Experimentalists of the proggy psychedelia, Portland’s Eternal Tapestry always seem to conjure something different with each release. Their latest outing, Guru Overload — I keep wanting to type “overlord,” but it’s not, it’s “overload” — is available now through Finland’s Oaken Palace Records and is a hypnotically ambient collection of Krautrock-inspired musings given melt-in-it presence through warm tones, synthesized beats and a self-directed will to let an idea go where it will. With an opening duo that comprises more than half the total 41-minute runtime, Guru Overload is shoegaze peaceful and heavy psych resonant without giving way really to one side or another.

This is respectable in itself, but the spirit throughout has less to do with respectability than with tripping out on wah-drenched vibery and languid rhythmic push on opener “Trout Fishing on the Street of Eternity” or the later, drone-fueled “The Double Bed Dream Gallows,” which rings out minimalism in swirling tones behind a barely-there guitar. Each of the five included cuts gives something of a different take, but by the time “Trout Fishing on the Street of Eternity” and the 11-minute follow-up, “Karma Repair Kit,” are done, one is bound to be lost in the album’s flow. More to the point, “Karma Repair Kit” in itself has a formidable dangling-watch effect, the five-piece pulling a “you’re getting very sleepy” with what, because of the beat underneath, winds up being one of Guru Overload‘s more grounded jams. Still, its blend of organic and synth elements and the not-all-who-wander-ism throughout make “Karma Repair Kit” a more than satisfying journey in itself, and an excellent sample of the cranial alterations Eternal Tapestry render so smoothly across the board.

The album is out as of this past weekend in 140g vinyl through Oaken Palace, with proceeds going to The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation. More info follows the song, which you can stream on the player below.

Please enjoy:

Oaken Palace Records is proud to announce the release of the new full-length by Portland-based psych overlords Eternal Tapestry! As every release on Oaken Palace Records, the new album – entitled Guru Overload – is dedicated to an endangered species. Eternal Tapestry have chosen the orang-utan, and all profits will be donated to The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation.

Guru Overload, mastered by James Plotkin, features 5 new jams that the band recorded in a private cabin deep in the woods. The album manages to strike a balance between the freaked-out “A World Out Of Time” and the more laid-back “Dawn In 2 Dimensions”, both in terms of style as well as track length. The result is a wonderfully smooth flow of new material that combines exotic and new sounds with the best of Krautrock and Psychedelic Rock.

The first pressing will be limited to 500 copies on 140g red vinyl, housed in a 100% recycled card sleeve, printed with non-toxic colours, and produced by a carbon neutral pressing plant. An additional 20 test pressing copies on black vinyl, housed in hand-crafted sleeves with alternative artwork, will be available exclusively in the Oaken Palace webshop. Both editions come with a free download code. Oaken Palace Records is a registered charity (#1154786).

Eternal Tapestry on Thee Facebooks

Oaken Palace Records

Guru Overload at Oaken Palace’s webshop

Not that Weedeater need an excuse to hit the road at this point, but finishing a new album is as good an occasion as any. That record, yet untitled, will be out in 2015 as their debut on Season of Mist, who’ve also reissued the band’s first two full-lengths. Like its 2011 predecessor, it was helmed by Steve Albini, and while five years seems like a long time between Weedeater records, it’s worth considering that in addition to swapping out drummers, the band hasn’t really been off tour since before the last LP came out.

Dates for the upcoming run follow, courtesy of the PR wire:

WEEDEATER announce North American Tour dates

Notorious southern metal outfit WEEDEATER (“Dixie” Dave Collins – Bass, Vocals; Dave Sheperd – Guitar, Vocals) have announced new North American tour dates. The tour starts on November 3. A full list of confirmed tour dates can be found below.

WEEDEATER recently re-issued their first two albums, ‘Sixteen Tons’ and ‘…And Justice for Y’all’. The long out of print albums are available as vinyl for the first time, as well as a CD and digitally at the Season of Mist E-shop and at Bandcamp.

The North Carolina-based band have finished recording their new full-length album, and first for Season of Mist, with their long-time engineer Steve Albini (HIGH ON FIRE, NEUROSIS, NIRVANA, HELMET, and more).

For more WEEDEATER news and tour information, please visit the Season of Mist website, and the WEEDEATER website and Facebook page.

