Blabbermouth posted an update from Down/Crowbar?guitarist/vocalist Kirk Windstein, in which he had the following to say:

“Got a good bit of good news to announce. Crowbar?will be rereleasing the majority of the back catalog through Housecore Records?[Philip Anselmo‘s record label]. These releases will be the only official rereleases that myself and the band have agreed to.

“There are countless unauthorized rereleases out there [Metal Mind?walks by and waves]. These were never OK’ed by me and are basically screwing the band. Most of these will be released on vinyl for the first time. We will also be putting out a limited-edition box set as well as a new live record and a CD of new material. Please check TheHousecoreRecords.com for frequent updates. Also,?Crowbar?and Goatwhore?will be playing a show Friday, May 29 at Grant Street in Lafayette, Louisiana.”

Quick question: is a “CD of new material” the same thing as a new album? I sure as hell hope so, because if there’s one thing that wasn’t at all worth trading time that could have been spent making a new?Crowbar?record?for, it was Down, Over the Under. Hate to be the one to say it, but it’s true. I still get a headache every time I think about how dumb “Pillamyd” was.

High on humidity and sundry mutation-causing chemicals,?Richmond, VA sludge outfit Rube are about as nasty as can be on their self-released debut EP, Angry at the Missus, offering up such sound advice as “Walk it Off” and “Never Trust a Waitress.” A thickly-served single guitar four-piece fronted by the Mike Williams-style nihilistic screaming of Ryan Kent, the band offers five slabs of pissed off riffs and disaffected ideals. They don’t drone, but they take Crowbar‘s patented technique of drilling riffs into your skull and modernize it with thorough grooving and a seemingly endless supply of vitriol.

It’s music that wears its bruises proudly — a song like “Well Water” would show you its black eye and proceed to tell you the most violent story you’ve ever heard. Beginning with a creeping bassline and a sample from Silence of the Lambs in which Hannibal Lecter tells Clarice Starling she’s not one generation removed from poor white trash (“you look like a rube,” he says), the song devolves into a Phil Anselmo-type drawl from Kent while guitarist Adam Kravitz pounds the strings like he caught them with their hands on his girlfriend’s leg. The song’s slow procession makes it all the heavier.

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It’s a good thing the High Council of Stoner Rock hasn’t yet instituted mandatory tests for performance enhancers, because I’m pretty sure that if they did, Portland, Maine‘s Sun Gods in Exile would come up with O.D.-levels of testosterone in their blood. Their Small Stone debut, Black Light, White Lines is dick swingin’ brawl and roll dudelier than all those extreme fisherman they show on the Discovery Channel off the New England coast. Think AC/DC, Skynyrd and a toxic amount of liquor, and you’re off and running.

It took me a while to get into Black Light, White Lines. At first the album hit me as a throwaway that didn’t offer much original or exciting for me to sink my teeth into, but after a few listens, and particularly after warming up to the lead vocals of guitarist Adam Hitchcock, it proved to be an unpretentious jaunt through classic guitar rock that Sun Gods in Exile passionately — and probably drunkenly — set to tape with the arrogant gusto necessary to really pull it off. Snarling, biting and wiseassed, tunes like “The Gripper” and “Mexico” exemplify the barroom belligerence carrying Black Light, White Lines across like the kind of album that claims “manifest destiny” as the reason it infects your brain.

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When last we left British guitarist/vocalist Mat Bethancourt, he was detailing the battle between the planets Satanica and Amphibia for all the lost souls in the universe as it played out on the second album from his band, The Kings of Frog Island. Bethancourt (also of Josiah) now joins bassist/backing vocalist Gregg Hunt and drummer Dan Lockton in Cherry Choke, a garage rocking power trio whose self-titled debut album, available via Elektrohasch Schallplatten, revels in its simplicity and rootsy flavor.

