Critically acclaimed “psych metal” band Zoroaster has entered Atlanta’s Living Room Studios (Mastodon, The Black Lips) to begin the recording of its hotly anticipated new album, Matador. A July release via E1 Music is expected.

Zoroaster is working with producer Sanford Parker (Pelican, The Gates of Slumber) on the new album, which will be mastered by Collin Jordan (Black Moth Super Rainbow, Nachtmystium) at The Boiler Room in Chicago, IL.  Matador’s drums and bass are being laid to tape at Atlanta’s Glow in the Dark Studios. Housed in the former location of the renowned Cheshire Sound Studios — the first dual 24 track facility in the Southeast – the recording complex has been home to projects featuring Prince, The Georgia Satellites, Steve Walsh and more.  Zoroaster’s new material is said to be “more direct, more intense and absolutely enveloping.”

Zoroaster will debut a number of new songs at its upcoming SXSW live performances which kick off on Wednesday, March 17 as part of the Action! PR SXSW Showcase (@ Mohawk: 912 Red River St., Austin, TX).  The all ages event will be open to the public as well as SXSW badge and wristband holders.

When asked for comment on Matador, Zoroaster guitarist / vocalist Will Fiore dished, “As a whole, these are the strongest songs we’ve ever put together and they really encompass everything we’ve done until now as a band.  There are some really heavy, slow creepers and some of the faster, more driving songs.  The new material ranges from really aggressive to more melodic and trippy.”  “It’s going to be a pretty straight-forward rock album and I think it’s what we wanted to create with both Dog Magic and Voice of Saturn rolled into one,” offers drummer Dan Scanlan. “There will be a lot of shorter tracks that are very straight forward and hard-hitting — it’s a lot less of a droning record than what people are expecting. The album title Matador sums up the feel of the album perfectly.  It’s an ‘epic’ sort of title; strong and powerful, but graceful.”

If you’re anything like me, you think of Throttlerod as the band whose guitarist and vocalist Matt Whitehead made fun of you (playfully, I’m sure) for using the phrase “jagged noise influence” when describing their music in your interview. Then again, maybe you’re not like me in that regard. Might be on my own for that one.

Whatever. I happen to know Throttlerod has some big shows coming up, and I know this because of a mystical email received informing me of same. Observe!

Throttlerod has some big shows coming up [Told you, dude. -- ed.]:

3/18/10 Austin, TX @ Encore **Small Stone Records SXSW Showcase** We play at 8PM sharp, so you know what to do.
3/20/10 Spartanburg, SC @ Ground Zero **this will be our first show [here] in several years and we’ve got a lot in the works, so come early and stay late.
5/14/10 Morgantown, WV @ 123 Pleasant St. w/ Hovel
5/15/10 TBD

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.

I hesitate, though, to call Las Cruces traditional doom. Guitarists George Trevino and Mando Tovar know their Sabbath, but there’s a grittier, more uniquely American thrust to their tones that feels more in line with modern biker metal — the sans-cause lyrical rebellion of “Roll of the Die,” uncharacteristic though it is next to the rest of the album, backs up this thought. Las Cruces does play slow, at least for the most part, though, and in that they are wholly separate from any kind of cock rock or dipshit commerciality. So they’re doom. Modern doom with a gruff edge, working with a proven formula, riffs a-plenty and ass-kicking attitude. If there isn’t already a subgenre designation for that, all the better for the band.

The songs are memorable, heavy and varied enough to keep Dusk moving along, but the more you pay attention to it, and the louder you listen, the more you’ll find to dig into. Before I close out the review, it’s worth noting the bass work of Marilyn (since replaced by Jimmy Bell), who plays devastatingly heavy lines to go with the reverse snare hits of drummer Paul Deleon on the title track. The weight of that tone is among the highlights of Dusk, though there are plenty others to complement (“Revelations,” “Farewell” and “Grin,” for example). Considering the band doesn’t exist anymore in this form — Deleon having taken on the vocal role in Zamarron’s absence — Dusk thankfully arrived in time to capture this incarnation of Las Cruces, which, now that we have the album to go by, we know is something not to be missed by loyal doomers.

