Yeah, I know I ain’t exactly pushing boundaries here by ending the week with Black Sabbath doing “Iron Man,” but this version — recorded in Montreux, Switzerland in 1970 — features one of the best Ozzy Osbourne lyric flubs I’ve ever heard, wherein the first part of the second verse becomes:

“Now he’s standing there
Iron Man don’t you dare
For he wants you to
Iron Man I love you.”

Brilliant. Yesterday, I was sitting at my office being fucking miserable listening to the no-indoor-voice dumbassery that plays out with unfortunate regularity, and then it hit me: I’m leaving, and not only am I leaving, but I’m going record shopping. I hit up Sound Exchange on the quick and in addition to a used copy of the last C.O.C. record (jewel case version), I got Sabbath‘s Live at Montreux 1970 and immediately dug in. The mere act of purchasing a Sabbath show I didn’t already own, but in order to make sure I didn’t wind up disappointed, I looked the gig up on my phone at the shop and saw the A+ rating for the soundboard set, and well, my mind was made up for me. I’d been hoping to pick up Blues Creation‘s Demon and Eleven Children, but this was more than I could ask.

And sure, the show was recorded before Paranoid actually came out about a month later in September, but still, that lyric flub is great. Also interesting that “War Pigs” is here in its “Walpurgis” form. If you want to hear the whole show, the bass is low and the vocals are high — typical soundboard fare — but the audio is crisp and the version of “Fairies Wear Boots” is nothing short of incredible for Tony Iommi‘s solo alone. Dig it:

So after a week distinguished by little other than how shitty it was, finding Live at Montreux 1970 did much to restore my doomly spirit. Combined with the snow day I took today, not sleeping late but not going to the office either, I feel almost human. Not quite, but almost. Better than I was two days ago, in any case.

Should your own doomly spirits require restoration, I hope Sabbath does the trick, and I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Lots of good stuff to come next week — Devil to Pay review, Clutch interview, and so on — so please stay tuned. In the meantime, I’ll see you on the forum and back here Monday for more high-gain sentence structures.

I didn’t really need an excuse to wish I was going to be in Europe come September, having already failed to get that Fulbright to Sweden I tried for last fall, but hey, why not toss another installment of the Up in Smoke tour on the pile? Indignity loves company.

This time around, it’s recent Napalm signees Monkey3 and Glowsun teamed up with German upstarts Grandloom. Good stuff. Sound of Liberation sent over dates and info on the PR wire:

UP IN SMOKE VOL IV
Monkey 3 (CH) — Glowsun (FRA) — Grandloom (GER)

The Psychedelic Roadfestival goes into the next round! From September 14th until September 29th, the Up In Smoke Roadfestival offers you finest heavy psychedelic rock music.

MONKEY 3  from Lausanne, well known for their outstanding live performance, will headline the evening. The ones among you, who have already seen the band live, know what we are talking about. Monkey 3 are constantly creating an excellent mixture of heavy, psychedelic, stoner and space rock. Atmospheric and emotional!
http://www.monkeythree.com/

For almost 15 years GLOWSUN has been on a journey through sheer endless distances of the musical cosmos. Consequently, the trio from Northern France continues their psychedelic trip. Swirling and heavy riffs meet the intelligent and playful foundation of the tight rhythm section, thus transforming the songs into compact sound clouds which surround and finally transport the listener into a completely new world. Glowsun will present their new CD “Eternal Season” during the UP IN SMOKE Tour.
https://www.facebook.com/Glowsunmusic

GRANDLOOM from Cottbus in Germany have already established their sound in the german underground scene. Their great mix of ‘70s rock, stoner, and psych leading them to trippy super jams…heavy, bluesy and always groovy.
http://www.grandloom.de/

Up In Smoke VOL IV – The Psychedelic Roadfestival on Tour:
14.09. CH Winterthur, Gaswerk
15.09. CH Yverdon, Amalgame
16.09. A  Salzburg, Rockhouse
17.09. Wuerzburg, Café Cairo
18.09. Munich, Feierwerk
19.09. A  Wien, Arena
20.09. Jena, Rose
21.09. Muenster, Amp
22.09. BEL  Brussels, Magasin 4
23.09. F  Paris, Glazart
24.09. Cologne , Underground
25.09. Frankfurt, das Bett
26.09. Berlin, Magnet
27.09. Hamburg, Molotow
28.09. Dresden, Groovestation
29.09. Esslingen, Komma
http://www.soundofliberation.com/up-in-smoke-vol-4.html

Closing out with Swiss psychedelic instrumentalists Monkey3 covering Ennio Morricone (because why not) and signing off early this week. I’m heading out in a few hours to go to the Saint Vitus Bar in Brooklyn to see Droids Attack, and I don’t know why, but I have the feeling it’s going to be a really good night. Most shows at this point I’m kind of here or there on actually leaving the house to go to, but this time I’m legitimately psyched. I’ll probably get hit by a bus on my way into the venue.

