Caked in dudely burl and post-Church of Misery riffage, Phoenix, Arizona, sludge rockers Twingiant follow their 2012 full-length, Mass Driver, with the brash dual-guitarisms of the Sin Nombre EP. The five-track collection is self-released and built on cement-solid riffs from guitarists Dave Natkin and Nikos Mixas and the beard-filtered growls of bassist Jarrod LeBlanc, who takes a cut like the shorter “La Haine” and pushes it beyond riff rocking into territory more aggressive, yes, but also more engaging in its stomp, duly punctuated by drummer Jeff Ramon.

Modern stoner metal has produced a number of acts working in a similar vein, but Twingiant prove able to navigate the EP without sounding redundant or losing the listener’s attention, the seven-minute “Cloaked in Black” taking Alabama Thunderpussy-style riffs out of the heartland and into a beating with a later slowdown and Ramon‘s fervent crash, answering back the thud of the opening “Pelisneros,” somewhat friendlier in its initial fuzz and early Down (think “Stone the Crow” in a different, less whiteboy-soul context), with Twingiant‘s angriest blows. I realize there are a couple Southern metal comparison points, but Sin Nombre doesn’t operate entirely in that sphere and it’s the contrast the vocals bring to a cut like “Pelisneros” that makes it harder to classify — the sweet leads and brutal growls playing off each other as the groove takes off and the ensuing “Fossilized” actually winds up working in a similarly creeping atmosphere to some of what New Zealand’s Beastwars were able to bring to their latest work, Blood Becomes Fire, with LeBlanc‘s bass playing an especially prevalent role in the second half of the song amid rasping, guttural growls and swirling leads.

But any way you slice it, Sin Nombre is heavy as hell and it knows it. It was made to be heavy and it turned out to be exactly that. A sample of serial killer/hitman Richard Kuklinski – that’s him talking about hate in the break of “Pelisneros” — only furthers the Church of Misery feel, but closer “Ricky X R.I.P.,” which seems to be a recording of someone (presumably the titlular Ricky X, in whose memory the track is dedicated) doing a radio show — and pretty recently, going by some of what he played — gives a surprisingly poignant end to a release full of ballsy riffs and brash grooving.

You can hear Sin Nombre now as part of the regular rotation on The Obelisk Radio, as well as check it out on the player below, snatched viciously from the Twingiant Bandcamp.

Twingiant, Sin Nombre EP (2013)

Twingiant on Thee Facebooks

Twingiant on Bandcamp

As much as extreme rock has ever been a thing, Tempe, Arizona, six-piece TOAD would seem to be engaged in the practice of it. The double-guitar, organ, bass, drums and standalone vocal outfit made their first showing in 2010 as a split with Drone Throne, then on their own in 2011 with Rotten Tide (review here) and are set to return in 2013 with Endless Night – five tracks of blackened melodic death rock that attempt to draw a line between At the Gates and the riffier terrain of heavy rock. No easy task. The five tracks of the vinyl-ready 27-minute Endless Night cast off a lot of the melodeath cliché that came in the wake of America’s turn-of-the-century metal revival – i.e. they don’t rush through a verse so as to blindside you with an out-of-place breakdown most part – but there is an intensity to some of their parts that feels derived from modern hardcore, so that even the dueling guitars on the otherwise organ-driven closing title-track seem to be in specifically that kind of rush. The band – comprised of guitarists Nate and Alex, bassist Trey, vocalist Andy, drummer Jason and organist Pete – balances its approach well, so that they never appear to be in the same place twice while also creating a full-album flow over the course of a brief span. Endless Night preserves continuity though in the echoing screams of Andy (who seems to be going by Chthon these days, unless I’ve got the lineup info wrong), which are largely unipolar in their shouting approach, at times scathing, but presented well in the mix all the same. Together with Jason’s drums, they announce the rolling groove of opener “Taste of the Grave,” which is also the shortest track on Endless Night at just under four minutes, centered around a heavy rock riff that in another context might bounce where here it pummels. TOAD, whose name is an acronym for Take Over and Destroy, have several immediate factors working toward their favor, and a pervasive knack for structure is one of them. It’s easy to get lost in Endless Night and some might accuse their songs of being samey, but TOAD are able to accomplish changes between otherwise standard verses and choruses that even with considered listening are less predictable than one might think. The harder you hear Endless Night, the heavier it gets.