WEEDEATER Tour Dates
*All dates with FULL OF HELL and LAZER/WULF
Nov. 3 Pittsburgh, PA @ Rex Theater
Nov. 4 Baltimore, MD @ Soundstage
Nov. 5 Philadelphia, PA @ Kung Fu Necktie
Nov. 6 Holyoke, MA @ Waterfront Tavern
Nov. 7 Brooklyn, NY @ Saint Vitus
Nov. 8 Dayton, OH @ Rock Star Arena
Nov. 9 Chicago, IL @ Double Door
Nov. 10 Grand Rapids, MI @ Pyramid Scheme
Nov. 11 Indianapolis, IN @ 5th Quarter Lounge
Nov. 12 Newport, KY @ Thompson House
Nov. 13 Atlanta, GA @ 529
Nov. 14 Savannah, GA @ Jinx
Nov. 15 St. Petersburg, FL @ The State Theater

http://www.season-of-mist.com/
http://www.weedmetal.com/
https://www.facebook.com/weedmetal

Weedeater, Live in Los Angeles, CA, Jan. 29, 2014

Monster Magnet, Spine of God (1991)

Nothing against SPV Records — their reissue of Spine of God and other earlier Monster Magnet albums was fair game as they were out of print and unavailable to a bunch of fans who came aboard during the band’s more commercial hard rock era — but if you want to listen to Spine of God, you really need to go for the original. Caroline Records, in a jewel case, some of the finest heavy psych rock ever crafted. Still ahead of its time. We’re still playing catchup to where Spine of God is at. We’ll get there one of these days, then we’ll all crack our skulls doing airplanes and get our heads just right and so on. Cover me with skin and hair. Fucking a.

Spine of God is more than a great Monster Magnet record — they’ve got a few by now — but an absolute landmark. In New Jersey, the state in which I was born and raised, an entire generation of bands came up in the wake of Monster Magnet‘s branching out, and that scene is still going, moving forward. So are Monster Magnet, albeit with a much different lineup than they had 23 years ago, but to go back and look at the development of Red Bank, NJ, as a center in which heavy rock flourished on the East Coast in bands like Godspeed, Core, The Atomic Bitchwax, Solarized, later Halfway to Gone, Solace, The Ribeye Bros., and on and on, Monster Magnet are a big branch on that bizarre family tree, and Spine of God, which was their debut — to mix metaphors — was the root for a lot of what came after. Add to all that it’s an absolute masterpiece, and yeah, I’m gonna close out the week with it.

I’ll further admit that while it was ultimately the classicitude of Spine of God which made me break it out on this late night/early morning, a close second in motivation was the band’s upcoming Milking the Stars, the November release of which was announced earlier this month. I’ve been spending a lot of time with that record, which is comprised of reworked tracks from Monster Magnet‘s 2013 opus, Last Patrol (review here), as well as the previously unreleased title-cut and some other odds and ends, and almost as much as I dig what frontman/songwriter/founder Dave Wyndorf did in remaking the songs, I think the adventurous spirit of the album and the willingness to screw with work that by most definitions would be “finished” already emphasizes a lot of what’s made Monster Magnet so great all these years, and bodes ridiculously well for their proper follow-up to Last Patrol, since basically they can go anywhere at this point. I’ll have a review up of Milking the Stars sometime in the next month or so, but it’s on my mind already.

Enjoy Spine of God. It’s one of my favorite records.

—

Is is really three in the morning? Ah jeez. I rolled in not at all long ago from seeing Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats and Danava in New York. Quite a night. I was going to go to Boston last night, but as I mentioned on Thee Facebooks, it was my 10th wedding anniversary — the only holiday about which I give even the remotest of fucks — and, well, 10 years isn’t nothing. Kind of a big deal. If it was seven years, or some other in-between number, I might be able to get away with that. But 10? Nah. As of Sunday, The Patient Mrs. and I will have been together for a total of 17 years, which is more than half of both of our lives. Wild to think about. How stupid lucky I am.

Next week though I’ll review the Uncle Acid gig, and I’ve also got a new track from Eternal Tapestry going up on Monday. If I’m up to it Sunday, I might put up the first recorded demo from Righteous Bloom, which is the new spinoff band from Beelzefuzz. And of course there’s the podcast. Thanks if you got to check that out. Apparently I’m up to 40 of them. Got a thing for round numbers lately, I suppose.

