Montreal noisemaker four-piece The Great Sabatini have announced a European tour set to kick off Nov. 5 that will find them supporting their 2014 third album, Dog Years. The band released Dog Years last June on Solar Flare Records and toured did a similar round of Canadian and US dates to mark its arrival, so they’re nothing if not covering their bases. Next year? Japan! Or maybe a new record or something else, I have no idea. Sometimes I get worried people are going to take me seriously when I say stuff like that. I need a talking-out-my-ass alert.

TOMA: The Great Sabatini announce tour of Martian riverbeds.

Not sure that’s clear enough. I’ll work on it.

In the meantime, here’s the Euro tour info and the Dog Years stream:

The Great Sabatini announce Europe dates.

Montreal noise rock/sludge/doom outfit The Great Sabatini will be touring Europe next month to help push their latest LP “Dog Years” which was released through France’s Solar Flare Records. Order your copy at www.thegreatsabatini.bandcamp.com

“Hey, here’s a thing we’re doing, called TOUR OF EUROPE, NOVEMBER 2015,” says the band. “We can’t wait for: vegan meals/beers in warm company, places to crash without begging, being told we are way loud most nights, righteous bands and friends we ain’t seen in a couple years, jet lag, drinking in public, tiny fuckin’ coffees that rule, etc. Oh god make it November now please. Poster design by Wurmzilla Art.”

Check the dates below:
11/05-Frankfurt, Germany @ Dreikönigskeller
11/06-Hamburg, Germany @ Astrastube
11/07- Hildesheim, Germany @ Thav
11/08-Vienna, Austria @ EKH
11/09-Budapest, Hungary @ Aurora
11/10-Burcharest, Romania @ Question Mark
11/11-Zilina, Slovakia @ Bullwar
11/12-Neratovice, Czech Republic @ U Nádraží
11/13-Paris, France @ La Mécanique Ondulatoire
11/14-Berlin, Germany @ He Sherer8
11/15-Antwerp, Belgium @ Music City
11/16-London, UK @ Powerlunches
11/17- Leeds, UK @ Chunk
11/18-Mons, Belgium @ Le Bateau Ivre
11/19- Renens, Switzerland @
11/20-Ilirska Bistrica, Slovenia @ Mknz
11/21-Clermont Ferrand, France @Raymond Bar

www.thegreatsabatini.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/thegreatsabatini
http://www.thegreatsabatini.com/
http://www.solarflarerds.com/

The Great Sabatini, Dog Years (2014)

If you checked out the video for Montreal four-piece The Great Sabatini‘s “Akela” back in July, you’ll want to go into their new one for “The Royal We” with advance notice that it’s a much different affair. Compiled from still photographs taken at the release show for their new album, Dog Years, it’s kind of herky-jerky visually, but I’m talking even more about the difference in the songs between the two. Where “Akela” was instrumental, contemplative acoustics, “The Royal We” is a noise basher through and through, bordering on black metal screams topping undulating, raw riffs. They could not be much farther apart from each other, and no doubt that was The Great Sabatini‘s intent all along.

The Great Sabatini have announced East Coast and Midwestern dates in Canada and the US, and you’ll find those courtesy of the PR wire after the video below. Enjoy:

The Great Sabatini, “The Royal We” official video

THE GREAT SABATINI Releases Yet Another Video From Recent LP; New Eastern North American Tour Announced

Montreal’s noise/sludge rock ringleaders, THE GREAT SABATINI, have just pulled the fifth official video from their Dog Years LP out of their hat, letting “The Royal We” loose into the crowd, while also declaring another new tour in support of the album.

In the ongoing outbreak of videos for their early June-released third album, Dog Years, already including “Akela,” “Periwinkle Love Hammer,” “Munera” and “Guest Of Honour,” THE GREAT SABATINI filmed the latest at a recent gig among their massive, ongoing tour schedule — from loading in, to getting loaded, to unloading onto the crowd, with “The Royal We,” playing RIGHT HERE.

THE GREAT SABATINI will also reload and fire into the US again later this month, with another widespread incursion in support of Dog Years. The Dog Years Fall Tour 2014 will kick off with two shows in Canada before hitting eighteen Eastern American cities through the first week of October.

Dog Years was recorded, mixed and mastered by Sean Pearson (Cursed, Shallow North Dakota), and boasts THE GREAT SABATINI’s raw, unpolished approach to capture n act with years of accumulated experience touring, writing and recording together. The aim was to create a hi-fi document with all of their lo-fi sensibilities, grit and live energy intact, and the results are astoundingly destructive. French noise/metal label, Solar Flare Records, released the album on CD, digital and LP formats, the latter available on both black and transparent red vinyl; place orders through Solar Flare Records HERE and via the band HERE.

