Welsh four-piece Sigiriya garner immediate interest based solely on their pedigree — all four members of the band used to be in Acrimony — but on their debut album, Return to Earth (released Sept. 1 on The Church Within), it’s the songs themselves that hold the attention. Likewise, one listen through Return to Earth, and it’s plain to see why the members of Sigiriya, when they were getting this project together, decided against just making it a 4/5 Acrimony reunion: Tumuli Shroomaroom this ain’t.

Rather, Sigiriya takes the riffy center that was always under the resin-caked grooves of Acrimony and brings it to the forefront. Songs like “Robot Funeral” and “Tobacco Sunrise” offer more straightforward heavy rock, and though Return to Earth gets even heavier at times (“Dark Fires” borders on metal), the album is precisely as Sigiriya wanted it to be in that it modernizes the approach of the members’ prior band without sacrificing what made them want to get back together in the first place.

Guitarist Stuart O’Hara, drummer Darren Ivey, bassist Paul “Mead” Bidmead and vocalist Dorian Walters took the moniker Sigiriya from a sacred mountain in Sri Lanka, and though that alone might lead one to think their songs would be spiritual explorations rife with sitar and vague interpretations of ancient mysticism, Return to Earth isn’t that at all. True to its name, the album keeps its head down, it’s amps up, and wants much more to kick your ass than to trip you out. Either way, it’s a killer ride. Full review is here.

In the discussion that follows, Ivey talks about what made Sigiriya come together some eight years after Acrimony‘s last studio release (a split with Japenese masters of mayhem, Church of Misery), why they did so without the involvement of former Acrimony second guitarist Lee Davies, now of the more commercially-minded rock outfit Lifer, how they got hooked up with The Church Within, their plans following the release of Return to Earth, and much more. As theirs is one of the more impressive debuts I’ve heard in 2011, I’m thrilled to be able to bring you this interview.

Please find enclosed the complete email Q&A with Darren Ivey of Sigiriya, and please enjoy.

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The much-missed British stoner rock outfit Acrimony released their last studio full-length in 1996’s Tumuli Shroomaroom. Splits followed with Iron Rainbow and Church of Misery, and the Leaf Hound Records compilation Bong on – Live Long! followed in 2007, but the band effectively broke up in 2002, so the return of four out of the original five Acrimony members in the new band Sigiriya is welcome news for any worshiper of the riff, whether they were a fan of Acrimony or not. Only guitarist Lee Davies is missing from Sigiriya’s debut, Return to Earth, (released via The Church Within Records), but the remaining four-piece is no less cohesive for the lack of a second guitar. Because it’s essentially the same band, they’ll inevitably be compared to Acrimony, and on that level, Sigiriya boast a crunchier sound, less geared toward psychedelia or excursions in the stoner caravan of yore. Stuart O’Hara (who was also in Iron Monkey) leads the way with thickened riffs, and vocalist Dorian Walters rides the formidable grooves expertly on Return to Earth’s seven tracks, while bassist Paul “Mead” Bidmead and drummer Darren Ivey inject a surprisingly metallic feel to “Dark Fires” and “Robot Funeral,” marking a serious change in ethic from what one might have expected in an Acrimony offshoot.

But then, it has been nine years, and one expects that if the intent of O’Hara, Walters, Bidmead and Ivey had been to simply recapture Acrimony’s sound, they’d have just reunited under that name, rather than start a completely new band. Sigiriya is clearly meant to be its own entity, and it winds up being just that. Familiar elements show up, but tracks like “Whiskey Song” or the brazenly catchy opener “The Mountain Goat” have an appeal surprisingly distinct from anything Acrimony ever did. Walters’ voice has shifted in feel since back when, though he still has a gruff delivery, and O’Hara’s guitar is more self-assured, less uncertain in its tone. Where in listening to Acrimony’s debut, Hymns to the Stone (1994), one gets the sense that it’s a rock record with metal production, and is a little confused on that level (as one might expect since “stoner rock” was just getting underway as a genre) Return to Earth knows precisely where it wants to be at all times, and the band are comfortable in toying with expectation and adding flourishes to their material to make it distinct. The sound of the album is full and loud and between O’Hara’s guitar and Bidmead’s bass, the classic groove of “Robot Funeral” seems to build with each cycle through the start-stop verse riff, giving Walters plenty of room to complement with his vocals, and I hear very little in these songs that should disagree with stoner metallers at all. As heavy as it is, there’s no sacrifice of melody, as the raucous “Hurricaine” (sic) proves, and though Sigiriya are decidedly modern in their approach, their pedigree sets them up to be neither derivative nor redundant. To be blunt about it (pun totally Nintendo), Return to Earth kicks a fair amount of ass.

