Posted in On the Radar on March 22nd, 2011 by JJ Koczan
Hell fucking yes. Usually the protocol for this kind of thing is to put the words up top and the audio below, but fuck that, you need to hear Mühr now. Here’s “Shepherd” and “Blood” from their Bandcamp page:
Fucking HUGE tones. Mühr, a trio who I first heard about on the forum here, take the gargantuan, giant-headed riffage of Dutch countrymen Toner Low and slow it down to spread across the two tracks on their demo, leaning just on the doom side of stoner/doom and maybe giving a tonal nod to landmark Italian trio Ufomammut with some of the subtle background noise underlying. However you look at them though, these two songs are massive, and most definitely worth investigating.
Shepherd/Blood, which between the two tracks is over 24 minutes long, is available for a name-your-price download or 10 Euro physical vinyl purchase here. The crushing psychedelia and lumbering riffs need to be heard if you’re a fan of either of the above mentioned bands, or, you know, have a skull you don’t mind getting caved in by low end. This is heavy shit, folks. Definitely eager to see where Mühr go next. It’ll be hard to miss for the giant fucking footprint they leave behind.
Posted in Reviews on March 22nd, 2011 by JJ Koczan
Highly-stringed Salt Lake City five-piece SubRosa released their Strega full-length debut in 2008 on I Hate Records. Making the jump to Profound Lore for the 2011 follow-up, the band, which includes two violinists, guitar, bass and drums, now unveils No Help for the Mighty Ones, a varied 59 minutes of melancholic doom that, despite its inherent drama and “extra” instrumentation (I put “extra” in quotes there because the violins don’t actually feel extraneous or tacked onto the surrounding music), remains definitively American. No Help for the Mighty Ones was recorded by Andy Patterson (Iota, etc.), and though the structures are mostly open, SubRosa culls together a couple genuinely memorable moments throughout the eight tracks, the vocals of guitarist Rebecca Vernon having a haunting quality, backed by both violinists Kim Pack and Sarah Pendleton, and prove capable of more than the kind of post-metal sub-melodic monotony so many experimental outfits seem willing to settle for.
Drummer Zach Hatsis starts off album opener “Borrowed Time, Borrowed Eyes” with a war stomp and is soon joined by Vernon’s guitar. The song, which according to the liner notes is based lyrically on Cormac McCarthy’s novel 2006 The Road, is among the shorter of No Help for the Mighty Ones’ tracks at 5:51 (only “Whippoorwill” and “House Carpenter” are shorter), but still serves as a decent introduction to the wide breadth of the album. Aside from its “Hey, we read books” appeal, the rich tonality and textured feel of its ending movement is the first show of SubRosa’s melodic prowess. As the track leads directly into the brown-note bass intro of “Beneath the Crown,” handled by Dave Jones, it’s readily apparent SubRosa are casting a wide sonic net. It’s not so much a gradual build as a lull into soon-smashed security, but the band pulls it off well anyhow, Hatsis driving the move into faster revelations about three minutes in capped by frantic violin work and combined clean singing and screams. Magnus “Devo” Andersson, who also mixed Strega, does an excellent job balancing clarity among the instrumentation (not easy with some of the effects that come up) and the creation of an overall aural wash. The linear path “Beneath the Crown” follows is well worth following.
Structure, which has been alluded to already, is more of an issue when it comes to the track order itself than it is within the individual songs. No Help for the Mighty Ones peaks early with its most memorable and hardest-hitting cut, the 11:44 “Stonecarver,” which immediately follows “Beneath the Crown.” The five-piece do a good job using noise to bridge the gaps between songs, but Subrosa’s most effective build just arrives too soon, the track starting off with eerie half-whispered foreign-language spoken word over ringing out guitar and gradually moving from a darkened folk feel to a driving rhythm (if every album has to have its “Stones From the Sky” moment, this is it for SubRosa), the delivery of the title line, and an apex that’s no less exciting for how outwardly engaging it is. I’m not saying it needed to be the last track on No Help for the Mighty Ones, but even “The Inheritance,” which is probably better at least as far as the vocal melody and guitar line goes, is a comedown in terms of energy, and I find in listening I’m more inclined to long for what just passed than focus on what’s still coming.
