That weekend is the huge, two-day Small Stone Records showcase in Philly, so I’m thinking of this show on Tuesday, Sept. 20 — featuring three of the most rocking bands on the label — as a kind of pre-party. Just a sampling of the debauched, rocking madness to come that weekend. Suplecs, in New York for the first time in who the hell knows how long, team up with natives The Brought Low and Ohioan fuzz mavens Lo-Pan (you may have read about them on this site once or twice) for a gig at Union Pool in Brooklyn.

I’m excited to be teamed with BrooklynVegan on this show, and am so pretty much only through their graciousness, so thanks much to them. It’s going to be a killer night — if you’ve never been to Union Pool, the taco cart is fantastic — with three righteous, bullshit-free bands for the low price of $10. It’s the kind of show I’d be happy just to go to, let alone have this site’s name on the flier:

Speaking of, here’s that flier:

Any spreading the news around or buying of advanced tickets you’d like to do is certainly appreciated. Hope to see you at the show.

Got back from seeing Serpent Throne and Pearls and Brass in Brooklyn long enough ago to cook up a couple chicken sausages and some edamame and call it a meal while watching an episode of Squidbillies and bemoaning tomorrow’s impending workload. The show was killer, the sausages delicious and the squids fantastic. The workload I could do without, but we’re approaching the semester, and there’s not really anything I can do to stop it. Reportedly it’s my last.

I thought we’d close out this week with a new jam that the guys in Asteroid posted on their Thee Facebooks page called “Bigger Than Asterix.” It’s reportedly not anything that’s going to show up on a new album (at least not in this form), but it’s Asteroid jamming out, anyway, and that’s better than most anything else I could think of posting, so hope you dig it. I know I do. Bands like this are the reason I’m applying for a Fulbright to Sweden.

Tomorrow night I head back to Saint Vitus (the bar) in Brooklyn to catch Totimoshi, and I hope next week to have reviews up of both tonight’s and tomorrow’s shows. I was stoked to see Pentagram on Sunday, but that’s a no-dice. Hazards of NYC shows. I asked for access too late and there are more important-types looking to get in. Some you win, some you lose. Anyway, two nights of shows in a row — especially after last weekend, from which I’m still reeling — should be plenty. Still psyched for Totimoshi tomorrow though. That new record, which was reviewed this week, really is stellar.

So I don’t know about you, but I’ll look forward to those writeups (some pics as well, hopefully one or two decent enough to post), and disc reviews of Finnish psych-outs The Fërtility Cült, Atriarch and Freedom Hawk, an interview with Faces of Bayon guitarist/vocalist Matt Smith — also formerly of Warhorse — and on Wednesday, a track premiere from Rwake‘s new album, which has surprised the hell out of me in how good it is. I figured I’d dig it and all, but wow. Much more to come on that.

We’ll also have another installment (fingers crossed) of the Orange Goblin studio report on progress for their new record, and on Monday morning, an announcement about a killer show The Obelisk and BrooklynVegan have joined forces on for September. Stoked on that for sure. There’s probably a ton more I can’t think of because it’s 2AM and that’s when my brain shuts down, so I’ll leave it at that. Hope you have a great and safe weekend wherever you are. See you on the forum and back here Monday.

Welsh four-piece Sigiriya garner immediate interest based solely on their pedigree — all four members of the band used to be in Acrimony — but on their debut album, Return to Earth (released Sept. 1 on The Church Within), it’s the songs themselves that hold the attention. Likewise, one listen through Return to Earth, and it’s plain to see why the members of Sigiriya, when they were getting this project together, decided against just making it a 4/5 Acrimony reunion: Tumuli Shroomaroom this ain’t.

Rather, Sigiriya takes the riffy center that was always under the resin-caked grooves of Acrimony and brings it to the forefront. Songs like “Robot Funeral” and “Tobacco Sunrise” offer more straightforward heavy rock, and though Return to Earth gets even heavier at times (“Dark Fires” borders on metal), the album is precisely as Sigiriya wanted it to be in that it modernizes the approach of the members’ prior band without sacrificing what made them want to get back together in the first place.

