[Click play above to stream the premiere of ‘Coming with Clouds’ from All Souls’ Songs for the End of the World. Album is out Oct. 2.]

Consider the tragedy of our postmodern apocalypse, with none of the drudgery of actually living through it. With their self-released second full-length, Com Andra Ghent Dissertation services online you can hire a really professional writer who will make an excellent-quality essay, research paper Songs for the End of the World, punk-rooted Los Angeles-based heavy rockers Source. Our company provides professional academic help for students all around the world. We have already helped thousands of students and All Souls lyrically convey a yes-this-is-personal politics — namely that of being a person with brown skin in America circa 2020 — mourn for a changed climate, and, despite such perspectives as those found in tracks like “Bleeding Out,” “Death Becomes Us,” “You Just Can’t Win,” “Empires Fail” and “Lights Out,” all of which appear in one after the other in that order, manage to do so while exploring progressive textures and varied songwriting that refuses to be beaten down. In search of the best academic source link? You are in the right place! Enjoy hiring our experienced writers to do a successful research paper, term All Souls‘ 2018 self-titled debut (review here) worked along similar lines, and the group remains melodic at their core and driven by the guitars of  Paperhelper.org � best essay service. Our service is one of the most popular district manager restaurant resumes,offers high-quality services for writing a speech. Antonio Aguilar (also vocals, formerly proposal and report writing do your homework ecard essay on water essay writing spent my summer vacation Totimoshi) and http://www.vnjh.cz/?master-thesis-gutachten - Qualified writers engaged in the service will do your assignment within the deadline Essays & researches written by top Erik Trammell ( Professional custom writing service offers read heres, term papers, research papers, thesis papers, reports, reviews, speeches and dissertations of Black Elk) and the insistent punch in the rhythm section of bassist/backing vocalist read this article that makes that perplexing technical content sound coherent and free from technical jargons. Professional Copywriting Services. Meg Castellanos (also formerly  Can I How To Write A Phd Thesis Paper at the Premium Level? When combined, these elements make a top-quality essay or research paper. Usually, at least one of these Totimoshi) and drummer  Welcome to the website of Database Assignment Help Conglomerate 2014 (SWC 2014), a conference held in New Delhi, India in the year 2014. Tony Tornay ( masters thesis education University Of Edinburgh Creative Writing buying a dissertation harvard writing essay for scholarship application contests Fatso Jetson, etc.), captured with a balance between rawness and depth once again by producer  Professional custom writing service offers Help Homeless Essay, midterm papers, research essays, thesis papers, reports, reviews, speeches and dissertations of Toshi Kasai.

The difference is one of breadth. Certainly in the seven-minute “Winds,” which arrives following the opening pair of “Sentimental Rehash” and “Twilight Times,” there’s room to air out and reach for new ground in terms of melody and atmosphere, but even in the early build-up and stretch of the later “Lights Out,” or in sub-four-minute pieces like “Bleeding Out” and closer “Coming with Clouds,”  Establish trust among your targeted audience with honest and credible product reviews with the help of our famed product Help In Writing A Research Paper All Souls seem to let no opportunity for creative interplay and shimmer in the guitars slip through their collective fingers. Even in the chorus of “Sentimental Rehash,” which is clearly intended to start the record off with a kick of intensity and is  The service offers customers competent writing assistance. It's a place, where a student can choose one of http://stadttheater.amberg.de/?dance-dissertation-helps. Each order is Aguilar‘s most gnashing vocal to be found throughout, there are hints of the melodic flow that will soon enough come to fruition as “Twilight Times” moves into “Winds” and the album continues to unfold from that particular landmark, which on many offerings would probably be placed last but here serves as a gateway into the wider sphere of what follows, the grace of its key-strings-and-guitar finish informing “Bleeding Out” and the particularly catchy desert-rock bouncer “Death Becomes Us.”