It was Saturday night, and after a quick stopoff at Vintage Vinyl, I made my way even further south on the Parkway to Long Branch‘s famed Brighton Bar. Once the centerpiece of the vibrant NJ stoner scene (on the wall are scrawled names like Monster Magnet, Lord Sterling, Halfway to Gone, among many others), I haven’t been there in a while that it wasn’t more or less empty. Clamfight, recently come aboard the good ship Maple Forum, were playing with some rapcore — there’s a word you don’t see every day — band and opening, so I figured it was well worth the drive to see them. And it was. A decent crowd, too.
Clamfight guitarist Sean McKee had promised me a demo tape of new material, and my favorite DIY duo in the world, Rukut, also handed me a CDR of new mixes (they weren’t playing but came out to support), so that was a bonus, but Brighton shows have a long history of starting late, and with a total three bands on the bill, Clamfight got going at about 10PM. It’s just one of the many ways in which the venue holds fast to rock traditions the rest of the world either forgot about or decided there was more money in ignoring. Don’t ask me which. Good fun, in any case.
This is probably the last time (or one of the last times, if not the last) I’ll feel comfortable writing about Clamfight in an editorial sense. They haven’t started recording their new album yet, and I listened to that tape and it rules, but in terms of reviews and stuff, it’s not something I can really do for a band I’m going to put out and claim — at least in my mind — any credibility. I don’t know. I was just glad to go to the show and hang out with friends.
Icing on the proverbial cake was that Clamfight killed. They played three songs from Vol. 1 and the rest was new material. Their mixture of stoner riffs and thrash aggression has only gotten more potent, it seems, and on the more recent cuts, “I vs. the Glacier” “The Eagle” and “Sandriders” (video below), they showed hints of a newfound diversity that wasn’t there on the first record. Frontdrummer Andy Martin even threw some clean vocals into “Stealing the Ghost Horse,” contrasting them with bastardly growls that cut in and out on a bad mic cable. The point got across anyway: the band is growing.
Both McKee and fellow guitarist Joel Harris played through Dual Rectifiers and Mesa cabs, and I don’t know if it was just the Brighton mix or what, but the thought occurred to me that I wanted more disparity of tone between them. There was plenty enough crunch to their sound — underscored by the well-pocketed bass work of Louis Koble — but their material has developed to the point where McKee‘s leads need to be able to separate themselves from Harris‘ rhythm tracks more, and when the two lock in on a huge riff, as they do with great regularity, it could hit even harder meshing different tones.
One man’s opinion. I know that equipment is a huge investment and establishing “a tone” takes years, but Clamfight are getting to where it’s time for them to do so. They’re more of a “real band” than they know.
And I guess that’s why I’m so excited to be working with them on The Maple Forum for their next record. Their songs still have that demo-band intensity to them, but they’re clearly past that stage in their growth. They’re more than capable songwriters — the cassette I got bears that out, as did the first album — and after seeing them integrate new songs into their live set, and be genuinely willing to try new things on those songs, I’m all the more stoked for what’s to come. It’s going to be a monster.
You can check out Clamfight here and see the video of “Sandriders” below. Apologies for the audio. I need to see if I can adjust the rec volume on that camera. Still figuring that whole thing out.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 21st, 2011 by JJ Koczan
I’m kind of surprised Sleep scheduled more shows, as there didn’t really seem to be any love lost between Al Cisneros and Matt Pike on stage when they played Brooklyn last year — it ruled, was certainly better than whatever else I might have been doing that night, but it was almost like watching two separate gigs happening at the same time where the two bands happened to be simultaneously playing different parts of the same songs — but hey, a Sleep show is a Sleep show, and I’ll be there. Inevitably this leads to the “new album?” question, but no word on that yet. Not sure how I feel about it, to be honest with you.
The PR wire has the short and sweet details:
Legendary stoner rock band Sleep has just announced a string of summer North American tour dates. On the heels of its sold out US tour run last September, the California trio will return to the stage this summer by popular demand. Live dates in NYC (June 22) and Los Angeles (June 26) will bookend an appearance at the Sled Island Music and Arts Festival in Calgary, AB on June 24, where the group will share the stage with The Dandy Warhols, Blonde Redhead, The Buzzcocks and more.