Las Cruces on MySpace

Brainticket Records

The ensuing clip for “Frost Hammer,” from the band’s much-lauded Snakes for the Divine LP, seems to have the cure for anyone wanting of the epic. To wit:

And sayeth the PR wire:

Filmed on location in both Los Angeles, CA and NYC with director Kevin Custer for Toaster in the Tub, High on Fire’s “Frost Hammer” video showcases intense performance footage of the award-winning band juxtaposed alongside “the epic tale of a warrior’s sojourn to the cold and barren Plateau of Leng where he secures the fabled Frost Hammer that will be used to enact the final rites and complete the dark rebirth and reign of the Frost Child.” [Duh. – ed.]

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.

Opener “Into the Sun” owes its existence and main riff to “Symptom of the Universe” from 1975’s Sabotage. After an appropriate sample, “Eastern Woman” comes on like a slower “Children of the Grave” from 1971’s Master of Reality before it fades out just past the 4:20 mark. “Son of Misery” melds “N.I.B.”-intro bass with a reverbed Iommi solo before Mindell comes in with a “Sabra Cadabra” inflection, and closer “No One Makes a Sound” starts off courtesy of “Supernaut” until at 2:20 it breaks into a more individualized jam before coming back in with more modified “Children of the Grave” (brighter somehow) to close out Through the Devil’s Doorway.

What’s impressive about Orchid’s EP is not that they’ve so blatantly taken up the Sabbathian cause, but rather the tones with which they do it. Nickel’s bass is clean and Baker’s guitar has just the right roughness to it to capture Iommi’s sound properly as it was in the mid-‘70s. Mindell is not the first vocalist by any stretch to rely on Ozzy’s style to get his point across, but it’s plain to hear underneath it that he has a powerful voice all his own. Though Carter does an amiable job throughout, most especially on the last two tracks, I waited to hear Bill Ward fills and simply didn’t. “Into the Sun” has a couple, but Carter’s style is clearly more modern. It still works for what’s here.

There will be plenty who encounter Orchid (I know there were certainly some at last year’s Planet Caravan festival in North Carolina) who will immediately dig into Through the Devil’s Doorway’s über-Sabbathry, and there will be others for whom the impulse will simply be to go ahead and put on Black Sabbath instead. And it’s true that if we judged stoner bands based on the Sabbath standard, we’d all have to burn our record collections, but with a band that has so outwardly adopted the sound, it’s inevitable. Orchid give a fine showing of themselves on their debut, but anyone seeking it out (or just streaming it on MySpace; since it’s all up there) should know what they’re getting into.

Orchid on MySpace

The Church Within Records

New York’s sludgy testosterone rockers The Resurrection Sorrow kick off the first part of their Unholy Divine tour tomorrow, March 10, and the PR wire would like you to know all about it:

Still steadily promoting the hell out of their debut full-length Hour of the Wolf, thunderous New York rock quartet The Resurrection Sorrow will kick off the first leg of their three-part Unholy Divine tour tomorrow in Wilmington, Delaware.

The Resurrection Sorrow ’s The Unholy Divine tour, Part I:
3/10/2010 Mojo 13 – Wilmington, DE
3/11/2010 The Smiling Moose – Pittsburgh, PA
3/12/2010 The Depot – York, PA w/ Backwoods Payback, Wrath of Typhoon
3/13/2010 The Black and Red Bar – Washington DC w/ King Giant
3/14/2010 The Brighton Bar – Long Branch, NJ w/ The Ominous Order of Filthy Mongrels
3/15/2010 Lit Lounge – New York, NY w/ Maegashira

With their follow-up, sophomore effort, The Shadow over Atlantis, on Sweden’s I Hate Records, Mills and Birch have developed this ethic even further, incorporating linear songwriting and threaded themes running the course of the record’s six tracks. Not only is the sound (recorded by Mills) working within and beyond the parameters of doom, but by injecting elements of darkened psychedelia and classical compositions, The Wounded Kings are ensuring none who hear The Shadow over Atlantis will come out of it without realizing the individuality driving the band who wrote those songs.

Though The Wounded Kings have since made permanent their two live members — bassist Luke Taylor and drummer Nick Collings — and are scheduled to participate in this year’s Roadburn Festival in The Netherlands, and though The Shadow over Atlantis was recorded nearly a year ago, Mills recently took some time out for a cross-continental phone interview to discuss the album, its concept and the band’s motivations and outlook going forward. You’ll find it available for reading after the jump. Enjoy.

You’re obviously schooled in doom. Where do you see The Wounded Kings fitting in with the doom lineage?