Droids Attack tonight starts off a pretty busy couple weeks of show-going. On Monday, Radio Moscow and The Dirty Streets hit the Brighton Bar in Jersey, Sons of Tonatiuh play Brooklyn next Thursday, and next Saturday, Halfway to Gone will be at the Brighton. I have an interview in the can with bassist/vocalist Lou Gorra from Halfway that’ll be up the week after next (want to get pics to go with). That show is the same night as Mike Scheidt in Brooklyn, so I was thinking maybe I’d drive south to see him in Philly the next night (could be tricky on a Sunday), but later that week, The Company Band are coming through, and I can’t make the Brooklyn show, so could be another trip to Philly for it. Everyone decided to hit at once, and most of them decided not to hit Jersey. What else is new?

I’ll sort it all out and get to as much as I can get to, and in the meantime, next week I’ll also have that free Mos Generator download posted. The band has taken some new press shots and there’s a press release to go with now, so we’ll do it up. I’ll also have an interview with Bathory obsessives Ereb Altor about their new and more blackened third album, Gastrike, that’ll be posted, and I’ll be picking and announcing the winners of the Kadavar giveaway, we’ll have another album of the summer of the week, and a new column either from Tommy Southard or Woody High, as well as (presumably) the explosion-filled finale of the Kings Destroy European tour diary. One can only assume even more tires will be destroyed in the making of it.

Much to come, and of course I’ll be working all weekend as well, but I’ll let Tomorrow Me worry about all the shit that he has to do tomorrow. Tonight I’m going to go out, watch a good band, have a beer or two and enjoy myself in as bullshit-free a manner as possible. I’ll keep you posted Monday on how it works out.

As always, I hope you have a great and safe weekend. I’ll be kicking around periodically on the forum, zapping spambots like I do. Hope to see you there and back here Monday for more whipped cream, also other delights.

Arriving some three years after their self-released A Dialogue with the Dimensions EP, the second shEver full-length, Rituals, lives up to its name. It doesn’t feel out of line to assume the band’s name is a play on the word “shiver” meant to emphasize that all four members of the Swiss outfit are women, with the odd-capitalization in their logo making the point even clearer, but more interesting to me than their gender is the scope of doom and darkened sludge shEver cover. The first-name-only lineup of drummer Sarah, vocalist Alexandra, bassist/violinist/backing vocalist Nadine and guitarist/backing vocalist Jessica wind their way through a bleak and often dirge-minded atmosphere, but there are looks in the direction of ‘90s-style doom that show up in tracks like “Delirio” to change up the approach, and screams intermingle with cleaner vocals in ambient parts while the band reels before unleashing their next assault. Rituals, which is released through TotalRust Music, is thoroughly doomed despite any variations/deviations that occur in style. Riffs lead the way almost exclusively, backed by Nadine’s thick bass and punctuated by the crash of Sarah’s lowly-mixed cymbals. The album is under-produced. Those cymbals are part of it, but I have a hard time imagining both the bass and drums don’t also come across thicker live, and that Alexandra’s screams, which sound muted here as “Je Suis Née” reaches its nonetheless punishing apex, aren’t fuller in another setting. Still, the rawness helps quitter stretches feel all the more dismal, and for the parts of Rituals where shEver are more directly sludge in their approach, it makes it that much nastier. The six extended tracks of the 50-minute offering are more consistent as well with that line drawn between them.

In case you were wondering exactly what kind of Rituals the band was thinking of when titling the album, opener “Ritual of Chaos” makes it plain, with malevolent whispers and quiet creepy parts trading off with screams, growls and clean backing vocals all at once. It may be that the band is throwing everything out there at once, but if so, it’s effective in conveying the breadth of the album overall. There are few surprises in store afterwards, but the fullness of the atmosphere that “Ritual of Chaos” constructs is affirmed in the other tracks, which are doomed enough to make early Paradise Lost blush and righteous in their heaviness despite whatever already-noted production issues persist. Before the opener is through, shEver have moved from ambient guitars to double-kick drumming, and done so smoothly while also challenging the listener to follow them. A major strength of Rituals is its challenging side, and “Delirio” – which also tops eight minutes – works quickly to enhance it with death growls and vicious higher-pitched screams atop a lumbering riff that persists loud for the first minute before moving into a more ambient incarnation of the same progression; an effective loud/quiet tradeoff and not the last to come. “Delirio” gradually rebuilds its crash and subsides again, once more hitting a satisfying peak as the song comes to a close, Jessica changing up the guitar to subtly add a shot of adrenaline. The following “Je Suis Née” is the shortest track on Rituals at 7:17 and dedicated largely to interpretations built around one riff and one tempo. Needless to say, its plod is substantial as a result, and though by now they’ve well established their pastiche, shEver move into probably their sludgiest territory yet – that riff is a beast and Alexandra’s screams are the stuff of damaged vocal cords. As with a lot of sludge, they run into trouble winding the track down, but when in doubt, drop everything else out and let the guitar ring out into a fade. Works like a charm.

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Marking a decade of existence in 2011 after one of their most successful years yet – 2010 found them appearing at both Roadburn and Hellfest – Swiss psychedelonauts Monkey3 follow-up 2009’s covers EP, Undercover, with their third full-length, Beyond the Black Sky. Released via Stickman Records with art by Malleus, the eight-track LP runs just over 42 minutes, and on it, the four-piece Lausanne band delves into a range of atmospheres, keeping their instrumental songs memorable and grounded with a foundation of heavy riffs. The vibe is vaguely stoner, but there’s more going on with Monkey3 (either written thusly or Monkey 3 with a space between the name and number; I’ve seen it both ways) than simple riff-driven instrumentality, and where an act like Karma to Burn has clearly had some influence, Beyond the Black Sky pulls from synth-inclusive space rock and heavy jamming, resulting in a feel generally more atmospheric, as they show in the low underlying rumble of the short “Tuco the Ugly.” These are songs, and they’re accessible on that level, but each piece also has a character of its own and a progression playing out.

For that alone, that Monkey3 manage to achieve that balance, Beyond the Black Sky is a win. They open the album with “Camhell,” which finds guitar and synth affecting a repetitive hypnosis while drummer Walter (first names only, all around) keeps the build moving. And it is a build. The song peaks once, drops down, and peaks again in its six-plus minutes, ending at a noodling guitar apex that cuts off as though the low-end effects that open “One Zero Zero One” are a wall the band has just pushed you into. “One Zero Zero One” – which doesn’t actually translate from binary to anything in text – is more patient all around, guitarist Boris and keyboardist dB working well together as the former offers a memorable rhythm line in the song’s final moments. That interplay between the guitar and keyboards runs throughout Beyond the Black Sky, lending the record as a whole a progressive air, but Monkey3, despite being a heavy psychedelic band given to lengthy jams like that in Side A-highlight “Black Maiden” (8:52), are never fully lost in self-indulgence. The structure of “Black Maiden” isn’t so different from “Camhell” or that which shows up later on closer “Through the Desert” (another high point of the record), but through diversity in their riffing style and complexity of the parts they’re playing, Monkey3 avoid sounding samey or repetitive where they’re not meaning to be. “Black Maiden” brings bassist Picasso and dB for hits and ringouts during a lengthy midsection of mostly guitar and synth, and it works tremendously well setting up the build of the song’s latter half.

“Tuco the Ugly” is more of an interlude at 2:13; a well-placed comedown from “Black Maiden” that provides afterthought to the breadth of that track while also closing out the first half of the record, but more interesting about it is how it plays next to “K.I,” which follows. Where “Tuco the Ugly” relies on acoustic guitar and a foreboding Western ambience perhaps inspired by their take on the theme from Once Upon a Time in the West from Undercover, “K.I” is practically industrial, with Boris’ start-stop riffing, the mechanical-sounding rhythms behind and wash of synth. Since both cuts are the only ones on Beyond the Black Sky under three minutes, and since they’re paired right next to each other, one can’t help but compare them, and though I’m more partial personally to the relaxed, open-country style of “Tuco the Ugly,” there’s no denying that “K.I” grooves and leads well into the organ-ic “Motorcycle Broer,” which finds Picasso at his most present yet, mix-wise, and Boris moving the guitars into atmospheric volume swells when not playing up straightforward rock riffing or – as later in the track – busting out the best solo on Beyond the Black Sky.

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The first album by Tom G. Warrior‘s post-Celtic Frost outfit Triptykon was a revelation. It was as though Warrior himself was reaching his hand through the speakers to say, “It’s okay that Celtic Frost is broken up, everything’s going to be fine…. and by that I mean we’re all going to die and life is utterly meaningless.” Eparistera Daimones stands stall as one of 2010′s most grim and beautiful releases, Warrior and his band reveling in their misery with all the avant blackened doom that has become synonymous with his name over the last 30 years.

And they killed it live. Both headlining Roadburn and when I saw them again in New York, Triptykon was a highlight of the year, no question. The only reason it’s not higher up my list is because there were other albums I listened to more. If this were a quality-only kind of tabulation (which, by being a tabulation, it couldn’t really be; discuss amongst yourselves), Eparistera Daimones would certainly be a top 10 record, but staying power counts.

I’ll say this for it: I may not have kept Eparistera Daimones in my player all year long, but every time I’ve gone back to it, I’ve found something new. Like Celtic Frost‘s last album, Monotheist, it’s a record best enjoyed over time. It got no shortage of hype over the course of this year, but I think the real beauty and complexity in Triptykon are going to take longer than a mere couple months to fully appreciate. I still get a shiver up my spine every time I listen to “A Thousand Lies.”

Seriously, even bassist Vanja Slajh comes off looking pretty well-hung in the shadow-puppet chorus scenes of Triptykon‘s new video for “Shatter,” the title track of their latest EP. The song rules, so I point this out in only the most lighthearted of joshing, but it’s kind of hilarious. Here’s the clip if you haven’t seen it yet:

“Shatter” was directed by Philipp Hirsch of Film-M. Triptykon‘s Shatter EP is out Oct. 25.

There has been much said over the years about Tom G. Warrior. One thing about the man in 2010: he is completely unwilling to compromise. He’s been down that road before, with Celtic Frost, and it made for one of metal’s most memorable missteps. But no more. When he left Celtic Frost in 2008 to form Triptykon, it became his singular vision that would guide the band, and no outside interest could sway it. Triptykon‘s Eparistera Daimones was a testament to this idea, a broad swipe of avant doom and black metals that showed not only was the venerable frontman as duly strong in his songwriting, playing and vocalizing, but his sheer creative will was more potent than ever.

This year, Warrior (Fischer by birth) was asked to oversee a day of the Roadburn festival in The Netherlands, which he did under the banner of Only Death is Real. Acts like as Pagan Altar, Witchfynde and Valborg made the day one of the most diverse the fest had ever seen, and with Triptykon‘s first live performance in the headlining slot, everyone had something to look forward to. Neither was anyone disappointed by the reality. Playing a two-hour set of half-Triptykon and half-Celtic Frost, Warrior, guitarist/vocalist V. Santura, bassist Vanja Slajh and drummer Norman Lonhard, gave due homage to the legacy of Celtic Frost while also showing how Warrior was moving forward into new and exciting territory. They finished with the massive, 20-minute Eparistera Daimones closer, “The Prolonging,” and I honestly think by the end of it the audience was more worn out than they were. Given that so much of his persona is wrapped in the dark, bleak and melancholic, it’s strange to think of Tom G. Warrior as excited, but as Nocturno Culto got on stage to guest on Celtic Frost‘s classic “Dethroned Emperor,” he clearly was.

And he remains excited now. When discussing his relationship to the other members of Triptykon, his voice tells of the passion he feels for making music with this lineup and being able to explore, unhindered, these fresh endeavors. On the eve of Triptykon‘s first North American tour, which kicks off Oct. 6 in Manhattan, and the release of the new Shatter EP later this month, the feeling I get is it’s a great time to be in the band, a great time to be inspired and a thrilling new beginning for a man who has helped define and redefine heavy metal for the better part of 30 years.

You’ll find the full Q&A, in ritualistic fashion, after the jump. Please enjoy.

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I decided to end this week with some Monkey3 because they’re a band about whom I know dick-all other than they’re instrumental and they’re European. When it comes to their members, discography or just about anything else, I couldn’t tell you, but I looked up this video and the song is killer, so apparently I’ve got my work cut out for me. There’s always more music out there. People who say nothing’s good these days are just wrong.

Well friends, as I stare down the barrel of a much-welcome long weekend, I’ll wish you a happy Labor Day if you’re in the States and a happy socialized medicine (which really makes every day a holiday) if you’re not. I look forward to spending the next couple days waiting for an alleged hurricane to not show up, then laughing when it doesn’t. It’s the little things.

If you didn’t see the response George from Las Cruces (the band, not the city) left to the live review post’s previous commenter, it rules.

One last order of business: tonight on 89.5FM WSOU here in New Jersey they’re reviving a show called Blurred Visions that plays stoner rock and doom, and to which I have sentimental attachment because I started it back when I was an undergrad at Seton Hall. If you’re around and looking for something to listen to at 1oPM Eastern, check it out here.

Otherwise, as always, I wish you the best and safest of weekends.

Here’s a fun fact that may or may not have been forgotten: Swiss sludgers Knut were around a long time before that baby polar bear of the same name got all famous at the Berlin Zoo. Today, their first album in four years, Wonder, is out on Hydra Head, who extols the band’s underground cred thusly by means of an unsuspecting PR wire:

There is simply too much music in the world these days, and little of it seems to embody what could be described as passion or even soul. Rarer still are the bands who have stuck around long enough to be considered consistent institutions of musical integrity and ingenuity. All but extinct are the bands that embody/possess the qualities above, and who have continued to produce, evolve and thrive despite deficient attention from the music buying public. While artists like The Melvins, Neurosis, Converge and Enslaved have managed to plumb the depths of the various caverns of heavy metal/hardcore/loud rock and emerged atop mountains of accolades (while simultaneously making careers of their craft), Knut have long labored in relative obscurity, churning out some of the finest all-enveloping-mathsludge-metal-pummelry known this (or that) side of the Atlantic.

16 years and 12-plus releases into their existence Knut have managed once again to top themselves and shame their peers with the creation of Wonder. A commentary on the human capacity for creative thought and numinous experience in the face of a violent and oppressive global-market ethos, Wonder stands as a testament to our will for survival and defiance in times of adversity and crippling doubt… and, yeah, it’s proof-positive that Celtic Frost and Swatch ain’t the only Swiss exports from which we may all reap unending benefits.

Knut live:
8/13 Ieper/Ypres, Belgium @ Ieper Fest w/ Converge, Kylesa, Gaza, Despised Icon, AmenRa
8/27 Gigors, Drôme, France @ Gigors, Drôme w/ Melt Banana, Human Toys, DK
8/28 Geneva, GE @ Usine, Geneva w/ Melt Banana
10/2 Bulle, Fribourg, Switzerland @ Ebullition, Bulle

Phased‘s cumbersomely-titled fourth album, A Sort of Spasmic Phlegm Induced by Leaden Fumes of Pleasure, isn’t the highest profile release of 2010, but the Swiss trio has stumbled onto a individualized mixture of space, stone and doom that they weave their way through expertly. It could be the fact that this lineup of Phased has been together for nearly a decade (the band itself formed in 1997), or it could be the kind of chemistry that’s either there to begin with or not and no amount of time can bring about. Whatever they’re doing, it works.

Elektrohasch released A Sort of Spasmic Phlegm Induced by Leaden Fumes of Pleasure to a positive reception from the scene (myself included), and Phased have been playing shows around their home country and have plans to hit Germany before the end of the year. Interestingly, when I sent the questions for the following quickie email interview to guitarist/vocalist Chris Sigdell, both he and drummer Marko Lehtinen answered — leaving only bassist Chris Walt silent — but did so without any delineation of who was saying what, which is perhaps the best analogy I can come up with for the way the band performs: together, as one unit.

So, with the understanding that we’re hearing from Phased (or two-thirds, anyway, which if you round up is the whole band), and not just one member, please find enclosed after the jump the following Q&A, and enjoy.

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From the day it was announced that acclaimed guitarist/vocalist Tom Gabriel Warrior was leaving Swiss black metal innovators Celtic Frost following their fucking awesome reunion album Monotheist, it was clear that whatever he did next was going to be a tricky proposition. After all, this isn’t the first time Celtic Frost broke up, and considering it took them about half a decade to get Monotheist together, was it really such a surprise to see the band come apart? The upside was that when Triptykon, Warrior’s new band, was revealed, he more or less said his plan was to make it sound like Celtic Frost, and to that end, he was taking the parts he was going to use for songs on the next Celtic Frost record and turn it into Triptykon’s first album, Eparistera Daimones.

Century Media, to whom Monotheist was also licensed for release back in 2006 (time does fly), sent over some mp3s of Eparistera Daimones for review, but I knew that, as with Monotheist, if I wanted to really get a sense of what this album was about, I needed the real deal. So I bought it. Whether or not that makes me morally superior to anyone who by now has downloaded this blackened metallic beast is a debate for another time (but we all know it does); the point is that, with the expository liner notes, with H.R. Giger’s explicit cover art — covered in the CD packaging by a strategically placed promo sticker – with the production info, with the lyrics, I feel like it’s possible to get a more fully realized notion of what Eparistera Daimones is trying to accomplish. In a word, that is “iconoclasm.”

How else to explain the vicious turns, unexpected twists and occasionally unleashed, unhinged aggression of Triptykon’s debut? Clearly this is an album that, while knowing of the expectations pinned on it and the revitalized reputation it’s going to be responsible for upholding, doesn’t give a shit and is going to do what it’s going to do. Joining Warrior on the release are drummer Norman Lonhard, bassist Vanja Slajh, numerous guests, and former Celtic Frost live guitarist V. Santura, whose modern black metal vocals contrast with Warrior’s own to great effect on early cuts “Goetia,” “Abyess Within My Soul” and blistering centerpiece “A Thousand Lies.” If there’s one single factor that separates Triptykon from Celtic Frost (the absence of Martin Eric Ain being obvious to the point of not really needing to be said), it’s Santura’s contributions. Plus, as a co-producer with Warrior, his affect on the overall sound of Eparistera Daimones is even broader, and judging from the outcome, it’s much to the album’s benefit.

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Let there be no misunderstanding: Phased know their rock. The multinational (Switzerland, Finland and Sweden) rock trio recently issued their fourth album via Elektrohasch Schallplatten, and though you might expect a band who calls a record something as cumbersome as A Sort of Spasmic Plhegm Induced by Leaden Fumes of Pleasure to beat around the bush for a while, for the most part Phased get right down to business with a borderline trippy psych rock that galvanizes strains of Fu Manchu, Queens of the Stone Age with the rougher hewn edges of Sleep and The Melvins.

I know as far as stoner rock goes, these are marriages well made before Phased came along, but A Sort of Spasmic Phlegm Induced by Leaden Fumes of Pleasure has charm beyond its title, and the band’s evident passion for what they do comes across clearly in the songs. They’ve been together in this incarnation for nearly a decade (after originally forming in 1997), and the comfort of the players shows in “Rim Shot to Infinity, “ which is about as unhinged and far out as their jams get. “The Osteopath” and “Tip of the Sky,” which takes the “Holy crap I’m so high” lyrical approach, follow a more straightforward fuzz rock ethic, and effectively, setting up the course for the latter half of the record to get progressively more ethereal and crunchier with each song.

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“Stay” was the first single from Swiss hard rockers Toad in 1971. The band formed after splitting with the psychedelic group Brainticket and just gradually got heavier as time went on. This shit rules. They only ever put out three albums — Toad, Tomorrow Blue and Dreams (and someday I’ll own all of them) — but that doesn’t stop any of it from being awesome. Hey man, not everyone could have Blue Cheer‘s tour schedule. Anyway, hope you dig it.

After recording 2004′s Lust in Translation and 2006′s The Beast is on Your Track (both on Supermodern Records) in Seattle with Jack Endino (who’s done albums for Nebula, Mudhoney, The Atomic Bitchwax, etc.), Swiss power trio Zamarro opted to stay closer to their Basel home near their country’s borders with Germany and France and work with V.O. Pulver (Gurd) in his Little Creek Studios for their first album in three years. The resulting Dirty Power (LC Records) may share a name with a San Francisco stoner band who coincidentally also worked with Endino — unless it’s an unlikely tribute; would be something if Dirty Power‘s next album was called Zamarro — but the record itself offers straightforward, by the books stoner rock.

I’m a firm believer that you can learn a lot about a band with cursory/superficial examination if you do it in the right context. Example: there are 12 tracks on Dirty Power, and eight of them are between 3:02 and 3:49 in length (the others are 4:24, 4:16, 2:25 and 2:38). Without listening, that can mean anything, but once you hear the album and look at the structure of it, it becomes abundantly clear Zamarro are working with a strict songwriting formula from which they rarely deviate. Tracks can have different sounds — and they do — but they still follow the same process.

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