And repeat listens may pull back the curtain on a horror influence that shows through in Pete’s organ work on “Howling House” and elsewhere, but even so, TOAD don’t necessarily telegraph where they’re headed next, as Entombed-style guitars in the verse of “Taste of the Grave” give way to a nuanced bridge. In some ways, this sets the tone for the whole of the album, which is similarly minded in its bludgeoning, but there’s no chorus to speak of in “Taste of the Grave,” and gang vocals, layers of backing singing and lead guitar throw one off as much as they bring you along with them. That makes Endless Night an immediately fascinating listen, and there’s still a core element of songwriting that brings back the verse riff to end the track, giving way to the creepy guitar opening of the 6:26 “Cosmophobia,” the longest cut of the five but right in line with the closing duo “Boundaries of the Flesh” and “Endless Night.” The intro gradually builds as drums are added before taking off to a thickened stomp at 1:18 that sets up the jagged verse and the more obvious chorus. It’s still largely the guitars responsible for the hook, but the vocals do well in following where the music leads in terms of rhythm, and though stops before the three-minute mark are jarring until the organ begins to fill that space (I kept wondering if one of my channels had dropped out), TOAD once more show an ability to wander from and return to the core figure of the song, reigniting the interchange between the verse and chorus and then cycling through once again with more bombast as an outro, Jason’s blown out cymbals setting up the drum-led thud of the intro to “Howling House,” soon joined by the guitar and an opening “argh!” from Andy that’s straight out of black metal. The Sunlight Studios-esque crunch of “Taste of the Grave” returns on “Howling House” and proves adaptable to the tempo shift into the slower, more open, noisier second half of the track, which picks up following a dual solo into blastbeats and stops to round out once more with a last verse and cold end. If it’s a sample of a tape winding up or the actual tape onto which Endless Night was recorded, I don’t know (TOAD had made a point of analog recording for Rotten Tide), but “Boundaries of Flesh” launches soon after into a frill-less brutality that’s perhaps the most abrasive they’ve been yet.

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From the first creepy fuzz line that launches “God Lie,” the opening cut from Phoenix, Arizona, doomers Goya‘s debut demo, the atmosphere of the disc is mired in cultish lurch. Electric Wizard is a pervasive and near-defining influence, but the trio Goya — who formed in April and released the self-titled five-track demo last month — are nowhere near settled on simply that. Elements of blackthrash show up in the guitar line of “God Lie,” and there’s an underlying impatience in these songs — like they were played fast — that hints of intensity to come. Though frankly, it’s early even to tell that.

Tracks like “Blackfire” and “Opoponax” delve even further into the post-Witchcult Today stream of cult doom, Jeff Owens‘ guitar layering in with keys in a familiar but still thoroughly fucked wash of fuzz and distortion. In making a bed for themselves in Electric Wizard‘s influence, Goya have given themselves a solid starting foundation, and centerpiece “Mourning Sun” wants nothing for low-end rumble thanks to Owens‘ crushing tone and the bass of Jirix-Mie Paz, both of which seem to lumber forth at the march of Shane Taylor‘s persistent kick drum, no less indomitable in the mix than Owens‘ guitar is impenetrable.

Middle cut “Mourning Sun” is the highlight of the 37-minute demo’s five cuts, if only for the more individualized approach it seems to be showing, but 11:30 closer “Night Creeps” carves out a righteous plod of its own as Owens intones “forever dead/forever stoned” in a Jus Oborn cadence before embarking on the assault of wah noise that will cap the demo. No complaints. It’s recognizable for the most part, but Goya are just getting started and for the centerpiece alone, the demo’s worth a look.

In that regard, Owens, Taylor and Paz have made the tracks available as a pay-what-you-will download or a $5 CD (limited to 100; 13 left as of this post), both available through their Bandcamp, from whence this stream also comes:

You can kind of see it, but the image above is of the envelope in which the CD pressing of recently On the Radar-ized Tuscon, Arizona, harvest doom outfit Young Hunter‘s full-length debut, Stone Tools, arrived. Click the picture (or any in the post, or any in any post) to enlarge. Stamped in black ink on the back in a sort of Native American geometric is a ram’s skull. Oh, what the postman must think of me.

Young Hunter was kind enough to send me one of the 300 physical copies of Stone Hunter, and one look at the packaging of the album and the obvious work that went into making it and it’s hard not to appreciate the effort, attention to detail (like the envelope above) and the effect that a physical presentation can have on what’s more often than not thought of these days as non-physical media. Take a look.

The CD itself comes in a black paper sleeve. Nothing really special about it, but on the front is the band’s logo stamped in silver ink. Obviously this isn’t to scale with the envelope above, but here it is:

Also included in the package, as well as some stickers, is a newsprint poster. Now, I’ll grant that I have and will probably always have a soft spot in my heart for newsprint owing to my time working for publications who utilized it, but as the Stone Tools poster unfolds to a whopping 34″ x 21″, it’s impressive even if you don’t have emotional baggage related to the media.