Obviously there’s a lot more than that to come, but I have no idea what it might be. The Patient Mrs. and I are in Connecticut for the weekend, celebrando, so at least I didn’t have to go all the way back to Massachusetts tonight. Felt good to be back in New York. Even Manhattan on a Friday night, which is nightmare of inflated ego, inflated bank accounts and terrifying hawtness. Good to go a show there, I guess. City still smells like pee. I had some point about being in Connecticut. It’s long gone. God damn this Monster Magnet record is awesome.

Have a great and safe weekend. PLEASE check out the forum and radio stream.

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[mp3player width=480 height=150 config=fmp_jw_widget_config.xml playlist=aot40.xml]

This one’s beamed in from a universe of all good times. I don’t want to walk around tooting my own horn like I actually did anything, but you’ll pardon me if I say that once you get on board here, you might not want to jump back off. The flow is up and down, alternately drawn out and rushing, and right up to the last song which is a bit of a return to earth, the second hour is the most spaced out it’s ever been around these parts. I’m way into it. I hope you’re way into it.

Like last time, I tried to get a mix of excellent stuff upcoming with other recent items you might’ve missed. One of these days I’m gonna do another one of these where I talk, but this is straight-up track into track the whole way through and I think it moves really well that way. Please feel free to grab a download or hit the stream and dig in and enjoy.

First Hour:
The Melvins, “Sesame Street Meat” from Hold it In (2014)
Fever Dog, “One Thousand Centuries” from Second Wind (2014)
Lo-Pan, “Eastern Seas” from Colossus (2014)
Witchrider, “Black” from Unmountable Stairs (2014)
Alunah, “Awakening the Forest” from Awakening the Forest (2014)
Craang, “Magnolia” from To the Estimated Size of the Universe (2014)
Slow Season, “Shake” from Mountains (2014)
Lucifer in the Sky with Diamonds, “Guillotine” from The Shining One (2014)
The Proselyte, “Irish Goodbye” from Our Vessel’s in Need (2014)
Flood, “Lake Nyos” from Oak (2014)
Lord, “Golgotha” from Alive in Golgotha (2014)

Second Hour:
My Brother the Wind, “Garden of Delights” from Once There was a Time When Time and Space were One (2014)
Spidergawd, “Empty Rooms” from Spidergawd (2014)
The Myrrors, “Whirling Mountain Blues” from Solar Collector (2014)
Witch Mountain, “Your Corrupt Ways (Sour the Hymn)” from Mobile of Angels (2014)

Total running time: 1:54:28

Thank you for listening.

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With a sound built on echoing psychedelic doom obscurities, 11Paranoias will reemerge this fall with a new album called Stealing Fire from Heaven, furthering their penchant for horror on what will be close to the three-year anniversary of the project having been formed by bassist/vocalist Adam Richardson. Formerly of Ramesses, Richardson formed 11Paranoias with his ex-bandmate Mark Greening on drums, but the lineup is now comprised of himself, guitarist Mike Vest (also Bong) and drummer Nathan Perrier, formerly of Capricorns. This is important to remember because no doubt the songs themselves will sound brutally inhuman and one wants to be reminded that people actually made the thing.

Darkness swirls at the mouth of the PR wire, which brings word of the album and the new song “Surrealise” available to stream:

11PARANOIAS ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM DETAILS AND UNVEIL FIRST TRACK

DUE FOR NOVEMBER 10 RELEASE VIA RITUAL PRODUCTIONS

London-based psychedelic doom trio, 11PARANOIAS, have today announced details of their forthcoming album, and unveiled the first track to be taken from it.

The album, titled Stealing Fire From Heaven, will be the third release from the band, following on from their 2013 offering Superunnatural, and Spectralbeastiaries which was released in March 2014. The first track to be unleashed is “Surrealise” – a sultry jam that starts of with sleazy, sepia-toned sax before breaking out to segue into an earth rumbling doom groove.

The phenomenal artwork for Stealing Fire From Heaven is a piece by celebrated pioneer of the Surrealist art movement, Max Ernst, entitled ‘The Temptation of St Anthony’. The artwork can be seen below.

11PARANOIAS encapsulate otherworldliness and psychedelia, drawing in inspiration, and spewing out the results in a devilish cocktail of riffs, fuzz and fury. Formed on 11/11/11 with a jam that set them off on this eventful musical path, the band has relied on improvisation and instinct throughout; at no point more so than when it came to record Stealing Fire From Heaven. With no songs written or rehearsed, the band decamped to the studio on the summer solstice to lay down the seven tracks that make up the album. The results are a heady mix of low swirling grooves, super heavy psych and seriously uneasy listening.

Adam Richardson (bass/vocals) provides an insight into the recording process for the album:

“We have made full use of the ‘automatic’ process again on Stealing Fire From Heaven – not just the lyrical/incantation aspect, but the entire process – and it has rewarded us with this ‘unseen apparition’ which we love! It takes guts, blood, trance dwelling exploration of inner and outer space, and an unflinching will to make a record in this method….

“Surrealise, despite its ‘born of nothing’ approach, delves naturally into a mournful lament, of ‘killing sadness’ – that could only be divined and not written. We have coaxed Stealing Fire From Heaven from our consciousness and the stars into this dull dimension we (think we) know. Any idiot can write a great song, learn it and record it, but this traditional approach has become dead to us…

“Long live the new flesh!”

The solid trio at the core of the fuzz-fuelled fury are Adam Richardson, Mike Vest (guitar) and Nathan Perrier (drums), who each bring their own past experiences and weight to the table. Stealing Fire From Heaven was recorded and mixed in the summer of 2014 at London School of Sound and XL Recordings. Adam Richardson also played keyboards on the record. Saxophone and synth is contributed by Austin Milne.

Stealing Fire From Heaven will be released on 10th November 2014 via Ritual Productions. Further details of the album, including preorder information, will be made available in the coming weeks.

The full track listing is as follows:
1. The Great Somnambulist
2. Paranoiditude (Beyond The Grave)
3. Surrealise
4. At The Cursus
5. By The Light Of A Dying Star (Neutron Start)
6. Lost To Smoke
7. Retribution of Dreams

11PARANOIAS will play the following shows:
30/10/14 Underworld, London, UK
01/11/14 Grenswerk, Venlo, Netherlands
02/11/14 Glazart, Paris, France
09/11/14 Exchange, Bristol, UK

https://www.facebook.com/11Paranoias
http://11paranoias.bandcamp.com/
http://www.ritualproductions.net/

11Paranoias, “Surrealise”

Nashville four-piece All Them Witches released their second album, Lightning at the Door, last November via Bandcamp. No promotion to speak of other than a posted link, no real advance warning, just there it was. The record’s 45 minutes became something of an underground sensation, word of mouth and type of finger alike singing the praises of All Them Witches‘ original take on psychedelic blues, heavy riffing and stylized soul. Myself included. Lightning at the Door, which followed an earlier-2013 issue of their debut offering, Our Mother Electricity (review here), that made them the first American band to have their music released via Elektrohasch Schallplatten, was easily among last year’s highlight releases, and it warrants and deserves the physical pressing and proper “official” release the band has now given it. It is a stunning work in its clarity of aesthetic and in its songcraft, resulting in eight memorable tracks each distinguished by one part or another but all feeding into a complete, overarching whole that’s immersive, sprawling and the influence of which has already begun to be felt and, one suspects, will continue to be felt for some time. Reveling in both the individual contributions of guitarist Ben McLeod, bassist/vocalist Michael Parks, Jr., drummer Robby Staebler and Fender Rhodes specialist Allan Van Cleave and the chemistry between all of them, Lightning at the Door satisfies in its progressive sensibility and its atmosphere even as it sounds humble, raw and working directly in opposition to self-indulgent impulses. This sounds like hyperbole, but let it stand that whatever they do next — a 25-minute single-song jam called “Effervescent” (review here) has been issued since — to call it a landmark does not at this point feel like an overstatement.