A tension persists, and well it should.  Professional Essay Writing Service and Custom Essay Help from Top Essay Writers from My http://www.cghc.edu.ph/?phd-creative. Avail Custom Essays writing and editing by the best Aguilar‘s style of riffing, even back to  Totimoshi‘s earliest work around the turn of the century, has long played a game of trying to catch the listener off-guard with its turns and changes and the places one groove might lead. This can be heard certainly on the chug-into-rush of “Sentimental Rehash,” but also more subtly in the twists of “You Can’t Win,” and Tornay‘s drumming isn’t so much a foil for this impulse as a gleeful enabler, which is how a song like “Death Becomes Us” can border on fun despite its thematic downerism. Add to this the sheer melodic character All Souls bring to their second album, in the guitars as heard in the second half of “You Just Can’t Win,” as well as the moments of flourish like those aforementioned keys or in the combination of Aguilar and Castellanos‘ vocals throughout — on and on — and at the same time Songs for the End of the World basks in this punker-poet energy, it is thoughtful and purposeful in its push toward reaches even the self-titled didn’t attain.

No doubt the band’s experience on tours with the likes of Tool and the Melvins and even a few years ago Fatso Jetson with Tornay pulling tip-your-hat double-duty will have played into this development, but that’s not the same as manifesting it either in the songwriting or in the studio as they do here, and the continued collaboration with Kasai is a factor as well. There is space in the mix that in quiet moments remains, and the fact that “You Just Can’t Win” can evolve from its subdued beginning into the torrent it becomes, that this shift happens so smoothly and with such natural-sounding efficiency, is evidence of the dynamic at the heart of their approach. One found Aguilar and Castellanos able to bring shades of similar methods into Totimoshi‘s later output, but bolstered as it is here by Trammell and Tornay, there’s no question the strength of All Souls comes from the root combination of its players and the songcraft around which they’ve gathered. It is at moments a sad record when one considers the subject matter — it was also recorded in 2019, so… simpler times? — but willing to be beautiful even in its rawest moments, and for that, nothing other than a triumph on the part of the band.

So what? So, in the immortal words of Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack, “let’s dance.” And in doing so, coincide with Laurie Lipton‘s also-ready-dead figures on Songs for the End of the World‘s front cover. In its final movement — seeming to begin with the backing vocals in post-midsection “Empires Fail” (though I guess one might pull back further to the start of side B with “You Just Can’t Win” as well) and running through the emotional heft of “Lights Out,” the headphone-ready intricacy of “Bridge the Sun” that builds off that heft, and the perhaps-epitaph that is “Coming with Clouds” at the end — the 10-track/44-minute outing most realizes its ambitions of mood and method, “Winds” having served as a foreshadow earlier on.

Ultimately, All Souls reside in a place between genres. They are a rock band, to be sure, but are they too punk for the rockers, too rock for the punkers, too progressive for the lunkheads, too raw for the proggers? I’m not sure it matters. What does, by contrast, is just how much All Souls, separate from the other acts in which its members have or currently still take part, have found their voice through these songs and what that means for them as they move forward. I won’t speculate except to note that even underpinning some of the most urgent moments on Songs for the End of the World, on “Sentimental Rehash,” or the rush in the apex of “You Just Can’t Win,” there is a patience and an attention to detail that complements the from-gut nature of the composition, and the balance between the two when tipped one way or the other is part of what makes All Souls as much themselves as they are here. If they can hold onto that and grow that as they so obviously have already, anyone who hears them will be lucky.

All Souls, “You Just Can’t Win” official video

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Shit, that’s cool. Good for Temple of Void. Hell, good for Relapse. Good match all around, really. And if tours can ever happen again, all the better. Previously hooked up with Shadow Kingdom Records, Detroit deathbringers Temple of Void released their prescient-in-title third album, The World That Was (review here), this past March. Their follow-up will be their Relapse Records debut, which for a band like this is pretty much living the dream. Can’t say they haven’t earned it, either. Their take on death metal and doom fluidly tips the balance to one side or another to serve songs that are inventive even as they don genre tropes, and the band revel in past glories even as they make them their own. Congrats and kudos all around.

