Night o’Mine is the second album through Elektrohasch from Austrian foursome Been Obscene in as many years. Their 2010 debut, The Magic Table Dance (review here), put them in league with a steadily growing ilk of warmly-toned jam-minded European heavy psych acts – bands like Asteroid and The Machine taking fuzz and freedom from Colour Haze and Kyuss and injecting them with the fresh energy of new bands still finding their sounds. Been Obscene (also sometimes written as the one word BeenObscene) were anything but obscene on The Magic Table Dance, and with Night o‘Mine, the same lineup returns after a not insignificant amount of road time with a crisper approach and some more solidified songwriting. Like the first album, the sophomore outing is comprised of eight tracks, but guitarist Thomas Nachtigal – his name translating to “nightingale” befitting the record’s nocturnal schematic – has stepped up on the vocals and the sense of structure overall is stronger for it. Nachtigal is joined in Been Obscene by guitarist Peter Kreyci, bassist/vocalist Philipp Zezula and drummer Robert Schoosleitner, and the four work remarkably well together, the guitarists playing off each other with marked chemistry while the bass and drums solidify and add to the build of a song like “Snake Charmer,” which presents the jammier side of what turns out to be a strong balance between the straightforward and the more openly-approached.

But right away, opener “Endless Scheme” shows a definite increase in stylistic complexity. The song begins with an angular, energetic burst before transitioning into a cymbal-crashing groove that seems held up by guitar leads and Schoosleitner’s steady rhythm and finally shifting into hi-hat taps and contrasting ambience and My Sleeping Karma-esque heavy rock smoothness. There are vocals early on, and they come back at the end for a chorus return, and that works well to show how much Been Obscene have grown; The Magic Table Dance opened instrumentally and felt less structurally aware overall. Likewise, the work that Zezula adds not only through the engaging warmth of his bass, but also with vocals backing Nachtigal during the chorus of “Endless Scheme” is an example of how Been Obscene have been able to develop in just the year since their last offering. Though it starts out quiet, in its latter moments, “Snake Charmer” (7:40) finds the instruments paying off a momentum the vocals helped craft early on, and though “Cut the Rope” is so quick at 3:23 that were it not also as effectively composed and as catchy as it is, it would simply pass unnoticed, “Apathy” follows and finds Nachtigal adding his vocals to a musical drama not unlike that at the end of “Snake Charmer,” and one that works in a shorter amount of time to develop a similar vibrancy, despite a somewhat darker atmosphere. The repeated line, “Breaking down your foolish apathy,” becomes a sort of centerpiece credo the rest of Night o’Mine works around and hits especially heavy surrounded by the start-stop Queens of the Stone Age-isms of “Cut the Rope” and the title-track, on which the speaker cones sound like they’re about to catch fire for the analog push of the material.

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If you’re reading this and you celebrate either the Jesus-in-Christmas or the secularized Xmas, then chances are congratulations are in order: You’ve made it through another one. The Patient Mrs. and I got back a little bit ago from the last of the familial hoedowns, and with that, an episode of Iron Chef America and our collected loot strewn about the place in Roman-style excess, the evening seems to have come to a conclusion. I hope you had a good one.

Since Friday was my office party and — class act that I am — I got loaded early, I never officially closed out the week, and I thought some Blue Cheer would be the way to go. In the car up to Connecticut and back yesterday and today it was Deep Purple, Sungrazer, Warning and Kyuss, but holiday Cheer is about as close as I get to holiday cheer, so I hope you enjoy it. I haven’t drooled over Outsideinside in a couple weeks anyway, so I’m due.

If you’re in the US and don’t have to work tomorrow, I hope your weekend continues to be excellent and that you get to relax a bit before having to cram five days’ worth of work into four the rest of this week. If Xmas isn’t in line with either your belief system, you’re celebrating Hanukkah, Lemmy‘s birthday, something else or nothing at all, I hope you had a good weekend whatever it may have entailed.

