I’m talking about unchecked aggression, dude. That’s what Midlands trio Volume Death Riot have to say about it. Theirs is a therapeutic, noisy kind of riff metal, like AmRep gone mo-dern; a little mellower than Unsane at their angriest, but aren’t we all? You might hear some Houdini, but you might not. One’s as likely as the other.

I’ve been grooving on the two tracks on Volume Death Riot‘s MySpace page for the last week or so, and the energy they emit is every bit as frantic and unchained as the paragraph above. Everything about them is choppy except the songwriting. “Buer,” at a surprisingly quick seven minutes, is riffy without being cliche, and the kind of song you’d expect to be instrumental, but for the vocals. “Hell to Pay” is shorter, crunchier and more aggressive vocally, but still basically in the noise-rock mold. Of the two I’ll take the latter, as far as personal preference goes, and though I don’t know what the three-piece’s plans are as far as more recording, I’d sure like to see them play a gig with On the Radar veterans Dopefight.

Noise is about as unpretentious a sound as you can get, and Volume Death Riot definitely make good use of that workingman feel in their two present tracks. Hopefully they’ll be able to keep that kind of atmosphere going forward, as both “Hell to Pay” and “Buer” have a sincerity to their anger that’s not easily faked. They’re not changing the world, but they’ve got a cool sound, decent production, and potential. It’s worth keeping an eye on the MySpace to see where they go from here.

Anyone out there who wants to make a Craigslist post looking for bandmates, the tribalist doom outfit Amarwexu (whose name means “small-poxed Satan”) kindly submit this tutorial as to how you do it:

Amarwexu: Collective musical troupe dedicated to preserving the memory of the many courageous acts of derring-do committed in the name of Imperialism seeks the following:
GUITARS
DRUMS/PERCUSSION – for our full drum line
TRUMPET/BUGLE/HORN PLAYER
BAGPIPES/TIN WHISTLE
ACCORDION/KEYBOARDS
VOCALISTS

A healthy interest in World History would be helpful to this project. A fanatical devotion to our limited aims is mandatory. Band meets roughly once a month for 3-4 hrs in Watchung.

And dig the range of influences. It goes from Crass and Swans to Penance and Rudimentary Peni. I’ve only seen one practice video, but as a fan of that which falls under the heading “crazy shit,” I feel compelled to share. It’s even better knowing this stuff is happening in my home state. Where else but Jersey?

If you want to feel young compared to someone else, I’ll humbly submit the method by which I discovered Jacksonville, Florida, duo Hollow Leg: I saw their logo on a t-shirt. That’s right. Not on the internet, not through some popular blog or forum posting, but on some dude’s shirt at the recent Earthride show in NYC. How old am I? Well I’m that old.

Keeping that in mind, imagine how surprised I was to find out the kind of raucous shenanigans Hollow Leg got up to when I finally checked out their MySpace, only to discover that it’s just two guys in the band! What will they think of next?

Like a lot of duos in this post-Black Cobra/post-Om society, Hollow Leg made up for a lack of players with a thickness of tone. Guitarist/vocalist Brent riffs like he means it on “Spit in the Fire” with singing that, at its cleanest, reminds of Today is the Day‘s unsettling later output, and full-on growls that don’t seem cheesy or overly metal, but rather fit the material nicely, appropriate for the chaos behind them.

Drummer Tim hits heavy and hard on “Caretaker,’ only accenting the plod of the song. Hollow Leg do a good job of mixing up the pace, paying homage to the doomier side of their noise/stoner influence while also keeping in mind that it’s the groove that’s going to best carry across the material. Longer songs like “The Return” or the rougher-edged “Warbeast” have plenty of room for Hollow Leg to change up their approach, and the band does so fluidly, which you can hear for yourself on the internet if you’re less than 77 years old, or if you’re like me, you can read all about it… on some dude’s t-shirt.

It’s hard not to like a band like Fog Wizard. The double-guitar Boston five-piece play reckless sludge and couldn’t give a fuck one way or another about convention, accessibility, whatever. Even the layout of their MySpace page will give you a headache if you look at it long enough. Their demo, Enter the Fog, is available for listening in its entirety there for anyone who think their constitution can stand up to it.

How do I know Fog Wizard don’t give a fuck? Look at their stage names: Captain Motherfucker on vocals, Tan Vovan and Tone Gavone on guitar, Jimmy “Bug Bomb” Sizzlak on bass and Mr. Peebles on drums? Come on. If that’s not enough, one listen to “Fear the Kraken” is all it’ll take for convincing. It sounds like a rehearsal space recording with Captain Motherfucker‘s vocals added on top. You know how Boston has a reputation for being an angry kind of town? Well, yeah. There you go.