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Before I could finish this month’s podcast, there were a couple goodies I want to pick up physical copies of for track-ripping, and as I was on my way to the Brighton Bar last Saturday anyhow for that Clamfight show, I figured I’d stop in at Vintage Vinyl and sample their earthly wares. It’s rarely a decision I regret.

I had made a list of what I wanted to pick up — and, of course, forgotten it — so I grabbed what I could remember and stumbled upon a record called Slowly We Rock by Spancer. It’s not often I find something out of the blue like that. Not that I hear everything that comes out (from what I’m told the latest Rose Kemp album is quite good and I know literally nothing about it), but more often than not when I’m record shopping, I at least have some idea of what I’m looking at. But from the meditative cover, the album name, the fact that it was released on The Church Within and the three listed tracks on the back of the jewel case all timestamped at over 10 minutes, I made an educated guess that this was something I needed to hear.

Turns out I wasn’t wrong. Slowly We Rock is the second full-length by Spancer, a double-bass/single-guitar five-piece who hail from Germany and got together in 1999. The band’s prior album was 2001′s self-released Countdown to Victory, which followed a 2000 demo, and they also put out a split with countrymen sludgers Versus the Stillborn-Minded in 2005. To date, Slowly We Rock is all I’ve heard from them, and it’s a righteous blend of stoner heaviness, doomed low end, throaty shouts and the occasional excursion into more metallic territory.

The latter comes up a bit on middle cut “Throne of Wisdom” — the only one of the three tracks under 15 minutes long — and it didn’t occur to me until I heard the deathly growls on closer “Soulcadger” that the title Slowly We Rock could be a reference to the first Obituary album, 1989′s Slowly We Rot. I don’t know if that’s actually the case, but it’s a connection I enjoyed making listening to the slothful Church of Misery feel to the track, and it occurred to me that I can’t name a band who ever really took death metal low growls and paired it with purely stonerfied riffs. If you know of someone who did it and did it well, let me know. I’d be interested to hear it, since it’s something Spancer touch on late into Slowly We Rock (they’re in the background and contributed by producer Meiserati), but by no means the crux of their arsenal.

It was a lucky buy, all told. The Church Within usually puts out good stuff, and though this is one of the label’s earlier releases (catalog number CW003), it could just as easily have gone the other way. Spancer reportedly recorded a new album last year called Greater Than the Sun that The Church Within is set to put out sooner or later, and now that I have some idea of what I’m getting with it — barring any vast changes the intervening four years may have made in their sound — I look forward to what Spancer will do next. Heavy and stoned, for the converted.

If you’ve been around stoner rock for 35 seconds or more, chances are you’ve encountered at least one band that made you say, “Damn, this sounds just like Black Sabbath.” Assuming you weren’t actually listening to Black Sabbath when you said it, it could have been just about anyone. In one way or another, every band in the genre is indebted to the Birmingham gods, whether they like it or not. San Franciscan four-piece Orchid like it. They like it plenty.

Orchid’s debut EP, the 16-minute Through the Devil’s Doorway (out via Germany’s The Church Within Records) is an exercise in praise of all things Sabbath. Bassist Nickel is Geezer, guitarist Mark Thomas Baker is Tony Iommi, drummer Carter Kennedy is no Bill Ward, but no one is, and vocalist Theo Mindell is cast in the Ozzy Osbourne role, which he handles ably (he is also a tattoo artist and in charge of the band’s formidable graphics). The four songs that make up the release bring Sabo worship to new heights most bands wouldn’t dare to reach even if they could; each one having a companion in the Ozzy era catalog.

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Veterans of the Doom Shall Rise festival and named for the plates shifting continents beneath the surface of the earth, Dutch doomers Tekhton come on broadcasting their heaviness before the music is even played. On their Doom Dealer/The Church Within debut, Summon the Core, the five-piece roots into a mineshaft under Sleep’s Holy Mountain and emerges covered in the sooty rhythms of bassist Jurgen and drummer Marcore, raw riffs from Dirk and Ralph and the throaty, young-Cisernosian vocals of Bert-Ren? (last names need not apply). Like The Deep Blue, this is pure Heavy, “Dragonaut”-worship, that unlike a lot of followers, actually manages to capture the oft-forgotten spontaneous aesthetic that was a big part of what made Sleep so influential in the first place.

Soft, acoustic tones permeate the cryptically titled centerpiece track “031045″ (which some quick Wikipedia research reveals is the day America firebombed Tokyo during WWII, using the US month/day/year — if they’re going with the European day/month/year, it’s the start of the Tigers/Cubs World Series), but that respite and some other atmospheric movements like that ending side B cut “There be Giants” aside, Summon the Core is bent on weathering monuments to dust and forging in their place a landscape pockmarked with huge three-toed footprints. Boldly opening with the longest tracks, “Oxen of the Sun,” Tekhton set out a stoner metal challenge: dare you to make it through this. A test of their audience. Very doom.

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