Ah fucking hell (laughs). You know, I’ve never really thought about it. I grew up listening to Saxon and Dio and stuff like that, and it was only a few years later I started listening to Candlemass and then onto Black Sabbath and stuff like that. Whether we fit anywhere between there, Electric Wizard, Solitude Aeturnus and all those people, I don’t really know. Where do you think we fit in?

There’s a lot of old school stuff about the record, but the way it’s recorded — the layering of the guitars — there’s a lot that’s modern about it.

It’s weird. If I’m honest, I’ve got a real soft spot for the old stuff like Dream Death and the very early Cathedral and everything, but when I’m recording the albums, I’m pretty much listening to Pink Floyd and classical music and classical soundtracks. Have you seen the film Perfume? There’s a real dark soundtrack to that, and I’m pretty much not listening to any doom at all when I’m writing or recording. I suppose, because I come from that early doom background, that sort of playing, when I’m writing I just don’t bother listening to that. Maybe I bring in some weird Pink Floyd and some classical aspects to it that gives it something a little bit different. It’s very difficult analyzing, because I just start writing, and George comes over and we just get together, and it spews forth, and that’s how it ends up.

In the finished product, can you hear how those influences come into the songs?

Definitely, say, with “Into the Ocean’s Abyss,” I remember I was listening to Erik Satie quite a bit at the time, and his compositions on the piano are so unbelievably dark. I remember I’d been listening to that for a few days, and I just came up with that sort of piano line, and that had an influence. Some people, they say, “Oh yeah man, I’ve been listening to Fu Manchu and I love Monster Magnet,” and then you can really hear that coming through. I think with our stuff, I think we’re quite difficult to categorize. I think people try, because you have to, don’t you? A reviewer, you have to have a reference point so people can have a quick understanding of where the music’s coming from.

Yes, you do (laughs).

But I think we don’t sound like any of them. We may have little individual parts, but when they’re put together, I think we make up something new. When I put it on, I don’t think we sound like anybody else. I don’t think there’s a vocalist who sounds anything like George in doom, really. Somebody might pick up on, oh, there’s a slight bit of operatics and Candlemass. Somebody picked up on Scott Reagers, but I can’t really see that myself. They’re a little different, and people pick up on different things. I think we’re a bit different. I think when you put a Wounded Kings album on, you either say, “Who the fuck is that?” or people will say, “Oh yeah, that’s The Wounded Kings. I fucking know that band.” Sometimes you put something on and think, “Is that Electric Wizard?” Or someone puts on something and you think, “Is that a new Candlemass track?” and it’s something completely different. When you put our album on, you either haven’t got a clue who it is, or you know. I don’t know how you feel about that, if you think I’m talking bollocks or not.

I think, especially coming off the last record, there’s a lot more of a definite personality to this one. It’s a lot more individual, which I think is what you’re saying too. The band is in the process of developing into its own sound within that doom framework.

Yeah. The next recording is already done, with the full band, with Luke and Nick, and that’s another sound altogether as well. That’s a split that’s coming out in the summer with Cough, so you should get your hands on that at some stage. I’m not sure when it’s coming out. It’s off being mastered, so I haven’t got a clue when it’s actually coming out, but again, that’s recorded. That’s a different thing, but it was recorded in a studio rather than in my basement studio, so it’s a whole different process going on. We played it live with four musicians straight away, and it’s got a different sound again. It’s evolved. I think you’ll find that the musicianship is definitely better (laughs) on the next release. We got a much better drummer. I’m not putting myself down too much, but I play practically all the instruments on the album, and I play what’s needed to get my point across of what I’m trying to convey. On the new recording that’s coming out, there’s a drummer who’s a drummer. He lives for drums. And there’s a bass player who loves his bass and so forth. It’s evolved again, on a musicianship level of play.

Do you look at the album as being obsolete already?

(Laughs) It’s a weird thing, because The Shadow over Atlantis was finished over a year ago.

Recording-wise or writing-wise?