If your eyes can take it, make sure you read their hyper-sarcastic bio, which is not to be missed, and though I thought “Murder Train” might be a Dethklok cover, it was not. That’s the only song in their player not on Enter the Fog, and I don’t know where it comes from, but it rocks. Sometimes it’s just great to find a band that doesn’t take itself too seriously and just wanted to kick a little ass. Sludge on, brothers.

Yeah, I know I kind of have a thing for the Oceania stoner/doom scene (Pod People, Arc of Ascent, etc.) but you take one listen to the killer riffage coming out of Canberra trio Looking Glass and see if you’re not right there with me. They’ve got two EPs out, aptly titled Looking Glass (2006) and 2 (2007), and there are four songs up for listening on their MySpace. One comes from 2, the other three from Looking Glass.

I heard “Freya” first, which is the track from 2. There’s a ton of space in the guitars of Marcus de Pasquale (who also handles vocals), but even has he launches into a massive solo that engulfs about half the seven-minute song, I’m even more mesmerized by the grooves of the rhythm section. Bassist Lachlan Paine and drummer Clinton Paine, relation assumed, seem to be holding the song down for de Pasquale, as if to say, “We got this, you go ahead and mess around for a while” in classic ’70s jam fashion. Lachlan‘s bass tone features on “Freya,” but also on “Psychonaut” from Looking Glass, which by and large is more straightforward with rougher production. The same could be said for the shorter “Procession” and “Acid Tongue,” the latter of which is easily the fastest of the four, but all of which sport some serious grooves.

The playing of de Pasquale is going to be a highlight for riff junkies, and as Looking Glass prepare their next release for this coming Fall, I wouldn’t be surprise to see them head in an even more psychedelic direction, though I certainly hope de Pasquale keeps some of the meat in his riffs as he shows in the classically metallic “Procession.” Wherever they go from here, Looking Glass‘ two EPs are definitely worth a look on MySpace, and the Aussie trio are yet another killer act from Down Under on the radar.

I gotta be honest, I don’t know what I like more about Hog, the free-for-all sludge or the name. It’s so simple, but it says so much about who the band are and what they do. If I came up to you on the street (wouldn’t that be awkward) and said, “Hey man, you gotta check out this band from North Carolina, they’re called Hog,” you’d have a pretty good idea of what you were getting into, right? I think that’s killer.

Hog have two demo tracks posted on their MySpace, “On the Eve of War” and “A Word is Born,” and yeah, they definitely sound like demos, but the recordings are clear enough for you to get an idea of what Hog are going for. They play a kind of post-Mastodon thrashing sludge (think Javelina, but a little riffier), hitting tempo changes on the quick to keep listeners on edge and making good use of R. James‘ lead guitar. They’re new school, yeah, and there are other bands out there doing this kind of thing, but I ask you, are they named Hog? No they are not. So there you go. Hog wins.

And it’s not like they’re annoyingly derivative. They just have some growing to do. According to the MySpace, they’re slated to head into the studio for a session with none other than Kylesa‘s Philip Cope at the helm. One imagines that someone of his boardly prowess should have no problem bringing the best out of a band like Hog, and that the righteous groove that caps off “A Word is Born” will be all the more lethal for time spent getting it right. Here’s looking forward to hearing how it all comes out.

On one of these endless summer days, nothing fits the bill quite like good old fashioned stoner rock, and if anyone knows about beating the heat, it’s The Re-Stoned, who come to us all the way from — MOSCOW? Okay, so maybe they’re not much for sunshine, but damn if they haven’t learned the lessons Karma to Burn and Fu Manchu have been teaching. Right on.

The trio are entirely experimental, and guitarist Ilya Lipkin likes to experiment with effects, so some of that bleeds into the songs (a couple of which you can hear on The Re-Stoned‘s MySpace page), but there’s a lot here that’s just straight up fuzzriffic — so much so, in fact, The Re-Stoned even have their own custom distortion pedal. You know that’s damn fuzzy.

Hard not to dig the wah-bass Vladimir Nikulin provides on “Return,” and I don’t know what the groove of “Mountain Giant” is In Search Of, but I’m pretty sure it found it. They’ve also got a live jam posted that’s pretty tasty, and a mellower cut called “Sleeping World” where they let their inner “Planet Caravan” shine. The three studio tracks come off 2009′s Return of the Reptiles EP (R.A.I.G.), but they’ll be featured on the forthcoming Revealed Gravitation full-length as well, which is expected out soon.