A brooding feel pervades, and some of Lightning at the Door‘s most effective moments are in its quieter, ambient reaches, beginning with the walk-into-water intro to opener “Funeral for a Great Drunken Bird,” volume swells of guitar feedback shifting smoothly into warm, natural-sounding fuzz given melodic breadth by Van Cleave‘s keys — it feels like cheating to review the album after seeing the band live and witnessing first-hand how utterly essential he is to what All Them Witches do — and boogie by Staebler‘s ever-ready snare shuffle. “Funeral for a Great Drunken Bird” unfolds smoothly, patiently, Parks‘ vocals arriving in the second half to introduce a surreal lyrical quirk that will serve as a uniting theme in the material throughout. “When God Comes Back” ignites heavier boogie while still saving the thickest tones for “Swallowed by the Sea,” the album’s longest cut at 8:23 and the end of side A after “When God Comes Back”‘s bluesy thrust shifts into airy psychedelic rock, twisting rhythms remaining surefooted amid memorable howls of guitar and voice and further bizarre proclamations, Songs for the Deaf-worthy lead compression standing out in the final reach en route to the moodier, harmonica-inclusive “The Marriage of Coyote Woman,” bass and Rhodes coming to the fore as the repeated lines, “I never met a salesman like you before/Lions of the world just ripping us apart,” serving as the spoken frame for a fluid, laid-back jam that molds its way into and out of dynamic apexes, finishing quiet as through-a-can twang vocals and lightly-plucked guitar start “Swallowed by the Sea.” For its scope more than its length, “Swallowed by the Sea” is a remarkable singular accomplishment, building from its minimal beginning to a swaying, riff-led progression, McLeod‘s molasses tone arriving at 1:57 to jar the listener out of sweet hypnosis and into righteous heavy groove that morphs for the next minute or so before receding into another graceful jam, the exploratory feel of which is no less engaging than was the hook of “The Marriage of Coyote Woman” or “Charles William,” which follows as the opener of side B.

The album makes a certain kind of sense with the vinyl sides split, and seems to have been structured with that in mind, but I won’t discount its linear value either. As someone who became a fan of it by streaming and who purchased one of the sleeve CD copies the band pressed before this digipak/LP re-release, I’ve spent far more time considering Lightning at the Door as a whole front-to-back work than as component parts either in the two halves of a vinyl or in its eight individual songs, and enjoy the process of getting lost in it that listening experience provides. Still, there’s a definite shift as the second portion branches out All Them Witches‘ approach, “Charles William” mirroring the subdued launch of “Funeral for a Great Drunken Bird” and its lyrical modus but solidifying around one of the record’s most memorable progressions, resounding with a triumph — once again, Parks‘ vocals and Van Cleave‘s keys offer melodic flourish to the propulsive rhythm in McLeod‘s guitar, Parks‘ bass and Staebler‘s drums — that serves as a high point of efficiency in their execution. Well then, time to jam out. “The Death of Coyote Woman” — you’ll recall she got married on side A — works around a start stop riff initially and emphasizes how much the band is the more than the sum of its players’ contributions, all four of them in their own space as they move forward into the jam, stopping after a minute in to brazenly cut the momentum short and begin a verse progression from the ground up that’s bound to disorient those hearing Lightning at the Door for the first time on vinyl (the old which-song-is-this-again factor) and which leads back into jamming not quite as motoring as the “intro” to “The Death of Coyote Woman” but which makes a steady home for itself in the feel-it-out space between the low and the high where most acts aren’t nearly so comfortable lingering and few manage to inhabit as well as All Them Witches without either losing themselves to boring repetition or moving on for the sake of an easier payoff. This is a band breaking the rules of the building progressions that so much of heavy psych is based around, and doing it with command and tones natural enough to carry listeners along paths of complex structure and range.

“Romany Dagger” is more or less an interlude at an instrumental 2:46, but it also serves to push stylistic boundaries, tapping into Wovenhand-style Eastern European minor-key-isms and rhythms while holding firm to the album’s mood, a quick fade bringing about the languid but still swinging drum intro to closer “Mountain,” a sort of spiritual successor in the vein of “Funeral for a Great Drunken Bird” and “Charles William” but longer than either of them at 6:17 and more patient than either, working to rather than against a linear build, McLeod peppering in lead layers atop Parks‘ steady bassline, the tense drumming of Staebler and Van Cleave‘s intermittent tones, used more for emphasis here but still very much a part of the track’s overall affect, even in the chorus, at which the song seems to arrive with a sense of reverence befitting the repeated line, “God bless our mother the mountain.” Just before the five-minute mark, a heavier riff emerges to bring “Mountain” to its peak and Lightning at the Door to its somewhat abbreviated but crashing finale, ending with a ringout that feels understated considering the journey preceding. That lack of pretense is one of Lightning at the Door‘s defining characteristics and one of its great strengths. The album has already met with success in raising All Them Witches‘ profile — they’re beginning to make a statement as a touring act as well, having just finished a round of dates with Windhand — but more crucially, it signifies the individualized approach coming to the fore from these players and serves notice of their potential to continue to build on it, much as it builds on Our Mother Electricity. Again, whatever they do next, whatever changes are bound to take place, wherever they go and wherever they take their sound along the way, Lightning at the Door will remain a special moment, the urgency in the creation of which bleeds through its every measure.

All Them Witches, Lightning at the Door (2013/2014)

All Them Witches on Thee Facebooks

All Them Witches BigCartel store

All Them Witches on Bandcamp

Lo-Pan playing Roadburn has been a while coming, or at least that’s how it feels to me, but it’s good that the Ohio fuzzsome foursome will head to Roadburn 2015 on the heels of their most accomplished album yet. The forthcoming Colossus presents Lo-Pan‘s sound much the same way a steamroller is presented to what will soon be a parking lot, and I’ve no doubt they’ll kill it in Tilburg in the fine tradition of Gozu, Freedom Hawk and Wo Fat in representing Small Stone Records‘ brand of heavy rock.

Also today comes the news that the lineup is complete for the Enslaved/Wardruna curated main stage and that Bast and Motorpsycho-offshoot Spidergawd have also been added. Good times all around.

Goes like this:

Houses of the Holistic, Roadburn 2015’s Curated Event: Line-up Main Stage Complete

Spidergawd (ft. Motorpsycho’s Bent Sæther & Kenneth Kapstad), Lo-Pan and Bast confirmed for 20th edition Roadburn Festival

Roadburn Festival 2015 Ticket Pre-Sales Start Thursday, Oct 16th 2014 at 21:00 CET; Pre-Sales Party at The 013 Venue (NL)

Roadburn’s special curated events put a unique spin on the already eclectic nature of the festival, and are also accurate reflections of the influences and interests of the guest curators. In 2013 Jus Osborn (Electric Wizard) turned the 013 venue in Tilburg, The Netherlands, into ground zero for the world’s most cutting-edge doom and acid rock, while 2014 saw Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth) offer up a master class in some of the greatest progressive rock ever created.

On Friday, April 11, 2015 the main stage at 013 will become a gathering place for heathen spirits, as Houses Of The Holistic will feature six acts that vividly reflect the epic grandeur of heavy music, and most vitally, Scandinavia. In addition to performances by Enslaved and Wardruna, featuring curators Ivar Bjørnson and Einar Selvik respectively, as well as the special Enslaved/Wardruna collaboration Skuggsjá, Norwegian avant-garde act Virus and Icelandic post-metal favourites Sólstafir, highly influential UK gothic innovators Fields Of The Nephilim will make an exclusive special guest appearance.

In related news, Spidergawd is a Norwegian sort-of supergroup featuring Motorpsycho’s Bent Sæther (bass), Kenneth Kapstad (drums) and Per Borten of Cadilac-fame – the only Trondheim band that ever got close to Norway’s much revered rock titans.

However, Spidergawd is a band in its own right, and on their bludgeoning S/T debut, the band, completed by Rolf Martin Snustad on saxophone, proffer a bulldozing, fuzzed out post-boogie assault, which owes equal debts to ZZ Top, MC5, Foghat or even Savoy Brown.

Yes, this is full-on heavy 70s worship, delivered with relish by a bunch of Hard Rock aficionados that are currently creating quite a buzz in Norway, and will capture the 20th edition of Roadburn Festival by storm when they hit Het Patronaat on Thursday, April 9.

For the better part of the past five years, Ohio fuzz rockers Lo-Pan have been on tour in support of their 2009 sophomore outing, Sasquanout, and 2011’s Salvador, turning them into one of the underground’s hardest touring bands.

Salvador was a pinnacle for Lo-Pan’s blend of their 70s rock heritage shot through with 80s metal fire, a fluid groove, and soulful vocals, pushing the band beyond the confines of the stoner rock genre.