THE GREAT SABATINI Dog Years Fall Tour 2014:
9/17/2014 Petit Campus – Montreal, QC
9/18/2014 Sneaky Dees – Toronto, ON
9/19/2014 The Lair – Buffalo, NY
9/20/2014 The Mr. Roboto Project – Pittsburgh, PA
9/21/2014 Grandbar – Chicago, IL
9/22/2014 TBA – Appleton, WI
9/23/2014 The Habitat – Duluth, MN
9/24/2014 The Triple Rock – Minneapolis, MN
9/25/2014 West Wing – Omaha, NE
9/26/2014 Vandals – Kansas City, MO
9/27/2014 Blind Bob’s – Dayton, OH
9/28/2014 Three Kings Bar – Cincinnati, OH
9/29/2014 Highline Taproom – Louisville, KY
9/30/2014 Poison Lawn – Knoxville, TN
10/01/2014 The Big Gay Shanty – Roanoke, VA
10/02/2014 The Blue Nile – Harrisonburg, VA
10/03/2014 Lava Space – Philadelphia, PA
10/04/2014 TBA – Long Island, NY
10/05/2014 The Batcave – Montclair, NJ
10/06/2014 O’Briens – Allston, MA

http://www.thegreatsabatini.com
http://thegreatsabatini.tumblr.com
http://solarflarerds.blogspot.com
http://facebook.com/solarflarerecords
http://solarflarerds.bigcartel.com

French noisemaking trio Pord made their full-length debut in 2011 with Valparaiso, but they’ve been around for more than a decade, doling out punker punishment on various EPs, splits and singles, continuing to hone a craft that, by now, finds them blending elements of heavy rock thrust and post-metal tonal claustrophobia while still staying true to a raw, aggressive root. Their second album, Wild, will be released via Solar Flare Records on Sept. 8, and it’s a short title that fairly well summarizes the course of the record’s 40-minute span. Not short on atmosphere but sacrificing nothing in terms of efficiency in their pummel, Pord unveil a vicious strain of noise that’s anchored by deep low end and positioned sonically for righteous defiance.

In early tracks like opener “Staring into Space” and “I’m Swimming Home,” that comes through with a linear, building intensity, but for a song like “What are Tuesday For?,” it’s more of a constant bleed. Maddening drum fills underscore the song, while deep-mixed vocals ask the all-pivotal question, “What the fuck are Tuesdays for?” It’s like a conceptual art piece for disillusion, and truth be told, I have no answer. In my experience, Tuesday is the most hopeless day of the week, and where at least with Monday one has fond memories of the weekend to draw on, Tuesday is further removed from that and still too far from the coming weekend to look forward to that. What the fuck are Tuesdays for? Despair? Overpriced turkey sandwich lunches? Beats the hell out of me.

Fortunately, the song feels like it’s doing the same thing. Pord‘s aggro take finds some sway in the snide “My Bloody Galantine” or “Pools ‘n’ Chicks,” but “What are Tuesdays For?” is less about attitude and more about forward directed drive, the album proving richer for being as multifaceted as it is before rounding out with the churning chaos of the 11-minute “On the Couch.” If you need to check out “What are Tuesdays For?” more than once to really get a feel for it, do so. It’s easy to feel outpaced by the song or like Pord — the trio of Mike, Max and Seb — are coming at you from multiple sides at once, but once you get a handle for the tension and release in the track, you’ll probably have a pretty good idea what the rest of your day is for.

Please enjoy:

[mp3player width=480 height=150 config=fmp_jw_widget_config.xml playlist=pord-what-are-tuesdays-for.xml]

Pord‘s Wild was recorded by Serge Morattel at Rec Studio in Geneva and is available now to preorder through Solar Flare on CD and LP. Album is out Sept. 8 with a European tour to follow. More info at the links:

Pord on Thee Facebooks

Pord on Bandcamp

Solar Flare Records

I might’ve said one or two, but it’s a genuine surprise to realize three years have passed since the release of Sedentary (review here). That record was a vicious return from the Chicago outfit with Georgia roots, and three years between albums for them is down from the five it took to get to Sedentary, so actually that’s even less. I’d say that’s probably a good sign for American Heritage‘s future, as well as the fact that they have a permanent bassist, which they didn’t going into the last record, but apparently guitarist Adam Norden (interview here) has quit the band since Prolapse was recorded, so there might not be a future at all.

That’s how the PR wire has it, anyway. Nonetheless, the band is signed with Solar Flare Records and will have the album out in November:

AMERICAN HERITAGE To Issue Sixth Album Via Solar Flare Records This Autumn

Clermont-Ferrand, France-based Solar Flare Records proudly announces the signing of Chicago-based quartet, AMERICAN HERITAGE, for the release of the band’s recently completed sixth full-length album.