I know I say it all the time, but it just goes to show how universal The Heavy really is. Kids in the desert can get down every bit as easily as kids in snowy Moscow, and on a sweltering day, all you have to do is fire up the intertubes and you’ve got a main line to yet another killer band. This is a wondrous age, my friends.

I like to think sometimes that it takes more than personnel for me to be interested in hearing a new band, but I’m willing to admit that occasionally that’s not true. What had me excited about San Juan Capistrano four-piece Death Valley Roadkill was its rhythm section, comprised of ex-Fu Manchu and Nebula bassist and drummer, Mark Abshire and Ruben Romano. Their pasts having provided a significant mark on what stoner rock is today, I figured Death Valley Roadkill would probably fit right in line with what they’d done before, and whoever else was involved, well, whatever.

Thus, on my first listen to the more than several tracks Death Valley Roadkill have posted on their MySpace — live demos from the sound of them — I was duly surprised to hear nothing but acoustics. No fuzz, no distortion, no giant riffs and snide vocals. Sweet notes punctuated by light drumming and the easy-moving voices of Marco Foster (also guitar) and Rich J. Weinrauch (also also guitar). Abshire and Romano? They’re there, but hardly in the way they’re known for.

It turns out Death Valley Roadkill did this session unplugged in preparation for an acoustic gig, and that in fact, the band does plug in and fuzz out on a normal day, there just isn’t any of that material online yet. That in mind, songs like “Darkness” and “Dirt Road” make a whole lot more sense, and I look forward to hearing the “heavy” versions. Acoustically, the tracks a wholesome spontaneity to them, and it will be interesting to see if that carries over to the final recorded versions.

For now, this session is up for a limited time on Death Valley Roadkill‘s MySpace, and it’s a cool way to get introduced and to really pay attention to the structure of the songs as only acoustic material allows you to do. Don’t expect too elaborate a production — it’s room mics all the way — but put them on and run through a few while you’re working and you might be surprised how they stay with you afterward. Abshire and Romano seem to be in good company with Foster and Weinrauch, and as a longtime fan of their work, I’m glad to have them on the radar for what’s coming next.

If I’m a sucker for anything in this universe, it’s Swedish stoner rock. There’s plenty of great bands out there from the rest of the world, but for my money, the Swedes do it with a love and respect for the genre that — as a nation — no one else can match. You’re be hard pressed these days to even find a band in the US to admit they even play stoner rock, let alone actually do it.

As such, Stockholm‘s Death Rattle Six, who’ve just self-released their second album in two years (fourth overall) in the form of Death Rattle Six, are definitely on my radar. I haven’t heard the complete album, but the old-school four-piece (vocals, guitar, bass, drums) have posted four of the tracks on their MySpace page for checking out, and I’ve been gladly rocking out to the early Dozerisms of “Rover” and the Truckfighters-style fuzz of “Down the Hole.” Death Rattle Six claim an Alice in Chains influence, and I can hear it in the way singer Greg layers his voice on “The Beast Within,” but it’s not the rampant bottom of the mouth “Hey whoa yea-yuh” that’s infected so much of American commercial hard rock in the last two decades. More like a less laid back Asteroid.

If any of these words — Dozer, Truckfighters, Asteroid — are ringing a bell with you, you’d do well to look up “Torn Inside,” which makes use of a similar nighttime desertry. Death Rattle Six are, at least on these four tracks, playing desert rock exclusively, but if their genre sticktoitiveness is admirable, all the more so is the fact that the basic instrumental tracks for the Death Rattle Six album were done completely live. As in the most successful cases where that’s so, these songs have an urgency to them which simply can’t be faked.

They have links (again, on their MySpace) where you can buy Death Rattle Six on CDBaby or iTunes, but they also appear to be giving it away via internationally famed torrent site The Pirate Bay. Of course, The Obelisk urges you to support quality independent talent however you can. For me, that means keeping Death Rattle Six on the radar and looking forward to hearing the rest of the album.

I’ll be honest, had I not been dicking around on The House of Capricorn‘s MySpace page after reviewing their album, I probably would have never found out about their New Zealand countrymen, Soulseller. They’re a straightforward, balls-out guitar/vocals, bass and drums trio, and though their sound isn’t necessarily anything revolutionary, what’s best about Soulseller is they swagger like I’ve heard few stoner rock bands do.

My pick of the tracks on their MySpace is “Bloody Richard” — its lyrical theme taken from Shakespeare‘s Richard III — but I think you can hear the snotty aspect of Soulseller even better on “Year of the Dog,” which is a little faster and a little more punk-grown-up. The vocals of guitarist Jared are rife with attitude no matter the context, but the lyrics to “Year of the Dog” do a great job of playing it up even further, whereas the slightly longer “Talking in Tongues,” while also quicker than “Bloody Richard,” is also more complex in terms of its songwriting. “Year of the Dog” is simple and mean.