Guitarist Stuart O’Hara, drummer Darren Ivey, bassist Paul “Mead” Bidmead and vocalist Dorian Walters took the moniker Sigiriya from a sacred mountain in Sri Lanka, and though that alone might lead one to think their songs would be spiritual explorations rife with sitar and vague interpretations of ancient mysticism, Return to Earth isn’t that at all. True to its name, the album keeps its head down, it’s amps up, and wants much more to kick your ass than to trip you out. Either way, it’s a killer ride. Full review is here.

In the discussion that follows, Ivey talks about what made Sigiriya come together some eight years after Acrimony‘s last studio release (a split with Japenese masters of mayhem, Church of Misery), why they did so without the involvement of former Acrimony second guitarist Lee Davies, now of the more commercially-minded rock outfit Lifer, how they got hooked up with The Church Within, their plans following the release of Return to Earth, and much more. As theirs is one of the more impressive debuts I’ve heard in 2011, I’m thrilled to be able to bring you this interview.

Please find enclosed the complete email Q&A with Darren Ivey of Sigiriya, and please enjoy.

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Proffering heady mostly-instrumental psychedelic jams in what I’m quickly coming to think of as the neo-European tradition, Spanish trio Domo set out on a wandering journey across the seven tracks of their self-titled Radix Records debut. In that the song are mostly named for concepts out of Hindu/Buddhist theology – the one exception is “Eta Carinae,” named for a nebulous star system – one might draw an immediate comparison to My Sleeping Karma, although Domo’s arrangements are simpler and less pointed in terms of structure. The three-piece of guitarist Samuel Riviere, bassist/vocalist Óscar Soler and drummer Paco García inject some vaguely “Eastern” elements into their sound, as the scales of “Asura” show, but mostly staving of a generic feel throughout Domo’s 64 minutes is the interplay between the members of the band. The music feels natural in the recording and spontaneous where it goes, but Domo seem nonetheless aware that they’re making an album and not just jamming out or playing a live show. The shorter, acoustic-led “Pretas,” which comes after the first three extended cuts, speaks to that, as does the 1:59 synth interlude “Eta Carinae” that sets up sprawling closer “Samsara.” These tracks offer a respite from the depths to which Domo plummet (or, alternately, the heights in the atmosphere they ascend) on the more sprawling voyages

“Yamantaka,” which rests between the two breaks (“Pretas” and “Eta Carinae”) affects a more spacious bluesiness. Riviere is in the lead on guitar and until about five and a half minutes in, it seems like he’s just going where his fingers take him until Soler and García pick up the rhythm and lead into a section that alternates between Hendrix and Hawkwind on its way to interstellar oblivion. When the guitar cuts out momentarily, one finds one can breathe and better appreciate Soler’s bass tone, which is subtly fuzzed and warm enough to engage. Earlier on the album, it opened the first track, “Nadi,” but with so much between then and “Yamantaka,” it was easy to lose it in the mix – plus, Riviere is almost an entity unto himself within the band, soloing atop the rhythm section and only occasionally meeting with it – that one tends to follow him and wonder where that groove is coming from. Soler and García both prove worth the extra attention throughout Domo, although the latter does more to keep the pace and keep the material grounded than he does to add flash to the songs or show off with fills or complex beats. The task set upon him is difficult enough, but he does as able a job as anyone could, and when Domo let go and really take off – “Samsara,” for example – it’s because they want to, not because they’re out of control. “Samsara” and “Prana,” the second offering, are the only cuts on Domo to feature Soler’s vocals, which aren’t out of place in the music but aren’t really present enough to anchor it anyway. “Prana” in particular begins with such a morass of noise before García kicks in on drums that even if Domo went full verse/chorus/verse on it after that, it would still be more exploratory than not.

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I’ve come to really hate the redundancy of the phrase “digital download.” Well of course it’s a digital download. There isn’t any other kind! Let me just go to the ATM machine and get some cash money for that digital download. Ugh. It’s not like I can download a sandwich, and even if I could, I’d most likely be doing so from some form of the internet, making it still a digital download. It’s my new linguistic pet peeve, and at this point, I’m convinced the reason I keep seeing it in press releases is because record companies know that pay-downloads are a ripoff and they feel like they need to spice it up with an extra word.

