…Sort of. They’re not exactly sharing a van — or, if they are, it has escape pods out the sides or something (which would rule). What seems to be the case for this run of shows is that The Atlas Moth have two-weeks booked across the US and Kowloon Walled City and Batillus are meeting up with them along the way. It’s a killer package if you have to live somewhere where you can catch all three, but even if not, any of the above makes for some pretty solid destruction.

This came in on the PR wire:

The Atlas Moth have released the album of their careers with An Ache for the Distance, their Profound Lore debut, and Batillus kicked off the year in rare form with their visceral effort Furnace. These bands are undoubtedly some of the most ferocious in today’s metal scene and now they have joined forces for a tour that is sure to leave your city devastated this fall. Joined by Kowloon Walled City, the trek will be one of the most impressive live attacks of the year and you will not want to miss the epic performances of this trio.

The Atlas Moth, Batillus & Kowloon Walled City:
11/09 Minneapolis, MN 7th Street Entry NO KWC
11/10 Fargo, ND The New Direction NO KWC
11/12 Portland, OR East End No Batillus
11/13 Seattle, WA Highline No Batillus
11/14 Boise, ID The Shredder No Batillus
11/15 Las Vegas, NV Yayo Tacos No Batillus
11/16 Phoenix, AZ Yucca Tap Room No Batillus
11/17 Capistrano Beach, CA Coconuts 
11/18 Los Angeles, CA Bow & Sparrow 
11/19 San Francisco, CA Hemlock Tavern No Batillus
11/20 Salt Lake City, UT Burt’s Tiki Lounge NO KWC
11/21 Denver, CO Moe’s NO KWC
11/22 Kansas City, MO Riot Room NO KWC
11/23 Chicago, IL Subterranean NO KWC

Batillus Off Dates:
10/26 Brooklyn, NY Acheron w/ Inter Arma, Belus
11/07 Indianapolis, IN The Vollrath w/ Late August, Chinaski
11/08 Madison, WI Wisco
11/12 Seattle, WA Highline w/ Natür
11/13 Portland, OR The Know w/ Diesto, Natür
11/15 Eugene, OR or Chico, CA TBA
11/16 San Francisco, CA Elbo Room w/ Prizehog
11/19 Las Vegas, NV Yayo Taco

The dudes that comprise Cleveland dirt-worshiping sludge outfit Morbid Wizard have long been kicking around the Midwestern underground in bands like Fistula, King Travolta, Sollubi, Bibilic Blood, Ultralord and Rue. Drummer Corey Bing, for example, has been in all of those bands and others. Vocalist Jesse Kling was/is also in Pennsylvania Connection and helms Land o’ Smiles Records, whose anti-CD stance is heartfelt enough to relegate Morbid Wizard’s debut, Lord of the Rats, to a self-release, and guitarist Scott Stearns provides artwork here for the DVD case and has also lent his manic style to several of the bands listed above as well as to Centinex, Nunslaughter and others. It is an impressive, if self-contained, pedigree, and speaks volumes of the dedication of the members of Morbid Wizard – which is rounded out by guitarist Bahb Branca (all the bands above save Bibilic Blood and Pennsylvania Connection) and bassist Mike Duncan (ex-Fistula) – and if Lord of the Rats is anything, it’s the latest installment in an ongoing series of visceral sludge releases from these players. One could obviously consider it coalesced in some way, since the five-piece are obviously familiar with each other’s work but have now emerged in this form, but that doesn’t necessarily speak to the seven songs that comprise the album itself, which bear the stylistic fuckall typical of this scene and so sound loose, harsh in their production and adherent to any number of prescription pharmaceuticals as well as the lessons passed down from Grief, Buzzov*en, Crowbar (who especially shine through on the title-track) and the ever-present Eyehategod.

At its heart, Lord of the Rats is of its genre, but Morbid Wizard inhabit the nastiest, most abrasive corners of sludge. There’s no bringing in elements from other extreme metals, no real fucking with the formula unless you want to count varying the pace from the lethargic (see opener “Choked Out by the Hand of Doom”) to the vaguely less lethargic (see the later “Death Sun”), but they have a habit of incorporating shredding solos over the chugging riffs, and that does well to break up the monotony and present an illusion of motion. Kling adds periodic samples and noises, as on the near-12-minute closer “Incantation” and unrepentantly plodding “Puke God,” not so much offsetting his vicious unipolar screams as adding to the overall fucked up sensibility of the record. As a rhythm section, Duncan and Bing are relatively straightforward – the former sticking mostly to the riff for guidance and the latter grounding some of the more horrifying material on Lord of the Rats by keeping time on the bell of his ride cymbal – but at no point is any other approach warranted or even appropriate. A song like “Mutilation,” which follows the opener, is so simple in its basic undulations that to doll it up with indulgent technicality could only detract from the effect on the listener. Like the best of sludge, the bulk of Lord of the Rats is basically punk rock played at quarter speed by misanthropes. Both “Mutilation” and “Death Sun” (the two shortest cuts, hovering on either side of three minutes) stick to one central riff, and even where Morbid Wizard offer some versatility in the relatively fast tempo “Lord of the Rats” takes on toward its end, the vibe is so consistently wretched and ugly that it’s over before you notice it. Or maybe that’s the pills kicking in.

