They’ve made a beeline for the rock, have Michigan’s Mean Mother. The Detroit/Grand Rapids four-piece – who formed in 2003 as a side-project of more metallic acts like Ganon and Today I Wait – make their full-length debut (I think; there seems to be one release before it, but info is scarce) in the form of Rock ‘n’ Roll Shakedown (Saw Her Ghost Records), an album the name of which pretty much tells you everything you need to know about it. The first lines of the opening title cut read as follows: “Make a fist for rock ‘n’ roll/Yeah/Come on/Right now,” and from right there, it only gets more apparent that Mean Mother have no interest in poetry, no interest in brooding melancholy, no interest in pompous artistic posing. They’re here to drink, riff and groove, and Rock ‘n’ Roll Shakedown only asks that you come along for the catchy 42-minute joyride.

It’s the kind of heavy rock one expects to come more from Texas than Michigan – acts like Blood of the Sun and SuperHeavyGoatAss springing to mind as comparison points; or maybe even the new school of Small Stone rockers like Backwoods Payback and Lo-Pan (neither of whom is Texan) – but no question the double-guitar foursome have their papers in order when the issue is heavy rock influences. From Clutch to Deep Purple to the obvious Sabbath and Motörhead cues, they only want to rock, and the utter lack of pretense of anything else is what makes Rock ‘n’ Roll Shakedown work. A track like “Easy Livin’” makes its bones on ‘70s riffing and the white-guy-soulful delivery of guitarist Roxy Vega as backed by bassist Clint Debone, and there’s a million directions one could go in saying, “I’ve heard this before” in citing bands, but Mean Mother do what they do well and write a solid heavy rock song. Vega and fellow guitarist Cobra O’Kelly offer righteous riff-grooves and soloing, and Debone and drummer Bronco Johnson consistently lay down warm foundational rhythms. There’s a reason it’s become the heavy rock formula over the last 40 years, and the reason is it sounds cool.

Read more »

Despite the differences in locale, both Empires and Hellas Mounds share more in common than one might think. Both young bands, the former from Minneapolis and the latter from Phoenix, play a definitively American style of post-metal, taking elements from the heavier works of Isis and adding a sense of hardcore immediacy that comes across in the intensity of the material. With two songs from Empires and one from Hellas Mounds, this unnamed split CD (released last year via Saw Her Ghost Records) hits the marks for post-metal in its current developmental stage. There are pieces culled from outside genres, heavy/ambient switches, and rising and falling tension throughout.

Empires start their segment of the split with “Unease from up North.” If it sounds like a black metal parody track, it might be, but since three out of the four players in Empires are also involved with Minneapolis black metal outfit Manetheren, the execution of the track comes off less tongue-in-cheek than it otherwise might. At 6:55, it is the shortest song on the split, and puts its blackened influence to work offsetting post-metal rhythms in a manner similar to Prosthetic Records’ Withered, if rawer. Their 10:16 “Perpetual Downpour” is less of a genre bender, but boasts an insistent rhythm line and enough spacey guitar work to make it an interesting listen.

Read more »

The issue was that I’d been standing in Vintage Vinyl for nearly an hour already and wasn’t any closer to finding a single thing I wanted to buy. Okay, that’s not exactly true, but there was nothing I was willing to shell out for at the new or used prices. I’d been all through the used bins, back and forth through the alphabet of the new stuff too, and nothing.

I could have just left. That probably would have been the reasonable course of action. But I’m not a reasonable man, and so — as I stared at the racks one more time and the archetypal cute record store girl behind the counter in the SunnO))) hoodie and Mastodon t-shirt with the dyed red hair began, increasingly, to give me funny looks because there weren’t that many other people in the store and I was the guy who’d been pacing around for almost 60 minutes — I finally just decided to grab something and go. That something was Across Tundras‘ 2008 full-length, Western Sky Ride.

It was right there, I was standing in front of the ‘A’ section, and I just wanted to get out of there. I panicked. And because I remembered liking the first Across Tundras record, 2006′s Dark Songs of the Prarie, well enough, I figured I’d be alright.

Wrong-o.

Out in the parking lot, I disrobed the disc of its shrinkwrap and popped it in, taking out the Them Crooked Vultures CD which I’d been listening to for the umpteenth time. The first song up was “Carrion Crow.” I don’t know what I expected of it — maybe something more atmospheric, ? la Earth — but what I got was sloppy post-metal that sounded like it was recorded in a basement (and not in a good way) and immediate buyer’s remorse. And the only good riff in the song? They fucking WHISTLED over it. Hey man, I’m all for experimentation, more than most, but throw me a bone.

I didn’t make it all the way through “Thunderclap Stomp” before just skipping to the last track, “Gallow’s Pole” to see if it was a Zeppelin cover. Once I ascertained it wasn’t, out came Western Sky Ride. Maybe permanently. There goes $14 I’ll never see again. Too much hip, not enough good.