The day before the show, which was Friday, I’d left work early and gone with The Patient Mrs. to Connecticut to see her grandmother, who’d cracked her sternum in a car accident. Grandma was sore but okay, so we went up, did chores, did some grocery shopping, ultimately had a nice dinner out at a place that has Palm on tap — which is about the only condition ever needed to meet my approval — and crashed up that way for the night. Still, even with the drive back to Jersey beforehand, I got to the St. Vitus Bar in Brooklyn earlier than I needed to be there to catch Pallbearer and Loss, and much standing around ensued.

Fundamentally, I am an awkward person. I speak like I write (actually, I think it was the speaking that came first, but why quibble on timing?), and I flat-out suck at meeting people I haven’t already met four times over. This can make things like standing around or, say, existing, kind of rough. Nonetheless, I flopped myself here and there until a few friends showed up and I didn’t have to feel anymore like the whole world was in on a joke I just didn’t get. I ran out for a bit but came back in time for the place, which normally divides its front and back rooms but for this show was open the whole way, to be totally packed out up. I elbowed my way up front to get some pictures as Pallbearer got going and once again wondered what happened that this kind of music draws people now.

Pallbearer — whose Profound Lore debut, Sorrow and Extinction (review here), will undoubtedly be one of 2012’s doomed highlights when the year is over — were the band I was there to see. A noise act called Sewer Goddess had opened, and Loss was playing after, which was probably a mistake considering the bands’ respective pulls, but I wanted to see if Pallbearer could capture the same sense of underlying melody live that they brought to the record, play out the same kind of emotionally wrought atmosphere while still pummeling with volume and tonal heft, building hope and crushing it almost simultaneously.

In short, the Arkansas foursome did precisely that, their Emperor cabinets vibrating from the punishment they were charged to convey on the crowded room. They were less outright emotional than, say, 40 Watt Sun at Roadburn, but running a more modern American vibe along a similar wavelength — the tone, as on Sorrow and Extinction — as prevalent as the mood, though no less voluminous. Their songs, extended and excruciating, were surprisingly engaging and immediately recognizable, and kept grounded by drummer Chuck Schaaf (also of Deadbird) and bassist Joseph D. Rowland (interview here), the riffs had all the room to breath — at least sonically; that room was pretty crowded — they could ever ask for.

Awash in downtrodden melody and the beer that I’d been carrying that spilled directly in my beard after I took an unseen elbow up front toward the stage, I made my way to the back bar, to replenish and get a change of vantage. I was talking to Steve Murphy from Kings Destroy about I don’t even remember what and the dude standing behind him, whose name wound up being Bill asked if I was the guy who ran this site. Whether it was the camera bag, my gut, sandals or the fact that I was bitching about being surrounded by humanity that tipped him off, I don’t know, but I said I was me (which I was) and he asked me, “Do you know Gina Brooks?”

I’ve talked about Rock and Roll Gina a couple times in this space, mostly in the context of awesome music she recommended I check out. She had lung cancer and died this past December. It was hard to take. I’ve missed seeing her out at shows. I’d been thinking of her at this one only moments earlier, and here was someone asking me “Do I know her” and not even, “Did I know her.” He didn’t know she had died. So I told him. Pallbearer were still playing, and that was pretty heavy, but this was heavier.

We shot the shit for a couple minutes about Gina, and he said he’d been trying to get in touch with her but hadn’t heard back in a long time and feared the worst. The language of death is always the same. I missed her right then more than I missed her at her memorial service, and though I’d heard Pallbearer were doing a secret show later at The Acheron and I would’ve relished the chance to see them in front of what would almost certainly be fewer people, I pretty much knew then and there my night was over and it was time to sound my retreat back to Jersey, stew in it for a while, and crash out.

So that’s what I did. I stayed through the end of Pallbearer and waited while Loss set up their gear and got going. I went up front, took a few quick pictures of them — the room had thinned out a bunch, so moving through was easier, but there were still plenty of heads around — but honestly, I wasn’t even hearing the music at that point. My head was somewhere else entirely, and when I left, they were maybe two songs into their set. I just couldn’t do it anymore, and moreover, I didn’t see any need to try. Brooklyn is Brooklyn whether I’m there or not. I’m sure Pallbearer killed at The Acheron. Even though I knew it was the exact opposite of anything Gina would want, I couldn’t stay. There’s a reason we admire the people we admire. They’re better than we are.

