Brant Bjork: In Communion with the Immortals
Posted in Reviews on March 18th, 2010 by H.P. Taskmaster
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.
Dead Meadow have just announced the details surrounding their upcoming record release party / film premiere for their upcoming new album and original film, The Three Kings, out on March 23rd. Taking place at the historic location of Hollywood Forever Cemetery on March 25th, the event will include the premiere of the Dead Meadow movie The Three Kings as well as a live performance by the band. The night will include an open bar, free admission and giveaways, special DJ appearances, and a yet to be determined opening band. There will also be an art showing of low-brow art scene artist Charles Wish. Charles has been a major contributor to Dead Meadow art including an animated sequence in The Three Kings and will be showing pieces from the movie.
The upcoming release from Los Angeles psychedelic trio Dead Meadow, titled Three Kings, is nearly as difficult to conceptualize as it must have been to execute. Teaming up with the film company Artificial Army, the band (Steve Kille, bass; Jason Simon, guitar/vocals; Stephen McCarty, drums) captured a live show at a warehouse space called Little Radio in their adopted hometown and proceeded to intercut it with narrative film clips portraying the titular three characters — as played by the band — being morally beset on all sides on a journey they know not where, coming together finally for who knows what. Just to make matters more difficult, the audio companion to the DVD intersperses the already-mentioned live recordings with brand new studio tracks — and, get this — it all sounds pretty much the same.
Los Angeles based progressive rock collective Ancestors have announced April, 2010 UK and European tour dates in support of its critically acclaimed new album Of Sound Mind. The trek will launch on April 9 in Essen, Germany and will include a high profile appearance as part of the 2010 Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, Netherlands on April 15.
III, Los Angeles rockers Sasquatch’s appropriately-titled third album for Small Stone, is like one of those girls. We all know those girls. You see them out and about whenever you’re brave enough to leave the house, and those girls know they’re super hot, and they know they’re way out of your and everyone else’s league, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Hit them with a bus and they’d still be hot. They know it, you know it. Even your girlfriend wants to have sex with these girls, and if she says otherwise, she’s lying.
don’t know what it is, why they aren’t bigger than they are (one would think all the touring they’ve done with Helmet and Mastodon would help), but for some reason, they just haven’t yet taken off. They put out killer records and play their asses off live. I’m not sure what hasn’t fallen into place.
The US Plague Tour, featuring Marduk, Nachtmystium, Black Anvil, Mantic Ritual, and Merrimack that was scheduled to stop at the Key Club on Friday, December 4th, has been moved, due to the Key Club closing it doors to re-model. The new location for the show is the Salon Royal (Royal Hall) in downtown, located at 8637 South Alameda Street, Los Angeles, CA 90002. Parking is provided, with an entrance through the Steel and Lube entrance.
If weve learned anything about Los Angeles thunder-thrash duo Black Cobra by this time, its that they kick ass. Starting with their 2004 self-titled, self-released EP, and across the two full-lengths that followed (2006s Bestial and 2007s Feather and Stone), guitarist/vocalist Jason Landrian (Cavity) and drummer Rafael Martinez (Acid King, 16) have left boot prints in the glutes of the multitudes planet-wide, touring incessantly and becoming ever tighter and ever more aggressive. Kicking, in other words, more ass.
With last years demo-turned-LP Neptune with Fire, California epic rockers Ancestors immediately positioned themselves in the upper echelon of contemporary stoner metal. Their deceptively intricate jams and massive sonic scope made Neptune with Fire one of 2008s most satisfying listens, and following it up a year later with their second Tee Pee Records release, Of Sound Mind, the L.A. five-piece continues to show remarkable promise and a strong sense of diversity in their sound.
With its release earlier this month, the full-length Heavy Psych — as opposed to the EP of the same name, artwork and most of the track list put out last year — long running and vastly influential Californian psychedelic rockers Nebula once again join forces with Tee Pee Records, the label that issued their debut, Let it Burn, back in 1997. Back then, the trio consisted of guitarist/vocalist Eddie Glass and drummer Ruben Romano (both having recently left Fu Manchu), with Mark Abshire on bass, and though it’s been Glass who’s proven to be the central figure after all this time, the sound of Heavy Psych reflects — maybe closer than anything they’ve released this decade — the original mission of the band.