You like good news? I do. Here’s some from the PR wire:

TEMPLE OF VOID Sign To Relapse Records; New Album Coming 2021

Relapse Records is proud to announce the signing of Detroit, MI based death/doom legion TEMPLE OF VOID. Temple of Void are currently writing their Relapse Records debut, their 4th full length, set to be released in 2021. Stay tuned for more information in the near future.

Regarding the signing, TEMPLE OF VOID Comments:

“The pandemic may have stopped us playing shows, but it can’t stop us writing a new record. We’ve been hard at work ever since lockdown started, crafting new songs and exploring new ways to expand and hone our signature sound. Never a band to write the same album twice, our debut for Relapse will both be familiar and new all at the same time. Echoes of the past will meet with glimpses into the future. Each record we write stands on the shoulders of the prior albums, and this is no different. We’re beyond fucking excited to get into the studio next year and track this beast.”

TEMPLE OF VOID have reverberated across the underground upon the releases of their 2014 full length “Of Terror and the Supernatural”, 2017’s critically acclaimed “Lords of Death”, and their most recent album, “The World that Was”.

“The World that Was” sold out of its first pressing before it was released, speaking to the support from death metal maniacs worldwide. Featuring incredible musical collaborations and artwork that pushed their cosmic atmosphere into new dimensions, “The World That Was” marked a new step in the band’s forward-thinking path, highlighting them as a contender for the year’s best in extreme music.

Now, with their signing to Relapse Records, TEMPLE OF VOID embark once again upon a voyage beyond death, beyond doom, and beyond the ultimate!

TEMPLE OF VOID Is:
Michael Erdody – Vocals
Don Durr – Guitar
Jason Pearce – Drums
Alex Awn – Guitar
Brent Satterly –Bass

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Temple of Void, The World That Was (2020)

My wife and I threw rock-paper-scissors in a best of three to decide which of us was going to put our son down for nap. She won. I had a run of victories that lasted for years but ever since then it’s been like the curse of the Bambino. I’m lucky if I make the playoffs.

But then I looked at my watch and saw it was 1:58PM and that in two minutes it would be time for Borås, Sweden, trio Vokonis to begin their live stream from Klubb Undergrunden in their hometown, and I called in the favor. Though she was plenty ready for a nap herself, the love of my life relented and took the kid upstairs to lie down.

A few minutes later, as Klubb Undergrunden Sessions II was underway with the progressive-heavy three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Simon Ohlsson, bassist/vocalist Jonte Johansson and drummer Peter Ottoson opening their relatively quick 27-minute set with the title-track of 2017’s The Sunken Djinn (review here), I got the call from upstairs.

He’d thrown up. Not uncommon but not unheard of; generally he’s not much of a puker, but of course timing is anything. As the band nestled into the stomp of the verse in “The Sunken Djinn,” with Ohlsson and Johansson sharing vocal duties as they’ve done more and more effectively since making their debut with 2016’s Olde One Ascending (review here), I hit pause, grabbed some paper towels, and went to assess the damage.

It wasn’t so bad, and soon enough, I was back in front of the television, watching the multi-camera, pro-sound, pro-lighting cast of the trio playing “Grasping Time” off of 2019’s Grasping Time (review here) as I seemed to be doing so myself, but it goes to the ongoing discussion of how music and especially the experience of live music interacts with the rest of our lives in this pandemic era.

Having recently experienced a socially-distant live performance for direct comparison, I’ll say that the simple act of having to leave one’s house makes a huge difference.

I’ve never lived in a major city or particularly close to any relevant venues, so I’m fairly used to traveling for shows, but I would think if you were down the block from your favorite concert hall, the same would still apply. You have to pull yourself out of your own space to see a show (unless you own the venue, in which case, congratulations to you on living my dream) in a way that, watching a COVID-born stream, the whole point is to not.

When you’re at a show, you’re not thinking about doing the dishes. You’re not throwing pillowcases in the laundry. You’re not taking the fucking dog out for the 15th time because she has the world’s most expensive UTI and will invariably piss all over everything if you don’t. Even if you’re the type to text or engage social media while out and about — and by “type,” mostly at this point I think I mean “human” — you’re physically somewhere else.

