It’s basic and self-directed drunken cruelty that has me closing out this week with an awesome Swedish band that will likely never come to the States. I don’t really feel like getting into it, but the short version is I applied for a Fulbright to go to Sweden and write about rock bands and didn’t get it. Wait. No. That’s the long version. The short version is I’m going to live in New Jersey forever. There you go.

Ugh. What a week.

I didn’t even get to post the Black Pyramid interview. I’ll do that Monday. White Hills is playing Manhattan on Tuesday, but I don’t know if I’m actually going to make it out. They’re the Eastern Seaboard’s Farflung and all, but still, they might be too cool for me. Feeling awfully outclassed by life lately. Not sure if it’s the being old, the balding or the fat, but something’s doing it. At least I finally wrote on that Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats record. Great to be part of the crowd on that one.

Reviewing Alcest this week and I don’t know what else. Packages came in today from Electric Moon and Bushfire, so maybe them, but I’ve got a backlog of stuff and a bunch of digital-type promos that need organizing. Every CD I get is appreciated. Links less so. It’s a hard truth, but there it is. I can have 30 folders on my desktop from bands who want their shit written on, but if I can look at a cover like on The Hedons‘ disc, I’m gonna reach for that every time. Effort is met with effort. That’s science.

I’ve also decided to stop bolding place-names as of right now. Tired of seeing “Brooklyn” in bold on this site, and I’m pretty sure when I say “UK” people know I’m talking about the United Kingdom and it doesn’t need to be bold to get the point across. Either way, I’m sure you were very concerned about my fucking stylistic decisions.

New music this week from Brokaw (a full album stream on Monday) and something very special for Wino Wednesday that I’m not even gonna say yet because I don’t want to jinx it. It’s going to be really cool though, so tune in for it.

And the week after this one coming, if all goes to plan, I’ll be premiering a series of new columns written by people who aren’t me. More on that to come.

Alright, enjoy the weekend and be safe. See you on the forum and back here Monday for more Jersey-based hopelessness.

It seems like just a few weeks ago that I was bemoaning the fact that Chicago dual-guitar madmen Bible of the Devil hadn’t had a new album in over three years. Because it was! Now, I don’t want to say that the members of Bible of the Devil read that post and were so struck by my plea for new material that they immediately wrote an album’s worth of songs and set to recording them, but I’m pretty sure we all know that’s exactly what went down. So, Bible of the Devil — thank you, and you’re welcome.

And on the off-chance Bible of the Devil didn’t put For the Love of Thugs and Fools to tape purely because I asked them too — impossible as it sounds, we should at least entertain the notion that they didn’t — we can still be glad the record has two songs with “night” in the title, as did its predecessor. Anything less would be unacceptable. For the Love of Thugs and Fools will be out May 8. The sooner the better.

Here’s the news off the PR wire:

Veteran Chicago rock ‘n’ roll band Bible of the Devil have announced the completion of their sixth full-length album and third for Rome, Italy-based label Cruz Del Sur Music. Entitled For the Love of Thugs and Fools, Bible of the Devil‘s eagerly anticipated follow-up to their 2008 release, Freedom Metal, is an assembly of raging rock ‘n’ roll songs that encapsulate the band’s saga musically and personally over the years since the last full-length. Returning to Phantom Manor studios in Chicago to work with engineer Mike Lust, who has engineered numerous BOTD recordings in the past, the band sought to emphasize their trademark bludgeoning two-guitar attack and mammoth hooks with an increased attention to soaring, anthemic vocals.

For the Love of Thugs and Fools is viewed by the band as a document of the many characters they have encountered through the life of the band, whether it be in love, loss, friendship, or hatred. Having toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe since the band’s inception in late 1999 and living in the volatile urban environment of Chicago, where encounters with crime, violence, and “street justice” are unavoidable, there has been much subject matter for the band to draw from. Embracing the philosophy that a bottle of whiskey and some loud guitar is often the best cure available for these challenges and ordeals, Bible of the Devil have chosen to document their grievances in the form of one devastating rock ‘n’ roll platter. Said singer/guitarist Mark Hoffmann, “The few years since the last full-length have been like a dare. A dare to create a soaring, punishing rock ‘n’ roll record of this magnitude. It is a dare that we have been forced to answer ourselves.” Fans of Bible of the Devil can expect yet another collection of fist-pumping heavy guitar classics-in-the-making, For the Love of Thugs and Fools.