I cried most of the 90 minutes  home, turned off the radio and just started shouting at nothing, at myself, I guess, for being alive and whatever else. A long string of impotent curses. I was half-drunk. I’d collect myself, feel like I had it together and then bust out again, tears and yelling. I pulled into my office, which is on the way from the Lincoln Tunnel, and went in and sat for a while, ate the last of the antacids in my desk, drank some water, thought about sleeping here, thought about writing, tried to call The Patient Mrs. to ask her to come pick me up but couldn’t get through.

After a while, I got back in my car and drove home, tried to eat, but ended up just going to bed. Sunday was better.

Extra pics after the jump. The lighting at St. Vitus Bar was less than optimal, as always, so I made the pictures black and white just because I thought they worked better that way this time around. Thanks for reading.

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Yeah, that’s right, Megadeth. Part of the first “Vodun” on the Abrahma record was reminding me of this all day, and it’s the most honest ending to this week I could think of. Plus, as much of a hackneyed “I’m gonna replace my drug addiction with my addiction to god” piece of shit as Dave Mustaine has become over the last several years, and as deplorable and reactionary as his too-loudly-presented views are on any number of issues, there’s no denying that early Megadeth was visceral in ways few bands have ever been. I said in a Judas Priest live review a while back that classic metal belonged to doomers anyway, so if I want to dig into some of this stuff every now and again, I feel like it’s fair game. We’ll get to Dark Angel yet.

It was a wild kind of week. I’ve been trying for the last two weeks to start the “The Canon of Heavy” series with a post about Master of Reality, but I just haven’t had the time to do it yet. Hopefully this coming week I’ll get there. And I know it took me being super late on one interview and waking up at 6:30 this morning on another to make it happen, but it’s awesome to have two interviews on the frontpage of this site at the same time. I feel like it’s been since before I started working again full-time that that happened, and it’s more of a personal thing, but I think those are two pretty good interviews, and I hope they were as interesting to read as they were for me to conduct. Next week I hope to add Bible of the Devil to that mix. I got in a good phoner with Candlemass bassist Leif Edling yesterday as well, so that’ll be up shortly.

I’ve also decided to — not this week coming, but the one after — to dedicate an entire week’s worth of reviews to friends’ bands. Acts like Mos Generator, Trippy Wicked, Mighty High all have albums out, and while it’s kind of a gray area otherwise, if I’m up front about it, I think it can be a really fun thing to dedicate some time to bands and artists I’ve become close with over the last couple years. So that’s coming up, but there’s a bunch of stuff I need to get to next week before I do that, so I’ll take care of business first.

Also, I’m in Connecticut tonight owing to a familial obligation (minor incident, all thing considered, nothing to worry about long-term, but enough to get The Patient Mrs. and I to sit for four-plus hours on what’s normally a two-hour drive to get here), but tomorrow, I’m headed to Brooklyn come the proverbial hell or high water to see Pallbearer at the St. Vitus Bar, and that’ll be fun. I have to drive back to Jersey to get it, but the plan is to grab the camera and make that happen live review-style. It’s been since Roadburn and I’m itching at this point to make that happen, even if it calls for some road time. Fuck it, at this point that just makes it better.

Some other stuff next week too. Columns are a little up in the air — okay, more than a little — but I hope to get all that sorted out over the next week as well as a few personal issues. Fair warning, I may put up a Kickstarter in the coming weeks to help fund a personal project (I might be trying to buy a bar in Newark). It’s all pretty up in the air right now, but if I start using NPR-style guilt tactics to get pledges, don’t be surprised. Just advance notice that it may come to that, but there’s still a lot that needs to happen before we get there.

In the meantime, enjoy Megadeth and have a fantastic, safe weekend. See you on the forum, at Pallbearer tomorrow and back here Monday for yet another bunch of riffy shenanigans.

