The fact is this: I like unsigned bands. Even if I’m not 100 percent into the music, I appreciate that a group of people are willing to come together for a common artistic cause and execute a singular idea with little to no hope of fiscal recompense. So when I get a CD in gorgeous handmade packaging like Feed the Lie, the debut full-length by German post-metal outfit Zed (which lists Kopfhörer/Schalldruck as its label but still marks the band as unsigned, so I assume is a self-release imprint), which isn’t necessarily all that original but clearly shows that a lot of effort and love went into making it, I’m more than willing to give it extra points based on that.

Not that I have a point system.

It’s true, even the artwork on Feed the Lie could be called derivative — Isis’ Mosquito Control EP also having featured an insect splayed and ready for dissection — but the trio of Maik (guitar/vocals), Sven (bass/vocals) and Hannes (drums) are more derailed by their style being played out than by anything in particular they’re doing musically. Feed the Lie, on a basic musical level, rocks. It’s heavy, Sven’s bass tone more or less makes “Réalisme,” but even though Zed take a more rock-based approach to post-metal, it’s still post-metal at its heart. And man, if we haven’t all had enough of that.

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It was clear from the last Lamp of the Universe record, Acid Mantra, that Kiwi psychedelicist Craig Williamson was looking to do something a little more structured. Williamson, who cut his riffing teeth playing in underrated head rockers Datura, emerges from the cosmic ether now as bassist/vocalist/etc. in the trio Arc of Ascent, which continues some of Lamp of the Universe’s psychedelic exploration, but puts said psychedelia — which comes on thanks to sitar, tanpura, synths, bells, chanting, and so forth; all of which are credited to Williamson — in a more outwardly heavy context. Make no mistake, we’re still reaching out to the farthest uncharted regions of spiritual innerspace, but now we’re doing it with thick guitar riffs! Never know what you’ve been missing until you find it.

These riffs come courtesy of Matt Cole-Baker, and while it’s clear Arc of Ascent’s full-length debut, Circle of the Sun (Astral Projection) still holds its protagonist in Williamson, each member of the trio proves essential to the band’s sound, whether it’s Cole-Baker starting off the space rock groove of “The Inner Sign” or drummer John Strange falling right into place with that groove and blissing out on a tom-heavy repetition until the song kicks in. For sheer heft, Cole-Baker’s guitar stays weighty even in its lead tone, offering notes that ring out behind themselves in comet trails. Circle of the Sun works out to about 46 minutes, but with the space-themed artwork, space-themed songs and wide open creative breadth, it feels big and open.

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On the opening track of his ninth solo album, Gods and Goddesses, Brant Bjork sings, “What you’re hearing is exactly what was heard, yeah.” The former Kyuss and Fu Manchu drummer and songwriting force behind the short-lived Ché project isn’t wrong either; like each of his records since 1999’s debut, Jalamanta, Gods and Goddesses has a righteously natural feel. As ever, the songs sound like solo material, as in, they feel written by one person — which I never saw as a problem — but Brant (and here I’ll veer from my usual last-name-only method to save anyone being confused as to of whom we’re speaking) has adopted a methodology for coping with that. He’s put a new band together.

For those who’ve followed Brant Bjork’s career as an independent solo artist (and if you haven’t, you’ve missed some very exciting records; Jalamanta, Keep Your Cool, Local Angel, Tres Dias and its companion piece Somera Sol among them), the immediate difference you’re going to notice with Gods and Goddesses is the upswing in production value. Like most of his records, he’s releasing this one himself — through the still relatively new incarnation of Duna Records called Low Desert Punk — but he’s chosen to work with producer Ethan Allen (The 88, Luscious Jackson), and in so doing has added an air not necessarily of professionalism to his sound since if you’re not professional-sounding nine albums in, you shouldn’t be doing this, but definitely one of fulfillment. Tracks like the dune-ready “The Future Rock (We Got It),” the elaborately constructed “Radio Mecca” — on which Brant seems to be doing a vocal call and response with himself — and the later, more ethereal “Porto” sound complete and fully realized.