Inspired to do so by a shot on the band’s Bandcamp page, I left the CD (and the stickers) there for scale, but that’s the darker side. On the right there are words in a vertical all the way down, and on the left a wolf design in shades of gray. Some of the ink bled on the poster — hazards of the trade with newsprint; also something that makes each one unique — but it still looks great. The other side is a horizontal design:

Arranged into a pyramid are the lyrics to Stone Tools‘ nine tracks, and they rest atop a barren desert mountainscape appropriate for the atmosphere of the music. On each side, lines come together in a fade toward the middle and there’s a steer skull at the top. Here’s a closer look at the pyramid:

All told it’s a pretty gorgeous design and a great package that, from envelope to unfolding, really fits what Young Hunter are doing musically. If you want more info on this version of Stone Tools or to get it as a pay-what-you-will download, hit up Young Hunter‘s Bandcamp page. Thanks to the band for sending the album over.

Though one usually tends to think of sludge as emanating or at least imitating the climate of the Southeastern part of the US – the unbearable summer heat and lung-collapsing humidity are an arguable impetus for the sound in themselves – its influence is far more widespread than its geography, and one of the more interesting upshots of that is hearing what players from different regions bring to the already established style. The single-guitar five-piece Godhunter, whose name is about as metal as it gets, make their home in Tucson, Arizona, and to follow suit, the sound of their self-released Wolves EP is bone dry. Sure, David Rodgers’ guitars are outfitted with stonerly distortion, but there’s something in the tone that comes off like it gets less than 10 inches of annual rainfall. As the five tracks progress, and particularly as a Down influence makes itself known on riffy closer “(Dead Hooker by the Side of) The Road,” that dryness becomes more consuming, and though Godhunter have done well to change the pace throughout – showing sludge’s punk/crossover roots on “Red State/Black Crusade” before dooming it up on “Powerbelly” – Wolves becomes more typified by its excursions into hardcore-style gang vocals, with Rodgers and guest vocalist Sean Raines joining in standalone-singer Charlie Touseull’s shouts on the 7:40 “Powerbelly” for a rousing, memorable chorus about black magic, black whiskey, evil women and bags of weed. The same tactic shows up on “The Road,” as well, and as that and “Powerbelly” are both near eight-minutes long, they seem written at a different time than the first three tracks, or at least working on a different line of inspiration, whether it’s the output of multiple songwriters or what. Neither song is out of place on Wolves, and the material is all the more cohesive because of the consistency of its production – which thins Ryan “Dick” Williamson’s bass some and less than ideally captures drummer Ryan Clark’s toms on opener “(Stop Being) Sheep,” but is steady in setting an overall context nonetheless – so maybe it’s just a case of burgeoning sonic diversity beginning to show itself.

Either way, the Wolves EP makes for a solid 32 minutes of sludge-based aggression, and whatever forms it’s working with, they generally arrive still well able to qualify as such. The vocals are mixed high from the start, though one gets the sense that Touseull wouldn’t have had any trouble cutting through the music surrounding anyway, but it’s a couple minutes into “(Stop Being) Sheep” before he comes on, and in that time, Godhunter set a steady build and enforce and underlying groove that shows some schooling in doom. The guitar runs a creepy line complemented by Williamson’s bass, and it’s not until more than halfway through that the verse begins with angry, metallic-sounding throaty shouts – not quite growls or screams, but not clean either for still being mostly decipherable. Musically, the momentum seems to really play itself out over the course of the last minute, but the anticipation for a payoff to that 5:49 build remains as Godhunter moves into “Wolves of the North.” Fortunately, the track wastes no time in providing a higher stake of energy, Touseull and Rodgers foreshadowing the gang chants to come with some back and forth in the verse and chorus. Both Williamson and Clark are given better treatment here, with the former filling out beneath a guitar lead with style and apparent ease as the drums make ready to renew the crashes and kick-thuds of the chorus. Matthew Davis is credited with keyboards in the liner, but if there are any on “Wolves of the North,” I must be missing them, and in the time since the EP’s late-2011 release, Davis seems to have been replaced by a guitarist named Jake, which is probably fair since there are multiple layers of guitar throughout Wolves and more distortion rarely hurts.

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Not to be confused with the Swiss heavy prog trio from the early ’70s, the Tempe, Arizona-based six-piece TOAD‘s moniker is meant as an acronym for Take Over and Destroy, and seems as well to be a statement of their methodology. Their debut EP, titled Rotten Tide, blends a variety of styles from bombastic hardcore metal to post-Mastodonic technicality, and — perhaps most curiously of all — a preference for analog recording that’s almost entirely absent from the larger scope of modern metal.