It could be posited that Parisian heavy rocking four-piece Abrahma (formerly known as Alcohsonic) take their name either from the notion of something negating the Hindu god Brahma, the creator of humankind. In this instance, they’d be undoing of humankind, presumably more aligned to Shiva, the destroyer – though that may be a gross simplification of the complexities of Hinduism, and if it offends, I apologize – or otherwise atheistic. Fair enough. The word “abrahma” also appears in the work of 19th Century British historian Godfrey Higgins, who put forth the idea of Pandeism, that all modern religions Eastern and Western had a common root. Higgins uses “abrahma” as a bridge between Brahma, in Hinduism, and the Judeo-Christian figure Abraham. Whether or not the members of Abrahma are students of obscure 19th Century religious theorizing, I don’t know – stranger things have certainly happened – but in either case, their moniker is a roundabout way to express a very specific, if abstract and ethereal, idea. One might say the same thing about their Small Stone Records debut, Through the Dusty Paths of Our Lives. At just over 70 minutes long and comprised of 15 individual tracks, the album develops from relatively straightforward heavy rock – tonally thick and incorporating some elements of psychedelia, but never at the sacrifice of structure – into a more expansive feel, so that by the time closer “Omega” comes around with its techno-style bass groove and keyboards, it’s hardly out of place at all following the 10-minute ranging exploration of “The Maze.” I don’t know if the cuts between “Omega” and opener “Alpha” (the dichotomy furthering the vague religiosity of their name) follow an overarching narrative or not, but with a slew of guest appearances from the likes of the recently-interviewed Ed Mundell of The Ultra Electric Mega Galactic, Thomas Bellier of fellow Parisians Blaak Heat Shujaa and Ehécatl, and cover artist Alexander Von Wieding, who composed and performs “Oceans of Sand…” a welcome change of pace late into the record.

Through the Dusty Paths of Our Lives is almost like two albums put together – or perhaps more appropriately, an album and an EP. It even has two separate introductions. The first 21 minutes, preceded by the ringing tones of “Alpha,” find Abrahma tangling with memorable choruses and heavy, large-sounding riffage. “Neptune of Sorrow” begins a string of four songs – the others being “Tears of the Sun” (guest vocal by Pascal Mascheroni of Marseille trio Rescue Rangers), “Dandelion Dust” and “Honkin’ Water Roof” – that stick largely to the same catchy modus. Vocalist/guitarist Sebastian Bismuth keeps a John Garcia-esque lyrical cadence to “Honkin’ Water Roof,” but it’s more Hermano than Kyuss, and his riffing, complemented by fellow six-stringer Nicolas Heller, leaves little to be desired in tone, “Tears of the Sun” culminating in decidedly modern Eurostoner progressions that feel intricately composed despite their familiarity. The momentum shows its first signs of shifting with “Dandelion Dust.” Drummer Benjamin Colin – the band is rounded out by his brother, Guillaume Colin, on bass – moves to the cowbell for the verse and continues the push on the kick for the chorus, but the mood is darker than “Neptune of Sorrow” or “Tears of the Sun,” and the guitars begin in the second half to show some of the spaciousness they’ll maximize later on, Guillaume taking the fore in holding down the groove. Expectedly given it’s countrified title, “Honkin’ Water Roof” offers some Southern inflection in its guitar figure, made insistent by start-stop bass and drums – a slide also shows up in the chorus – and aligning Abrahma sonically a bit to their labelmates Dwellers, whose Good Morning Harakiri was released earlier this year. A killer solo toward the middle precedes another round of the chorus, and the ending of the track – the longest yet at 6:49 and the longest of the rest of Through the Dusty Paths of Our Lives but for “The Maze” – tosses in amp and effects noise against the backdrop of the still maintained central progression, which is a pretty decent example of how the album as a whole works. It keeps itself aligned to the straightforward, accessible ideas it presents even as it adds more and more varied elements on top.