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Above the title on the back side of French mayhem rockers Gunslingers’ second album, Manifesto Zero (World in Sound) is the question, “When a Disc and a Head collide and a hollow sound is heard, must it always have come from the Disc?” Each time I’ve sat and listened through this record, which follows in their catalog the critically successful No More Invention, I’ve puzzled over that question. Not because I think a head can’t be hollow – at least in the sense they mean: “Isn’t it possible you’re a fucking moron?” – but a disc is inherently flat. There’s no room for it to be hollow because there isn’t any space in a disc. Especially “disc,” ending with a  ‘c,’ which in this context implies a compact disc. If a disc had space between its two sides it would be a cylinder.

This is my fucking life. These are the things I obsess over.

At least, while I ruminate on these big questions of life I have the recorded-live freakout of Manifesto Zero to accompany, which in a cold post-modern way is very little comfort and yet somehow gets the job done anyway. The six tracks of the album (at about 31 minutes, we’ll call it a full-length because the marketing doesn’t say otherwise) offer a jangly and jagged garage retroism, bouncing murderously through the first several songs until slamming into the 8:15 of “An Eye for a Knife,” which is mean-man noise for a good couple minutes following some deceptive rock simplicity. The fronting work of guitarist/vocalist Gregory Raimo leads this stylish anti-fashion charge, leaving bassist Matthieu Canaguier and drummer Antoine Hadjioannou to keep up, which they do avec enthousiasme.

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If the elder’s fables are true, and there really is a cult of true doom, then I can’t help but feel that somewhere in the initiation process is Black Night, the 1992 debut offering from Maryland legends Iron Man. Among the most sought-after of the Hellhound Records catalog, it’s an album whose legacy has only grown with time. I don’t know if it’s a rite of passage or some kind of challenge to would-be cult inductees or what. Maybe you have to air guitar all of Al Morris III’s riffs while on fire or something. That would be cool in a very Beavis and Butt-Head kind of way.

Shadow Kingdom Records, whose reissue kung fu is like Bruce Lee in fast forward, capped off 2009 by re-releasing this rare doom gem, capturing the Iron Man lineup of Morris, Larry Brown (bass), Ron Kalimon (drums) and Rob Levey (vocals; also the man behind the Stoner Hands of Doom series of festivals) in their first incarnation after leaving behind their Black Sabbath cover band roots and trotting out their premiere batch of original material. With cuts like “Life After Death,” “Black Night,” “A Child’s Future” and classic album opener “Choices,” we can only be glad 18 years later that they did.

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As the follow-up to 1998’s Ringmaster, Dusk (Brainticket/Metal Rising), the 2009 offering from San Antonio, Texas, doom bashers Las Cruces, is something of a surprise. Mostly because, since the band more or less called it quits after self-releasing the The Lowest End EP in 2001, there was a good chance we’d have never heard from them again. If for no other reason than because two out of the first three tracks on Dusk have the word “wizard” in their title, that would have been a damn shame.

But not only is Dusk a long time coming in the sense of it being a long time since the band put out their last release, but considering they got back together in 2004 and recorded the album between 2006-2007, it’s been a while on that scale as well. We can only wonder what caused the probably numerous delays that held it back from seeing official release, but finally holding a finished copy of the record, Las Cruces don’t seem to have missed a beat.

Dusk is dudely riffer’s doom. Mark Zamarron, who sings lead vocals on the album (since out of the band) isn’t afraid to let a little classic metal misogyny fly, as “Banished” and “Cocaine Wizard Woman” will attest, but there are souls being burned, Christians being slaughtered and no shortage of blood being spilled otherwise, so I don’t think it’s something particularly against women — they’re just also on the list. If you’ve ever felt like you need a how-to guide for penning heavy metal lyrics, a quick perusal of the Dusk liner notes will do you well.

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If you’ve been around stoner rock for 35 seconds or more, chances are you’ve encountered at least one band that made you say, “Damn, this sounds just like Black Sabbath.” Assuming you weren’t actually listening to Black Sabbath when you said it, it could have been just about anyone. In one way or another, every band in the genre is indebted to the Birmingham gods, whether they like it or not. San Franciscan four-piece Orchid like it. They like it plenty.