Sleep tour dates:
06/22 New York, NY Terminal 5 06/24 Calgary, AB Sled Island Festival 06/26 Los Angeles, CA The Wiltern
Posted in Reviews on March 21st, 2011 by JJ Koczan
When done right, stoner/doom riffage and brutal vocals can be a lethal combination. Melbourne plodders Clagg go out on a limb to prove the idea again on their third full-length, Lord of the Deep. The album, which was originally released as five-tracks in 2009 and issued again in 2011 with closing Iron Monkey cover “Big Loader” added on Obsidian Records, is an unrepentantly filthy monster of huge sonic proportions. If nothing else, it proves the double-guitar Aussie five-piece know what they’re talking about. The band, which formed in 2002, chose the album’s name, imagery and thematics well. They’re not the first to marry gargantuan tones with oceanic imagery, but damn if they don’t do it well.
That’s pretty much the story with the whole album, as it happens. Lord of the Deep runs the better part of 66 minutes, spread across the already-noted six tracks, and I’ll say flat-out that there’s nothing revolutionary happening here. I’ll add to that, however, that I don’t think there should be. The dark, dense and pummeling atmosphere Clagg is able to affect through their songs is potent enough that it puts you in a headspace where you care less about what’s being broken down and remade than you do about where your next beer is coming from and how hard you can actually thrust it in the air before spilling any. The first three songs of Lord of the Deep – “Carrion,” “Lord of the Deep” (which has two parts subtitled “They Dream Fire” and “At the Rising of the Storm”) and “Buried” comprise over 40 minutes’ worth of material alone, and though there are a few breaks in the action here and there, moments to catch your breath before the next wave hits, etc., Clagg never stray too far from the brutality. Even as fourth cut “The Harvest” works some clean singing from Scotty (it’s a first-name-only deal across the board), the music is dementedly heavy behind, and the sense is that the throat-searing isn’t over. And indeed it isn’t. In its back half, “The Harvest” (a mere seven minutes long, as opposed to the first three tracks, which are all over 11 minutes, or the first two, over 15) has some of Lord of the Deep’s most brutal growling. We’re talking Cephalic Carnage-style. Real deal.
Well, I finally did it. I made an all-Swedish podcast.
I’ve been threatening it for a couple months, but after my work/school schedule kicked my ass for most of February and March, I decided I’d end my spring break this week with the nerdiest thing I could think of. And here we are. I don’t mind telling you I’m wearing my Dozer shirt to mark the occasion.
The list just kept growing. I sat here yesterday afternoon and started going through the stacks (which is officially what I’m calling my CD shelves as of… now), looking for bands, and for each one I grabbed, another came to mind. It ended up being a whopping 40 tracks of heavy rock, cult doom and aural crush from the likes of Witchcraft, Demon Cleaner, The Quill, Entombed, Greenleaf, Bathory, Graveyard, Truckfighters, Kongh and a ton more. There were some repeaters from the winter podcast (looking at you, Candlemass), but there wasn’t anything included I didn’t think belonged.
A notable omission is Grand Magus, who I left out because I don’t yet have a hard copy of Hammer of the North and didn’t want to cop out by just including an older track. So yeah, I recognize they’re a Swedish band, and a good one, but they were in the last audiObelisk Transmission anyway, so if you’re interested enough to be reading this and to download the file, you probably already heard them last time around. If not, I apologize. Next $30 I get, I’ll pick up that import.
That aside, I personally think it’s a killer mix of tracks. You get a lot of Sweden‘s stoner rock heritage, but also a good bit of the diversity within that country’s scene, and a decent picture of why Swedish bands have been able to have such an influence internationally. It’s hard to imagine that we’d have the growing scenes in other European countries without the groundwork of a lot of these Swedish acts, and though this stuff ranges across a couple decades in terms of when it was recorded and released, the nation continues to innovate. I think the Ghost track included shows that, if nothing else.
More important than that, though, this stuff rocks, and I hope you dig it.
You can listen on the player above, or download the file by clicking the image at the top of this post, following the link in the sidebar, clicking here, or by carrier pigeon. Seriously, if one shows up, I will buy a flash drive and tie it to the leg of the carrier pigeon and send it back to you. It’s not animal cruelty because those things are super-tiny.
The new CD from one-time Penance drummer Mike Smail‘s band, Under the Sun, showed up in today’s mail, to be retrieved when I arrived (early!) back in the valley from the office, so I figured something off Penance‘s 1994 masterpiece Parallel Corners would be a good way to end the week. I’ll have that Under the Sun review up as promptly as possible, which I know isn’t saying much these days.
On that note, I’ve noticed lately that The Obelisk has gotten a lot of requests from people looking for reviews and such. That’s great, but here’s the thing: As much as I love helping people get the word out about their bands — and I do, really — I’m just about through pretending to dig stuff I don’t. So the On the Radar posts for bands who just email me and say “hey, cool site, write about my band,” are done. I like this site the best when I’m talking about stuff I legitimately dig and bands I want to help out. If I wanted more obligation in my life, I’d procreate.
And on that note, there’s a new podcast coming this weekend. The plan is to put it together tomorrow and have it posted by Sunday. Keep your eyes open.
Keep your eyes on the beer thread on the forum too to find out where the night’s drinking adventures lead. It’s been quite an evening already, if you couldn’t tell by the bold proclamations above.
Aside from being the resumption of the semester following this week’s “spring break,” next week I’ll have my long-overdue interview with Danny Nick of Suplecs posted, as well as reviews of Subrosa, The Osedax, and probably about three others if past is prologue.
I’ll also have a live writeup (hopefully with photos and maybe even video) of Clamfight‘s show tomorrow night at the Brighton Bar in Long Branch, NJ. If you missed the news, Clamfight will be forum040, the fourth release on The Maple Forum.
As to what the third is, it’s reportedly getting mastered this week, and I’ll have the announcement sometime soon about that as well. Stay tuned, and as ever, have a great and safe weekend.
I mentioned last Saturday the self-titled album fro Icelandic proto-heavies Icecross that I picked up at the monthly Second Saturday Record Show in Wayne, but that was by no means the only piece of buried treasure I managed to unearth. Along with new albums by Mogwai (meh; people keep telling me I need to like them, I keep meh’ing out every time I hear them), Arbouretum (fuzzy freak folk that’s way too hip to see in person but not awful on record), Charlie Parker (I’m taking a class on him this semester), Primordial (Metal Blade‘s reissue of Storm Before Calm) — and perhaps most notably, three other heavy ’70s delights: Warpig by Warpig, Megaton by Megaton, and Wonderworld by Uriah Heep.
Some might recognize Warpig‘s Warpig from the reissue Relapse gave it in 2006, trying to keep a little momentum going in that direction after the success of unearthing the material for Pentagram‘s First Daze Here compilation. It didn’t really work out in terms of sales, but I dug Warpig well enough to grab the original CD release this weekend. The Canadian band, who reunited in 2004 and may or may not have put out an album since (they have a cover, but I couldn’t see anywhere on their website to buy it), only put out this one album before breaking up in 1973, so it’s not like I’m embarking on a massive discography, but for the pre-NWOBHM gallop of “Sunflight,” it was worth picking up. This may actually be a bootleg version, and that’s fine too.
Knowing literally nothing about the band, I bought the self-titled Megaton CD solely based on its cover. Not much is really known about the band — there may be some connection to Les Humpires(which sounds like the French TV Guide‘s description for True Blood but is/was apparently a person) — but I officially have no idea. There’s a couple cool tracks, but nothing really landmark, and among the canon of the decade, it fits in more than it stands out. Whatever. I got my money’s worth out of the cover alone, which is as good an argument for LP over CD as I’ve seen. I’d love to hang it on my wall. The Patient Mrs., probably not so much.
By the time they got around to putting out 1974’s Wonderworld — amazingly, their seventh album since 1970’s debut Very ‘eavy, Very ‘umble — British rockers Uriah Heep had long since “gone prog,” and there’s no looking back to the band’s bluesy start across these nine drama-filled and technically intricate tracks, though “Suicidal Man” doesn’t lack for heavy crunch in its central riff. The seminal outfit apparently will have a new album out in 2011, and while I don’t know if I’ll stick with Wonderworld the way I did the first record or 1972’s Demons and Wizards, it’s definitely worthy of future investigation as the weather begins to let up. No regrets, in any case.
The Icecross record might still have been the highlight of the haul; so much darker than everything else and a complete out-of-nowhere surprise as it was. I got that, the Megaton and the Warpig from the same vendor, all ridiculously overpriced. I talked the woman down to an acceptable ask for all three, but I think doing so puts me in a different category of “record show asshole,” so there’s an additional cost there. You pay the price one way or another, I suppose. At least my way left me with enough cash for lunch afterward.
these two songs are massive, and most definitely worth investigating.