That said, Abrahma change their methods when it comes to track six and everything after. A subtle build on “Loa’s Awakening (Prelude)” begins a widely diverse 48-minute run that incorporates some of the best material that Through the Dusty Paths of Our Lives has to offer, but can also confuse first-time listeners because of its shifts from the initial movement of the record. To offset this potentiality, Bismuth, Heller and the brothers Colin put the best song right in what is effectively the beginning of this second movement, “Vodun Pt. 1: Samedi’s Awakening” having both the funkiest verse and the most memorable chorus of the record’s 70-minute entirety. The theme is so strong, in fact, that Abrahma reference it either musically or lyrically in both “Vodun Pt. 2: I, Zombie” and “Vodun Pt. 3: Final Asagwe,” but the trio of “Vodun” tracks is broken up by two in between each part, and two more follow the final installment, so they’re by no means all the band has on offer in the second, lengthier piece of Through the Dusty Paths of Our Lives. Still, the thread exists and its prevalence clearly is no accident. And though it’s tactics are different, more spacious and spiritually minded, particularly in a bass-rumbling midpoint break, “Vodun Pt. 1: Samedi’s Awakening” (both Samedi and Loa are references to voodoo, or vodun, mythology, though “Samedi” is also French for “Saturday”), Abrahma hold fast to the verse/chorus framework they’ve built, which helps them as they switch between the “Vodun” pieces and the other tracks. Mundell’s appearance on “Big Black Cloud” – a joy to anyone who appreciates psychedelic heavy rock soloing – helps recovery from the punch of “Vodun Pt. 1: Samedi’s Awakening”’s chorus, the rhythm guitar tone behind recalling the sound of “Neptune of Sorrow” without directly repeating it, and “Headless Horse” delves further into heavy atmospherics, soft guitar lines getting buried under a mass of tone and Guillaume’s increasingly prevalent bass. There’s any number of heavy psych comparisons one could make, but the one foremost in my mind is Arc of Ascent, and Benjamin’s echoing drums only add to the likeness, although the later guitar solo maintains a gloomy feel that’s more reminiscent of mid-period Amorphis (if we’re going to stick with ‘A’ bands) than anything specifically psych. If this is how Abrahma will carve their identity, so be it.

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A Grifter chorus is a hard thing to ignore, and if you have any love at your heart at all for classic or heavy rock and roll, I can’t imagine why you’d bother to try. The Southern UK trio have been together nearly a decade, but following a demo and the increasingly solid High Unholy Mighty Rollin’ (2008) and The Simplicity of the Riff is Key EPs, they made a substantial impact with the 2011 full-length debut, Grifter, on Ripple Music — an album of impeccable catchiness and near-immediate familiarity that was nonetheless fresh and vibrant-sounding, like an old friend you didn’t know you had.

The band also appeared on Ripple Music‘s Heavy Ripples four-way split, but the album would prove to be one of 2011’s best, and I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Subsequent acclaim and momentum led Grifter to be forerunners of a particular side of the formidable and growing British scene that as guitarist/vocalist Ollie Stygall — joined in the band by bassist Phil and drummer Foz — points out was neither given to sludge, nor doom, nor fuzz-drenched stoner rock (not that there’s anything wrong with any of those), but straight up heavy in a classic tradition. Our paths crossed last month at the second day of Desertfest London, as the band headlined at The Black Heart, and they proved to be one of the highlights of the weekend.

I don’t mind saying this interview was a long time coming. Pretty much since before the album was reviewed, Stygall and I were back and forth trying to figure out a way to conduct a phoner without a phone. Where I used to be able to record from Skype on my home desktop, that computer shit the bed and my laptop was more of a prick about it. Finally, though, I gave in and purchased a program allowing me to record directly from an audio call and Stygall and I finally were able to connect after he and the rest of Grifter wrapped their tour with Orange Goblin, of which Desertfest was the start.

And though he and I were both sick at the time — the recording is a tradeoff of his coughs and my sniffles as well as his answers and my questions — he was still a good sport in talking about Grifter‘s next album, for which the writing has begun, the response they got to the self-titled and how that translated to the round of shows he’d just finished, a then-upcoming string of dates in Belgium that’s now begun and includes a performance at the Freak Valley festival on May 19, Desertfest and the strength of the UK scene in general, post-tour blues, and a lot more. The Skype connection started to feedback toward the end (as everything should), by the time our conversation was finished, I felt like it was worth the wait, and as you commence to read through, I hope you agree.

Complete 3,000-word Q&A is after the jump. Please enjoy.