Orchid’s debut EP, the 16-minute Through the Devil’s Doorway (out via Germany’s The Church Within Records) is an exercise in praise of all things Sabbath. Bassist Nickel is Geezer, guitarist Mark Thomas Baker is Tony Iommi, drummer Carter Kennedy is no Bill Ward, but no one is, and vocalist Theo Mindell is cast in the Ozzy Osbourne role, which he handles ably (he is also a tattoo artist and in charge of the band’s formidable graphics). The four songs that make up the release bring Sabo worship to new heights most bands wouldn’t dare to reach even if they could; each one having a companion in the Ozzy era catalog.

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For those who’ve never been to Clifton, New Jersey’s Dingbatz venue, it’s probably safe to say you have someplace like it near where you are. It is North Jersey’s metal bar. Not to be confused with the sundry rock bars, sports bars or nudie bars. There are certainly plenty of those around, and there’s even a punk bar, but there’s only one metal bar, and that’s Dingbatz.

Their regular roster of bands generally includes a host of locals, C-level touring acts and bands who’ve been around long enough to know better but keep playing shows anyway. The clientele are cliquey but harmless leather jacket types who like to drink and rock out. Like the bands and even the Dingbatz staff, they’re not hurting anyone. Since the last time I was there, they started crafting the ‘Batz Brew, which wasn’t terrible.

Also on the bill were Piston Driven, Black Water Rising and Brand New Sin, but I was there for Moth Eater and true to my northeast dickery, I stayed while they played and was splitsville shortly thereafter. Not that I wasn’t interested in learning about the other bands — I knew the deal — but had an early morning Saturday to consider. In-law birthdays trump recycled Black Label Society riffs. It’s a fact of life.

But Moth Eater, whom I’ve not seen since a show with Negative Reaction on their native Long Island, NY, did not disappoint. Their singer, John Alaia, who was playing his first gig with the band last time, was far more integrated and far more comfortable in the lineup, to the point of clowning around on stage with bassist Steve “Buckshot” Seabury while guitarist John Conley kicked out a heavily wah’ed solo.

Conley cut his teeth in New York mayhem-makers Scar Culture, and some of the technicality required to play that style of heavy/grinding metal comes out in his solo work, but Moth Eater is more about the overall feel of the songs than the wizardry that may or may not go into making them. The work of drummer/backing vocalist Dave Ardolina (who, like Seabury, comes formerly of rockers Dirty Rig) helps greatly to ground the riffs and keep the material accessible to the crowd, which at Dingbatz, grew steadily as the set progressed.

Other than “Motha Chunga” and “The Aftermath,” the former which I remembered because of its name and the latter because it’s the first demo with vocals Moth Eater have put on their MySpace (and because it’s quite catchy), I don’t know song titles, but suffice it to say each didn’t sound precisely like the one before it, and it’s probably safe to assume that between their experience in bands and in the industry, when these guys decide to do some recording in earnest — either for an EP, full-length or whathaveyou — they’ll be working from a solid foundation established at these shows. Dingbatz isn’t The Ritz by any means, but it is a great place for a band to figure out who they want to be on stage. The more I see them, the more it seems Moth Eater have the issue worked out.

My chief issue with destructive Chicago outfit Lair of the Minotaur has always been memorability. For each of their three albums prior to the latest, Evil Power (their first on self-release label The Grind-House Records), I’ve been psyched to get the disc, put it on, rocked the fuck out, usually woken up in a puddle of someone else’s blood not knowing where I’ve been or what I’ve done, then put the record on the shelf and completely forgotten about it. It’s happened three times now, and more if you count the Cannibal Massacre EP from 2005.

Back then they were on Southern Lord, and the hype around their brutal attack was palpable. Now people know what to expect from a Lair of the Minotaur album and dress accordingly — Kevlar, chain mail, bicycle helmets, etc. What that means is the trio, now consisting of guitarist/vocalist Steven Rathbone, bassist Nate Olp (Demiricous) and drummer Chris Wozniak, have to change things up a little bit.