It shows up in this release about Russian Circles‘ new album, Empros, which is out Oct. 25 on Sargent House, but it seems to be everywhere this week. “Digital download.” Well, here’s the press release, keyboard cut and paste from my electronic email. Grump grump grump:

Russian Circles return with not only their fourth and heaviest album to date — but also with Empros they’re poised to take the crown as innovators reinvigorating the staid trappings of genre. Empros picks up where the anthemic riffs and melodies of 2009’s Geneva left off and injects evermore slithering rhythms amid skull-crushing heft with all the visceral intensity of Godflesh, Swans and Neurosis. Put simply, Empros is Russian Circles‘ Master of Reality: a radical revision of both heavy and melody that is monolithic in its clarity and perfection. Or, like a lone surviving wooly beast emerging from a brutal winter’s frost, Empros is the sound of a band shaking the ages from its shoulders with all the brutal force of a behemoth awakened.

Taking to Chicago‘s Phantom Manor studio once again with producer Brandon Curtis of The Secret Machines and Interpol — who also helmed the band’s previous album Geneva — Russian Circles set out to experiment with their sound in new ways that would still reflect their live sound. In so doing, the band reached a new creative apex in which each of the musicians, guitarist Mike Sullivan, drummer Dave Turncrantz and bassist Brian Cook impart a streamlined and intensified attack to their songs that pummels even as it shifts throughout a range of moods and tempos.

Empros is Russian Circles‘ first full-length to be released worldwide exclusively via Sargent House, the band’s longtime management company and record label that had previously released only the vinyl editions of its three prior albums. It will be available everywhere on LP, CD and Digital Download on Oct. 25, 2011.

Russian Circles, Empros track list:
01. 309
02. Mladek
03. Schipol
04. Atackla
05. Batu
06. Praise Be Man

I alluded to it the other day in the third SHoD post, but wanted to save the details for this. To briefly recap: I got to Krug’s early Sunday for the third day of Stoner Hands of Doom XI in Frederick, Maryland, and having an hour to kill, decided to go record shopping. Not the first time in my life I’ve made that decision.

Using my magic cellophone, I got directions to CD/Game Exchange on N. Market St., and while on my way there, passed a sign on E. Patrick with Rock & Roll Graveyard printed on it. With hopes that it wasn’t some shitty irono-fashion boutique with $50 torn up Iron Maiden t-shirts on sale for dumb hipster girls who’ve never heard Killers, I nonetheless parked my car and decided to investigate.

A fucking treasure trove, this place was. If I bought vinyl — which I don’t — I wouldn’t have gotten out of there without putting down at least $100, but as it was, I spent only one-tenth of that (or $10) and still got a host of goodies for the effort. From a brief perusal of the CD bin, it was apparent that the owner, whose name is Chris Wolfe, knows his heavy. There was a lot I already had, but I did manage to find the SPV digipak reissue of the self-titled album from Uriah Heep offshoot Weed. It’s another one of those lost heavy ’70s classics that five people in the world preach like gospel and no one else has ever heard of, but man, it’s a pretty killer record. A bit all over the place, but when it locks in, it locks in hard. Dig it.

So that accounts for $5 of the total $10 I blew. The next $4 went to Black Sabbath tapes. Yes, plural. I spent $4 and got four tapes: Master of Reality, Vol. 4, Sabotage and Heaven and Hell. At a buck each, I couldn’t really ask for more. The only one I haven’t played is Vol. 4, because it would require clever fast-forwarding to get past “Changes,” but it was awesome to hear the little differences in the sound on Master of Reality, or the live version of “Sweet Leaf” tacked onto Sabotage — and Heaven and Hell, well, I’ll pretty much take that record on any format I can get it. An all-time favorite for one measly dollar, no way I was leaving that.

Wolfe, who also plays bass in Fat Chick Meat Haul, is a genuine record hoarder and has had the store open for about three months. Most everything he was selling came from his personal collection, and that included the tapes and the lime green 8-track edition of Jethro Tull‘s Aqualung that accounts for the last of the $10 I spent at Rock & Roll Graveyard. Yeah, the tape’s ripped, but what the hell do I care? Jeebus save me, it’s Aqualung on 8-track! I don’t have a player anyway — for a buck, I’m happy just to look at the damn thing and sing “Wind-Up” to myself.

