order itself than it is within the individual songs. No Help for the Mighty Ones peaks early with its most memorable and hardest-hitting cut, the 11:44 “Stonecarver,” which immediately follows “Beneath the Crown.” The five-piece do a good job using noise to bridge the gaps between songs, but Subrosa’s most effective build just arrives too soon, the track starting off with eerie half-whispered foreign-language spoken word over ringing out guitar and gradually moving from a darkened folk feel to a driving rhythm (if every album has to have its “Stones From the Sky” moment, this is it for SubRosa), the delivery of the title line, and an apex that’s no less exciting for how outwardly engaging it is. I’m not saying it needed to be the last track on No Help for the Mighty Ones, but even “The Inheritance,” which is probably better at least as far as the vocal melody and guitar line goes, is a comedown in terms of energy, and I find in listening I’m more inclined to long for what just passed than focus on what’s still coming.

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They’re not signed, they don’t have a release ready yet, I don’t even know if they’ve played any shows, but Salt Lake City fuzz duo Dwellers come with built in interest due to guitarist/vocalist Joey Toscano‘s presence in the criminally under-noticed Iota and drummer Zach Hatsis‘ in I Hate Records doomers Subrosa. Does that officially make Dwellers a side-project? Probably.

In any case, there are two tracks over at their MySpace that are easily worth the time (hardly any at all) and expense (absolutely none at all) it takes to check them out. Go forth and groove.

Though they hail from Salt Lake City, Utah, which is an area more known for its religious affiliation than its forward-looking art scene, it’s hard to deny the thinky thinky sludge of duo Eagle Twin‘s avant approach to extending the parameters of what doom is and what it means to the listening audience. With improvisational techniques, creative drumming from Tyler Smith and the throat-singing vocals of guitarist Gentry Densley, who caught the underground’s attention by means of his collaboration with SunnO))) and Southern Lord Recordings‘ Greg Anderson, Ascend, in 2008, Eagle Twin‘s debut LP, The Unkindness of Crows relies just as much on its weighty spiritual concept as it does the aural power if its riffs. As a first offering from the band, which has been together for several years now, it is near-terrifying in the accomplishments it portends.

That could well be because neither Densley nor Smith is exactly a rookie when it comes to creative heavy music. As the former enlightens in the interview following, even the years since the dissolution of his initial principle outlet, Iceburn, have been productive, and likewise, Smith has seen kicking around SLC in and out of bands for the better part of a decade and then some. That the two came together for Eagle Twin was, as Densley explains, a fortunate development of circumstance.

The guitarist/vocalist, whose band embarks this month on a two-week US tour with SunnO))), was kind enough to give some of his time for the interview after the jump. Please enjoy.

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