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I guess I never got the email or whatever — or else I’ve posted the clip three times by now and just forgotten — but at some point Örebro fuzz heroes Truckfighters put out a video for “Con of Man” from Mania, and it’s hitting the spot perfectly tonight. What I like best about it is it’s not their most accessible track, not their most immediate single, but I dare you to not have it stuck in your head after even one listen. The underlying political implications of the video I consider a bonus.

Thanks to everyone who downloaded the podcast this week and who entered the contest to win the Moth Eater/Black Thai split. The running for that is over, and I fully plan on selecting names out of a hat to get the winners list this coming Monday, so that should be fun. For the time being, it’s been a tiring week in terms of work and class, and I’m glad to see it come to an end.

It was also my birthday this week (please don’t say “happy birthday”) and I always have trouble with that, but that really was only one factor to add to the overall stress. It was a relief tonight to come back to the valley after work, go to dinner with The Patient Mrs., drink some wine and enjoy the evening. I know it was something, but I honestly don’t even remember what was happening this evening in Brooklyn, and I’m just fine with that. Sometimes life turns out to be what we most need it to be at that moment. I’ll take it.

Again, appreciation to everyone who checked in this week. Starting Monday, I’ll be taking a look at records from Generation of Vipers, Morbid Wizard, The House of Capricorn and Ogressa. I’ll also hopefully have my interview with Black Cobra posted by the end of the week, and barring disaster, on Tuesday we’ll have a new track premiere from Rue as well, so stay tuned for that. It’s interesting to see the hierarchy of blog prominence come into play with that kind of thing — at some point, I’d like to write an essay about it, but I probably won’t — but I’ll continue to have new audio as often as possible to the best of my dictated ability. I guess some sites’ hipster cred has to pay off somewhere. Ha.

But anyhoo, this curious fuckall corner of the interwebs wishes you the best and safest of weekends. I hope if you choose to alter your consciousness, you do so in a wholesome and friendly environment, with appropriate aural accompaniment. See you in the Dingerhaus and back here on Monday for more silliness.

Formed just in early 2009, Dutch trio Sungrazer have become fast veterans. Their self-released, self-titled debut got picked up for wider issue via Elektrohasch Schallplatten, the record label run by Stefan Koglek of Colour Haze, and the band hit the road backed by European mega-bookers Sound of Liberation, resulting in festival gigs like Stoned From the Underground, Roadburn and Duna Jam. Their second album, Mirador (review here), came out on Elektrohasch in the first half of 2011 and has been among the year’s best.

Their formula is pretty simple, melding jam-intensive European heavy psychedelia with desert riffing and landmark grooves. Of course that balance is much easier said that achieved, but on both Sungrazer and Mirador, guitarist/vocalist Rutger Smeets, bassist/backing-vocalist Sander Haagmans and drummer Hans Mulders sculpt laid back vibes and heavy tones from warm low end and flowing rhythms. As a band, Sungrazer are able to shift smoothly between stonerly riffs and open-ended stretches that, like the Mirador highlight “Behind,” feel so natural it’s as though you’ve known them all your life.

Sungrazer hit the road in Europe earlier this year with RotoR and Colour Haze as part of Elektrohasch‘s “Up in Smoke” traveling mini-fest, and are currently on tour with similarly-minded German purveyors Grandloom. In the meantime, they’ve also begun the writing process that will take them through the follow-up to Mirador and doubtless to another level of well-deserved recognition. They are the heralds of a new generation of European heavy psych, and their organic approach can only get stronger with more time on the road.

Prior to leaving for the shows with Grandloom, Smeets took the time to field an email interview with some questions about the inner workings and processes of the band, and some of the differences and similarities in his mind between their work on Sungrazer and Mirador, as well as their time touring in support of both albums. It’s brief, but Smeets gives some insight as to Sungrazer‘s decision making process, and, fittingly somehow, the kebabs are key.

Complete Q&A is after the jump. Please enjoy.

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For their fourth album, Empros (first directly for Sargent House), the instrumental three-piece Russian Circles returned to producer Brandon Curtis of The Secret Machines, who also helmed 2009’s Geneva. The reasons why are fairly obvious: What the Chicago outfit was able to accomplish with Geneva was their most formidable blend yet of ambience and post-metallic heft, and for the sheer sounds Curtis was able to capture from guitarist Mike Sullivan, bassist Brian Cook (also ex-Botch/These Arms are Snakes) and drummer Dave Turncrantz, their wanting to recreate at least that element of the Geneva experience is well justified. That said, Empros and Geneva are different enough albums that, even without vocals as the latest is – except for the psychedelic lullaby closer “Praise be Man” – it becomes clear Russian Circles approached the construction of these songs with something altogether heavier in mind. It’s not so much that their tones have changed, though right from opener “309,” there’s a lot riding on the sometimes Godfleshy and mechanized feel of Cook’s bass, but the way the material is put together. Where some of Geneva’s ambience was allowed to wander, the six tracks of Empros are less so, so that even when the heaviness breaks into a stretch of indie-infused airy atmospherics, loops and long-ringing tones, there’s a pointedness and direction to them.

Likewise, when Russian Circles do launch into one of the crunching parts through which they’ve helped innovate post-metal instrumentalism, they sound heavier than they ever have. Four albums in, they also know how to make that work to their advantage. Both “309” and “Mlàdek,” which follows, build to stunning apexes, the later propelled by a galloping riff worthy of YOB but played faster and still cut too short. The second track has a kind of pop drama in its earlier stretch, with Turncrantz setting an upbeat pace and playing well off Sullivan’s cues. The name reportedly comes from their bus driver on their European tour for Geneva, and it’s one of the most discernible structures on Empros, twice repeating a section cycle before launching into the build that comprises the aforementioned second half. A lot of what Russian Circles do on Empros will sound familiar to heads who’ve watched post-metal come of age, and while it probably won’t change too many minds who are either sick of the sound or bemoaning the inevitable sacrifice of crushing sonics that comes with ambience, Russian Circles have grown into a band who not only can manage both, but who helped bring the subgenre to what it is. I’d include the likes of Red Sparowes and fellow Chicagoans Pelican in this as well, the latter perhaps most of all, but Russian Circles have consistently managed to concoct solid matter from distant waves of sound. The added transitional elements they bring to Empros only show an increase in overall focus and maturity in how they think about their work on a larger scale.

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Stepping somewhat outside his role as the frontman and guitarist for Toronto psychedelic pasture-izers Quest for Fire, Chad Ross is the sole figure behind the unsurprisingly more minimal Nordic Nomadic. He released a self-titled album under the moniker after starting the project in 2007 and makes his debut on Tee Pee (also Quest for Fire’s label, by odd coincidence) with Worldwide Skyline – an album whose title speaks to its breadth. Fans of the bedroom neo-folk of Comets on Fire guitarist Ben Chasny’s ongoing Six Organs of Admittance will recognize and delight in at least some of what Ross has on offer with these nine songs, the drone and subtle interweaving of electric and acoustic guitars and still somewhat lush feel undercutting the notion of Nordic Nomadic as a “solo project.” It is that, though, on the most superficial level; Ross is the only one in the band and is responsible for all the material. Anyone who was touched by Ross’ gentle melodicism on either Quest for Fire’s 2009 self-titled or last year’s Lights From Paradise will find spiritual companion in his work here, as the vocals are brought even more to the forefront by the inherent lack of other layers surrounding. Nordic Nomadic, for its relative want of personnel, does still sound lush, and could just as easily be branded psych as folk. As such, no reason to limit it to one or the other: Psychedelic folk.

There’s a self-consciousness at play on Worldwide Skyline, or at very least some self-awareness in how it’s structured. Ross opens the album with its title-track, which in turn is introduced by large swinging gates of distorted guitar that seem to open to the field of the acoustic song itself. It’s hard to imagine the grandeur of the electrified opening wasn’t intentional on Ross’ part. To his credit as a songwriter, he blends the acoustic and electric guitars gorgeously throughout, playing them off each other in well-constructed, well-mixed layers beginning right with “Worldwide Skyline.” His vocals follow a similar course, somehow managing to sound lush and humble at the same time on the shorter, more solo-feeling “The Future’s Fear” (2:30). Like most of the work here, it’s not upbeat or hooky enough to really qualify as “catchy,” but the standout quality (and surprising diversity) of the songwriting makes some of these tracks genuinely memorable. That might be true of “Worldwide Skyline” more than “The Future’s Fear,” but the finger-plucked strings of Ross’ acoustic toll like bells and excellently transition back into the droning electrics of “Growin’ Horns,” which highlights the major ambient crux of Worldwide Skyline with an atmosphere that’s open to interpretation either as bright, sunny and sepia or lonely. The wistful melody in the vocals comes through strikingly in the verse, but the soft inclusion of synth and the memento mori of effected electric guitar does well to add an element of darkness. It’s a sunset over some landscape that never existed, and Ross takes time with “Growin’ Horns” that he didn’t on “The Future’s Fear” to revel in the instrumentation.