The best part? Well, all this stuff was pretty great, especially for the price, but the best part came in talking to Wolfe about old records and heavy rock and whatever else. He told me about an album from a band called Tin House he’d picked up not too long ago, and when I said it sounded cool (because it did), he went ahead and burned me a copy, right there on the spot, free of charge. And he was right, it’s rightout proto-proggy heavy blues, from the Beatles “oooh-la-la-la” on “30 Weight Blues” to the driving lead of “Silver Star” and the string arrangements on “Lady of the Silent Opera.” I think I might dig it more even than the Weed record.

I don’t know when I’ll be back in Frederick again, but whenever it is, you can bet your ass I’ll be checking in on Rock & Roll Graveyard. Until then, I’ve got the Sabbath tapes in my car, the Tull on my office shelf, and the Weed ready to go. I never made it to CD/Game Exchange, but finding a shop of the niche caliber I did, I’m hardly crying over it.

Find Rock & Roll Graveyard on Thee Facebooks here.

It’s virtually impossible to make it through Negative Liberty, the second full-length by five-piece instrumentalists The Winchester Club, without a Godspeed You! Black Emperor comparison coming up somewhere along the line. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, as there are certainly worse bands out there to take inspiration from, and to their credit, The Winchester Club put a particularly British grayness into the mood of the five component tracks of Negative Liberty, and they don’t sound like they’re ripping anyone off, but the influence is there and is fairly prominent. That said, the sprawl of the opening three cuts on Negative Liberty – which encompasses 40 of the album’s total 51 minutes – is bound to be driven by the various personalities of the players involved, and it is. That, coupled with the two-guitar/two-bass, xylophone-inclusive arrangements The Winchester Club have on offer, indicates that the push of a song like “R.D. Laing (Little Chemical Straightjackets)” isn’t so much to exorcise influences as to explore a sonic space. Other tracks, working in a scope that’s impressive despite being largely consistent atmospherically, follow suit, and Negative Liberty proves more than a collection of aimless instrumental jams or extended builds.

By way of an example, opener “Fuck You Buddy” reaches its apex approximately halfway through its 12:58 runtime, and the last five and a half minutes of the song are more of a contemplative investigation of the after-effects of that apex. Xylophone notes launch the track and album, but it soon takes on a different live, incorporating a Londoner’s melancholy in its striking bass work from Harry Armstrong (also guitar/vocals in End of Level Boss) and/or Elana Jane, both of whom are credited in the album’s liner. The latter also shares xylophone duties with drummer Tim Spear, who founded The Winchester Club along with guitarist and Chineseburn bandmate Jerry Deeney and guitarist Jonathan Morgan. Guitars are prominent but not really dominating throughout Negative Liberty – that is, nothing on the album is exclusively riff-led – and as “Fuck You Buddy” bleeds into the acoustic start of “The Lonely Robot” (12:41), I’m more drawn to the warmth in the bass sound than to the loneliness of the guitar notes, however melodically engaging they might be. Like all the material here, “The Lonely Robot” takes its time developing, but ultimately hits its high point even earlier into the proceedings than did “Fuck You Buddy.” That’s not a critique or putting down the structures The Winchester Club are working in. Quite the opposite. As someone who hears a lot of instrumental bands, it’s refreshing to have one come along not hell-bent on marching to the heavy part, instead getting it out of the way so the music can breathe. With the humming undercurrent of amp noise in the later parts, “The Lonely Robot” sounds full and complete, but still manages to hold onto that walking-alone ambience.

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They’re part of the burgeoning scene in and around Athens, Greece, and true to form, double-guitar four-piece rockers The Dive inject their heavy rock with a ’90s-style alternative feel. The band formed in 2000 — that’s about all the biographical info they’re willing to give — and their self-titled album (released on Spinalonga Records), is available for listening in full via their Soundcloud page.

Their influences are pretty well in order, and The Dive runs a gamut from Tool-style riffy churn to Monster Magnet‘s “how are they coming back from this one?” spacing out, never seeming to totally lose track of the rhythms driving the songs. Finale “Fresh Blue Coffee” even works in a little garage rock, reminding of Baby Woodrose or one of Eurostoner’s many like-minded acts. “Iguana”‘s cadence makes it something of a misstep, but the bassline in “Floating” makes up for a lot.

You can find The Dive on Thee Facebooks here, but I basically just wanted to post the tracks for anyone who might be into checking them out, so here you go: