Kind of hard to believe, but an Obelisk search for Roachpowder brings up nothing. This means either I’ve mentioned them before and all my back posts are deleted (and if that’s the case, I don’t want to know), or this post is the first time the Stockholm band have been discussed on the site. They were pretty killer. End of discussion.

Stay tuned next week as we’ll wrap the month of July. I have exciting news regarding both my life situation and The Maple Forum, so look for that to come before next Friday, as well as reviews from Horseback, Black Sleep of Kali and several others. Next week is my last in Vermont, and The Patient Mrs. and I are headed to Burlington over the weekend, so I hope to come back with some Buried Treasure-type goodies to report on.

Good fun all around. I hope you enjoy the Roachpowder track above and I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Cheers.

In light of the badassery of Ufomammut‘s subsequent releases — 2005′s Lucifer Songs, 2008′s Idolum and this year’s excellent Eve — the band’s second album, Snailking, is a record whose legend has grown much in the six years since its 2004 release. While the Italian drone metallers made their debut in 2000 with Godlike Snake, more and more, Snailking has become the measure by which fans judge each new album.

The band did a vinyl reissue last year through their own Supernatural Cat label, but the CD has been out of print in the US since The Music Cartel, which handled the original release, went under in 2005. Amazon regularly has copies for over $100, which is unreasonable (even half that is ridiculous), and mostly on eBay it’s just the vinyl being sold and resold. Fine.

I first encountered the album when it came out and was sent a CDR with a photocopied cover as a promo that I still have today for use on the college radio show I was hosting at the time. I never bought it before it was too late, until recently I came a chance to do so in a forum listing on StonerRock.com and decided to make an offer. Sure enough, for $25, I finally got a full copy of Snailking.

Not only do I feel good about the price — which I think is a rational amount of money to pay for an album that’s legitimately out of print and rare — but it’s given me a chance to go back and actually enjoy the record instead of just frustratedly staring at the CDR’s jewel case, mad at myself for not having bought the real thing when I could have. If you’ve never heard Ufomammut‘s Snailking and collect vinyl, the reissue is probably the way to go, but given my disposition otherwise, I was glad to have stumbled upon the opportunity the way I did. Sometimes you have to take what you can get.