It just can’t be a coincidence that the quickie solo in “Eightball,” which is very much about cocaine, sounds like Kerry King on an ’80s Slayer record. Who also would’ve thought that “Who’s got blow/Eightball/Bring it all/Come on” would make for such a catchy chorus? It’s one of about six for six on Lamont‘s 2005 EP, Muscle, Guts and Luck, alongside ripped like “Raise a Little Hell,” and the raucous closing pair “On the Lam” and “Burn it Down.”

You might (you might not) remember I wrote a post about Lamont‘s Thunder Boogie full-length, well, Muscle, Guts and Luck was released in 2005 on Underdogma Records and came into my possession as a gift from longtime Obelisk reader and all-around good dude Mike H., who I’m pretty sure is more O.G. on this site than I am. He found it in a shop in Maine called Bull Moose — apparently a bit of a local chain up that way — and sent it over with holiday-type cheer. Much appreciated, even before I put the thing on and heard the killer Boston-Southern riffing of “Water Me Down,” which, if it showed up today on a Roadsaw or Infernal Overdrive record, would still have me stoked. I guess seven years isn’t that long anyway, but this stuff hasn’t aged a bit.

Muscle, Guts and Luck is only 23 minutes long, so it’s right there in EP territory, but it’s packed anyway. Each track has something killer on offer, whether it’s the aforementioned chorus righteousness, Jase Forney‘s bass-fill excellence on “Raise a Little Hell” and really everywhere else, Pete Knipfing‘s used-to-be-a-punker shouts, drummer Todd Bowman‘s quick changes in “Cannonball,” on which Michele Morgan also adds backing vocals behind Knipfing. “Cannonball” particularly reminds me of some of the ballsy groove that showed up on what would turn out to be the last album from NY regional favorites Puny Human, 2007’s Universal Freak Out, and it’s not surprising since the two releases share a producer in Andrew Schneider.

According to the Oct. 14, 2005, issue of the Boston Phoenix — because, that’s right, I do research — Forney busted his sternum and a couple ribs and bruised his heart and spleen while working on Lamont‘s tour van around this time, forcing the band to can most of the tour they’d have done around Muscle, Guts and Luck. I’m not sure if bruised muscle, flattened guts and shitty luck were what they were going for with the title, but at least it’s genre appropriate. If you can get your hands on a copy of the EP, either at a Bull Moose like our dear friend Mike H. or anywhere else, consider it recommended listening. The more time I spend listening to these dudes, the more I think a reunion is in order.

Apparently offbeat pioneer Helios Creed put up this not-Kickstarter in the middle of last month. The page says there’s 95 days left and it’s currently at 108 percent of the fundraising goal. What does that mean? Well, probably it means that Helios Creed will be releasing a collection of lost tracks from his band Chrome at some point early next year.

For anyone unfamiliar, Helios Creed has an exhausting discography — as in, if you try to find everything he’s played on, you’re going to be exhausted — and it looks like it’s about to grow. I swiped the following from his Pledge Music page:

Half Machine from the Sun, The Lost Chrome Tracks from ’79-’80

http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/chrome

Damon Edge & I made these ‘Lost Chrome Tracks’ during recording sessions for Half Machine Lip Moves & Red Exposure. We had so much material, good tracks went unused. I didn’t even realize the tapes were lost (and sold) due to an unpaid bill! I forgot about them until they were played for me recently, some 30 years later, but listening to the work I was brought right back in time where we had left off. I remembered for instance that I felt ‘Something Rhythmic’ was a special track, maybe even a hit. I guess it wasn’t time to complete these tracks then, because now is their time.

I’m turning to you my fans & asking for your help so I can buy back the material, finish it the way it was meant & then release it to you! We’ve assembled a mind blowing array of art, music & more for this campaign. The ‘Mythology of Helios Creed & Chrome’ modeled illustration poster is incredible, as is the 1980 photograph of Damon & I. So please check out our pledges & do what you can! Purchasing a pledge entitles you to a download of The Lost Chrome Tracks release, plus you’ll have access to exclusive posts, videos & updates here. So come hang out with us on Pledge Music.

