A friendly reminder that this very Saturday is Small Stone‘s showcase at The Magic Stick in Detroit. Since the one in Boston earlier this month was such an unholy good time, I can only heartily recommend that the entire Midwest shows up and prepares itself for riffy communion. Even if The Obelisk wasn’t presenting it, it’d still be a kickass rock gig, and probably as far east as we’re going to get Sasquatch anytime soon.

Label honcho (and Luder guitarist, as it happens) Scott Hamilton was recently interviewed by Detroit’s Metro Times about how he manages to thrive where so many others have succumbed to the likes of internet piracy, generational disinterest in rock, and so on. Pretty fascinating read, but before you click over, make sure you’ve got the skinny on the gig Saturday, because you don’t want to miss it.

Info comes courtesy of the Thee Facebooks event page:

Since many folks have been asking us for a few years now, we have finally caved in… So here it is in all its glory, a full blown SSR Showcase in the state that we actually live in. We have put together a top notch line up which features the return of New Jersey’s Halfway To Gone for the first time since 2005! Come early, stay late… The Magic Stick is great venue, and the drinks will be flowing at reasonable prices too… It should be an epic evening of rawk… Hell, we might even have copies of the new album from Five Horse Johnson at the show too.

Featuring:

Halfway To Gone (Long Branch, NJ)
Five Horse Johnson (Toledo, OH)
Sasquatch (Los Angeles, CA)
Freedom Hawk (Virginia Beach, VA)
Luder (Ferndale, MI)

Doors: 7pm
Tickets: $10.00

The Fine folks over at Tito’s Vodka are helping us and the Magic Stick will have Tito’s Drink Specials All Night!

Advance tickets can be purchased here.

Whatever your political affiliation, I think it’s safe to say at the very least that the middle of the last decade was an interesting time to be an American. Still reeling from post-9/11 paranoia about terrorism, the country having split into vehement factions either for or against going to war in Iraq (for all the good it did, either the war or the protests leading up to it), George W. Bush‘s reelection in 2004 — things seemed to be tripping over themselves to fall apart. But you know, you had to go buy an iPod or the terrorists won.

Through all this mass psychosis and jingoistic fuckery, The Hidden Hand released their second album in 2004’s Mother Teacher Destroyer. In my opinion, it’s the strongest of the Wino-led trio’s three albums — striking a balance between 2003’s punkish Divine Propaganda and 2007’s more progressive The Resurrection of Whiskey Foote — but more to the point, it’s a solid and concise chronicle of the sentiments in both the public conscious and unconscious. Together with bassist Bruce Falkinburg and drummer Dave Hennessy, Wino made some of the most explicit social commentary of his career.

To wit, the third song on the album, “Desensitized.” At six and a half minutes, it was the longest track on Mother Teacher Destroyer, and while other songs delved into Zeppelin-style epic themes and tales of battles lost and won, “Desensitized” and “Travesty as Usual” stood in the tradition of protest songs, each driving riff serving as another mark of resistance. The lyrics echoed this sentiment as well:

Sad times are here today all around
Strange vibes here to stay to bring us down
For the people they don’t care
Pushing all into despair

No, it can’t be true
It couldn’t happen to you
Hey, it must be clear
They’ll try to keep us in fear

Disinformation is the tool
Media controlled, divide and rule
Anxious minds their questions lead
To the structure of deceit

No, it won’t be true
Don’t let it happen to you
Hey, it must be clear
They’ll never keep us in fear

Note that the last chorus ends in a hopeful tone, but there’s something too in the verses that seems to know the size of the struggle being engaged. Wino‘s always had a socially conscious side to his songwriting, but that was never quite so prevalent as in The Hidden Hand, and they were nothing if not timely in their arrival.

Here’s “Desensitized” in HD. Happy Wino Wednesday:

Kudos to Vegas doomers Demon Lung on signing with the venerable Candlelight Records for the release of their next album. Their debut EP, Pareidolia (review here), crawled forth earlier this year and for the follow-up full-length, the four-piece have enlisted Billy Anderson to produce. Not too shabby.