Rotten Tide sounds modern, and though parts of centerpiece “Embody the Ghost” speaks to some affection for retro doom in its horror spookiness, the song itself quickly moves away from that and TOAD are, on the whole, working within a different aesthetic. Vocals from Andy Leemont come in abrasive and layered shouts over the guitars of Nate Garrett (who seems to have replaced Dan Labarbiera) and Alex Bank Rollins, and are clearly metallic in their origin, and yet Pete Porter‘s mellotron seems to add a backwards-looking flair that’s not incongruous with what the band are doing only because they mix it so well into their own context.

And as for recording analog — aside from the snobby prestige of being able to say you did it, it doesn’t really do much for your sound if you’re making something as metal as Rotten Tide — but as it’s genuinely a more arduous process, it says something that TOAD did it anyway and, along with their use of “all vintage gear from the ’60s and ’70s,” it seems to speak to the same kind of genre-straying ideology that drives “Embody the Ghost.” They’re still very metal, and at times border on black ‘n’ roll, but the band — who are just starting out and whose lineup is rounded out by bassist Trey Edwin and drummer Shane Taylor — have potential to develop in any number of sonic directions.

If you’d like to find out for yourself, they’ve put all of Rotten Tide up for streaming on their Bandcamp page, and also have a split release available through Boue Records with Drone Throne, with whom they share Rollins and Leemont. They’re also on Thee Facebooks, if that’s your thing. Here’s the whole of Rotten Tide, courtesy of the former:

The morbidly-titled third release and first full-length from Gilbert, Arizona, natives Drone Throne shows the band having undergone some distinct stylistic growth. Everybody Dies Alone is a self-released 12-track collection of sludge that, at times, is primitive to the point of regression. The most notable physical change in Drone Throne is the addition of the rhythm section of Andrew Leemont on bass/vocals and Taylor Kienzle on drums. Former drummer Alex Bank Rollins now joins Garrett Ranous on vocals and guitar, and the shift in personnel shows itself both in the interaction of the two guitars and in the heft of the rhythms and grooves supporting. Everybody Dies Alone manages to weave influences from latter day Darkthrone and Sleep’s Holy Mountain-era Sleep into its primal stew, balancing the simplistic nature of its forebears with the difficulties in making a cohesive singularity from them. Songs like “Bud Clot” and “Stone Dome” quickly mark out an ugly, crusty territory, while “Black Lung” relies more on rolling riffs and fog-headed groove to convey its stonerly vibes. Rollins and Ranous toy with some classic metal melodicism on “Dead Weight” (they seem to be feeling their way through several different styles throughout), but the bulk of Everybody Dies Alone is dedicated to short and abrasive bursts of sludge-punk chicanery.

A rough self-production job (also in the spirit of Darkthrone) doesn’t hurt the songs, but vocals high in the mix early in the album takes some getting used to, especially because of the distorted-shouty nature of the approach. “Black Lung” gets Everybody Dies Alone under way following the “Iron Man”-esque beginnings of aptly-named intro, “Intro.” Joining Ranous and Rollins (and Leemont ) in mix-prominence is Kienzle’s snare, which dominates more than best serves “Bud Clot” and “Greens.” The inclination, though, is to let that kind of thing go. Drone Throne clearly haven’t set out to make a shining production of a record, and while it’s important nonetheless to keep things in balance with each other, however harsh you might want them to sound, it almost becomes a contributing factor to Everybody Dies Alone’s ridiculous charm. The first four tracks’ punk-ish thrust slams head-first into the Sleep-y groove of “Dead Weight,” which cops the riff of “Dragonaut” into a lead line that forms the crux of the song. Drone Throne make it work, and “Dead Weight,” though immediately familiar, introduces the strongest stretch of the album. Gang chants in the chorus maintain the punk spirit, and as “Dead Weight” gives way to “Fatal Rips From the North,” Drone Throne pull off their most impressive shift from stoner rock to black metal. One has to wonder what exactly the band knows about “the North” being from the sandy Southwest in Arizona, but I’ll definitely give them the “Fatal Rips” part, and their Darkthrone-styled simplicity takes a complex idea and makes it sound effortless. The multiple layers of vocals (screams, shouts, etc.) underscore the song’s extremity, and the guitar work shows surprising versatility. Perhaps what makes the track, though, is when Leemont’s bass comes to the fore for a break and clean vocals result in a nod to Om before the final chorus.

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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.