Since 1996, AMERICAN HERITAGE has relentlessly dispatched their ripping concoction of technical, mangled metal/hardcore backed with their cynical, lowbrow music and human relations, both on record and on the stage. Their self-titled 1998 debut EP released on The Rosewood Union was chased by the full-length, Why Everyone Gets Cancer, released in 1999 on the same label, and their Through The Age Of Quarrel And Into The Era Of Putting Up With It album released in 2001 by Troubleman Unlimited, and then the Bipolar album through Escape Artist in 2004. Two subsequent albums on Translation Loss followed — 2006’s Millenarian and 2011’s Sedentary, the latter released in Europe via Solar Flare Records — among EPs on Class-B Records, Delboy Records and more including split 7″ releases with Thee Plague Of Gentlemen, Mastodon and others. Their most recent Sedentary album, recorded while the lineup was void of a full-time bassist, included guest contributions on each track, involving their partners in crime, collectively hailing from Sulaco, Murder Construct, Exhumed, D.I.S., Fight Amp, Nachtmystium, Buried At Sea, Mastodon, Primate, Lioness, Sweet Cobra, Dark Fog, Plague Bringer, Black Cobra, The Swan King, Beak, Surachai and others. On the road, AMERICAN HERITAGE has toured and performed alongside the likes of Baroness, Black Cobra, Floor, Mastodon, Pelican, Burnt By The Sun, Misery Index, Coliseum, Dysrhythmia, Saviours, Origin and countless others.

Following the departure of original guitarist Andrei Cabanban back in 2002, through a continually revolving array of bassists, AMERICAN HERITAGE has been steadily comprised of drummer Mike Duffy, vocalist/guitarist Adam Norden and guitarist Scott Shellhamer, and for the past several years, completed by bassist Erik Bocek. This lineup raided SOMA Studios in March of this year with producer Sanford Parker, with additional recording by Che Arthur and Mike Lust, to record their sixth full-length, Prolapse. Once the caustic madness of the bruising album was recorded, Parker mixed the final product, the thirty-three minute album displaying some of the band’s most diverse material to date. After the recording of Prolapse, core member Adam Norden left the band, and after eighteen years of abuse and racket, this move makes it foreseeable that this will be the final album from AMERICAN HERITAGE.

Prolapse will be let out of the cage this November, on digital, CD and vinyl formats via Solar Flare Records, home to Pigs, Sofy Major, The Great Sabatini, Pord, Stuntman and other high-quality acts from the noisier end of the underground rock/metal community. A confirmed street date and additional release details will be announced in the coming weeks.

https://www.facebook.com/americanheritageband
http://americanheritage.bandcamp.com
http://www.twitter.com/fuckingheritage
http://solarflarerds.blogspot.com
http://facebook.com/solarflarerecords
http://solarflarerds.bigcartel.com

American Heritage, Sedentary (2011)

Adventurous Montreal rockers The Great Sabatini released their third full-length, Dog Years, last month on Solar Flare Records. Their sound, while rooted in heavy rock, freely takes on various genre elements from hardcore and grind bombast to unplugged intricacies, and their latest video, for the song “Akela” from the new record, proves no less individualized. It’s quite individual, as it happens.

As in, four individual screens. In “Akela,” we see the four members of The Great Sabatini — Joey, Steve, Rob and Sean, all who’ve donned the last name Sabatini — more or less going about their day. They play video games, shave their hair, check their email, and yes, play the song itself, each one moving into and out of a stationary shot. It’s a creative take on the traditional rock video, and if you’d like an immediate contrast, visually and aurally, look no further than their corresponding “Guest of Honor” clip, which surfaced back in may in advance of the Dog Years release.

Enjoy:

The Great Sabatini, “Akela” official video

Dog Years is The Great Sabatini’s third full length album. It was recorded, mixed and mastered by Sean Pearson (Cursed, Shallow North Dakota), and uses a raw, un-polished approach to capture a band with years of accumulated experience touring, writing and recording together. The aim was to create a hi fi document with all of their lo fi sensibilities, grit and live energy intact.

With the songs, the band strives to bring more focus and muscularity to their ideas… to reign in their use of musical devices and create a series of pieces that each expressed some facet of their sonic personality as a band, without wasting too much time, or bogging down the compositions with too many needless bells and whistles.

Each song has a different story to tell, musically and lyrically, so the band hopes to leave listeners with a diverse set of tunes that reveal nuances inside the noise and grime with each listen.