Along with a shit-ton of laundry, tomorrow I’m going to try to make my way through reviewing the new BeenObscene album, and this week I’ll have Six Dumb Questions with guitarist/graphic artist Scott Stearns of the recently-reviewed Bibilic Blood and the semi-recently-reviewed Morbid Wizard, as well as, I think some new music from Dwellers, who were reviewed just a couple days ago. Very timely around here all of a sudden.

In any case, much fun to come this week, so please, stay tuned. In the meantime, see you on the forum and back here tomorrow for more good times.

The release of Blackfinger‘s self-titled debut in the coming weeks will mark the first record in 14-plus years that frontman Eric Wagner will have made without the band Trouble behind him. And where Lid‘s 1997 outing, In the Mushroom, teamed him with Danny Cavanaugh of Anathema for a one-off recording that never resulted in any shows, Blackfinger emerged earlier this year as a full-fledged band — a double-guitar five-piece with stand-up bass — making their presence felt at the Days of the Doomed fest in Wisconsin.

For that set, they were joined by former Trouble drummer Jeff “Oly” Olson and bassist Ron Holzner (currently of Retro Grave and Earthen Grave, respectively), who did guest spots performing Trouble material, so as much as Wagner has moved forward creatively after ending his tenure in one of American doom’s landmark and most influential acts, he hasn’t stubbornly refused to acknowledge his past. Rather, as Blackfinger shows in their first single, “All the Leaves are Brown,” he seems to have embraced it, while also progressing creatively on his own terms with new guitarists Rico Bianchi and Doug Hakes, bassist Ben Smith and drummer Larry Piatz.

We spoke just a few days after Thanksgiving and a few more after Blackfinger played a hometown show in Chicago (at which they were joined by Trouble guitarist Bruce Franklin), and in his trademark low-register deadpan speaking voice — a marked contrast to how he sings — Wagner discussed the evolution of Blackfinger from its nascence as a solo acoustic project into the band it is today, the recording of the album, which at the time was being mixed by Vincent Wojno, the prospects for a vinyl release, and his plans going forward.

Wagner‘s voice is one of the most storied in metal, let alone doom, but I wanted to keep the conversation as current as possible — that is, I didn’t want to veer into, “Hey dude, remember when you sang ‘The Wolf?'” — and I found that his perspective on his past and present is as unique as his melodies have been across these many years. What his future is in Blackfinger or otherwise is uncertain, but even about that uncertainty, the singer remains completely honest and open. It’s fitting that “All the Leaves are Brown” would be the first Blackfinger music from the album to make it to public ears, since the allusion Wagner makes at the end of the track to The Mamas and the Papas song “California Dreaming” is the perfect example of how up front he is when examining where he comes from and where he’s going.

Please find the complete Q&A with Wagner after the jump, and please enjoy.

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Also written as “seppuku,” the traditional Japanese practice of harakiri is a form of samurai ritual suicide wherein one plunges a short blade into one’s own belly and slices the blade from left to right. A second person stands behind with a sword and, at a previously-agreed-upon time after the person has disemboweled himself, strikes a decapitating blow. How the notion came to be incorporated with the debut full-length from Salt Lake City, Utah, heavy trio Dwellers, I don’t know, but if there’s some tie in with the theme of “spilling one’s guts,” I’d believe it. Good Morning Harakiri (Small Stone) rocks heavy and naturally for its vinyl-ready 41-minute duration, and is not without its sense of ritual. The band, which unites guitarist/vocalist Joey Toscano of Iota with the same rhythm section that propelled SubRosa’s excellent 2011 offering, No Help for the Mighty Ones – that being bassist Dave Jones and drummer Zach Hatsis – is surprisingly assured in its approach for Good Morning Harakiri being the first album, and the six tracks play out with an organic, blues-based steadiness offset by genre-straddling excursions into psychedelia and doom.

In that way, Good Morning Harakiri is a fitting follow-up to Iota’s excellent 2008 Small Stone debut and swansong, Tales, which melded heavy and space rock together seamlessly and added psychedelic flourish even in Toscano’s vocals, which were melodic echoes from the deep reaches of the Andy Patterson mix (the label’s go-to knob-twiddler, Benny Grotto, also got a word in that regard). Patterson, who also drummed in Iota, handled production for Dwellers (he also did the SubRosa), and dials back that echo somewhat on Toscano’s singing, bringing him forward more early in the album so that, aside from closer “Old Honey,” the singing sounds more confident. And as much as one can read Good Morning Harakiri as an extension of some of Iota’s ideas – Toscano presumably being at the fore creatively in both bands adds to the validity of that read – there’s no discounting the fluidity and the depth of Jones’ and Hatsis’ contributions. Not only do they hold down the extended side A and B closers “Vultures” (10:12) and the aforementioned “Old Honey” (9:53) but they do so with range and personality befitting players well accustomed to working with each other. Also, rather than let Toscano range, so that it’s melody on one side and rhythm on another, with Dwellers, it’s the guitar, bass and drums working together as a solid unit, which is the power trio ideal, so that although every cut on Good Morning Harakiri begins with guitar, the album never strays too far in its indulgences.

Rather, it keeps somewhat to the sort of duality Iota showed in songwriting on Tales, balancing shorter, more straightforward material against longer pieces. With the exception again of “Old Honey,” the songs on Good Morning Harakiri are less space-oriented (and certainly less space-thematic), and though opener “Secret Revival” sets a bruising course after its crisply-strummed intro, the overall affect is more like an expansion on Facelift-era Alice in Chains, particularly given the tone of Toscano’s vocals. Hatsis’ kick is prominent but not dominating, and the already-considerable fuzz in Toscano’s guitar is given low-end boost by Jones on bass, which is smoothly toned and rich. Still, the song is notable in comparison to “New Mantis,” which opened Tales, for the intensity it doesn’t have. Where that song and “We are the Yithians” seemed almost in a rush get through themselves, both “Secret Revival” and “Black Bird,” which follows, replace that intensity with a firm grasp on a bluesy approach, and in the case of the latter, dead-on grooving stomp to match a semi-Southern riff. Not to belabor the point, but Good Morning Harakiri’s clear LP-minded presentation (that is, the two distinct sides that come through even on a CD or digital listen) marks another departure from Iota’s method, which bunched its longer songs together in a linear flow. Both work, but Dwellers shows more diversity in songwriting, so that while “Black Bird” veers into psychedelic guitar layering in its second half, “Vultures” is out of place neither with that nor the verses and chorus preceding, despite being longer and providing more room to jam.

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What’s most surprising about Aunt Hildegard‘s sound is that, with just guitar and drums, they manage to sound both raw and full at the same time. I’ve never caught the New York heavy punkers live, but if the pre-mastered song snippets posted below are anything to go by, that should probably change. Their album is due out next month and was recorded by Joey Z. from Life of Agony and mastered by Eli Brown of Blood Farmers. Check it out:

Aunt Hildegard, the two-piece power duo mixing stoner, punk, rock and doom are proud to announce they will releasing their new album, Sweet Secret Love. The 11-song full-length was recorded at Method of Groove Studio in Brooklyn, NY, with all tracks recorded, produced and mixed by the legendary Joey Z. from Life of Agony/Stereomud/Carnivore.

The album has just been mastered by Eli Brown at Sterling Sound in New York City and is due to drop this January, 2012.

Tracklisting:
1. Rats in My Room
2. Crack Girl
3. No Way Home
4. Doom
5. My Cocaine
6. Xanadu Salad
7. Check Please
8. Mission Song
9. Dirty White
10. Wait
11. Aunt Hildegard

You know, it had been a little bit since a Roadburn announcement came through, and I thought maybe the four days of the fest (three for Roadburn proper and one for the Afterburner) were full, but nope. As it turns out, the addition of British cult doomers The Wounded Kings completes the lineup for Saturday, and there may yet still be more do come. God damn, this thing is huge.