Vokonis played five songs in this — again — fairly brief mini-gig, with “The Sunken Djinn” and “Grasping Time” giving way to “Antler Queen” and “I Hear the Siren,” before closing out with the quick energy burst of “Exiled”; the latter three tracks all from Grasping Time as well, which is unmistakably the band’s best work made public to-date, though as Ohlsson noted in April, their next offering is already well in progress.

I would imagine that, as different as it is for the audience of a stream, it’s no less a new world for the performers involved. Of course, in a shoot like this one there are other people in the room, working lights, the live mix and camera direction, but that’s hardly the same as a boozy crowd come to see a good show. Still, Ohlsson, Johansson and Ottoson were able to get into the spirit, headbanging a bit while issuing forth through a series of proggy turns and adrenaline-fueled hooks.

They have worked relatively quickly over the last several years to grow beyond the influences that sparked their earliest efforts — and that work has been successful — and even though Ottoson didn’t appear on Grasping Time, the dynamic between the trio came across as that of a band whose evolution was serving a greater aesthetic purpose. A band who, in stylistic terms, are going somewhere and exploring new ideas.

And so they are. “Exiled” capped with a quick “tack” from Ohlsson and it was over. My wife long since gone for her own nap, our son upstairs, blowing off his own but playing peacefully enough, I disconnected the stream, turned off the tv and sat for a minute to process. I’ve never seen Vokonis live — a planned trip to Esbjerg Fuzztival this year would’ve been the first time — and I came away from the stream feeling like my experience of it was afflicted by the rest of what was going on.

But here’s the thing with the stream: As the house had finally settled down — even the dog was in her crate — I happened to have another 27 minutes at my disposal. Not something that happens every day. So I just put it on, on my laptop this time, and watched Vokonis kill it once again so I didn’t come away feeling like I’d missed anything.

That’s something that, were I pulled away from an in-person show by some domestic consideration — it’s happened before; you get bad news, etc. — I wouldn’t have been able to do. Everything has its ups and downs. And in a time that seems perpetually to find new lows, I’ll take every 27 minutes of positivity I can get.

The stream is still up and you can see it below. Thanks for reading.

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Think Hour of 13‘s history is complicated? They have three Bandcamps. Three of them. Foremost among them is that from which the player above comes, run by Northern Silence Productions imprint Eyes Like Snow, where the 2013 reissue of their 2007 self-titled debut, originally on Shadow Kingdom Records, and physical editions of their other two full-lengths can be found. There’s also one from Earache Records, which signed the band in Sept. 2010 to release their 2010 second album, The Ritualist (discussed here), and third, 333 (discussed here), in 2011 and 2013, respectively. The third — because, yes, we’re still listing Bandcamp pages — is the band’s and it’s operating under the semi-changed moniker of Hour of Thirteen, in order to represent the shift from doom to classic metal and horror punk and the continuation of the band as a solo-project of founding guitarist Chad Davis. By the way, it was announced earlier this week that Hour of 13 — not Hour of Thirteen — will release a new full-length called Black Magick Rites. That’ll be out on — wait for it — Shadow Kingdom. Lest the circle lack fullness.

And which release came out where and when — that’s really just the beginning when it comes to the story of Hour of 13 and the tumultuous path the band has walked since their 2007 inception as a studio-only duo of Davis and vocalist Phil Swanson. With Davis based then in Hickory, North Carolina, and operating as a member of U.S. Christmas, Tasha-Yar, Set, Anu, etc. — he can now be found in San Francisco, working through The Crooked Whispers, Jenzeits and probably six or seven more — and Swanson living in Connecticut and working in bands like Upwards of Endtime and Earthlord — I saw him in Maryland last year but I’m not sure if he lives there or what; he’s currently in Vestal Claret and Seamount, and likely others — the workings of the band were immediately complicated. It was possible if more difficult than it is now to send recordings back and forth to work remotely as a group, but with Davis providing guitar, bass and drums and Swanson adding his Satanic, ritual-fueled, sometimes murderous lyrics and enviable post-Sabbath vocal approach, the self-titled was indeed tracked in-person in two sessions between 2006 and 2007 ahead of that Shadow Kingdom release. Bringing together eight songs across 42 minutes, it was simply an album ahead of and outside of its time.

