Whatever else happens this week, at the end of it, we’ll all come out winners, because New York‘s The Brought Low have posted two new songs on their MySpace page. Says guitarist/vocalist/all around good dude Ben Smith on the StonerRock.com message board:

Hey all,
I just posted two new pre-production demos for Brought Low album number three on our MySpace page. We cut these completely live in our practice space so the sound quality is a little wanting but we thought the performances and songs were good enough to share so hopefully these will tide you over until the end of the year when the new record comes out.

The songs are “Mattie Groves” and “Time Will Come.” Any resemblance to any other similarly-titled songs is entirely intentional yet well within applicable copyright laws and statutes. And yes, we like Australian punk rock, a lot.

Anyhow enjoy.

Enjoy indeed. And when you’re done with the new ones, remind yourself of how much ass 2006’s Right on Time kicked by listening to the other songs on there. The only downer is we’ll have to wait till the end of the year for the new record, but if these two are any indication, it’s going to be worth it. Kick ass.

The following good news just came in over the PR wire, so I thought I’d pass it along. If you haven’t yet bought Dark Castle‘s Flight of Pegasus EP, I highly suggest you do so over at the band’s MySpace page. Each one comes in creative hand-made packaging and contains some killer Crowbar-on-acid riffs, plus the duo has been road-dogging since long before At a Loss came along. Review and interview forthcoming, but in the meantime:

Saint Augustine, Florida‘s Dark Castle will release its full-length debut, Spirited Migration, on May 26 via At a Loss Recordings. Recorded by Phillip Cope and mastered by Scott Hull (Kylesa, Baroness etc.), the CD continues the metallic doom psych journey the band’s Flight of Pegasus EP began. Guttural howls and towering volume are broken up with post-rock interludes. Exotic scales and haunting rhythms pull the listener further into Dark Castle‘s unique atmospheres.

Spirited Migration track listing:

01. Awake In Sleep (6:51)
02. Into The Past (5:35)
03. Spirited Migration (1:46)
04. Growing Slow (4:31)
05. Weather The Storm (3:26)
06. Flight Beyond (4:14)
07. Grasping The Awe (4:12)
08. A Depth Returns (6:33)

Nearly everything about The Atlas Moth screams new school doom, from their Chicago origins to their triply-guitared lineup (which is excessive until you consider how often the third guitar is used more as a noisemaker than an instrument and how often recordings feature multiple tracks anyway) to their silhouetted promo photos to their oceanic references to their screams to their pace. They couldn’t be more Windy City if they took up residence at Sanford Parker‘s Volume Studio and started serving deep-dish pizza to the tens of thousands of bands who seem to record there every week.

You could easily call it a wall of sound The Atlas Moth create with their debut EP, Pray for Tides (Witch Trial Records). They go from the tasteful lead that opens “Hope for Atlantis” immediately into visceral screaming and riff out underneath tapped lines and crashing mid-paced drums. The tempo stays up for the most part — they never really get slow, which I take as a demonstration of their age, but in the new school of doom speed doesn’t seem to matter so long as the atmosphere is crushing, which it undeniably is on these five tracks.

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Because it’s absolutely gorgeous out in the valley despite some clouds rolling in, I’m feeling like summer time and summer time means Blue Cheer. As such, here’s a video of the original stoner rock band, live from Virginia Beach, VA on the local show Up all Night, doing “Rollin’ Dem Bones” from 2007’s What Doesn’t Kill You — their first album since 1991. Classic stoner pace. If you’d like to check out the whole show, all you need to do is make a wish and click these words. Enjoy and have a great weekend.

Admittedly, for the first half-minute of opener “Big Sun,” I thought Hebosagil might be clones of fellow Finns, Swallow the Sun, but once? the song got going with Tatu Junno‘s abrasive vocals and Colossal (Kaos Kontrol) began to unfold, the music showed itself to be more in line with the likes of Church of Misery, Greenmachine or a more fully-toned Eyehategod. Comprised of seven tracks with speeds ranging from the grindcore-fast centerpiece “River” to the sludge-fueled crawl of closer “Death,” the album’s only real detriment is that the songs come across too thickly to really distinguish themselves. It sounds nasty, that’s for damn sure.

That nasty sound, and because it’s so up front and in your face, can easily lead one to think Hebosagil is simplistic, but a closer listen reveals that even though the tones don’t change much there is some variety in the music. The vocals, on the other hand, stick to throaty screams. Guitarists Antti Karjalainen and Remi Rousselle don’t just bang out riff after riff without thought of transition or structure, but again, a lot of that effort is lost in the morass of noise coming from the speakers. Colossal is not an easy or a friendly listen. The music is harsh in a way that brings to mind modern grind acts like Complete Failure or a more bombastic/mythology-free Lair of the Minotaur.

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They just announced the final lineup and I don’t know from nothin’, but it looks to be a killer assemblage of traditional and otherwise doomed-as-fuck bands. Friends of the site Bulletwolf are playing, so good for them, and PA‘s Pale Divine will be there too. Shit, and Earthride.? I might just have to make the drive to Indianapolis. Full lineup is after the jump.

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Rachel May of the Detroit Free Press published an article today about how when Metallica played their set at this year’s SXSW, they essentially fucked over everyone else playing that night, including our friends over at Small Stone Records. Dig the excerpts:

“It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen at SXSW,” says Scott Hamilton, head of Detroit-based Small Stone Records. Hamilton and a handful of Small Stone bands, including hometown outlaw country boys Whitey Morgan, were showcasing right across the street from Stubb’s at the time of the Metallica performance. “Not only did they affect my showcase, they drained every club,” Hamilton says. “Why come down here and ruin a festival that’s about breaking independent artists? A band that big has no business being at that festival.”

“The Metallica thing was a little frustrating, but probably more so for Scott and some other Small Stone bands than us,” says Jeremy Mackinder, bassist for Whitey Morgan, which played early in the evening. “Our crowd was pretty different,” he says. “They had a decent crowd and the people that saw them loved them,” Hamilton says of Whitey Morgan.

So once again, we see the moral of the story is fuck Metallica.

You know that Sirius XM shit is still going on? God damn that’s a pain in the ass.

Sometimes it’s all about the riffs. For Seattle trio Brothers of the Sonic Cloth, who recently lent their support to Yob for their return show, the hypnotic repetition takes center stage immediately with “La Mano Poderosa,” the first of two tracks on their limited 2009 demo. At a healthy 12 minutes, the song finds the band led by guitarist/vocalist Tad Doyle (Tad, Hog Molly) along a path of six string enlightenment. Bassist Peg Tully (Inciting Riots) and drummer Aaron D.C. Edge (Tsuga, Iamthethorn, the unfortunately short-lived Swearingen, Himsa, etc.) each play an equal role in propelling the song forward.

Doyle changes up his vocal approach, mostly relying on a kind of melodic shout that is effective in accenting the layers of guitar. In a way, it’s almost like the band is trying to be heard over themselves. Very punk rock — slowed way the hell down, of course.

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