Luckily (for anyone listening), Soulseller can pull off either. Jared‘s guitars are fuzz-drenched, the bass of Damo is thick and low, and Hayden‘s drumming adapts quickly to any change of pace that comes up, such as the turn at the conclusion of “Talking in Tongues” that’s pure Sabbath and pulled off with startling confidence for a band with only one self-titled EP and a couple compilation appearances under their collective belt. But then, that seems to be Soulseller‘s thing: rocking and knowing it. If the MySpace songs are anything to go by, it’s definitely going to be worth keeping them on the radar to see what they do next.

I know Arizona‘s a bit of a hot topic right now, what with the fascism and all, but Gilbert natives Drone Throne sent me their demo a little while back saying they liked the site, so if I was boycotting it (I wasn’t, because the idea of boycotting a state is stupid), I’ll cross the picket line for this. Call me a scab, but Drone Throne‘s fuck-all sludge is nasty enough that I’m pretty sure no one would even try to hit me with a cardboard sign. Normal people are terrified of this stuff.

A trio comprised of Garrett Ranous on guitar and vocals, Alex Bank Rollins on drums and vocals and Brian Bank Rollins on bass, Drone Throne has been around for roughly two years, and their fiery take on sludge shows an immediacy for it. Tracks from the demo like “Skatin’ with Satan” and “Getting High at the Gates of Hell,” both streamable on the band’s MySpace, are definitely lo-fi, but there’s something about the buzzsaw guitar tone that just makes everything sound that much dirtier and heavier. It’s like Drone Throne‘s sludge is made of previously chewed desert sand.

Both their self-titled demo and their split with Tempe six-piece TOAD have been put out by France‘s Boue Records and are available for purchase. The material on the split is a little cleaner production-wise, but still has plenty of grit. The riffs lead the way and anger follows. Future-type recording plans are a mystery, but Drone Throne will be opening for Zoroaster, Black Tusk and Dark Castle when their tour comes rolling through Arizona on June 22. If you’re in the area, tell them I said hi.

I think what I like best about there being a band called SotiS is that there’s also a band called Sothis, and I have no problem admitting that. What specifically I enjoy about it is I’m pretty sure the Australian double-guitar riffing four-piece formed with no knowledge of the prior Sothis, who hail from Los Angeles and are kind of a mediocre glam version of Dimmu Borgir (though with any mention of Dimmu Borgir, “mediocre” should be implied — snap!). There are only so many ideas in the universe, and some of them involve removing an ‘h.’

Good fun. SotiS — who also share an unnecessarily capitalized second ‘s’ with Belgian doom exports SardoniS — have two songs up on their MySpace for listening, and though they’re sans vocals, there’s nothing wrong with the new home studio garage-style sound they emit. It’s straightforward instrumental stoner metal, not necessarily exotic even from SotiS‘ locale in Victoria, Australia, but decent sounding and not a terrible way to pass the seven or eight minutes it will take to listen. “Children of the Apocalypse” is the more developed of the two, while “Murder” is more or less crunch the whole way through. Not a complaint.

They may or may not have an album called A New Deadly Intravenous in the works/recently finished — it’s kind of hard to tell from their bio, which relies on “Ten thousand thundering typhoons on a taste bud…” and other such image-laden ambiguity rather than the actual dissemination of info — but either way, the two posted tracks prove that even in the farthest corners of this round planet the power of the riff can take hold and compel. I’d perhaps like to hear more interaction between the two guitars on future offerings, but SotiS have made an enticing start. I’ll certainly take them over Sothis any day.

An offshoot with four ex-members of the much-hyped North Carolinian outfit U.S. Christmas, Tasha-Yar (named for a character on Star Trek: The Next Generation) provide psychedelic ramble à la Lamp of the Universe‘s most active moments while at the same time reveling in the mellow vibes they manufacture. The six-piece played their first show at the end of April and have four tracks — one live, one improv — posted on their MySpace for listening now, which you’ll probably want to check out if you’re a fan of music that comes with its own peppermint swirls.

Spread over nearly nine minutes, “Formation of Being” does in fact have a structure, which builds the song gradually over time before bringing it back down again. Drummer Tim Greene stays more laid back on “Improv I: Time Within Motion,” letting the guitars ring out into cavernous sonic expanses. Vocals show up on the live track, “Flight of the Scanner,” which is shorter and more active in the modern Tee Pee Records sense, sounding like a more tripped-out Nebula, Naam or Ancestors. All of it very psychedelic, very mood-driven, very atmospheric in a natural kind of way.

As a matter of sheer preference and present mood, I’ll take the 6:45 planetary caravan ride of “Twisted Sage” over the jumpier sounds, the tracks seeming to draw the line between the two otherwise disparate sides of the band with John Presnell‘s bass warm and high in the mix, as it should be. With the double-guitar/synth work of Ben Teeter and Chad Davis (who also contributes vocals, though Joe Sample has lead on “Twisted Sage”) and the additional synths of Tom Devlin III, Tasha-Yar have ample room for the occasional freakout but never seem to lose sight of the spaces they’ve created. I don’t know what their plans are for more recordings (they do have a couple shows coming up), but their pedigree and their willingness to explore distant reaches makes them worth keeping on the radar.

A little while back, former Hackman guitarist Darryl Shepard filled us in on some of his upcoming projects, and first among them was Blackwolfgoat. An entirely solo venture, Blackwolfgoat is just Shepard and his guitar running through ambient pieces that range from the more active to the eerily still. Blackwolfgoat‘s first album, Dragonwizardsleeve (I guess he’s got a thing for putting words together; who doesn’t?) is self-released and Shepard has just put some if not all of it up for streaming on MySpace.

What’s interesting in listening to a track like “Death of a Lifer” is the layering. It’s subtle, but Shepard is working with multiple tracks of guitar, the dip and pull of the notes he’s playing seems to undercut that, but it’s there, and like a lot of drone/ambient material, it does develop, albeit subtly. The cuts range from the 10-minute “Hotel Anhedonia” (anhedonia being a loss of the ability to experience pleasure), the basic riff of which could easily have been worked into a structured song, to the 2:46 arrhythmia of “Aspirin Forever,” which has an almost drum and bass feel to it, though one obviously still in development.

There’s a range of emotions and moods clearly on display here, which is refreshing given how much drone seems just an exercise for its own sake or a tryout of equipment. The distorted “Tinnitus the Night” is on the shorter end at 4:17, but nonetheless creates an unsettled atmosphere of worry, and the sweeter “Risk and Return” plays with light mathematics that seem to be trying to air positivity on top of light percussion. Shepard being a proven-capable guitarist and no stranger to working in instrumental settings, Blackwolfgoat can be engaged either on the level of audio wallpaper or active listening. Of course I’d recommend the second option, but either way you approach Dragonwizardsleeve, definitely be sure to keep Blackwolfgoat‘s MySpace page on your radar.

Say it with me just once: “Hookerfight.” Rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it?

The Sacramento fuck-all stoner trio owe some of their lumbering groove to Bongzilla, but the blown-out vocals of guitarist T.J. Ferrari and the occasional burst of speed, as on “Hellbound and Down” from their latest EP, Siren’s Revenge, put them in a different — if likewise sludge-filled — category. The EP is available for purchasing and sampling on their MySpace page, along with the 2009 full-length …And Then There Were Three, which is even more raw-sounding than its successor.

Joining Ferrari in Hookerfight are bassist Phil Rodriguez and drummer Matt Amott, and though the former is somewhat lost in the mix on the Siren’s Revenge tracks, whose production is rough at best and whatever’s less than rough at worst, all three in the trio manage to make themselves heard over the course of the EP’s 33 minutes. They probably could have gotten away with calling it a full-length, but the spread in time difference seems to make the EP tag fit better. The opening title track clocks in at 14:59, and closer “Sonic Mountain” is 11:32, but none of the other three tracks top 2:55, which is “Hellbound and Down,” a noisy punk take on which Napalm Death meets thunderous amplification and a “yee-haw!” call.

By contrast, “Reckon So…..” which follows is 1:58 of comparatively mellow shamanistic riffing, imbued with a sense of ritual despite an unnecessary change in the guitar line before a fade out and long silence that leads into “Sonic Mountain.” The only other cut on Siren’s Revenge, “Nag’s Head,” is also under two minutes long and based entirely around acoustic guitar. Hookerfight, it seems, revels in presenting a lighthearted face and backing it up with some real diversity. That’s probably just the way it should be.

Hard to say which facet of their sound results in the best work, though the riffs of “Sonic Mountain” — audible, once again, on MySpace — are definitely in the running. It’s such a cliche to say it, but it’ll be interesting to hear where they take their sound next. A more professional recording job might allow some of the tonal and stylistic intricacies hinted at on Siren’s Revenge come to the fore, but of course there’s something to be said for the lower-fi demo quality as well. In any case, Hookerfight‘s hunger comes through clearly, and for that, they’re well worth keeping on the radar.