Stoked to see The Wounded Kings as well, as their In the Chapel of the Black Hand (review here) was a highlight of the year in doom. Dig the news:

The Wounded Kings return to Roadburn Festival on Saturday, April 14, 2012 at the 013 venue in Tilburg, Holland (With the addition of The Wounded Kings to Roadburn 2012, the lineup for Saturday, April 14 is complete).

A new era of apocalyptic doom approaches!  Featuring the dark and chilling vocals of Sharie Neyland along with Alex Kearney (guitar), Myke Heath (drums), Jim Willumsen (bass) and founder member Steve Mills (guitar).

Despite, or because of the hardships the Kings have endured over the last 12 months their determination and unique vision for heavy music remains as strong as ever. This new phase in the Kings‘ development undulates with vintage amplification, the riffs seething with menace and danger  – things fans have come to love and expect!

It is a journey to ghostly worlds – suffocating and claustrophobic – where ancient terrors slowly seep into the blood stream. Roadburn will be grateful to get out alive with its soul and sanity intact – just as it should be!

Man, some people just get it.

If you’d like to find out if you’re one of them, I heartily recommend this video of Trippy Wicked and the Cosmic Children of the Knight performing “Coventry Carol” in honor of the holiday season. I promise, this is as close as I get to any Xmas-themed posting, but given Pete‘s red booties, it’s already closer than I thought I’d be.

Turning your reds and greens to Orange:

If you want to download the song, and obviously, you do, click here to go to the Superhot Records page on Bandcamp.

For their second album through the German imprint Metalville Records, native New Jerseyan Monster Magnet offshoot Riotgod present a sound that is crisper, tighter and more assured than on their 2010 self-titled debut. is also more directly derived from the stoner/heavy rock vein than was Riotgod (review here), and shows clear intent even in its track listing. Each of the album’s two presented “sides” – in quotes because it’s a CD release and at 59:31, it’s too long to fit on a single LP – ends with a ballad, those being “Gas Station Roses” and “Rebirth,” that through their mere placement set themselves as the cornerstones of what Riotgod is looking to accomplish their second time out. In terms of songwriting, the four-piece doesn’t seem to want to stray too far from the straightforward, well-structured verses and choruses they presented the first time around, but both the guitars of Garrett Sweeny and the vocals of Mark Sunshine offer more diversity, with the rhythm section of bassist Jim Baglino and drummer Bob Pantella (they being the Monster Magnet contingent) keeping a consistent and forward-pointed push whether it’s the darker, moodier chug of “Crossfade” or the grander emotionality of later cut “Loosely Bound.” At just under an hour, Invisible Empire feels long, and some songs work better than others, but each of the total 12 seems to justify its inclusion through diversity, however subtle it might be, whereas with the self-titled that wasn’t the case. If that’s to be the form of Riotgod’s progress, I’ll take it.

The album begins with the formidable swagger of “Breed,” and that sets a tone of classic rock appreciation that the rest of the songs bear out, both riff-wise and in Sunshine’s vocals, which are stellar in their performance but too forward in the mix. His voice has that ability that Chris Cornell had at his peak to just contort seemingly at will and jump in register to what feel like places it shouldn’t be able to jump. He throws some John Garcia-type grit into the approach as well and manages to shift to suit the music, as on the swaying “Firebrand.” As Pantella keeps steady waltz time on the drums and Sweeny noodles a subdued verse, Sunshine takes charge of the melody and caries the track into its chorus, which is among the most effective on Invisible Empire. True, some of the melodies can seem repetitive – more than once through the Alice in Chains-esque backups on “Fool” and they begin to feel overused – but Sunshine could carry this band if he needed to. Fact is, however, that he doesn’t need to. As the ballsier riffing of “Fool” and “Crossfade” work in ‘90s-style distortion behind their verses, the music more than stands up to the vocals, however more prominent the latter might be mix-wise. With “Slow Death,” as with “Breed,” Riotgod modernize a classic approach in a way not so dissimilar from what European tour and labelmates The Quill did on their 2011 offering, Full Circle.

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