Split even on CD into sides one and two, Cherry Choke offers 10 straightforward tracks wherein the fuzzy tone that’s come to be expected from Bethancourt in Josiah and The Kings of Frog Island mostly takes a back seat to a cleaner type of distortion akin to the ’70s-inspired indie that’s dominated the party rock ideal for the better part of this decade. If I said Cherry Choke takes inspiration from Hendrix, The Stooges, MC5 and T-Rex, it would be the same as saying “they play garage rock,” but there it is.

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Here’s something you don’t see every day: The band is called Good Day to Die and they hail from Zagreb, Croatia. Croatian doom! The Riff is universal.

Check out their MySpace page if you get a minute, and even if not, here’s their video for the song “Desert City Lights,” from their debut album, Hazing through Shadows — mixed by none other than Steve Austin from Today is the Day!

Blabbermouth has the story. Trouble had this to say about the progress on their new album, The Dark Riff:

“Everything is moving along nicely in the writing stage. Bruce [Franklin] and Rick [Wartell] have brought some massive, killer riffs to the sessions that are sure to please ANY Trouble fan.

The sessions are proving to be a very creative environment, and are spawning the band’s creative juices where every last riff seems to get heavier than the last.

As of this date the music for 14 songs is complete. The vocals are coming in a bit at a time and sounding incredible.

The band seems to be clicking on all cylinders now, and there’s no end in sight.

This is definitely going to be worth the wait!”

Here it is, big number two zero zero. The weather is gorgeous this afternoon in the valley and I’m still all hopped up on pain meds from having my wisdom teeth out yesterday, but I did manage to get to 200 today anyhow. My face is swollen and it hurts like hell, but whatever. Shit happens. Often. And worse than this. At least it’s not my fucking cornea.

Stick around because in the next 100 posts there will be much awesomeness. In the meantime, I hope you’ve enjoyed this site even half as much as I have thus far.

Celebratory Sabra Cadabra!
Sabra Cadabra

This weekend, May 22 and 23, 2009, Black Gasoline are playing a free show at the grand opening of Indian Motorcycles in their hometown, Wichita, Kansas, and judging by the copy of last year’s independently released She Gave Us Magic the band recently sent my way, they should be right in their element among the hordes of sweaty, leather-clad bikers downing booze and shouting “Freebird” at Gulch or whoever else happens to be on stage at the time. Their Southern-styled boogie-friendly bbq rock nibbles on the foundations of the recently defunct Dixie Witch, and keeps things mostly straightforward for songs like “Lady Ironwing” and “Coalblackcloud” while injecting others with elements outside the immediately expected. It’s still definitely a stoner rock record.

They get past opener “All Night” before breaking out the cowbell on “Dir-ty White T-Shirt” and make their way through the song with a familiar, warm organ sound and mid-paced groove. The dual guitars of Paul Deceglie and Lovell Hickman (who also handles keys) riff and solo with fuzzy tones and expressive leads. I keep picturing vocalist Bobby Comfort sitting behind a drum set at Room 710 in Austin, TX, but my better consciousness just tells me that’s the Dixie Witch connection popping up again. And it’s true, as I said, there’s a clear influence to be heard on She Gave Us Magic, but a track like “Castor Oil and Marmalade” has a softer feel that’s less party time rocking and more of a subtle shuffle. Every bit of nod-worthy as the three tracks before it, just a different execution.

It’s that willingness to change up the mood and their sound that does best by She Gave Us Magic, making the album — a quick listen, it should be noted — more than just an exercise in fuzz and lyrics about cars, women, drinking and rocking. Of course, there’s plenty of that too (the cock rock lady backing vocals on “A.C.T.I.O.N.” the apex thereof), on a song like “Pesci,” which is addressed to the ubiquitous “mama” who has tortured rockers lo these many years. But, balanced against “Ghost is the Highway” — my personal album favorite with its catchy, bluesy organ soulfulness and slightly doomier chorus riff — there’s a variety in Black Gasoline that presents itself naturally, flows well and establishes the record as one with more than just stoner rock clich? on offer for those who would seek it out.

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