Writing definitely. Recording-wise, it finished about eight months ago, so it’s taken that long to get it together to come out. In a way, I’m kind of on to the next thing again. To a certain extent, it’s a new band. There’s four of us in the band rather than two, so the development there is definitely moving on. I’m sure when you speak to other musicians, other guys, once they’ve recorded an album and listened to it a few times, it goes away for ages, and then they bring it out again when it comes out and think, “Shit, I’ve got to learn it to play it live, and I’ve got to acquaint myself with it to talk to [press].” It feels a little bit old, but as you say, the album sounds fucking old (laughs). I’m very pleased with it and I’m pleased with the progression the band has taken, especially from our first album. That was pretty much an experiment, the first album. It was me and George, we got together and did a demo for it and he did a lot of weird desert/folk music, and I said, “Man, we ought to get together and do some stuff because your voice is great.” The first album was a total experiment and it was all the riffs that had been going about in my head for 10 years and I just had to get them all out. Then, the second album continued on from that, but there was a definite, “Right. I’m now going to start writing new stuff. I’ve got rid of all the riffs that were there floating about and I’m just going to start formulating a concept.” I think when you hear the first album, the idea started off as a concept, then you add stuff like “Master Witches” and I think it sounds more song-based, with “The Hours” and these other ones. The new album, it has a continuation. The songs are running into each other until they reach “Invocation of the Ancients,” which is the end of the album. I consciously wrote something with that idea in mind; that it would start in one place and work its way through to finish in another one with a running theme going through it.

You can feel that listening. The album sounds linear, like a concept record.

If I’m honest, I actually prefer writing the way I did for The Shadow of Atlantis to getting a lot of individual songs together and putting them together. It was much harder for the first one, working out the order to put them in, whereas, this album, I knew which had to be first, second, third, fourth and fifth, because I knew the direction it was going. I think I’ll do that again for the third album. I don’t know what the concept’s going to be yet, it all depends on what takes my fancy when I’m reading stuff.

What was the spark for the concept of this one?

The narrative of the album, the idea was, while I was writing it, my newborn son had just come into the world, and it made me way more conscious of what’s going on. Before, I’d just get on with my life and I wouldn’t really worry about politics or what really was going on to a certain extent. I’d be recycling and that sort of stuff, but that’s about it. But when you bring a new life in, it makes you aware of society in general and how we treat each other as people, and then I started reading about Atlantis and how it was the perfect society for a long time, because there the male and female psyches were in complete balance, and that was the golden age of Atlantis. I kept thinking that in this day and age, everything is way more violent and there’s way more greed in the world. People just want to fuck each other over all the time, and that’s the male and female to me, the balance of who you are is completely out of whack. It just got me thinking, and I started reading more about Atlantis, and eventually the same thing happened to them, the power-hungry, the greed, people starting wars and wanting to fucking conquer other areas and put their beliefs onto others. I just took that and put a bit of an H.P. Lovecraft vibe to it, and thought about some people’s souls being reincarnated from the souls of Atlantians. I think it’s one of Edgar Casey’s ideas. I thought, well, how about you take that on a fantasy level, if that was real and they actually found all we were doing is mirroring exactly what was happening to Atlantis, but we’re doing it now, and in doing so, rather than bringing the souls down, we’re actually dragging the real buried Atlantians up from the see, and they’ll come and help us or show us to our end of days, our complete doom. The doom of man. I thought it might make a good concept with the message that, obviously that isn’t really gonna happen, but… we are fucked in one way or another. As a race I think we’re past the point of no return. I know that’s doom and gloom (laughs).

Well, it’s doom, so that works.

I’m actually a really happy person, believe it or not (laughs). I know it doesn’t sound it. I think you harbor this stuff up, it lays in there pretty deep, then I think it’s the music that brings it out. I’m generally a happy-go-lucky sort of bloke. It’s when I’m writing music that it comes to the surface. I just thought, writing the album, you hear a lot of people and they say, “Man, this fucking doom album, you gotta hear it. It’s real doom.” Maybe it’s just me, but a lot of it just leaves me thinking, “Well that was a bit cheerful.” That’s sort of hands in the air, do the horns, you know, all the little bits, and it’s too cheerful for a doom album. I just thought, fuck it, that’s not what we do. It’s fuckin’ slow, heavy fuckin’ doom. I think some people have had a real problem with that this time around. Some people think it’s too slow. I’m thinking, fucking hell. Some reviewer, he said, “Man, this is just terrible. It’s like shoot-yourself-in-the-fucking-head slow.” That’s fantastic, mate! That’s one of the funniest reviews I’ve ever read!

Finally, someone gets it!

(Laughs) Yeah! It’s a weird time. There’s so many forms of doom – traditional doom, funeral doom, stoner doom, this, that and the other doom – but really, if the record’s dark and it fucking gets to you, that’s doom to me. When Johnny Cash did that track “Hurt?” That’s fucking doom. That is doom. There’s a heck of a lot of labels going around. People are saying we’re traditional doom. Well fine, but what the fuck is traditional doom? Is it Cathedral? I haven’t got a clue. I think you’re either doom or you’re not, aren’t you? I don’t know how you feel about that.

I kind of have to do the segmentation thing, like we were saying before.

Yeah, I can appreciate that.

Traditional doom, I think a lot of it derives from, yeah, the old Cathedral, slower Sabbath, that ultra dark original metal sound. Not like your faster guitar rock stuff. But really, it varies almost by band.

I know what you mean. It’s a matter of opinion. You read it or hear it and somebody says, “Oh yeah, Wounded Kings, real, heavy traditional doom.” Then someone’ll say, “Oh, Gates of Slumber, really heavy traditional doom.” I really like The Gates of Slumber. We played with them in Birmingham and they’re a fucking awesome band. But I would imagine if somebody went and bought a Gates of Slumber and they fucking loved it, and they went and bought our album basing it on that, they’d be thinking, “Eh? This is weird. Where’s the similarity here?” Because there isn’t one, really, is there?

It’s a different approach.

At the end of the day, who really gives a shit?

Tell me about the writing relationship between you and George, and now with Nick and Luke, with the whole band. How has that been changing?

I pretty much write all the music, and I write most of the lyrics. George is quite good. I’m not a major lyricist by any stretch of the imagination. Some people, that’s their main thing, and that’s not me. I get my point across, but George does help with the lyrics. Generally I write most of the stuff. George’ll come over and we’ll jam out and I’ll say, “This is the sort of thing that’s going on” and we’ll just play, almost like a two-piece we used to play and then we’d do our overdubs on top of that. That was always the writing process with George. Up to now, now we’ve got the other two guys in, I would say that I find it difficult saying this, but you always need a leader of a band in a way who’s got the focus on what you’re trying to achieve, and then just allow the other guys to do their thing and add to it and put their own identity into it. You’ve got to have somebody driving it in a direction. I’ve tried before where you have four people all banging their ideas in and it ends up a fucking disaster. The writing process is still pretty much I come up with all the riffs and the guys add to it or just tell me, “Man, that’s fucking shit,” and I’ll go back and rewrite or start all over.

I know you have a couple shows coming up and you’re doing Roadburn, but are you in writing mode again now?

No, not at all at the moment. We wrote this track for the Cough thing and since that, we have just been rehearsing for the live stuff. For ages, we’ve had a half-hour set, and for Roadburn, we’ve got a full 60 minutes, so we’ve been working pretty hard in getting that stuff together. We’ve literally just focused purely on the live set. We’ve not played that many gigs. I think in total we’ve played four gigs, and we just want to make sure when people see us they’re blown away. I think that after we’ve got this year out of the way, whereas when we’ve been writing the two albums before, we’ve had no shows so we can just write. This year, in April I think we’re going to Ireland for a couple dates, pre-Roadburn, so we can break the set in nicely. Then we’ve got Roadburn. Then we’ve got Hell’s Pleasure in Germany. Then we’ve got a European tour at the end of the year with Fall of the Idols coming up. I think after that we’ll come back in November and start writing again. This year we want to focus on taking the material we’ve already done out onto the road and playing some good live shows for people.

Is playing live any different now that the other two guys are actually in the band?

To begin with, when we got the other two guys in, it was just gonna be like, “You guys are here for live.” Originally, the guys were just gonna come in to play live, and particularly the drummer, I waited for years to get him. I’ve known him, and he had other commitments, and I just thought, “Fuck it, me and George have this dynamic and we’re just going to wait for other people to share it live.” And they came aboard as we finished recording The Shadow over Atlantis, and we gelled so well. I remembered the first rehearsal, we’d done two songs straight away, perfect. No changes required, jammed it out. We’ve got loads of new guitar parts and new riffs to add in, to emulate the keyboards. It’s a real different experience when you see it live. I just remember at the time with the guys, we were thinking, “Fuck me. This is almost too easy.” I said to George, “We’ve got a good thing here, they may as well just join,” because I could see we all gelled musically well together. I said, “Fuck it, let’s evolve The Wounded Kings as a four-piece now.” They all like the same stuff. You just know when somebody’s got the feel. Drummers, for instance. You can have some really amazing drummers, some fantastic, thrashing drummers, but they can’t play doom because they can’t play slow enough and keep the time and keep the space and the feel of it, a cymbal crashing at just the right time and enough space left there. We just thought, “Fuck it. Perfect. Perfect bunch of guys.” The bass player isn’t a virtuoso putting fucking Flea shit in there. He’s exactly what’s needed in there, heavily. Beautiful. That’s The Wounded Kings. Done and dusted.

