I can barely figure out how to work a WordPress back end, but — ever ones for innovative releasing techniques — Ohioan rockers Threefold Law have just announced a new app for their latest album, Revenant (review here, interview here), that features the music of the band, the written story from guitarist/vocalist J. Thorn, and probably a dozen or so other technological wonders my luddite ass will never understand. Way to go.

In addition, they’ve got (what I’ve just learned is called) a QR code, which you can scan with your fancy phone and go to a special version of their website with exclusive clips and more. Check it out:

Threefold Law, Cleveland’s doom pioneers, announce the launch of their new mobile website and Revenant app for the Droid. Go to http://www.threefoldlaw.com or scan the QR code from any mobile device and get automatically routed to a customized version of the full website with streaming music, live performances, and album reviews.

In addition, Threefold Law present the Revenant app for Droid users. With an intuitive interface and clean design, stream the entire album, read the story, and more. Users of the iPhone, Blackberry, or any handheld device can access Revenant through the mobile site.

Enjoy all of the enhancements, free of charge.

Seriously. New Dopefight. Hello, heavy:

Don’t know squat about the new record, but can only assume it’ll be out as soon as these dudes are lucid enough to press it. So probably never.

British foursome Undersmile are notable for a few reasons. Probably first among them is that they have not one, but two guitarist/vocalist frontwomen — Hel Sterne and Taz Corona-Brown — at the helm. Second, both sing, and trade off drawling stoner doom vocals for yelling sludge shouts. Third, they hit really, really hard. Listening to Undersmile‘s two tracks on their recent split with countrymen hardcore act Caretaker, even more than the sleepy vocals, it’s the punch the music packs that stands out. Tom McKibbin assaults his toms in the first part of “Big Wow,” setting a slow march, only to give way eventually to a faster groove, but either way, his kick drum feels like it’s taking the air out of your lungs.

Undersmile is rounded out by bassist Olly Corona-Brown, and on the split’s second extended cut, the 12:43 “Anchor,” his four strings follow the plodding start-stop course set by the guitars. “Anchor” ultimately takes a different path from its predecessor, veering into spooky minimalism and culminating in noisy oblivion instead of getting faster and then slowing back down, but shows nonetheless that Undersmile recognize their material is stronger when it moves in one direction or another, rather than just lumbering along. There’s still a considerable stomp to “Anchor,” but it’s dreamier and less outwardly aggressive, the guitars and vocals meshing in the second half like some nightmarishly-slowed ’90s throwback.

If you’re interested, Undersmile have the tracks up at their Bandcamp page and can be found on Thee Facebooks here. The split was released by Blindsight Records, whose page is here, and just in case you don’t feel like clicking any of those links (so much work!), here’s the player with Undersmile‘s tracks and Caretaker‘s:

The 2012 Roadburn is shaping up to be pretty stellar. Already announced performances by The Obsessed, Sleep, Om and others are righteous in and of themselves, but the latest down the PR wire is that Coroner will headline the Afterburner and that Voivod‘s curated event — named Au-delà du Réel — has just gotten its first addition to the lineup. More to come, obviously, but here’s the latest, straight from the festival:

Roadburn Festival has announced that Coroner will be bringing its amazingly tight brand of technical thrash metal to the 2012 Afterburner, set for Sunday, April 15 at the 013 venue in Tilburg, Holland.

Roadburn Festival 2012, including Voivod‘s curated event, Sleep, Om, d.USK, Virus, The Obsessed, Hexvessel, 40 Watt Sun and Sólstafir, among others, will run for four days from Thursday, April 12 to Sunday, April 15, 2012 (the traditional Afterburner) at the 013 venue in Tilburg, Holland.

Voivod named their curated event at Roadburn Festival 2012, Au-delà du Réel, after the band’s favorite sci-fi show, The Outer Limits, when it was broadcast in French during the ’70s. As curator, Voivod will personally select the bands that will play during Au-delà du Réel, set for Friday, April 13 at the 013 venue in Tilburg, Holland.

Voivod‘s excited to announce that Sweden’s Anekdoten has been confirmed for Au-delà du Réel. Anekdoten ranks amongst the very best prog-bands to emerge from Scandinavia since the early ’90s. Firmly rooted in King Crimson-inspired, Mellotron-drenched prog/art-rock (with hints of Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull as well), the band has released several acclaimed albums that garnered them a devoted cult-following over the years.

Noise-infected Aussie five-piece Whitehorse specialize in the kind of death/doom that’s so lurching and massive in its brown metal tonality that it sounds slow even on the few occasions the band decides to speed things up. The Melbourne, Victoria, group have released enough live albums and EPs since 2005 to be called prolific, but the sludge-grooving Progression (Sweat Lung Records) is only their second full-length in that time, following a 2007 self-titled released by 20 Buck Spin. At a vinyl-ready 38 minutes, Progression is preceded in 2011 by the Document: 250407 EP, and a split with Rhode Island avant doomers The Body has already followed, but the album was clearly made to stand on its own, and it does, inflicting its dreary, darkened atmospherics well beyond the point of oppression. Whitehorse – guitarist Adrian Naudi (ex-The Berzerker), bassist Pete McLean, drummer Dan McKay, noise-maker David Coen and vocalist Peter Hyde – delve into the depths of viciousness, the ultra-slow riffing providing some groove that, again, is more prominent in the faster stretches, but still holds firm to some doom-based ideals and sets a firm ground for Hyde to launch his all-out brutal vocal assault in the forms of death growls and blackened metal screams that play well off each other on songs like the later “Time Worm Regression.”

Nothing polarizes quite like harsh vocals. Some people just can’t take it. I’m not one of them. If you can scream or growl effectively, fit with the rhythm and the atmosphere set by the music, then I’m all for it, and as far as that goes, Hyde has a handle on both technique and presentation. His growls echo over McKay’s crashes and the thudding riffs of Naudi and McLean, sounding disenfranchised and inhuman at the same time. Given Australia’s history of death/doom (dISEMBOWELMENT walks by and waves), Whitehorse aren’t exactly innovative, but they do what they do well, and Coen’s added noises and electronics do much to distinguish the band from others of their ilk. At their heart, they are unrelentingly heavy, and as the five tracks of Progression – “Mechanical Disintegration,” “Progression,” “Control, Annihilate,” “Time Worn Regression” and “Remains Unknown” – play out, Whitehorse’s blend of sludge and death/doom becomes even more effective, until finally the same plodding drums that introduced “Mechanical Disintegration” lead the way out of the 10:45 “Remains Unknown.” Hyde is a big part of that heaviness, since he never wavers in the filthiness of his approach, but each member of the band plays a part, including Coen, whose presence is immediately felt on the opener, playing off McKay’s drums with echoing rhythmically-timed noises of his own. There is a sense of foreboding about the opening of Progression, and Coen is a big factor in it.

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Jeebus loves me, this I know — because Kyuss Lives! is coming to Jersey in December and they’re bringing Black Cobra with them. I’ve only been to the Wellmont Theatre once, to see Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull (ruled), but I’ll be god damned if there’s anywhere else on the planet I’m headed when Dec. 10 rolls around.

And while I don’t want to say the cosmos added Black Cobra to these dates and brought Kyuss Lives! back to the East Coast specifically as a favor to me, I think we all know the score. Here’s the total rundown courtesy of the PR wire:

The previously-announced second leg of the Kyuss Lives! North American tour dates this November, featuring Black Cobra and The Sword in support, has just expanded to include five brand additional dates including Los Angeles at the beginning of the tour, and four new East Coast shows at the end of the tour (Baltimore, MD, New Haven, CT, Huntington, NY, Montclair, NJ).

Black Cobra w/ Kyuss Lives!, The Sword:
11/17 House of Blues San Diego, CA
11/18 Wiltern Theatre Los Angeles, CA **
11/19 The Regency Ballroom San Francisco, CA
11/21 Roseland Theatre Portland, OR w/ YOB
11/22 Showbox SODO Seattle, WA w/ YOB
11/23 Commodore Ballroom Vancouver, BC
11/26 Flames Central Calgary, AB
11/27 Edmonton Event Centre Edmonton, AB
11/29 Garrick Centre Winnipeg, MB
11/30 First Avenue Minneapolis, MN
12/01 Turner Ballroom Milwaukee, WI
12/02 Vic Theatre Chicago, IL
12/03 Crofoot Ballroom Pontiac, MI
12/05 The Palace Theater Greensburg, PA
12/06 Town Ballroom Buffalo, NY
12/07 Ram’s Head Live Baltimore, MD **
12/08 Toad’s Place New Haven, CT **
12/09 The Paramount Huntington, NY **
12/10 Wellmont Theatre Montclair, NJ **
[** = newly announced tour date]

In 2009, the respectable historians at Rockadrome Records unearthed recordings by Scottish rockers Iron Claw that had been lost for roughly 35 years. The resulting self-titled compilation was met with a welcome response, and it fueled Iron Claw – who broke up in 1974, but played one or two reunion gigs in the meantime – to reform for new studio material. Recorded by bassist Alex Wilson, mixed and mastered by Stone Axe guitarist T. Dallas Reed and released by reliable purveyors Ripple Music, A Different Game is essentially Iron Claw’s first album, 40 years after the fact. It’s a fascinating proposition, and probably some rockers’ dream, that some day, they’ll finally get the appreciation they’ve long deserved, but that doesn’t necessarily mean doing a new record is a good idea. You’d be crazy to expect that because the three founding members of a band that rocked pretty hard four decades ago got back together and gave it a go with a new singer that they’d automatically pick up right where they left off. Life just doesn’t work that way. It’s like blaming someone for growing up. 40 years is a long time, and I’ve no doubt that Wilson, guitarist Jimmy Ronnie and drummer Ian McDougall – who are joined in Iron Claw by newcomer Gordon Brown – are much different people than they were when they recorded the songs that were later released as Iron Claw.

So foremost for anyone who heard the older Iron Claw material, A Different Game is going to live up to its title. Because it’s true: it’s a completely different game than it was when the band started out, and likewise, they’ve changed too. Most of the 13 tracks on the record are a kind of semi-heavy rock that occasionally drives home a killer blues riff but mostly sticks to a classic rock format. It might seem derogatory to call it “old-man rock,” but that’s what it is. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t rock, it just means it rocks like you might expect it to for being the product of guys whose sphere of influence and means of interpreting that influence are based on what it meant to be heavy decades ago. It’s like when Blue Cheer put out What Doesn’t Kill You. It wasn’t cool because it was so relevant or innovative in its style. It was cool because they were still doing it, because they still had it. That’s what’s working for Iron Claw here. If you’re thinking they’re going to plug back into their old amps and rip through material with the same intensity they did when they were 20 years old, well, I’m sorry, but you’re going to be disappointed both in listening to A Different Game and in life in general. There are a few heavier moments on the record – “See Them Fall” reminds of Iron Maiden, and opener “What Love Left” starts off swaggering and shuffling with Brown perhaps nodding at younger listeners with the line, “Sit down, son, there is much for you to learn” – and Ronnie has several choice solos throughout, but mostly it’s a straightforward traditional rock record that makes a lot of the moves you’d expect.

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True to form for the Stockholm jammers’ penchant for open structures and extended spontaneous interludes, there is a whole host of guests on their new live album, Root Jam. That’s nothing new for Siena Root, who even on their own number anywhere from a four- to a six-piece band, and whose last studio offering, Different Realities (2009), lived up to its title in terms of its diversity of approach and melding heavy riffs, jams and excursions into psychedelic and subcontinental-Asian songwriting.

Root Jam leaves space for plenty of that as well, and at nearly 92-minutes, the album is a two-disc beast. A cut like the organ-heavy “Words” reaches well over 12 minutes to end the record/set’s first half, and the whole midsection of the song is Eastern instrumentation met with killer guitar leads. There are several such passages throughout, and Siena Root know how to keep it flowing and cohesive, despite the variety they bring out of the music.

Transubstans Records was kind enough to let me host the more straightforward “The Rat” for your streaming pleasure. If you’ve never heard Siena Root before, it’s a pretty good place to start, the guest vocals adding soul to the bluesy groove of the riffs. Hope you dig it:

[mp3player width=460 height=120 config=fmp_jw_widget_config.xml playlist=siena-root.xml]

Root Jam is out in October on Transubstans Records. More info available at the label’s site. Here’s what they have to say about it:

Above all else, this extensive double live album is a resume of Siena Root‘s early years. This album features all the elements of the band, from their debut up to recent days. They have managed to pour the band’s dynamic energy from the stage right into this box of 91 minutes root rock. You will for sure find the good old heavy riffs, side-by-side with psychedelic vibes and groovy jams.

But there is more, much more to experience in this magnificent album. There are no less than nine guest artists featured, with a range from classical violin by Martin Stensson from Swedish radio symphonic orchestra, to legendary blues guitarist Maxi Dread. You will also find a lot of Siena Root family from the past such as Tängman and vocalists Oskar and Sanya performing songs on a new level. On top of it all you get previously unreleased material and two rare acoustic tracks that reveal a new side of the band. The album will also be released on LP by Headspin Records.