I’ve created new music for close to 40 years now. This ‘Lost Chrome Tracks’ release & a new Chrome album I’ve been recording this year, will be my 37th & 38th albums. If we surpass our goals for The Lost Chrome Tracks, I will use pledges towards my rerelease project, the goal of which is to make my entire recorded catalog available. Please also know that a portion of your pledges will be donated to Sweet Relief Musician’s Fund. For pledges made outside of the US international shipping is added to your pricing.

Thank you, Helios Creed

Some awesome people involved in this faux behind-the-scenes clip of Queens of the Stone Age working on their new album, due in the first half of 2013. Talking with frontman Josh Homme for most of the video is British comic actor Matt Berry, who’s probably best known for playing the boss, Douglas Reynholm, on the sitcom The IT Crowd, but who’s also been in excellent stuff like Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and the gosh-I-wish-they-made-more-episodes-of-it show Snuff Box, both of which are recommended viewing for anyone who can get ahold of them.

Joining Berry in finding the “Secrets of the Sound” is Steve Agee, who was on The Sarah Silverman Program as Brian Posehn‘s pot-smoking, video-game-loving boyfriend. The clip of Agee “interviewing” QOTSA bassist Michael Shuman is pretty awesome, as is the footage of Berry with guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen, whom I don’t think I’ve ever seen outside of a sport jacket and open button-down. Everyone’s gotta have a uniform, I guess.

The nine-minute video was also directed and edited by Liam Lynch, who has worked with QOTSA and Foo Fighters in the past (he appeared on Queens‘ last album, Era Vulgaris, in 2007), and who created Sifl and Olly and has directed a host of stuff for Tenacious D. One big family.

Also watch for: Josh Homme art, the dog dragging its ass on the rug, “the Swayz,” etc. Dig it:

Formed in 2011, the German five-piece Carrion Mother made their debut this fall with the self-released rumble of Koronis, a full-length demo recorded in their rehearsal space — obviously they’ve got one of those pro-type setups, since the three extended tracks sound better than a lot of records I get around here — in Regensburg. “Earth,” “Giver of Warmth,” and “Venus, Goddess” are embroiled in post-metal tonal crush and doomly lumber, driven by the dual guitars of Raffael D. and Julius K. and the varied screams and clean vocals of Aris S., who affects melodies and rhythmic shouts with apparent ease and knows when to step back and let the ambience hold sway.

And as one might expect for three tracks and a total 48:47, there’s no shortage of ambience. Carrion Mother aren’t as directly indebted to the Neurosis school of riffing, but one can hear a bit of Cult of Luna or maybe even some of Burst‘s thinking-man’s post-hardcore in the latter stretches of “Earth.” It’s largely the guitars responsible for setting the mood, while Fabian B.‘s bass and Joe W.‘s drums lock into complex but still flowing grooves behind. This frees up Raffael and Julius to meander as they will, and Aris to come and go in the manner of Rosetta‘s Mike Armine, able to both convey emotion and scream his lungs out when the song calls for it.

Each of the three tracks starts out soft before unveiling its full brunt, and as the longest, the opener would seem to show the most patience, but once it gets going — just before three minutes in — the intensity of riffing in “Venus, Goddess” more than makes up for any wanting ease in the transition. They build a tower out of that riff, Aris‘ vocals resting further back to let the unified chug come to the fore, and even when they break into the chorus, they hold onto the momentum propelling them forward. “Venus, Goddess” turns what seems like a bridge into a seven minute groove, adding on leads, slowdowns and rhythmic insistence to the core figure only to cap their debut outing with final comedown noodling, symmetrical to the start of each song, but hardly as adrenaline-inducing as the rush they hone at their most active.

Still, especially for a first release and a band who’s been around for a year, Carrion Mother‘s Koronis shows a more than firm grip on aesthetic and sets them up with any number of avenues for growth their next time out. At very least, it’s certainly worth a listen to the Bandcamp stream and all the instant gratification that might provide:

I have good reason to believe this clip of Wino joining Rotor on stage for a rendition of The Obsessed‘s classic “Neatz Brigade” was filmed at the 2010 South of Mainstream festival, which is put on every year by the label Exile on Mainstream — purveyors of such Wino-ly provisions as the Adrift acoustic record and Heavy Kingdom collaboration with Conny Ochs, among others — but I don’t have confirmation on that. For what it’s worth, it’s Rotor‘s YubeTou channel that put it up. Either way, it’s Wino joining the Berlin-native instrumentalists on stage in 2010, and that’s definitely “Neatz Brigade,” so that’s enough for me. The South of Mainstream banner in the background of the clip could also be a clue. Ha.

Rotor are no strangers to the song, having included it on their aptly-titled 2010 fourth album, 4 (review here), on which it was Nico Kozik handling vocal duties. Nothing quite like going to the source, however, and as one might expect, Wino kills it on the track, which comes from The Obsessed‘s 1994 major label flirtation, The Church Within. I’ll be the first to admit the sound is less than optimal here, but the video itself is pretty excellent visually. You won’t often hear me advocate for listening to Obsessed songs with the volume low — or Rotor, for that matter — but that might help too in this case.

Either way, it’s a cool curio for the last Wino Wednesday of 2012, and I hope you dig it:

Self-released in a glossy digipak, the two-song Emersion full-length from Finnish four-piece Sons of Kings revels in expansive heavy psychedelic jamming that – while there’s little groundbreaking about it on the surface – effectively conveys some of the finest elements in modern European psych and distinguishes itself through emergent musical personality. Washes of ambient guitar would seem to align the instrumental release, which is Sons of Kings’ second behind a 2010 self-titled, with the likes of Red Sparowes and others in the realm of post-Isis explorations, but that’s hardly the crux of what the band have on offer. Both “Ancestry” (18:30) and “Inheritor Fumes” (17:30) delight in mellotron, extra percussion and layered interplay, still leaving room in the second half of the latter track for a soundscaping build that’s ambient and evocative enough to be legitimately cinematic. That section is about as un-jammed as Sons of Kings (who just happen to be named after my favorite The Hidden Hand song) get, even after Samu Montonen’s drums kick back in and J.P. Saari tops the ending progression with a surprisingly bluesy solo, and in that, the opening sequence of “Ancestry” is echoed, as Emersion begins with similar soundscaping, albeit shorter as the drums, guitar and bass fade up amid the bed of synth. The band boasts two bassists – Ville Virtanen and Juuso Jalava – but neither jam is overdone in terms of low end. Likely this is due to the level of exploration or perhaps even the number of strings Jalava is working with (reportedly six, unless I’ve read the bio incorrectly), but in any case, the considerable addition of synth and other effects acts as a balance among all the instruments. In the vein of a more spaced-out early My Sleeping Karma, but perhaps with some less Eastern inflection, Sons of Kings put themselves in a position to be heavy psych forerunners of the European north, and the natural sense of improvisation they bring to “Ancestry” and “Inheritor Fumes” speaks to a focus on live performance that lies at the core of the band. They’re jammers. They jam.

The album is interesting to think of in terms of lineage as a thematic. That is, even unto their name (the reference notwithstanding), Sons of Kings are bringing out an idea of familial rite – the son of a king inherits a kingdom. So too do “Ancestry” and “Inheritor Fumes” play into a notion of past/passed relatives, the latter with not so much the kind of reverence as the band’s moniker as much as an underlying cynicism; inheriting fumes implies either that you stink, you get nothing, or both. Without lyrics or some other form of manifesto in the digipak, it’s harder to really know what Sons of Kings are driving at with these ideas – and how the title Emersion factors in; could be the idea of arising out of both the past itself and the nuclear culture of one’s own family – but it may be that the theme isn’t fully developed or that I’m just not seeing it. In either case, the music makes fitting complement to such musings, meandering wisps of guitar/bass trails sustained and given ground by Montonen’s deft cymbal work and a flowing stream of low end. Smoke on the water, if you want an image for it. In its latter moments, “Ancestry” rounds out with ample tonal sweetness, the guitar and bass ringing out while the mellotron takes up as almost part of the rhythm section in being a cohesive element after about 16 minutes in, its melody also serving to tie the piece together. I don’t know who’s playing it, but whichever member it is, their contributions make Sons of Kings’ sound all the richer, giving Emersion an individual feel that even plays into the themes of inheritance and ancestry noted above – the mellotron is at this point an inherently classic sound, meant to invoke or state an allegiance with classic heavy or progressive rock. As “Inheritor Fumes” gets underway with room echoes in spaced out guitar notes and more active drumming, Sons of Kings seem to be delighting in the moment, making it up as they go along and relying on what proves to be an engaging chemistry between the players to convey contemplation in motion and a subtly driving build.

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Elder, classic cable-access style. Not sure what could be better than that. Rich from the respect-worthy The Day after the Sabbath blog sent over the above clip, which was taped in 2010. The band’s second album, Dead Roots Stirring, wasn’t out yet, but they still close out with “The End” and the title-track from the record, so that material is represented along with “Riddle of Steel Pt. 1,” “Hexe” and “White Walls” from their 2008 self-titled debut. It’s a badass video, a great way to end an amazing week, and Rich also sent over a link to download high-quality mp3s of the full performance, which I’m glad to say will be added to The Obelisk Radio over the weekend.

About this week: Wow. Thanks to everyone who’s taken the time to check out the stuff that went up over the last few days. Usually I think of December as being kind of a quiet month, but with more than 200 Thee Facebooks likes on the Top 20 of 2012 and the kind of response to today’s Devil to Pay video premiere that I’m relatively sure the internet types call “viral,” I couldn’t feel better about heading into the holidays next week. Thank you all for reading, commenting, liking, sharing, helping to spread the word that this site exists. Today felt really good.

Over the weekend, I’ll be adding more than 100 albums to The Obelisk Radio, including as I mentioned the Elder performance above, as well as some classic Trouble, Kylesa, Mastodon, and many others. There’s still a lot of updating to be done, but I’ve been enjoying the process, so I’ll keep plugging away and hopefully you get the chance to listen and enjoy some of the tunes. I was stoked this afternoon when “Big News I” came on, and then later I heard The Atomic Bitchwax covering Deep Purple’s “Maybe I’m a Leo.” It had been a while for that one, so that was cool as well. Lots of good stuff on the playlist at this point, and while we’re still working out some kinks on the back end and there are adjustments to be made, I hope you enjoy the work in progress.

I will be posting next week, so if you’re around I hope you’ll be able to check in. Monday is Xmas Eve and that brings familial obligations, and of course Tuesday is Xmas Proper, but I’m back in the office for at least part of the day Wednesday and if I can post prior to that, I will. I’ve got an awesome interview with Arthur Seay of Unida/House of Broken Promises that I’d like to post before 2013 hits, and a whole stack of CDs wanting reviews, so although I’ve pretty much put the year to bed (I was thinking I might do a separate list of the top 10 EPs and demos — might be a fun complement to the bigger top 20), there’s still a lot more to come as we head toward the New Year. As always, I hope you’ll stick around.

And as always, I hope you have a great and safe weekend. I’ve been hearing and reading about blizzards in the Midwest, so if you’re out that way, stay warm and stay safe. I’ll see you on the forum and back here next week for more good times.

A bit of news before we all split out for the weekend: I’ve signed on as an online promotional partner once again for the Desertfest Berlin! Basically that means that we’ll have a lot more news about both this one and Desertfest London as we get into the New Year and closer to that weekend itself — set for April 25-27. Wild times, and it seems like some bands are already slated to do one and then the other — looking at you, Unida and Lowrider — but the lineup looks awesome and I couldn’t be more thrilled to be associated again with Desertfest as the multinational brand continues to grow. If anyone wants to set up an East Coast franchise, let me know.

And here’s the latest lineup and ticket links for Desertfest Berlin. California-based retro punkers The Shrine have been added. Word also just came down the PR wire that The Shrine will be joining Graveyard on their upcoming US run, also not to be missed.

THE SHRINE confirmed for the DesertFest 2013 !

Check it here : www.desertfest.de

And get your ticket right here :

www.desertfest.de/index.php/tickets.html

If you already got it, make some rocking gifts to your friends !

DESERTFEST LINE UP (in progress)
Pentagram
Unida
Fatso Jetson
Yawning Man
Dozer
Lowrider
Radio Moscow
Naam
Kadavar
Belzebong
Gentlemans Pistols
Lonely Kamel
The Shrine