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We’re fortunate enough, you and I, to live in a futuristic age of heavy metal expansion that has resulted in all kinds of genre blends. Some successful, some not, but when it comes to a band like Portland, Oregon’s semi-stonerly Axxicorn — who are genuinely less classifiable than 90 percent of the groups I’ve heard in the last 12 months — I definitely consider it a success. You can say for sure they like Sabbath, and you can look at them and know they were conscious of what was happening around them during the ’90s, but I think that’s about as far as I get in terms of nailing down a classification for their self-released War of the Giants debut.

The bass on the title-track is particularly Sabbathian, but the riffing as well on songs like “Hades” has some allegiance to doomly roots. By and large, though, Axxicorn ally themselves neither to modern classic doom — the easiest port in the storm of Sabbath-inspired fare — nor retro stylization. The production on War of the Giants is rough, but it doesn’t sound like they’re trying to pretend it’s 1973, whatever the Graveyard-y intro of closer “Typheous” might argue to the contrary. There’s also something sharp in the guitar that seems like any minute it’s going to start ripping into black metal, but it never does, instead keeping some thrash-derived edge that emerges later in the tracklist on “Revolt of the Titans/Wasteland,” which sounds tailor made for a cassette tape more than a Bandcamp stream.

A Bandcamp stream is what we have, however — at least until I get the boombox add-on for my office iMac (god damn it, I wish my real life was as awesome as my pretend life) — and it’s certainly enough to get a sense of what the trio are going for with War of the Giants. As I had the chance today to check out some new stuff from the band on the sly, I thought it was definitely worth having some mention of them on here before I came out with a smattering of hyperbolic language for the next album. You know, something to link back to later and at least be able to say you were warned beforehand.

Check out War of the Giants below, courtesy of the aforementioned Bandcamp, and hit up Axxicorn on Thee Facebooks to tell them hi and that you’re also looking forward to their next record.

Heartfelt kudos and congratulations to The Maple Forum alumnus Darryl Shepard on the limited vinyl release of Dronolith, the second album from his one-man drone project, Blackwolfgoat. Bilocation Records handled the pressing, but he’s got copies for sale through the Blackwolfgoat Bandcamp page for people in the States, and if you didn’t check out the album when it was released on CD through this site’s in-house label last year, now’s definitely the time. That Alexander von Wieding cover must be gorgeous in a glossy gatefold.

Shepard and his cohorts in Black Pyramid will be playing this year’s four-day, all-ages SHoD festival in Connecticut, so stay tuned for more on that, and in the meantime, here’s the details on the Dronolith vinyl release, straight from the man himself:

Two months after they were shipped, the Blackwolfgoat, Dronolith, vinyl has finally arrived and I have them in my hands. I’ll be selling these, shipping to the US only. Rest of the world can order directly from Kozmik Artifactz, it’ll be cheaper and easier that way. Thanks to Bilocation Records for everything. I have 35 copies and once they’re gone, they’re gone.

Blackwolfgoat, Dronolith on vinyl, splatter or clear, gatefold cover. Released on Bilocation Records, limited to 350 copies. 46 minutes of blissed-out guitar drone. Order it directly off of Bandcamp.

Vinyl facts:
– limited to 350 copies only: 250 clear 180g vinyl / 100 clear green white splatter 150g vinyl
– special vinyl mastering
– 300gsm glossy gatefold cover
– handnumbered
– high quality vinyl, pressed in Germany
– artwork and layout by Alexander von Wieding

Named either for a town with which it would seem to have little to do musically but from which they hailed at one point or another, or an animal with which it shares many commonalities, Buffalo is the second full-length from The Midnight Ghost Train. Recorded just days after the Topeka, Kansas, trio got off the road from their 2011 tour with Truckfighters (see here and here) – and mostly recorded live, from the sound of it – Buffalo (released on Karate Body Records) is a half-hour set that commences almost immediately with zero-bullshit American-style stoner blues rock and offers little let-up for the duration. Their 2009 self-titled (review here) was a stylistic jaunt into such territories, and boasted several guest appearances from friends of the band, but Buffalo is more straightforward and outclasses its predecessor on every level in much the same way that album was a step up from earlier 2009’s The Johnny Boy EP (review here). Fronted by gruff-throated guitarist/vocalist Steve Moss, the mission behind Buffalo was clearly to bring the energy and flow of the band’s live set to a recording, and aided by the production of David Barbe (Bob Mould, Drive-by Truckers), they come about as close as one imagines being able to; tracks flow one into the next with ultra-natural smoothness, and there are moments in the album’s core midsection where it seems like Moss, bassist David Kimmell and drummer Brandon Burghart are going to lose control of the jams entirely and the whole record is going to come to a halt, but of course that never happens and The Midnight Ghost Train, however wild or tonally entrenched they might become, never actually lose control here when they don’t want to do so. Buffalo’s eight tracks are memorable individually, but work best taken as a whole – which of course is easy given the fact that the album is only a half-hour long – where the ebbs and flows and Moss’ bluesy growling can be carried across with the full complement of the next shifts about to come.

At their core, The Midnight Ghost Train are a stoner rock band. It’s Moss’ riffing leading the way with thick, rich, gloriously fuzzy tone for the heavy blues rhythms of Kimmell and Burghart, who hold their own behind him even at his most frantic. Vocally, Moss takes on a raving blues persona. Like he’s the one who most took Neil Fallon’s vocals on “I Have the Body of John Wilkes Booth” to heart. His delivery is likewise gruff as “Henry” takes hold following upbeat instrumental opener “A Passing Moment of Madness,” which introduces the band’s penchant for riff-fronted grooves and foreshadows instrumental focus to come. Maybe it’s a style derived from heavier roots, but Moss plays it all bluesy on “Henry,” and his solos are likewise unbridled. Most importantly, he’s well mixed, so as not to be completely dominant or out in front of the guitars, bass and drums when it’s so obviously supposed to be the whole song that’s the focus and not one individual or another. Still, he’s striking as he drives home the rolling groove of “Foxhole,” with Burghart adding tom flourishes behind, and is obviously going to be a central presence throughout Buffalo. The reason it’s not out of balance is because, as I said, he’s well mixed, and also because Kimmell’s bass gives a formidable showing of its own, not to mention Burghart’s deft and varied drumming. I know Moss has been through several lineups of the band at this point, but they sound better here than they ever have, and having seen some of these songs live, “Foxhole” among them, I think they came as close as they could have to honing in on that live feel without actually having Moss walk in the room and start yelling at you.

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Looking back at past Wino Wednesday posts, it’s been an egregiously long time since the last time The Hidden Hand was featured. I guess between new projects, collaborations, that new Saint Vitus album, Roadburn performances, etc., the post-Spirit Caravan trio fell by the wayside for a bit, but no more. I never got to see Spirit Caravan live (to date; one never knows), but I did catch The Hidden Hand a bunch of times, and I’ve noticed one consistent thing about their clips on the YousTube that I’d like to share with you before presenting this video of “Sunblood” from 2006.

Namely, it’s the fact that the videos — with a few rare exceptions — blow. Part of that is timing. The Hidden Hand began before streaming media took off as a mundane part of everyday life — their first album, Desensitized, came out in 2003 — and ended before it really took off, their third and final album being 2007’s The Resurrection of Whiskey Foote. There is quality live footage of them out there, mostly from the Emissions from the Monolith festival, so it’s not like it doesn’t exist at all, but they never quite hit the level where people went out and documented every move they made, and it was before the time where every move a band made was documented and uploaded for all to see. If this band was touring today, we’d have clips of Bruce Falkinburg farting in HD. There isn’t a doubt in my mind.

By my estimation, that makes The Hidden Hand something special both in the Wino catalog and in general. Living as we do in an age of increasingly prevalent and pervasive media of a variety of forms and delivered across a range of platforms, I like the thought of a band like this, led by an artist who’s by no means obscure at this point in his career despite never having broken fully into the commercial mainstream end of the music industry, being relatively obscure.

Something to keep in mind, or not, as you watch the clip of “Sunblood.” Of course, part of the reasoning behind there only being a handful of The Hidden Hand videos uploaded could also be that the band was so fucking loud they blew out everyone’s mics. That could be the issue as well.

Here’s “Sunblood,” which appeared on Divine Propaganda, filmed at the Black Cat in Washington D.C. on Dec. 29, 2006. Happy Wino Wednesday: