Maybe it’s the cultural remnants of the Second Pandemic, but there’s just something even more miserable about classic British doom. The five-piece Black Magician released their debut album, Nature is the Devil’s Church, on Sept. 3 through Shaman Recordings (LP) and Burning World Records (CD), and throughout the record’s five tracks, the band capture the eerie stillness of a rolling English countryside, the ancient malevolence of pagan Christianity, and a healthy doses of Cathedral and Celtic Frost, comporting with long-forgotten demons and tried and true tonal weight.

Vocalist Liam Yates isn’t shy about his Lee Dorrian influence, but as the spooky vibes of 15-minute closer “Chattox” show, there’s more to Black Magician than retreading old(e) ground. The organ work of Matt Ford goes a long way in setting the atmosphere alongside Kyle Nesbitt‘s guitar, and from the first notes of the intro “The Foolish Fire,” there’s a devilish sensibility that the band maintains throughout the entire album, drummer Jay Plested announcing the slow march of “Full Plain I See, the Devil Knows How to Row” with lumbering kick and far-back echoing snare. Nesbitt is quick with a slow lead, and bassist Paul Robertson‘s rumble helps make “Four Thieves Vinegar” a highlight before the acoustic/organ interlude, “Ghost Worship” takes hold. “Bring out your dead,” indeed.

I’ll make no secret of the fact that Shaman Recordings has been streaming Nature is the Devil’s Church at its Bandcamp page. All the same, I wanted to take the chance to highlight the album’s potent dreariness and resonant plod, and lucky enough to be granted permission to do just that.

You’ll find the album streaming in full on the player below. Please enjoy:

[mp3player width=460 height=275 config=fmp_jw_widget_config.xml playlist=black-magician.xml]

Black Magician‘s debut, Nature is the Devil’s Church is available now on Shaman Recordings in a limited run of 300 red vinyl and Burning World Records on CD. More info is at the band’s Thee Facebooks page, the Shaman Recordings website or the Burning World Records webstore.

I think I’m gonna go to this show. I don’t know yet whether I’ll go to Brooklyn or Philly, but I haven’t seen trio C.O.C. — whom I’ve been secretly referring to as “C.O.Three” to myself mostly because I don’t have any friends who would know what I was talking about if I said that kind of thing to them — since they played last New Year’s Eve with Clutch, and, well, I’d kind of like to sing along to “Psychic Vampire” and maybe pick up a t-shirt if they have appropriate fat-dude sizes. Their self-titled album (review here), has an enduring appeal that’s hard to ignore as 2012 winds down and list time comes.

Dig the good news, fellow worshipers:

CORROSION OF CONFORMITY Announce North American Fall Tour Presented By Scion A/V

Eye For An Eye Reissue To Drop November 6 Via Candlelight Records

Following a hearty summer of live takeovers throughout North America and Europe, today North Carolina crossover kings CORROSION OF CONFORMITY announce a string of Fall and Winter dates through November and December. Presented by Scion A/V, the tour will include support from a host of esteemed ear-bleeders including Zoroaster, ASG, Royal Thunder, YOB, and Saviours. Additionally, the band will play a string of special shows with High On Fire, Goatwhore and LoPan on select dates. See full itinerary below. Tickets for all CORROSION OF CONFORMITY headlining shows go on sale TODAY through all local ticket outlets. Go HERE to get yours now!

The journey comes in conjunction with the North American release of CORROSION OF CONFORMITY’s Eye For An Eye full-length, set to drop November 6 through Candlelight Records. Originally issued in 1984, the special reissue has been remastered/packaged and includes the Six Songs With Mike Singing EP, both of which have been long out of print. A deluxe digibook edition of the album, limited to 1000 for North America, will be available at limited retailers and via Candlelight’s official webstore. The digibook version includes extended liner notes and a rare pictorial gallery.