By that I mean it arrived early for what soon enough took hold as a more cultish branch of doom metal. A few years later, or even now, it would be readily in league with a slew of other groups — if more lyrically deranged; Swanson always had a knack for skirting and sometimes crossing the line between good-fun devil worship like the un-Trouble and uh-that’s-not-okay kidnap and ritualistic murder, as on Hour of 13 closer “Missing Girl” — but at its time it was an immediate standout, despite also taking on the genre trappings of traditionalist doom. On their face, songs like early cuts “Call to Satan” and “Submissive to Evil” are straightforward and ask little of the listener. Riffs roll out, vocals follow the established rhythmic pattern, groove is had, doom is purveyed. But between an edge of rawness to the production and a flourish of classic metal in “The Correalation” (sic) and the relatively brief “Grim Reality,” which is snuck in like three and a half minutes of Judas Priest to lead off side B as though no one would notice, Hour of 13‘s invocations of darkness found a resonance that few in the traditional sphere of doom could hope to capture — not quite retro in style, but willfully primitive in aesthetic and construction. With each song carrying something of a narrative, whether it was obscure in “Endurement to the Heirs of Shame” or straight-ahead spellcasting in “Hex of Harm,” trying to get the devil on the line in “Call to Satan” and “Allowance of Sin,” the debut not only established Hour of 13 as a band with a clear mission in terms of what they were going for sound-wise, but a perspective of their own through which they’d manifest that. It would be hard to overstate the potential that could be heard in this record when it came out.

“Missing Girl,” which even 13 years later remains singularly fucked up in a Buffalo-Bill-wearing-your-face-like-a-mask kind of way, caps the album and is its longest track at eight minutes even, but all across its span there’s immersion in and consorting with a sense of evil. It’s not supposed to be comfortable when Swanson sings about cutting himself and jerking off into the blood in “Call to Satan,” and that interplay between sex, violence, and ritual is, if not ubiquitous in the songs, then certainly lurking in the background. It is the one adult male at the playground sitting on the bench watching the children who clearly has no child of his own. Call-the-cops creepy. The reality behind “Aqualung.”

Fruitful as their collaboration was, Davis and Swanson never seemed to click as a lineup. They played few gigs together — I was fortunate enough to see them in 2010 (review here) — and the vocalist left the band in 2011, following the release of The Ritualist, and Davis hooked up with Beaten Back to Pure‘s Ben Hogg shortly thereafter as part of what became a touring configuration of the band. But shifts in personnel were common, and though Hogg was on board for a tour with Kylesa and fronted some demos, by the time Hour of 13 issued 333, Swanson was back in the band. Still, the momentum they’d had leading into Earache releasing the second album had largely evaporated, and touring was never a huge priority. When the band posted a single in tribute to The Gates of Slumber bassist Jason McCash (R.I.P.) in 2014, that was to be their final recording, but Davis revived the project two years later for the Salt the Dead: The Rare and Unreleased (review here) compilation, before shifting in 2018 to Hour of Thirteen, seeing Davis release a debut in 2019 with The Sabbathian (review here) on Svart, while still issuing a couple EPs to keep the flame burning and now, apparently, moving toward a fourth Hour of 13 full-length done completely as a solo affair.

Whatever the future brings for Hour of 13 — you can understand I’m sure why one might hesitate to predict, but maybe more Bandcamps? — their self-titled continues to be a defining document of their take on doom and what they represented at their outset. It is one of those kinds of albums that had more of an effect than people generally realize, and in discussion of acts who helped foster revivalist doom in the last ten years-plus should in no way be ignored.

As always, I hope you enjoy.