Track Listing:
1. Sexual Overture/While You Were Away 6:02
2. Out for Blood 5:28
3. Anytime 4:20
4. The Parcher 5:28
5. (I Know What is Right) In the Night 5:16
6. Raw & Order 4:31
7. Can’t Turn off the Sun 5:14
8. Yer Boy 4:52
9. Night Street 5:07
Running Time 46:08

The basic assumption on the part of filmmakers Joerg Steineck and Christian Maciejewski going into their rock-doc Truckfighters is that, if you’re watching it, you already know who Truckfighters are. Honestly, that’s probably the best approach, since if you’ve tracked the feature-length movie down, you’ve probably done so on account of your fandom of the Swedish outfit, but I’d imagine that even if your interest was based elsewhere – even if you were just watching it for the story or because you have a documentary fetish or whatever else – Truckfighters would still satisfy on that level. Billed as a “fuzzomentary,” it’s a human story rather than rock and roll glorification, and that is bound to expand the reach of its appeal, and apart from the humor and sadness, and yes, the fuzz, it’s also incredibly visually stylized and holds the attention that way as well. Shot on Mini-DV and Super 8, its look is a big part of what ties everything together – along with spectacular editing and a few cartoonish or otherwise humorous montages – and though the retro visual feel doesn’t necessarily mesh with Truckfighters’ actual sound, which however influenced by ‘70s rock it might be is more modern, it still works. Narrated by original Kyuss bassist Chris Cockrell, who also shows up late into the film under his alias Vic du Monte, the story is broken into nine increasingly loosely presented chapters that wind up intertwining to tell the tale in a manner not nearly as fractured or disorganized as life actually is when dealing with a group of people working together toward a common end.

Steineck and Maciejewski (also responsible for the documentary Lo Sound Desert) don’t insert themselves into the actual film, instead leaving it to the band to talk about their lives in and out of Truckfighters, touring, recording, family, etc., with additional setup from Cockrell’s narration at the start of each chapter and at various points in between. Live footage features heavily, as one might expect, and since Truckfighters put on such an energetic show, it adds to the classic rock feel of the movie. At home, though, it’s quiet, and that’s where we start. Following an opening narration from Cockrell – who seemed to have in mind what Sam Elliott brought to The Big Lebowski as The Stranger in his reading voice — the film first shows us vocalist/bassist Oskar “Ozo” Cedermalm going to work at a ski shop in what looks like a cold Swedish winter. Chapter one is called “Common,” and it’s not long before guitarist Niklas “Dango” Källgren is seen in the studio recording a local hardcore band from Örebro, also Truckfighters’ hometown backdrop, which they discuss as boring and Ozo compares to The Matrix even as they splice in footage from a show with Witchcraft and Graveyard. It’s not until chapter two, “How to Get Things Done,” that drummer Oscar “Pezo” Johansson is introduced as being perpetually late, and the band’s shaky relationship with him is made apparent for the first time. He winds up being sympathetic and likeable, as do both Ozo and Dango over the ensuing two contradictory chapters, “Road” and “Home.” Stylized live footage and discussion of the hardships of van travel for touring should be pretty familiar to anyone who’s seen this kind of band-based documentary before, but a timeline montage takes us quickly through the history of Truckfighters and the past members of the band, Fredo and Paco – the latter who came in as a replacement for Pezo, whose drug problem, leaving the band and subsequent return and conversion to Christianity is touched on but never really explored deeply; although later we do see him discuss prayer as the band warms up for a show – and proves necessary for anyone who might not have followed them over the course of their years together and their three albums, Gravity X (2005), Phi (2007) and Mania (2009).

It turns out to be the making of the latter that Truckfighters is chronicling in part. We see the band in their Studio Bombshelter at various points recording, later on dealing with Pezo’s lack of dedication to the project and the band as a whole. Some of the most compelling footage, however is in the “Home” chapter. We meet Ozo’s and Dango’s sons and find out Ozo is a single dad. Dango’s son is an infant he calls “Mini-Dango,” and as we watch them cooking, doing dishes, cleaning up holiday wrapping paper – there’s even a shot of Pezo vacuuming spliced in to drive the point home – it’s clear the interest of Truckfighters is in portraying the band as human beings rather than rockstars. That said, they do admit to partying some, and a pretty funny semi-psychedelic montage of drunk antics ensues, leading to chapter five, “Issues,” which discusses van breakdowns, missed flights and tells the story of Ozo throwing a loaf of bread during a playful “bread fight” with the guitarist of Valient Thorr and hitting his eye, causing some apparently temporary damage. Both bands were on tour with Fu Manchu, which is also discussed later as the movie begins to veer away from the chapter narrative to take in the whole picture. In the midst of that bread-fight story, chapter six, “Family Fights” – which Cockrell can’t finish introducing without laughing – begins, and over the course of that and “The Body Burden,” which follows with a look at the wear and tear of Truckfighters’ high-impact gigging (already in the film we’ve seen Dango jump up and down on stage a number of times) and how they prepare for shows, stay fit, eat well, etc., the Pezo story really begins to develop. In the midst of watching Dango warming up and a funny scene of he and Ozo jogging while eating fruit (soon contradicted by footage of them drunk), we shift to the band in the studio and as Pezo records drum parts, it becomes clear all isn’t well within the band.