Hot on the heels of the their forthcoming album, Colossus – the band’s fourth overall and second full-length for Detroit’s Small Stone Records – Lo-Pan will kick a good deal of ass at the 20th edition of Roadburn Festival on Sunday, April 12 at the 013 venue.

Colossus marks a meaner, more precise Lo-Pan with the band a tighter and more efficient-sounding unit than they’ve ever been!

London-based blackened doom triad Bast have also been confirmed for Roadburn 2015. Over the last year Bast have managed to staunchly hold their own on stages shared with such behemoths as Primitive Man and Coltsblood and next year will see them upping their game yet more and bringing the hammer down at Roadburn in the Green Room on Sunday, April 12.

Tickets for the 20th edition of Roadburn Festival, set for April 9 – 12 at the 013 venue in Tilburg, The Netherlands, will go on sale on Thursday, October 16, 2014. Set your alarm and get ready to score your tickets at 21:00 CET!

We are pleased to report that there will be NO price increase this year. Three-day tickets will be available for 165 Euros (excl. servicefees); four-day tickets will cost 185 Euros (excl. service fees). Afterburner-only tickets will cost 32.50 Euros (excl. service fees). Please note that one-day tickets are not available for the Thursday, Friday or Saturday Roadburn dates. Online buyers can order a maximum of four tickets.

For everyone in the Netherlands and Belgium: we are aware that your local ticket outlets will not be open when pre-sales start, which is why we are throwing another pre-sales party at the 013 venue in Tilburg (NL). From 19:00 CET – 20:30 CET you will be able to purchase a maximum of four paper tickets for Roadburn Festival 2015. Guaranteed!

In addition to making it easy to get tickets, the pre-sales party is going to be a blast! This year, we have invited The Machine and Radar Men From The Moon to provide the soundtrack. More info HERE.

Curated by Ivar Bjørnson (Enslaved) and Wardruna‘s Einar “Kvitrafn” Selvik, Roadburn Festival 2015 (including Skuggsjá, Enslaved, Wardruna, Fields of the Nephilim, Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin performing Dawn of The Dead and Susperia in its entirety, Zombi, Sólstafir, White Hills, Bongipper, Floor and The Heads as Artist In Residence among others) will run for four days from Thursday, April 9 to Sunday, April 12 at the 013 venue in Tilburg, The Netherlands.

https://www.facebook.com/roadburnfestival
https://twitter.com/roadburnfest
roadburn.com

Lo-Pan, “Regulus”

If you didn’t know, this Saturday, Sept. 27, is Cassette Store Day, a tape-minded answer to the hugely successful Record Store Day initiative supporting independent music retailers. I’m sure you did know, because you’re on top of it like that, but more to the point, Allston’s Phantom Glue have a special release coming out to mark the occasion. Working with Negative Fun Records, they’ll release Angels of Meth, a four-track demo collection taken from their early going when they worked under that moniker.

A lot of what works today about Phantom Glue was present in their sound back then — their blend of raw punk, sludge and metal — but of course the demo material is less solidified than the band would become by the time they got around to releasing their 2009 self-titled debut (review here) or A War of Light Cones (review here) last year. Their aesthetic was plenty assured by the first album and refined as much as something so bruising can be called refined on the second. The Angels of Meth demo has the elements there, but it’s a nastier churn and a dirtier distortion lurching out of their amps. Of course, this has an appeal entirely of its own on a song like “Tazed,” which I’m happy to have the chance to host for streaming ahead of the demo’s release.

The track hasn’t been completely unavailable or anything. If you’re willing to dig through the morass that MySpace has become, you can find it hidden somewhere in Phantom Glue‘s profile. This, however, is much easier (and higher quality), so I’ll go ahead and encourage you to just press play below instead. Angels of Meth will be the first time this material has been physically pressed as well.

Track and release info follow, courtesy of Negative Fun. Enjoy:

For all intents and purposes, Phantom Glue is Angels of Meth. The band was birthed by Matt Oates and has existed in various states since the mid-2000s.

The band was known as Angels of Meth up through the recording of the Phantom Glue S/T’d record. It wasn’t until after the recording process was completed for the Phantom Glue’s s/t record that the band decided to change the name.

This is the 1st recorded output from the band, which has never existed in a physical format until now, and further illustrates the dramatic development and shift in sound from release to release.

Phantom Glue on Thee Facebooks

Angels of Meth at Negative Fun’s webstore