—

It’s 7:20AM and I’ve already had half a xanax this morning, which may or may not be a good sign for how the rest of the day is going to go. The Pecan has been up for an hour — woke up early as I was finishing the above, ran in his closet and proceeded to take a massive dump in his diaper as he will; fortunately it was contained — so I grabbed him, changed him, started him on breakfast. He’s had a snotty nose the last three days or so but seems to be on the mend if his bouncing-off-the-walls, complete-lack-of-focus is anything to go by. It was after I found myself on my knees on the rug begging him for not the first time in my life to eat a spoonful of yogurt that I hopped up and took a pill. I expect in about 20 minutes life will seem more manageable in that particular my-blood-is-moving-slower-than-it-was kind of way that the medication induces.

What a week.

The dog continues to be what I feel is an unnecessary challenge. Case in point she went to doggy-daycare on Tuesday — same time The Pecan was at actual-daycare — and the two-plus hours I had to sit quietly were some of the most satisfying I’ve experienced in at least the last two months since she came into our home. I was on board with getting this dog. I am now on board with getting rid of this dog. Sometimes it just doesn’t work, and while The Patient Mrs. — being more patient as she is — is advocating professional training, unless we’re going to do the same for our child, I fail to see how that substantial, multi-thousand-dollar investment might pay off. As projects go, I’d much prefer to get started redoing the kitchen now that we own the house.

These are adult concerns, and shitty besides. Far more fun is that I’ve had Cardi B. and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” stuck in my head for the better part of the last 72 hours. “Catchy” doesn’t begin to cover it.

New Gimme Metal show today at 5PM Eastern: http://gimmemetal.com or their app to listen. The app is easier.

Alright, I gotta get this kid to leave the house before it burns it down so I’m punching out. Have a great and safe weekend. Be well, hydrate. All that good stuff.

FRM.

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I’m listening to the new Enslaved album for the first time as I write this and they’re barely three minutes into it before they reaffirm both the brutality and the progressivism at heart on their sound. Seriously, I’m on track one and they sound like they wilfully constructed the lineup to bring the most out of this material. I’m impatient to hear more even as I’m hearing it.

The band has rescheduled the final date of their virtual tour to Oct. 1, the day before the album comes out on Nuclear Blast. Fair enough. They’ll play songs from the record to herald its arrival. Whatever dudes, just take my money.

Check out the preview video with bassist/vocalist Grutle Kjellson and the prominently displayed vinyl of the second Lennon-Claypool Delirium album. That record ruled.

From the PR wire:

ENSLAVED ANNOUNCE NEW DATE FOR SUMMER BREEZE ‘UTGARD – THE JOURNEY WITHIN’ RELEASE EVENT + LIVE Q&A

NEW ALBUM, UTGARD, OUT OCTOBER 2ND

RELEASE EVENT: OCTOBER 1ST @ 11AM PT/2PM ET
Q&A: OCTOBER 2ND @ 11AM PT/2PM ET

Enslaved are preparing for the final act of their Cinematic Summer Tour – now due to take place on Thursday 1st of October at 7pm BST / 8pm CEST. This virtual release event ‘Utgard – The Journey Within’ is named after their upcoming studio album Utgard (out on the 2nd of October), from which they’ll be performing several tracks for the first time ever.

The show is a collaboration with respected Dinkelsbühl, Germany metal festival Summer Breeze who have been long-time friends and supporters of the band. The performance will be presented by Louder alongside their sister sites Prog and Metal Hammer, who will also be hosting an exclusive Facebook Q&A with the band the following day also at 7pm BST / 8pm CEST – the day Utgard is revealed to the world.