On Evil Power, they do. Their sound is still based on some of the most pummeling metal the US has ever produced, but several of their tracks show an affinity for hard rock riffing that reminds of Entombed (Rathbone’s vocals also help in this regard; see “Hunt and Devour” and “Attack the Gods”) even as it reaches down your throat to pull out organs both vital and incidental. Whatever it can find, really.

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Until, a decade and a half after the fact, Snail released their second full-length album, Blood, on MeteorCity last year, the Seattle outfit was more or less a footnote in the history of American stoner rock. Their lone self-titled full-length was released in 1993 on Big Deal Records amidst a growing Seattle-based climate of grunge, and the All Channels are Open EP that followed the next year would prove to be the last Snail would have to say in that century.

Now remastered by bassist Matt Lynch in his own Mysterious Mammal Recording studios, Snail has been made available by the band as a pay download through their website. Its 11 tracks of high dose drug rock sound crisp, and of course loud, but more interesting to the ear than the once-over they’ve been given are the songs themselves, which fit intriguingly with their era — that is, they’ve got a little flannel in them — but even then Snail were clearly coming from someplace else sonically. The then-trio of Lynch, guitarist/vocalist Mark Johnson and drummer Marty Dodson had more in common with what Monster Magnet was doing at the time than Nirvana or Alice in Chains, though elements of those bands’ formative days can also be heard in cuts like “O.D.,” “Sprain,” or “Intuition.”

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A truly cosmopolitan act, Parisian four-piece unit Fiend culls members from as far from France as Serbia and Kyrgyzstan, and though they’re already looking to record the follow-up to 2009’s Agla — which at just over a half-hour in length straddles the line between EP and LP — the Sleepy tones of these five tracks are worth noting before that comes about. If you caught one word in that (not so holy) mountain of a sentence, I hope it was “Sleep.”

Agla, the band’s first outing both overall and for Trendkill Recordings, heavily indebted to the Bay Area’s progenitors of the new generation of stoner metal. You can hear it in the first riff of “St. Helens,” and certainly in the vocals of Heitham Al-Sayed, who sometimes works a more drawn out melodicism into his voice à la Jesse Leach’s work in Seemless, but keeps a steady flow of Cisnerosisms in the snailishly-paced “The Worm King.” If they were the first or only band to do it, it would be a surprise and maybe a flaw in the record, but since off the top of my head I can think of at least six other bands who put out albums in 2009 as much in the vein of Sleep as Fiend, it’s hard to hold it against them.

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If there’s one thing that’s going to test a band – so much so that most acts will go out of their way to avoid the challenge altogether – it’s recording live. Des Moines, Iowa, five-piece Superchief take the task head on with their aptly-titled, self-released five-song EP Rock Music. From what I can gather, the music was done with the two guitars, bass and drums playing together and the vocals added later. It’s not exactly the same, but you can’t really hold it against the band when you consider vocalist JT Strang hadn’t yet joined when the first tracks were put to tape. That kind of thing can really mess with the timing.

Superchief play straightforward guitar-led stoner rock with tonal nods to Queens of the Stone Age’s earlier work, Pure Rock Fury-era Clutch and Fu Manchu, but they aren’t afraid to let the boogie out on “Rock ‘n Roll Living,” with lead six-stringer Ricc Terranova lets an impressive solo fly at 2:45 and rhythm guitarist Jason Monroe holds down the song’s main riff with bassist Jason Boten and drummer Ryan Marcum. Strang’s vocals have a slight Hendrixian inflection, but are otherwise unaffected, sounding natural over the music and asking little of the listener. In some ways, it’s evident he hadn’t been in the band long, but he doesn’t feel out of place, which works greatly to the songs’ benefit.

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It might have been cool had Toronto trio Demontage decided to call their Shadow Kingdom debut, “The Principle Extinction” as in, an extinction of the beliefs of a person or group, but The Principal Extinction, as in, either the initial or that of a school administrator, works too. This being their third album overall since forming nine years ago, I’m sure they thought it all out beforehand and picked that which best represented the music.