The Wounded Kings on MySpace

I Hate Records

Camarosmith’s Camarosmith sat there, used, probably filed under ‘B,’ because that’s how they rolled at CD World Totowa, with its Sabotage-style cover. This was maybe 2005 or 2006. I knew I knew the name Camarosmith, but who the band was, where they were from or what they did (other than take Sabbath-esque pictures of themselves for the front of their record), not so much. And though I didn’t buy it that day, every single time I went back to that particular store, I looked for it again, and the record stayed in the back of my mind from then on.

Finally, after resigning myself to the fact that another used copy wasn’t in my future, I picked up Camarosmith from the All That is Heavy webstore, and here’s what I’ve found out since:

1. When Jeff Matz (Zeke, High on Fire) played bass in the band, he was known as Sweet Potato Jackson.
2. Jack Endino produced the record. Never a bad thing.
3. It pretty much rocks.

Camarosmith is the only record the Seattle five-piece ever put out, and though they toured Europe, did a West Coast US run with Dixie Witch (an appropriate pairing, though Camarosmith are a little higher tempo on average), had just filmed a video for album opener “It’s Alright,” and also had the song featured on the soundtrack of the Tony Hawk’s Underground video game, after that, they were never heard from again. The last news update to their website is from 2004 and it talks about how they weren’t able to get into Canada to play some shows. I’d hate to think of Camarosmith as yet another unfortunate victim of heightened post-9/11 border security.

Vocalist Ben “Devil” Rew and drummer Donny Paycheck ran Dead Teenager Records, which put out the album (reportedly, Donny Paycheck left to pursue other projects), so presumably if they’d wanted to there was nothing to stop them from following-up Camarosmith, but instead they get to be one of those American stoner rock bands who put out one decent record and disappeared, despite members’ connections with other acts. Next time I’m stalking High on Fire, I’ll have to be sure to ask Matz wha happen. Or, you know, I could just listen to the Camarosmith record instead and kick myself in the ass for not buying it a half-decade ago. Yeah, that sounds more likely.

The Melvins release The Bride Screamed Murder on June 1 via Ipecac Recordings with a US tour launching the same day in San Diego and including a stop at the Bonnaroo Festival.

The Bride Screamed Murder is the third release featuring Buzz Osborne, Dale Crover and Big Business’ Coady Willis and Jared Warren. While Melvins recently celebrated their 25 anniversary, the latest incarnation debuted with the highly-praised (A) Senile Animal (2006) and continued with Nude with Boots (2008).

Joining the Melvins on tour for a half dozen shows will be label mates Isis (who will also perform at this year’s Bonnaroo Festival) while Totimoshi will be along for the full run of Melvins dates.

Tour dates:
June 1   San Diego, CA   Casbah
June 2   Tempe, AZ   The Clubhouse
June 3   Albuquerque, NM   The Launchpad
June 5   Austin, TX   Emo’s
June 7   Houston, TX   Warehouse Live
June 8   Baton Rouge, LA   Spanish Moon
June 9   New Orleans, LA   One Eyed Jacks
June 10   Birmingham, AL   Bottle Tree
June 12   Manchester, TN   Bonnaroo Festival **
June 14   Athens, GA   40 Watt Club *
June 16   Washington, DC 9:30 Club *
June 17   Philadelphia, PA   TLA *
June 18   New York, NY   Webster Hall *
June 19   Brooklyn, NY   Music Hall of Williamsburg *
June 20   Boston, MA   Paradise *
June 21   Boston, MA   Paradise *
June 23   Cleveland, OH   Grog Shop
June 24   Detroit, MI   Small’s
June 25   Chicago, IL   Double Door
June 26   Madison, WI   High Noon Saloon
June 27   Des Moines, IA House of Bricks
June 29   Denver, CO   Ogden Theatre
July 2   Calgary, AB   Sled Island Festival +
July 3   Calgary, AB   Sled Island Festival +
July 5   Vancouver, BC   Rickshaw Theatre
July 6   Seattle, WA   Showbox at The Market
July 7   Eugene, OR   John Henry’s
July 9   San Jose, CA Blank Club
All dates feature Melvins (two sets) w/Totimoshi except:
* = Melvins/Isis/Totimoshi
** = Melvins/Isis
+ = Melvins

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.