Enslaved launched an exclusive merchandise range to accompany the Cinematic Summer Tour, with designs viewable below inc. more information. To give everyone the chance to be part of this completely novum in music, all three shows will be free of charge, however Enslaved have launched a donation link if fans wish to make a contribution towards the costs of putting the shows on.
Donation link: paypal.me/enslavedofficial

Purchase exclusive Cinematic Summer Tour merch here:
US store enslaved.aisamerch.com / EU store enslaved.aisamerch.de

For this forward-thinking concept, ENSLAVED joined forces with three festivals, to present fans with three different shows:

July 30th – in cooperation with Roadburn, the tour launched with a “Chronicles Of The Northbound” show.
August 20th – this second show was a “Below The Lights” set, presented by Beyond The Gates festival.
October 1st – the band will end their virtual tour at Summer Breeze festival with a presentation of some new songs, for their release event “Utgard – The Journey Within“. Presented by Louder.

Enslaved is:
Ivar Bjørnson – guitar
Grutle Kjellson – vocals/bass
Ice Dale – guitar
Håkon Vinje – keys/vocals
Iver Sandøy – drums

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Enslaved, Utgard virtual release preview

This show’s actually really cool. A couple weeks ago I put up a post on Thee Facebooks asking for recommendations of young heavy bands, and by young I meant under 30. I’ve felt like it’s a lot of dudes who look like me: headed to or past 40, grey in the beard, showing more hairline and gut than they’d probably prefer. Anyway, I got a ton of awesome suggestions from people and decided to put together this whole show based on those suggestions. You’ll see there are groups from all over the US and Europe, plus Nor from Nova Scotia, which I particularly dug, and there are a range of styles covered as well from straight up heavy rock to sludge to post-metal and jams.

And I’d love to talk more about how great that is and how wonderful it is that even in these shit-tastic, things-are-only-getting-worse-every-single-day, times in which we live creativity can flourish among disaffected youth — gotta have something when you’re about to enter an even worse job market than I did — but I can’t talk about any of it. Because the dog is whining in the kitchen and all I can think about is how fucking obnoxious she is. Can’t stand this fucking dog.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the show.

The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at http://gimmemetal.com

Full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 09.18.20

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Oct. 2 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.

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Fair enough that Le Mans, France-based instrumental trio Stone From the Sky should be premiering a video for the live-in-studio version of their song “Animal” ahead of the release of their Live in La Grange, since they did the same thing with the original version of the track as well. Call it promotional symmetry. Stone From the Sky issued Break a Leg (review here) — the full-length from whence “Animal” came — in May 2019, about 16 months and an entire lifetime ago. The new offering, which, as the title tells you was indeed recorded live at La Grange studio, is being released as a sort of glimpse at what could’ve been if the band was able to tour this Fall. They are, of course, not. So even though they followed 2017’s Fuck the Sun with a first live album in the crowd-mic’ed Live in Agger that same year, both the context and circumstances for Live in La Grange are different. See also: everything.

And what can you really say at this point? “Yeah, those probably would’ve been some cool shows.” Well, they probably would”ve been. Stone From the Sky sound on their game with the 36-minute/six-song set they present, from the opening My Sleeping Karma-ism of “Vena Cava” from the last album to the expansion on the same ideas and the consuming post-heavy lead that rises in the second half of “Godspeed,” a new song set to release on the band’s next LP presumably due out on More Fuzz Records once life magically returns to “normal” sometime next year. Whether or not that happens, the peak at things to come from the dynamic three-piece is welcome as it arrives through Live in La Grange, which perhaps doesn’t quite have the same physicality a live show might — that is, nobody’s thrashing out — but does carry through a palpable sense of the people behind the performances and is still graceful enough to build an atmosphere from the aforementioned opener onward.

The setlist, as it were, focuses on Break a Leg, and fairly enough so as the band’s latest work, and “Agger,” “Animal” and “Atomic Valley” indeed represent the album well, with the latter appearing as the bridge between “Godspeed” and the finale “Welcome to Trantor” from Fuck the Sun. Again, there’s a bit of the tantric tension in the early guitar and bass interplay on the closer, but Stone From the Sky careen through scorching solo work and fervent rhythmic push in kind before they return to ground ahead of their last build. It’s a satisfying cap to a satisfying set, which brings me back around to the original point of, “Yeah, those probably would’ve been some cool shows.” And hey kids, someday they might still be. At least in Europe. At some point. Ever.