Having said that, the weight of every riff, the conviction behind every note, is the thread used to sew it all together. Every tune should represent the balance of precision playing and sonic pummel which they strive for. They want to move people. Not just the heshers who worship the almighty riff, but the folks out there with ears tuned to different marriages of sound.

The Great Sabatini on Thee Facebooks

Solar Flare Records

Today marks the release of Idolize, the sophomore full-length from French noisemakers Sofy Major. The album is out on Solar Flare Records in Europe and No List Records in the US, and it finds the Clermont-Ferrand three-piece beating out a stirring blend of crunchy noise rock and heavier fuzz riffing, somewhere between Kyuss Big Muff fuzz (see “Comment”) and modern Unsane‘s sense of churning chaos, with — and why not? — a touch of Melvins tossed in for good measure on the jagged, frenetically-drummed “Coffee Hammam” and some melodies peaking through in the punkish back half of “Bbbbreak,” the swaying verses of “UMPKK Pt. 2” and the lead guitar finale of closer “Golden Curtain.” Comprised of bassist/vocalist Mathieu Moulin, drummer/backing vocalist Mathieu Desternes and guitarist Sébastien Fournet, the band is more ambitious even than it might first appear in listening to the album’s 11 tracks.

For example, after having the venerable Andrew Schneider mix their 2010 debut, Permission to Engage, the trio decided it was worth their time and effort to travel from France to Brooklyn and actually record Idolize with Schneider at his Translator Audio studio. A tour was booked for afterwards and the trek was made. Only snag was that Sofy Major came through New York the same time as Hurricane Sandy, which unfortunately claimed Translator Audio as one of its victims, and with little warning, Fournet, Moulin and Desternes had to find a new place to record, and quickly.

Who should step up but Dave Curran of Unsane and Pigs. Curran not only gave Sofy Major a spot to record, but even donated guest vocals to “Steven the Slow,” one of the highlights of the tracklist. But while Curran may be the hero of Idolize, he’s hardly the star of the show, and in their moments of manic assault — the beginning of “Golden Curtain” comes to mind — Sofy Major hit like a stripped-down, ultra-immediate High on Fire, talking heavy elements from a variety of spheres, thrash, stoner, hardcore, and effectively turning them into something of their own.

Check out Idolize in its entirety (even including the Euro and US bonus tracks) on the player below and feed your need for information with the fruits of the PR wire that follow:

Sofy Major, Idolize (2013)

Out of the bowels of the post-industrial badlands of Clermont-Ferrand, France comes SOFY MAJOR, a metallic noiserock trio highly motivated in intoxicating the listener with their energetic and off-kilter attack, than kick your liver in while your hangover is at its worst.

With barely-harnessed off-kilter riffery and white-knuckled percussion, the members of SOFY MAJOR have battered audiences since their 2007 manifestation, having released their debut album Permission To Engage in the fall of 2010. The band has shared the stage with Jello Biafra & The Guantanamo School of Medicine, Baroness, Electric Wizard, Boris, Shrinebuilder, These Arms Are Snakes, Kylesa and countless others. In the past two years alone the band racked up over one hundred fifty gigs in twenty countries across two continents, all part of the diabolical construction of their sophomore LP, Idolize.

In the Autumn of 2012 SOFY MAJOR transports to the Northeastern North American quadrant, bent on hammering out their new opus at renowned Brooklyn-based studio Translator Audio with producer Andrew Schneider (Unsane, Keelhaul, Cave In, etc.) as well as to embark on their first US tour. As luck would have it, they arrived in town at the same time Hurricane Sandy moved in. The loss is 100% — the entire studio flooded beyond repair, and all equipment in the studio including the band’s gear left swimming. The trio bummed around the borough for a few days, hooking up with cohort and labelmate Dave Curran (Unsane, Pigs), who helped set up the sessions they crossed the globe to carry out. The band eventually recorded with Schneider at Brooklyn-based Seaside Lounge and Spaceman Sound studios, and had it mastered by Carl Saff at Saff Mastering, the band then immediately taking to the road on a delayed but steadfast American tour.

Like a demented mesh of the Melvins slamming into High On Fire with undeniable noise/metal influences instigated by the likes of Unsane, Quicksand and Deadguy, Idolize encapsulates SOFY MAJOR’s intoxicating concoction of sludge riffage, stale beer, shattered dreams and perseverance. The album is set for worldwide release on May 31st via Solar Flare Records in Europe (Pigs, American Heritage) and No List Records in North America (Ken Mode, The Great Sabatini), the album to be delivered as a limited vinyl boxset, (three 12” LPs in three colors), digipack CD, cassette and digital download.

Sofy Major on Thee Facebooks

Sofy Major on Bandcamp

No List Records

Solar Flare Records