“Bite to Chew” opens with the line “I read the news today,” which inevitably sets off the Beatles alarm (Quest for Fire showed some Beatles influence in the guitar work late on Lights From Paradise as well), but the song is altogether more psychedelically lush and less poppy than “A Day in the Life” or anything else from that era of the band’s discography. Interestingly, the song forms a sort of linear progression to Worldwide Skyline of longer tracks that begins with the opener and ends with later album highlight, “Listen to the Leaves.” The three are Ross’ only cuts over five minutes in length, and each sets a kind of landmark for the rest of the songs to hinge themselves upon; it’s easy to listen to the songs surrounding in the context of their position relative to the longer songs, in other words. The runtime disparity isn’t so huge – apart from “The Future’s Fear,” everything is within the three-to-five-minute range – but Ross fleshes the longer material out more (maybe this is obvious, since he’s taking extra time to do it, but the arrangements seem more complex as well) and really hones in on a creative vibe with these three tracks in a way that the rest of Worldwide Skyline seems to complement. And if that’s true, then the two-song to three-song ratio between “Worldwide Skyline” and “Bite to Chew” and “Bite to Chew” and “Listen to the Leaves” speaks to Ross’ expectation of the listener being that much more engaged in the album by the time it shifts through its sweetly bluesy “Summer Friends” centerpiece. That turns out to be precisely the case.

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Hard-luck Belgian trio SerpentCult got together in 2006, following the unsightly demise of Thee Plague of Gentlemen, who weren’t bad except for the fact that it turned out their lead singer was a pedophile. Reasonably wanting to distance themselves from that, guitarist Frederic Caure, bassist Steven Van Cauwenbergh and drummer Frederik “Cozy” Cosemans stuck it out as SerpentCult and successfully released Weight of Light through Rise Above in 2008.

That record was fronted by Michelle Nocon, who also now is out of the band. So, on their new album, Raised by Wolves, SerpentCult have basically reinvented themselves — again — as a mostly-instrumental three-piece of sprawling and atmospheric doom. Raised by Wolves is SerpentCult‘s most honest and accomplished album yet, and it’s a testament to how strong the connection is between Caure, Van Cauwenbergh and Cosemans that they’d persist after losing two vocalists.

Raised by Wolves is out now on Listenable Records, who were kind enough to let me stream the all-instrumental and longest track from the album, “Longing for Hyperborea.” The song skillfully shifts through varied movements, but remains consistently morose throughout. It’s the sound of the defeat to which the band simply refuses to succumb. Hope you enjoy:

[mp3player width=460 height=120 config=fmp_jw_widget_config.xml playlist=serpentcult.xml]

For more on SerpentCult, check them out on Thee Facebooks here, or hit up the Listenable Records website.

Doom Capitol heavy rock upstarts Borracho have two new offerings for your 180 gram pleasure, but even more telling than that is the fact that for two releases, they’re signed with three labels. Hey, by the way, your band is onto something. I can’t wait to hear what these dudes come up with for their next record, but in the meantime, here’s the news on the new fancy edition of their Splitting Sky debut and even newer 7″ single.

Dig:

Local D.C. stonerrockers, Borracho, have added multiple vinyl releases to their offerings. As of today, Borracho’s debut full-length album, Splitting Sky is available on 180g blue-splatter-on-clear vinyl produced in limited quantities by Germany’s No Balls Records. The release will be accompanied by hand screened and numbered sleeves.

Adding another number to stable, Spain’s Ghost Highway Recordings and D.C.’s own Fandango Records have come together to release the first single off of Splitting Sky in both English and Spanish. “Concentric Circles”/”Círculos Concéntricos” is being released today on 180g gold vinyl in both the US and Spain and is accompanied by alternate English or Spanish sleeves.

These, along with the full-length CD and other releases, will be available Friday as the band brings their dirty and hypnotic brand of stoner rock to Comet Ping Pong in NW D.C. “It’s always great to see a new viable venue in town. We’re looking forward to rocking it,” reports bassist Tim Martin. Borracho will be joined by D.C. legendary thrash and speed metal hounds Deceased and Richmond fuzz and doomslingers Windhand. It’s metal for the whole family.

All releases are available through the band’s website, borrachomusic.com. Comet Ping Pong is located at 5037 Connecticut Avenue Northwest, Washington, D.C., (202) 364-0404. Show starts at 10:00pm this Friday, Oct. 21.