There is an entire contingent in front of whom you can’t even mention the words “stoner rock” without their immediately saying back, “Monster Magnet.” And for good reason. For two decades, the Red Bank outfit have blazed a trail through all things drugged-out and Satanic (you either would or wouldn’t understand), with ups and downs for sure, but the Monster Magnet brand of rock and roll seems as strong as ever, as this pilfered news from Blabbermouth proves:

Monster Magnet has inked a new worldwide deal with Austria‘s Napalm Records. The band will enter the studio in January with producer Matt Hyde to begin recording its new album for a summer 2010 release.

Commented frontman Dave Wyndorf: “I’m really looking forward to joining the roster at Napalm Records and working with them on future endeavors.” Markus Riedler, Napalm Records managing director, added, “It is an honor to cooperate with a scene icon such as Dave Wyndorf! He’s very enthusiastic, full of energy and together we want to rock through the coming years! The new album will be killer and fans should make sure to check out the high-energy live show of the band! 2010 will be the year of Monster Magnet!”

Earlier today, I thought to myself, “Gee, you know, I haven’t heard anything about a ridiculous amount of Clutch releases in a while.” Then, wouldn’t you know it, I come home this evening and sitting on the floor from the PR wire (because, oh yes, the PR wire is a ticker tape machine and definitely not an email inbox) is notification that the seminal Maryland blues rockers are planning digital and physical reissues of their three DRT Entertainment albums through their Weathermaker Music label, a new live DVD and special edition vinyls of, well, a ton of stuff. All for the best. We wouldn’t want the band to sit still for five minutes, now would we?

Here’s the info:

On December 15th, Clutch will issue a double vinyl package of their latest studio effort Strange Cousins from the West through the band’s self owned label Weathermaker Music. This vinyl edition will feature two tracks that cannot be found on the CD version. The first is the recently recorded ?Metroliner Special? and the second is an extended version of the band’s latest single and video, ?50,000 Unstoppable Watts.? The first 4,000 pieces of Strange Cousins from the West vinyl will include a coupon for a free digital download of all 12 songs through the band’s website, www.pro-rock.com.

Also this Fall, Weathermaker will make available for digital purchase, the former DRT Entertainment catalog which includes Blast Tyrant (2004), Robot Hive/Exodus (2005) and From Beale Street to Oblivion (2007). Weathermaker plans to reissue all three of these in 2010 with a heavy dose of bonus material. Double vinyl packages are in the works for these as well.

For now, look for the digital release of Robot Hive/Exodus on November 30th to be followed by Blast Tyrant on December 18th. Due to the high amount of digital demand for the band’s 2007 single ?Electric Worry,? Weathermaker has already issued From Beale Street to Oblivion on November 7th to coincide with the song’s inclusion in the popular video game Left 4 Dead 2 and its television commercial.

To end 2009, Clutch will headline shows in Washington DC, Sayerville, NJ, Charlotte, NC, Boston, MA and Albany, NY. These concerts will be filmed by producer and director extraordinaire Agent Ogden and featured on the Strange Cousins from the West DVD package to be released in the spring of 2010.

Fact: You don?t release eight records independently on your own label if you don?t believe in what you?re doing. Palm Springs, California, real-deal desert rockers Dali?s Llama have done just that, with Raw is Real serving as the latest in a long line and taking a somewhat darker approach than other recent offerings. The album continues Dali?s Llama?s production relationship with Scott Reeder (The Obsessed, Kyuss), who helmed last year?s Full on Dunes and 2007?s Sweet Sludge, and the two entities seem more in step than ever before.

Prior to issuing the album, Dali?s Llama guitarist/vocalist Zach Huskey posited that it was their heaviest yet and (as noted above) darker as well. While I only have the last couple to compare it to, Raw is Real definitely lives up to its name, more ideologically than sonically — it sounds clean but there is a cynical bite to the lyrics of songs like ?Theocracy? and the punkish ?Grump? that, political or not, adds thematic heft to the proceedings and stands the album out among its predecessors. Dali?s Llama aren?t the first to politicize stoner music to the extent they do so, but within the context of their work and in particular this record, there is a refreshing amount of honesty and forthrightness coming out in these songs. Hey, raw is real, right?

Regarding Reeder?s production, there are moments on Raw is Real that feel flat and moments that positively sizzle. When the guitar solo kicks in on ?Hell No,? for example, it?s as though the album has come to life. Likewise, the opening riffs of later cuts ?Syphilization? (love the count in with the snare — very death metal) and ?Blackout? are prime grooves, highlighted with Huskey and Joe Dillon?s guitars up in the mix, whereas even on the opening title vibe is there but not as palpable. It works for the more mellow, sweet tones of ?Always? (a mid-album favorite), but the ending movement in ?Eve?s Navel? is begging to stand out more than it does. This is a minor, easy-to-get-used-to gripe, but worthy of note, nonetheless.

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The below has literally nothing to do with stoner rock or doom, but I was asked to post it and I hate the thought of people showing up to the wrong venue in a big city like Los Angeles to see a show, especially because it’s an experience I’ve had myself. I’ll tell you all about it some other time. For now, this came in via the PR wire:

The US Plague Tour, featuring Marduk, Nachtmystium, Black Anvil, Mantic Ritual, and Merrimack that was scheduled to stop at the Key Club on Friday, December 4th, has been moved, due to the Key Club closing it doors to re-model. The new location for the show is the Salon Royal (Royal Hall) in downtown, located at 8637 South Alameda Street, Los Angeles, CA 90002. Parking is provided, with an entrance through the ?Steel and Lube? entrance.

A statement from Jordan of Church of the 8th Day, the promoters for the show:

?Since everyone has been asking, what and where the Royal Hall is, I wanted to explain, and send something out to clear things up. The Key Club canceled the show, about two weeks ago, leaving us just a few weeks to move it. Since we had two stages? worth of bands booked, it was near impossible to move the show to anywhere in Hollywood, at a reputable club, as everything was already booked. We found a place in downtown, which is a banquet hall, and we are going to build it into a venue from the ground up, with two full stages and great sound, full bar, and a BBQ. There have been numerous events held there, including the Bestial Legion Fest. If you purchased tickets through one of the local bands, your tickets will still be valid at the new venue. If you purchased your tickets through TicketMaster, you should be receiving your refund any day. The Key Club said they will be issuing refunds, but they haven’t been responding to us about the progress of it, so if you’d like to call and find out, go ahead. You can now purchase tickets exclusively through our new ticketing website, 8thDayTix.com. We’re sorry about the confusion, and hope to see everyone there. More information can be found at churchofthe8thday.com.?

I can?t figure out why none of the myriad stoner indies out there has jumped on Berlin?s heavy psych rockers Samsara Blues Experiment. The German four-piece have recorded their first full-length, Long-Distance Trip, and sent it over for some preview-type listening, and especially coming off the heels of their two-song demo — which itself was nothing to scoff at — it?s got the kind of trance inducing stoner feel that one would think labels would be all over. Tee Pee? MeteorCity? Hell, even Elektrohasch (although that one might even be too obvious)? These guys toured the West Coast of the US on their own dime! Far worse has been signed for far less. Won?t someone give a quality band a home?

The two tracks from the demo, ?Singata Mystic Queen? and ?Double Freedom? show up here, the latter closing the album with a stunning 22-minute sprawl and the former serving as the opening movement. Samsara Blues Experiment, like Los Sounds de Krauts-era Colour Haze before them, are just beginning to explore where they can go with their jams, utilizing both heavy riffing and mellow noodling to establish a flow both within each track and one to the next. Long-Distance Trip?s greatest asset might be its ability to pull listeners in and surround them with its encompassing feel. There?s nothing pretentious in it; these dudes are just having a good time and inviting you to trip out with them.

Long solos, wah guitar, adaptable drumming and sparse, far off vocals permeate the 13-plus minutes of ?Center of the Sun,? but Samsara Blues Experiment have more on offer than extended psych jams and apex builds. Shorter instrumental tracks ?Army of Ignorance? and ?Wheel of Life? serve as a respite from the longer material, spaced throughout Long-Distance Trip as if to provide the listener some breathing room. Both also take a slightly different approach musically, ?Army of Ignorance? beginning with a doomier, darker riff and ?Wheel of Life,? by contrast, offering four and a half minutes of acoustic guitar warmth. These two pieces help establish Samsara Blues Experiment as a band whose breadth is just beginning to show itself. They never take a turn that?s out of place and there isn?t much on Long-Distance Trip that bends the genre or remakes it in its own image, but if that?s a requirement for stoner rock, there?s a lot of acts out there who need to take a second look at what they?re doing.

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You know, it probably should have occurred to me before, but I just didn’t think about it. Ireland‘s Mourning Beloveth first came to my attention after reading an interview a while back, and I never put two and two together (you’d think I’d be used to that by now). Mourning Beloveth — My Dying Bride?? It’s pretty much the same shit.

I was at my favorite NYC shop, Generation Records, and grabbed the 2006 Grau Records reissue of Mourning Beloveth‘s Dust (2001) basically because I was curious. Whether I actively wanted it is up for debate, but times are tough, and if you’re gonna go into a record store — especially a good one — the least you can do is buy something. Maybe that way they won’t all go out of business.

Whenever it was between then and now that I finally put on Dust for the first time, I literally laughed out loud at how much it sounded like My Dying Bride. Hey, I’m all for the melancholic Euro-doom sound, but this was over the top. Mourning Beloveth has put out three records since, including last year’s A Disease for the Ages, so I won’t profess to knowing how they’ve developed over the course of this decade, but it was uncanny. From the woeful progressions to the hyper-dramatized poetry reading vocals, it was The Dreadful Hours all over again.

And then, finally, I got it. Beloveth equals Bride. She’s already dead, so instead of My Dying, you’re already in Mourning. I don’t know if this is clever on the part of the band, or if they did it on purpose, or if they were just hoping no one would pick up on it. All I know is if it was their intent to sound just like My Dying Bride when they started out, they certainly accomplished that. And even though Mourning Beloveth allegedly formed in 1992 (their first demo wouldn’t come until four years later), that doesn’t mean MDB couldn’t have influenced them as they went along. If anything, all that says is they had more time to hone their own sound and they didn’t.

Again, not saying they couldn’t have become something wholly different in the years since. I genuinely wouldn’t know since I haven’t heard the records. Just saying that I probably should have put a little more thought into contextualizing the name Mourning Beloveth before I bought the album. Six bucks I won’t see again. Hindsight is… something or other.

Personally, I might have stopped booking for Roadburn 2010 after the Goatsnake reunion. That would be enough for me. Then the following dialog could take place between the two sides of my brain:

“Hey, I’ve got a four day festival going on.”
“Oh yeah, who’s playing?”
“Goatsnake.”
“Killer! Anyone else?”
“Nope, just Goatsnake.”
“Well, what are you gonna do for the rest of the four days?”
“Umm, it’s Goatsnake. Who the hell cares?”
“Awesome, see you there.”

And… scene. Fortunately for heads the world over, though, Roadburn organizer Walter is much better at putting together festivals than I would be. And though it’s looking less and less likely that I’m going to be able to make it to 013 two years in a row (The Patient Mrs. has more or less issued a kybosh directive), I’m still pretty psyched for all the goings on in Tilburg next April. A batch of new bands have been announced. Here’s the story from Blabbermouth:

Seminal New Orleans, Louisiana, sludge-legends Eyehategod, along with Outlaw Order and Jarboe, have been added to the Roadburn festival lineup on Thursday, April 15, 2010. In addition, Soilent Green and Sourvein have been confirmed for Roadburn‘s special Afterburner event on Sunday, April 18, at the 013 venue in Tilburg, Holland.

In other news, seminal doom legends Death Row will be part of the Roadburn festival lineup on Friday, April 16. Victor Griffin, Joe Hasselvander and Marty Swaney are bringing Death Row back heavier than ever. But this time they’re leaving the elements of deception behind? the darker images, which to some degree blinded them, and tore them apart time and again from the inside out.

Unfortunately, this reformation of Death Row will be without Bobby Liebling. “Parts of the past have certainly left scars on some of us that have yet to heal. Until then, we move forward with best wishes and prayers for Bobby‘s success in Pentagram, and in his personal life,” says Victor Griffin. “What you get from this Death Row will be the same true-to-heart heaviness you expect. Songs written during the formative years by Griffin will comprise most of the set list, along with songs penned by Joe, Victor and co-written with Bobby, such as “The Ghoul” and “All Your Sins,” which feature lyrics by Liebling.

Man, was it crowded. I’m talking about “can’t breathe because if you do your gut’s gonna wind up pushing someone out of the way” crowded. “Can’t get a beer because of the swarm of humanity” crowded. “Too many fucking people in the room” crowded. The saving grace? Scumbags outnumbered hipsters at least four to one — a rarity in that borough these days. And, you know, good for the bands too, though I guess when you say “Members of Type O Negative” to a certain faction of Brooklyn headbangers, a crowded room is inevitable. No, they didn’t play “Black No. 1.”

Or maybe they did. To be honest, I had to leave before it was over. Staying was only going to lead to more drinking, and with more drinking, I wasn’t going to be able to go anywhere, so by the end of the night, it was get or be got. A question of DWI-less survival. Amazing how often these things come up.

Seventh Void. Yeah, it was fun to see Kenny Hickey and Johnny Kelly walking around the Trash Bar (as much as anyone could walk anywhere with so many people) like they weren’t two of the four dudes who put out October Rust, but really, I was there for The Resurrection Sorrow‘s CD release show for their first album, Hour of the Wolf. After the years I’ve seen frontman Alex Dementia (After Dark) and bassist Alex Coelho (Tides Within) put into the NYC underground, showing up seemed the least I could do.

Their set was what I’ve come to expect particularly from Dementia over time, and by that I mean insanely energetic. Guitarist Zak Gross and drummer Louie Gasparro filled out the lineup and fit in well with Coelho and the vocalist, who seemed to be doing laps between the front and rear of the stage for a goodly portion of their time, smiling wide and busting through tunes from the record. The crowd was into it, undulating and shifting in a way that might make a beery stomach seasick, but fortunately there were no incidents. At two intervals, I had to go into the front room for air. Have I mentioned it was crowded? Good. It was.

Ditto for Seventh Void. I remember reviewing their Heaven is Gone record a while back and digging it well enough, though I never actually bought the thing until the show, figuring I’d find it used somewhere along the way — that I didn’t is indicative of something, I suppose. They were loud, they rocked, everyone loved them. Not really much else to say about it than that, which is perhaps why I waited so long to pick up the album. They’re good, Brooklyn sure as hell likes them, and that’s that. I wasn’t blown away, but by then my mind was on the drive back to the valley anyway and thinking about how good the cool air would feel outside the venue. I’d give them another shot under different circumstances, to be sure.

And I hope to catch The Resurrection Sorrow again in the near future as well. Along with meeting the venerable Seldon Hunt and telling him how much I liked the artwork for the Ol’ Scratch record, their heavy riffs and thick chugging were an easy evening highlight. Better than the drive home through Manhattan, no contest.