Read more »

“I want you/And I need you/And I’ll bleed you.”

In a lot of ways, the first chorus lines to opener “I’ll Cut You Down” sum up a lot of what’s happening on Blood Lust, the second full-length from Cambridge trio Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats. And I do mean “happening.” As much as it can be in this genre, the hype behind this band and Blood Lust in particular has been stifling. So much so that at the end of 2011, they topped my “Top 5 Albums I Didn’t Hear” list. Suddenly I felt as if I’d neglected some great duty. I was out of touch. My life was about to change and all the hyperbole about best this-and-that was only a scale on the back of this Godzilla-sized monster of malevolent stoner doom.

Whatever. I gave in to the peer pressure and bought the record. The appeal was immediate when I first put it on. Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats sounds like Electric Wizard‘s blown-out cousin getting off on oldie cult horror. Blood Lust practically draws a pentagram on its own notebook. The riffs are distorted in extrema and the vocals, cooed with a malevolent melodicism, follow catchy structures so simple they can’t help but get stuck in your head. That’s especially true of songs like “I’ll Cut You Down,” “Death’s Door” and “13 Candles,” but the swing of “Over and Over Again,” though it’s not as instantly memorable, has a hook all its own.

From what I’ve been able to tell from listening, though, a big part of the appeal with Blood Lust is the familiarity of it. Riffs are recognizable without being easy to directly place, and the whole record brims with an occult ’70s vibe that’s mirrored in the artwork. If you took a survey of doomers and stoner heads and you asked them what they wanted to hear, you might come out of it with the mournful plod of “Curse in the Trees” or the mid-paced organ-laden stonerly chug of “Withered Hand of Evil.” That said, one of the most engaging aspects of Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats on these tracks is that they’re not immediately accessible to outsiders. Play this stuff for someone unfamiliar with the genre, and you’re going to get stared at — and that’s clearly on purpose. The band are preaching solely to the already-converted, and clearly it’s working. I paid $25 for this record.

Reportedly, that’s better than some have done on eBay. And simple though it is, Blood Lust shows several directions Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats‘ progression could take. The progressive shuffle of “I’m Here to Kill You” is not only the best performance from drummer Red (Kat rounds out the lineup on bass), but also a bold stylistic departure from the rest of the album (maybe less so from “Ritual Knife,” but still). The same applies to the acoustic bonus track on the Killer Candy Records CD version, “Down to the Fire,” which takes Uncle Acid‘s psychedelic snarl and recontextualizes it over sweet Zeppelin melodies and percussion. That Blood Lust follows a lyrical narrative — about a murder — could also foretell development to come. They could just as easily “go prog” as so many did in the early and mid ’70s as they could stick to the formula of soot-covered distortion that works so well for them here.

Whatever the case, I don’t regret the purchase, which is a rarity for me when it comes to albums I’m buying because someone else (in this case multiple people) thinks I need to hear them, and for what it’s worth, if I was going to do my top 20 today, Blood Lust would probably be on it. Should be interesting to see where Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats go from here, and wherever that might be, I’ll try my best not to let it slip through the cracks.

Issued in 2011 in Europe via German imprint Ván Records, mysterious Dutch outfit The Devil’s Blood release their second full-length, The Thousandfold Epicentre, via Metal Blade in North America. Their 2010 debut, The Time of No Time Evermore (review here), was put out by Profound Lore, and if anything, the amount of people who’ve gotten behind The Devil’s Blood shows the kind of dedication their cult rock inspires. With a penchant traditional witchy melody – bands like Coven and Black Widow are appropriate points of reference – taken to the Satanic extremes of European black metal (the band has close ties with Swedish outfit Watain, among others), the core brother/sister duo behind The Devil’s Blood, guitarist/songwriter Selim and vocalist Farida Lemouchi, have been able to hammer out a sound that is at once foreboding and unashamedly accessible. In light of the aforementioned early ‘70s cult folkies, this isn’t such a contrast, but given the avenues of heaviness and extremity in which such themes are more prevalent today, The Devil’s Blood stands out. At the same time, they belong to a growing league of bands – Ghost, Sabbath Assembly and even, to a more distinctly doomed extent, the latest incarnation of The Wounded Kings – who’ve been able to successfully blend that school of classic melodic thought with modern Satanic or occult ritualizing. Farida’s vocals, however, along with Selim’s apparently growing fascination with darkened psychedelia, give The Thousandfold Epicentre a strong individual feel even within this burgeoning context. It is a powerful and creative work.

It’s also really, really long. At 74-plus minutes, The Thousandfold Epicentre is beyond what might usually qualify as expansive, but the atmosphere of ritual it creates – one can almost smell the dry-ice fog coming through the speakers – more than accounts for and justifies that expanse. Where The Time of No Time Evermore took the (in hindsight) formative elements of 2008’s Come, Reap EP in a more traditionally metal direction, The Thousandfold Epicentre seems bent in highlighting melodic grandeur. Following the intro “Unending Singularity” that builds to it, “On the Wings of Gloria” is resplendent. Farida’s vocals echo above a rocking riff from Selim and thudding drums. Among the varied approaches The Devil’s Blood take on the album’s 11 tracks, “On the Wings of Gloria” stands among the most effective combinations of the elements that make their sound their own, breaking after a ripping guitar solo into a vocal-led ritualistic invocation that in turn gives way to a wash of chanting and psychedelic noise, all anchored and given structure by drums and an overall forward movement. The duo of cuts that follows, “Die the Death” and “Within the Charnel House of Love,” are shorter and more geared toward highlighting Farida’s prowess as a frontwoman, while “Cruel Lover” takes rhythmic cues from ‘80s metal (as did a decent portion of the last record) and is less pop-based. Talk of possession and “tongues of fire” allures and adds sexualized danger without feeling outwardly exploitative, and the music behind chugs with a clear sense of structure without being as predictable as either “Die the Death” or “Within the Charnel House of Love.” Nonetheless, indulgence prevails.

As well it should for a band like The Devil’s Blood. They move from a long bridge back to the verse in “Cruel Lover” and end with the central riff, moving briskly onto centerpiece “She,” an immediate highlight. Layers of Farida’s vocals weave between each other to make The Thousandfold Epicentre’s most memorable chorus, while the verse singing has more clarity and make use of her range, which has impressed since the band’s beginnings. Sandwiched between “Cruel Lover” and the title-track, “She” is both a worthy single and a deep cut, adding to the atmosphere of the record without sacrificing the quality of songwriting or structural crispness. A final chorus stomps its way into the cerebral cortex and the song gives way to mellotron and keys that set the stage for “The Thousandfold Epicentre,” which tops nine minutes and is the longest song apart from 15-minute closer “Feverdance.” Like the album itself, the title-track does well with the time it’s so purposefully taking. Gone is the immediacy of hook that drove “She,” but instead, The Devil’s Blood begin to immerse the listener in the ambience that will typify the album’s back end and still have room for catchy delivery of the chorus line, “I call your name/Devil of a thousand faces,” though it doesn’t arrive until more than three minutes in. Like the opener and like the closer still to come, though, the build is what makes it work. Selim skillfully incorporates acoustics and gives a fullness to do more than just complement his sister’s vocals, and breaks into one of The Thousandfold Epicentre’s most impressive guitar solos just after 6:30. They named the album after the right song – pretty much every accomplishment of the whole is summed up in some way on the title-track.

Read more »

As much as the summer belongs to fuzzy heavy psych in my mind, the winter belongs to doom. The slow march to frostbitten oblivion. Darker, shorter days and that feeling that there’s no way out of the cold. Fuck yeah.

Hailing from the frozen recesses of Uppsala, Sweden, the appropriately-monikered four-piece Anguish make their debut this week on Dark Descent Records with the full-length, Through the Archdemon‘s Head, a collection of traditionally-paced doom that brings in elements of cultish and blackened metal, most notably in a pronounced Celtic Frost vocal influence, but in the music as well. It’s dark, and morose, and hopeless. Perfect for January.