About that music: Demontage traffic in a heavy blackened thrash. Right in opener “Entourage of Demons Dances,” one can hear shades of Bathory, Mercyful Fate, Hellhammer and Darkthrone, the latter evident not only in the relatively lo-fi production value of the drumming, but also the clear punk roots. But let it be understood: Demontage do not make for easy listening. The record is six tracks, two of which approach 10 minutes in length, of pure metallic fuck-all; the band’s reckless attitude injecting “Accursed Saboteur” and “Satan of Self (The Warrior)… and Seer of Truths (The Conjurer)” with an aggressively free-spirited feel.

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Despite hearing “Frost Hammer” well beforehand and streaming about half of the title track when that was put online, I held off listening to High on Fire’s fifth full-length, Snakes for the Divine (their first offering on new label E1 Music) until I could hold the disc in my hand. Since production was my major concern going into the record – how it would actually sound, in other words – I didn’t want to waste time on the poor quality of a MySpace stream or something like that. Plus, sometimes it’s better to wait. Builds the anticipation.

And anticipation was certainly at a fever pitch for High on Fire this time around. I don’t think there’s a headbanger over drinking age for whom Snakes for the Divine wasn’t right near the top of the list of albums being looked forward to in 2010. It was right up there for me as well, and as the reviews started coming out and everyone seemed to be in accord on the level of kickassery, I wanted to hear it all the more. Having now finally had that chance, to sit with Snakes for the Divine and try to understand where it’s coming from, as an avid High on Fire fan since their early Relapse Records days, I will honestly say this latest effort is a mixed bag.

While we’re being honest, I was hesitant to even post a review of the record after listening to it, since I’ve no doubt that for the vast, vast majority of those who will hear it, Snakes for the Divine will more than surpass expectation – not to mention that, with a release this huge, my opinion is of minus relevance, so I’m basically pissing in the wind. Nonetheless, here we are.

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Here’s a fun game I’d recommend playing with Vol. 1, the debut full-length from Westmont, New Jersey, metallers Clamfight. You take the main riff to album opener “Fuck Bulldozers” (which you can hear on their MySpace; you’ll know the riff I’m talking about when it comes on), and in time with it’s monstrously-proportioned groove, you say the word “bananas.” It works out to something like, “Ba-nanas, ba-na-nas, ba-nanas, ba-na-nas, ba-nanas, ba-na-nas, BA-NA-NAS.” Good fucking times, my friend.

Clamfight are my favorite unsigned, non-pedigreed American band. I say this with zero pretense of impartiality. I know them, consider them friends, and am glad to say I’ve seen them perform on more occasions than I can count. Sound-wise, I put them in a similar category as Oklahoma City rockers Bloodcow, but the more abrasive shouts of Clamfight drummer/vocalist Andy Martin, peppered on “Ghosts I Have Known” with deathly growling, add a dimension of metallic heaviness that offsets the stonerly riffs and lead work of guitarists Joel Harris and Sean McKee. Captured on Vol. 1 by engineer Steve Poponi of NJ’s Gradwell House studio, all the elements that make up Clamfight sound clear and professional without sacrificing the immediacy or hunger in the material.

The band credits Poponi with much of the album’s outcome, but there’s no denying that the Southern shuffle of “Swordfishing is an Ancient and Noble Art” comes from the players themselves. The nautical fascinations of Martin play out across several of Vol. 1’s tracks, informing the lyrics to “Sowrdfishing,” the aforementioned “Ghosts I Have Known,” and more loosely, closer “Viking Funeral.” “Ghosts I Have Known” is my personal pick of the record, as the tempo slows a bit, Martin successfully attempts a cleaner vocal approach for the verses than on the track previous (the chorus being where the growling happens), and the songwriting feels tightest and shows the band has more to offer than the pounding grooves they’ve so far offered. Though, for most acts, said pounding grooves would be enough. But as Clamfight kicks into the thrashy last two minutes of the song, the ease with which they transition speaks to a sonic diversity still just developing among Harris, McKee, Martin and bassist Louis Koble.

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