One more to look forward to in 2013. Until then, I leave it in the informative hands of the PR wire:

DEMON LUNG Signs To Candlelight

Candlelight Records today confirms the worldwide signing of DEMON LUNG. The Las Vegas-based quartet, featuring guitarist Phil Burns, bassist Patrick Warren, drummer Jeremy Brenton, and vocalist Shanda Fredrick, is scheduled to begin recording of their full-length debut at Sharkbite Studios in Oakland, California with producer Billy Anderson (Sleep, High on Fire, Eyehategod) in the coming weeks. It is anticipated for a Spring 2013 release date.

Metal Hammer called the band’s self-released 4-song demo Pareidolia, “earthy yet horror-themed doom metal a la Candlemass with an Acrimony Groove.” The magazine calls Fredrick a “wild-eyed, satanic songstress.” Popular music and film site Ave Noctum notes, “DEMON LUNG has a deft touch and solid sound. Their music is clearly from the soul. Fair to say they are a welcomed addition to the ranks of the doomed.” Teeth of the Divine adds, “Fredrick has the requisite sultry pipes that keep a steady, hazy tone. She has a deep, bluesy voice that fits the languid music perfectly.”

The band comments, “we are very honored to join the Candlelight roster. To be included among such talented artists is very humbling, and we thank the great people at Candlelight for giving us the opportunity.”

DEMON LUNG has shared the stage alongside Pentagram, High on Fire, Jucifer, Witch Mountain, and Castle and will resume performing once recording has been completed.

A video for the song “Lament Code’ is available. The clip was directed by Dustin Mills, the mastermind behind The Puppet Monster Massacre.

First of all, I know one of the big gripes with tapes is that they look lousy, not enough artwork, and so forth, but Monster Magnet‘s 25 …..Tab looks friggin’ awesome. The half-Planet of the Apes Bullgod Statue of Liberty’s extended arm draws the eye vertically in a way it never did on CD or vinyl, and the cardboard stock of the liner is durable enough to stand up to the ages it’s already seen.

I picked up 25 …..Tab recently at Sound Exchange, my local CD joint in Wayne. They have a whole wall of tapes and they’re usually a little on the expensive side for what I’m willing to shell out on a cassette, but I think they’re just as happy to have the room, which if you’ve ever tried to walk down either of the two aisles in the place you’ll know is in short supply. In the end, it cost me circa $5, and has proved worth every penny.

The album is readily available on CD. SPV reissued it and Monster Magnet‘s 1991 landmark Spine of God debut in 2006, and it was out before that as well. I have those editions, but this tape is the original US issue on Caroline Records from 1993. That’s still two years after it came out in Europe on Glitterhouse, but it’s the earliest domestic release and it’s 20 years ago either way and I was stoked to find it. With just the four tracks “Tab…,” “25,” “Longhair” and “Lord 13,” it’s as psychedelic as Monster Magnet ever got during this era of the band.

Or, you know, any other, since it was their most psychedelic era.

And their ultra Hawkwindian jamming on “Tab…” comes across excellently on the tape, sounding all the more raw and classically compressed. The song is an EP unto itself at over half an hour long, and it takes up the entirety of side A, which makes “25,” “Longhair” and “Lord 13” something like an incremental return to earth, the latter being the most straightforward of the bunch, despite all the backing mouth noises and echoes from Dave Wyndorf, whistles and guitar effects and the rest built around a solid guitar strum and percussion line.

By the time they get there, it’s been a long trip. “Tab…” was always considered an EP even though technically speaking it’s has more of a runtime than Spine of God, and its relative obscurity in the Monster Magnet catalog is no less a factor two decades on than it ever was, considering nobody’s sure yet what to call the damn thing, whether it’s Tab, Tab 25, 25 Tab, or 25 …..Tab, which I took right off the cover. Any name you give it, however, it remains unique in the band’s discography and as warped a tape as you could ever hope to find.

If it seems like kind of a no-brainer to mix performance footage and nature shots to make a Scott Kelly video, it’s only because the songs are so damn organic. My Proud Mountain oversaw the putting together of this clip for “The Sun is Dreaming in My Soul,” from this year’s Scott Kelly and the Road Home full-length, The Forgiven Ghost in Me (review here), which is fitting, since they also released the album in the UK and Europe.

Kelly is on the road currently in that part of the world, and you’ll find his remaining tour dates courtesy of the PR wire after the video below. Please enjoy:

Scott Kelly’s solo tour is now underway and his only UK show at London’s Black heart is looming.

My Proud Mountain have this week released a brand new video for the song ‘The Sun Is Dreaming In The Soul’ – taken from his latest solo album The Forgiven Ghost In Me.

During this tour, Scott Kelly will play songs from his two most recent records which also includes, Songs Of Townes Van Zandt as well as The Forgiven Ghost In Me, both released earlier this year on My Proud Mountain in the UK/EU.

SCOTT KELLY (Neurosis)
Europe Tour 2012

Wed 28.11. FI Turku Klubi
Thu 29.11. FI Oulu Nuclear Nightclub
Tue 04.12. UK London The Black Heart
Wed 05.12. CH Luzern Sedel
Thu 06.12. CH Martigny Sunset Bar
Fri 07.12. CH Moudon Les Prisons
Sat 08.12.CH Delémont SAS
Sun 09.12. IT Parma Bandits Pub
Mon 10.12. GER Karlsruhe Jubez
Tue 11.12. GER Dortmund Pauluskirche
Wed 12.12. GER Leipzig UT Connewitz
Thu 13.12. GER Osnabrück Bastard Club
Fri 14.12. GER Berlin Jägerklause
Sat 15.12. PL Poznan Blue Note
Sun 16.12. GER Hamburg Molotow
Mon 17.12. GER Rostock Mau
Tue 18.12. DK Copenhagen Loppen
Wed 19.12. NL Groningen Simplon
Thu 20.12. NL Tilburg O13
Fri 21.12. LU Luxenbourg Decibal Bar
Sat 22.12. BE Brüssel Ancienne Belgique

The only thing really subtle about Kowloon Walled City‘s Container Ships is how subtle it is. The tiny bits of melody that makes their way into the guitars of Scott Evans and Jon Howell, or the surprising effect the record — their second behind 2009’s Gambling on the Richter Scale and label debut on Brutal Panda Records — can have on the listener’s mood despite being so outwardly intense and seeming so cerebral in their approach, that pesky tendency to kick a face with a song.

It’s not the kind of thing you generally think of as ambient, but Container Ships has more to it than its surface heaviness. Its seven component tracks run a vinyl-ready 35 minutes and opening argument “The Pressure Keeps Me Alive” winds up somewhere right in the middle of Kowloon Walled City‘s scope of pace. Evans handles vocal duties with a kind of post-hardcore semi-speech, melodic enough when it needs to be and likewise able to turn within a line’s span into an all-out shout. Tonally, they’re more indebted to Godflesh than the Neurosis/Isis sphere of post-metal, but some of those elements are there, particularly on the centerpiece title-track or side B closer “You Don’t Have Cancer,” the two longest cuts at 7:11 and 8:44, respectively. Most of the album moves quicker, pushed ahead by Jeff Fagundes‘ about-t0-fly-apart drumming (spoiler alert: it never flies apart) and Ian Miller‘s thankfully prominent low end righteousness.

Third track “Beef Cattle” owed so much of its thrust to Godflesh‘s “Anthem” that I wanted to see if it also synched up with Jesus Christ Superstar. I couldn’t get it to work, but someone more enterprising might have better luck. Far from being turned off by the clarity of the derivation — that is, not liking the track for how blatantly it reminds me of something else — I mark “Beef Cattle” as one of Container Ships‘ several high points, its familiarity offset by the context of what’s surrounding, whether it’s the fast-paced rhythmic insistence and weighted crashes of “’50s Dad” before or the extended and gracefully executed build of “Container Ships” that follows. Kowloon Walled City don’t stay in one place long enough to be redundant.

Miller‘s tone makes “Cornerstone,” looming large overhead alongside the guitars in the song’s second half, and though one might argue the track is overshadowed by its more memorable companions, “Container Ships” before and the strong hook of “Wrong Side of History” after,  effective pacing — just slower than middle, but floating here and there — and a solid linear structure make it less of a stumble than it might otherwise be. Still, “Wrong Side of History,” which builds no less momentum into closer “You Don’t Have Cancer” than “Beef Cattle” did into “Container Ships” to round out Container Ships‘ first half, is a defining point of the album. A late-era Akimbo sense of controlled chaos pervades and Evans‘ vocals calling out raised fists and clenched fingers — not to mention the delivery of those lines — push the song over the side of the hardcore designation without veering musically from their stated course. It’s the best chorus here. I wouldn’t want a whole album of it, but like with “Beef Cattle,” it works within the scope of Kowloon Walled City‘s approach.

They once more bring the proceedings to a crawl with “You Don’t Have Cancer,” wind noise setting a bed for the creeping build the payoff of which ends the album with largesse if not excess of tempo. By the crashes that hit just past the six-minute mark, the final cut on Container Ships is already operating at its peak level. The band don’t so much gradually wind the song down as mostly drop off, leaving just the guitar to riff through one more cycle before the sustain fades and then cuts out. Ultimately, Kowloon Walled City walk a pretty fine line of genre, but they do it with feet that land heavy enough to leave a mark. If you’ve never encountered them before, either on Gambling on the Richter Scale or their splits with Ladder Devils/Fight Amp or Thou, Container Ships should make for a rousing introduction.

You can’t argue with pretty, and Wo Fat‘s The Black Code vinyl is most certainly that. The Dallas-based riffers have their Small Stone debut (review here) available on LP as of now, and they’ll be playing a release show on Dec. 8 with fellow Texan upstarts Venomous Maximus and Mothership. More info on that is here, and in addition to sending on word about the vinyl release, Wo Fat also updated on the progress for their Kickstarter campaign to find their European tour, which includes a stop at next year’s Roadburn.

Dig it:

Black Code vinyl has arrived!

We now have “The Black Code” on vinyl available in the Wo Fat Hoodoo Shop.  It is of the finest quality 180 gram vinyl and comes in a beautiful gatefold sleeve. You have 3 color choices for the vinyl:  Black, Opaque Orange and Transparent Blue.  Take a look at the photo below.  If you buy the vinyl directly from Wo Fat,  it comes with a download card for a free download of the album (you don’t get this anywhere else).  Get yours now while they last.

Also, we’ve got 20 days left in our Kickstarter Campaign that is raising funds to help us cover the cost of going to Europe for a tour next spring.  This tour is being entirely funded by the band, which is why your help is so important and tremendously appreciated.  You can reserve an autographed copy of vinyl through the kickstarter page if you like.  Yes, it costs more, but that donation will go directly to cover the costs of airfare.  There are also other bitchin’ rewards for your donations that are available only through this campaign.

Check out the Wo Fat Kickstarter Campaign!

With goats on their brains and fuzz in their pedals, North Carolinian witch rocking foursome Bloody Hammers issued their self-titled debut on vinyl just this past Friday, Nov. 23. Soulseller Records, whose capable hands recently steered Groan‘s The Divine Right of Kings toward the public, provided their stamp of association, and the band, who previously sold out the CD version and all US-based LPs, once more rode their undeniable hooks to devil-worshiping glory.

Wavy logo font? Penta-goat head? Purple and black? They’ve got all the superficial trappings of post-Electric Wizard cult metal, and some of their fuzz bears that out, but the overarching thickness of “The Last Legion of Sorrow” and the nigh-on-gothic drama in bassist Anders Manga‘s vocals reminds more of an American-styled Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, andBloody Hammers’ pop sensibilities seal the deal in that regard. Their debut strikes an odd balance, not quite placed in one camp or another, and as the penultimate track, “Souls on Fire” most excellently shows their roundabout route to individuality.

A Sabbathian cadence (think “Under the Sun” in the verse) and mounting tension of drum stomp give way to organ-led melodic sweetness, the vocals high in the mix and slightly blown out, but winding up with swagger enough to deliver the rousing titular chorus. Aside from being among Bloody Hammers‘ most memorable cuts, “Souls on Fire” is also among the band’s best blends of the varying sides of their sound. It’s my pleasure to be able to stream the song today, and you’ll find it on the player below, followed by links to where you can get the album.

Please enjoy:

[mp3player width=470 height=150 config=fmp_jw_widget_config.xml playlist=bloody-hammers.xml]

Bloody Hammers‘ Bloody Hammers is available now on Soulseller Records. For more info, check out the Bloody Hammers Bandcamp or their page on Thee Facebooks.