In fact, if you suffer from seasonal affective disorder, I’m gonna go ahead and recommend you don’t stream the track “Lair of the Gods” from Through the Archdemon’s Head using the player below, because by the time you get to the second or third grunt, it might just be enough to make you jump out that window you’ve been eying all afternoon. Everyone else, if you’ve got any hope left to lose, this is about as good a way to see it go as I can think of.

Check out “Lair of the Gods” from Anguish, and enjoy:

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

Anguish is J. Dee on vocals, David and Kribbe on guitar and Ralle on drums. Through the Archdemon’s Head is available now on Dark Descent Records. For more info, check out the band’s page on Thee Facebooks or the label’s site.

The crux of the idea behind Premonition 13 and what separates it from the slew of other Scott “Wino” Weinrich projects — especially on stage, as I myself saw at the Saint Vitus bar in Brooklyn not so long ago — is the interplay between Wino and fellow guitarist/vocalist Jim Karow. On the band’s debut full-length, 13, Karow‘s solos and vocals added much to the personality of the group and the record as a whole, however overshadowed he might have been by Weinrich‘s legacy and profile. More than that, on stage, those two jammed. I mean, they went for it, and thinking back on that show, that’s what I remember most.

This week’s Wino Wednesday clip, however, finds Premonition 13 at the abrupt end of their European tour as a three-piece with just Wino on guitar. Karow reportedly had to split back to the US on the double — and not knowing the situation there, I won’t speculate except to say I hope everything’s alright and that the group can get out again as a full band at some point if not sooner than later — and though a couple shows were canceled, they went through with Berlin, where they shared the stage with Fuzz Manta, Voodooshock and Burn Pilot at Cassiopeia on Dec. 6, 2011.

Some intrepid soul (presumably YouTube user jomawe74, whose account the clip was uploaded by) filmed the songs “Hard to Say” and “Deranged Rock ‘n’ Roller” with just Wino on guitar and vocals, and since the single guitar gives a rawer feel than those who saw Premonition 13 in its full incarnation on this tour might expect, I thought it might be cool to make a Wino Wednesday of it. Special thanks to Billy Brett who brought my attention to the following:

There are a few things that remain consistent throughout Against Nature releases, and chief among them is that it’s never too long until the next one. To wit, the Maryland trio’s latest, Ground Down, was released late in 2011. It was their second album of the year behind Stone Over Stone, and their 18th record overall since 2005. They are staggeringly prolific and almost completely self-contained. Guitarist/vocalist John Brenner handles most of the writing, all of the engineering and mixing, creates the artwork that accompanies the internet and limited physical releases, and puts them out at his own pace on his Bland Hand Records label. Perhaps most amazing of all is that Brenner, in all my interaction with him over the last several years, has never shown any sign of pretense, of rockstar fantasizing or of being sustained in his creativity by anything other than the love of what he does. Against Nature – the three-piece including the rhythm section of bassist Bert Hall, Jr. and drummer Steve Branagan – does not change its lineup or stray too far from its subdued and classical aesthetic, and perpetually, what you see is what you get. It’s rare you’d think of heavy rock as having a sense of humility, but Against Nature have done it 18 times now and already announced their next album, Fallen Rock, which is slated for release early in 2012.

Self-reliance taken to such a degree can have its perils, but Against Nature fall prey to almost none of them on Ground Down. They don’t have time to give into over-indulgence as some self-recorded, self-released bands might – they’re too busy already writing the next album. Yet none of their material ever sounds rushed or as manic as you might think. Ground Down opener “First Things First” offers mid-paced blues and is among the album’s more active tracks, Hall throwing serious groove into a start-stop bassline that’s pure Marylander, and Brenner picking away at a lead that’s the perfect complement to the song’s downtrodden vocal. By and large, “First Things First” sets the tone for Ground Down, but they work in and around the bluesy aesthetic. Brenner’s keys give “Written in Bone” a semi-Southern feel, layered in with the guitar, put the production here, as ever, highlights a sense of restraint in the music that connotes a peaceful mood no matter where the album actually goes, and that includes the more rocking “Sky up, Ground Down,” from whence the record takes its name. Where in the hands of Stone Axe, it might bristle with Thin Lizzy-esque energy (and anyone with a soul will tell you there’s nothing wrong with that), Against Nature make it almost pastoral and keep that vibe into “Evergreen,” which grooves out a sincere ‘70s influence while asking nothing more from its audience than a few nods for Brenner’s solo, which is among the album’s best.

Read more »