If I sound hopeless, I’m sorry, but I am.

But maybe not completely so, because the lesson to take away from Live in La Grange aside from that Stone From the Sky are a good live band, is that creative expression finds a way. Sometimes that’s bands setting up a camera in a rehearsal space, and sometimes that’s a band booking a little studio time, putting to tape what would’ve been their tour set, and putting it out as a name-your-price download, like Stone From the Sky. That persistence, like grass popping up through cracks in highway pavement, is nothing if not admirable.

Enjoy the premiere of “Animal” from Live in La Grange below. And if you’re curious, I included the video for the original studio version at the bottom of this post as well.

Dig:

Stone From the Sky, “Animal” official live video premiere

Stone From The Sky – Animal
Recorded live in La Grange Studio / FR

The full live is available on our Bandcamp : https://stonefromthesky.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-la-grange

Camera: Pierre Posnic, Renaud Tessier, Jospeh Smalley, Solal Boutoux
Montage: Renaud Tessier
Editing: Solal Boutoux
Record and mix: Jordan Jupin
Mastering: Role at Die Tonmesterei / DE

Stone from the Sky, “Animal” official video

Stone from the Sky on Thee Facebooks

Stone from the Sky on Bandcamp

Stone from the Sky website

More Fuzz Records webstore

More Fuzz Records on Thee Facebooks

More Fuzz Records on Bandcamp

Colorado heavy rockers Stone Deaf are currently taking Bandcamp preorders for their third long-player, Killers. I don’t know the exact release date of the album, but the preorder package comes with a t-shirt, and there’s little I’m hearing in the new single “Polaroid” that wouldn’t make me want to wear one. The band issued their second album, Royal Burnout (review here), in 2018 and have hooked up with Golden Robot Records for the new one. They’ll have a hand in the release as well through their own Coffin and Bolt Records imprint, so one way or the other, whenever it happens, the new record is happening. “Late 2020,” to quote the PR wire.

In the meantime, “Polaroid” is the first song to be unveiled from the record and it’s got a head-turner of a hook in the post-Songs for the Deaf vein of desert rock. It’s on all the streaming whatnot — I guess that’s super-easy to do now with Distrokid? I’ve never tried — but you can see the video below via the YouTubes, which somehow feels oldschool posting. Life is bizarre.

The PR wire has more. On the music, not really life in general:

STONE DEAF RELEASE NEW SINGLE AND VIDEO ‘POLAROID’

Stream/buy Polaroid HERE: https://smarturl.it/StoneDeaf-Polaroid

Colorado’s Stone Deaf have today released their new single and video Polaroid off their upcoming album Killers.

Crafting a sound that encompasses desert rock, laced with a stoner rock vibe and a subtle U.S. punk edge, Stone Deaf produce a unique fusion of sonic goodness.

Put that shoe horn down cause those boots are stayin’ on and scootin’ over to the dance floor for Stone Deaf’s latest toe-tapper. With more hooks than Tyson, Polaroid is an auditory strip tease you can’t turn away from.

Formed in late 2014 in New Castle, Colorado, Stone Deaf’s approach to music is a timeless fusion of melody and driving rhythms blending the rock vibes of The Hellacopters and Queens of The Stone Age with the sludgy thickness of Kyuss along with the punk sensibility of TSOL and Agent Orange, changing gears between chugging riffs, punk rhythms and laid back moments of unadulterated heaviness. With three releases under their belt, Self-Titled (Black Bow Records), Royal Burnout & The Bobby Peru EP (Coffin & Bolt Records), the band is poised to release their third full-length, ((Killers)) on their own label Coffin & Bolt Records in late 2020.

https://www.facebook.com/StoneDeafColorado/
https://www.instagram.com/stonedeafband/
https://stone-deaf.bandcamp.com/
http://stone-deaf.com/
https://www.facebook.com/goldenrobotrecords/
https://www.instagram.com/goldenrobotrecords/
https://goldenrobotrecords.com/

Stone Deaf, “Polaroid” official video