CORROSION OF CONFOMRITY Fall/Winter Tour 2012
11/06/2012 Altar Bar – Pittsburgh, PA w/ Zoroaster, Royal Thunder
11/07/2012 Kingdom – Richmond, VA w/ ASG, Royal Thunder
11/08/2012 North Star – Philadelphia, PA w/ ASG, Royal Thunder
11/09/2012 Saint Vitus – Brooklyn, NY w/ ASG, Royal Thunder
11/10/2012 El ‘N’ GeesNew London, CT w/ ASG, Royal Thunder
11/11/2012 Mavericks – Ottawa, ON w/ ASG, Royal Thunder
11/13/2012 Revolutions – Kingston, ON
11/14/2012 Corktown Pub – Hamilton, ON w/ ASG, Royal Thunder
11/15/2012 London Music Hall – London, ON w/ ASG, Royal Thunder
11/16/2012 Harpo’s – Detroit, MI w/ ASG, Royal Thunder
11/17/2012 Mojoe’s – Joliet, IL w/ Zoroaster, Royal Thunder
11/18/2012 Cosmic Charlies – Lexington, KY w/ Zoroaster, Royal Thunder
12/11/2012 The Biltmore – Vancouver, BC w/ Saviours
12/12/2012 The Crocodile –  Seattle, WA w/ YOB, Saviours
12/13/2012 Dante’s – Portland, OR w/ YOB, Saviours
12/14/2012 Oak Street Speakeasy – Eugene, OR w/ YOB, Saviours
12/15/2012 Harlow’s – Sacramento, CA w/ YOB, Saviours
12/16/2012 Uptown Theater – Oakland,CA w/ Saviours
12/18/2012 Catalyst – Santa Cruz,CA w/ High on Fire, Goatwhore, LoPan
12/19/2012 The Brickhouse – San Diego, CA w/High on Fire, Goatwhore, LoPan
12/21/2012 The Observatory – Santa Ana, CA w/ High on Fire, Goatwhore, LoPan

Formed in Raleigh in 1982, CORROSION OF CONFORMITY quickly transformed heavy music. Politically charged and socially aware, the band has influenced countless others and today remains humble about their accomplishments. With over 1.1 million albums sold in the United States, the band continues to find new fans via nonstop touring.

One can hear influences in their material from a range of bands running from Voivod to Mastodon to Radiohead, and London-based bruisers Great Western seem to relish the diversity in their sound. The  trio of Rufus Miller, Ralph Fuller and Frederick Fuller released their debut EP, Warrior of Light, earlier in 2012, and showed no shortage of sludge-rocking burl on it. Tracks like “New Government” had memorable melodies alongside noise-rocking gruffness, taking stoner riffs to a kind of garage punk mentality, while the acoustic “Been Gone” tapped post-Wovenhand country-stalking Americana and had both a sweet simplicity and sense of lurking danger.

Among its five component tracks was the opening punk-metal blaster “Son of a Gun,” which spawned the following charm-heavy video:

Pretty hard to argue with that, but what I dig even more than that is the fact that Great Western have already issued a follow-up single to Warrior of Light. The track is called “Hearse,” and like its predecessor EP — which itself is just now seeing an official online release through Handspun Records — it’s available for checking out at the band’s Bandcamp page. Recorded earlier in this year, it seems to endeavor to blend some of the different sides of Great Western‘s personality that show up on Warrior of Light, so that after the moody subdued part, they launch into a raging, yell-filled onslaught (I can’t help but hear Andy from Clamfight in the harshest vocals), soon to be offset by slide guitar ambience and Across Tundras-style expanse.

It’s a cool blend — especially for a track that’s under five minutes long — and while they don’t have a VHS-style video for it, “Hearse” is still worth checking out, say, on the player below:

Right on. If you dig what you hear and you’re in or near London, you can check out Great Western live at Catch 22 on Oct. 25. They’ll share the stage with Ltnt and Buffalo Bones. For more info, hit them up on Thee Facebooks, Thy Twitterings, Los Tumbleros or their regular old Bandcamp page.

Look for a couple more On the Radars to come as UK special week continues.

While I’m saying congratulations today, way to go to Finnish space crushers Mr. Peter Hayden. The announcement came through this morning that the band — who released their second album, Born a Trip (review here), earlier this year — will be joining the lineup for Roadburn next year, and not a moment too soon. One imagines any further delay in those stars aligning and MPH would be off on some other time continuum somewhere, jamming until nebula clouds of smoke rise from their amplifiers.

Or something. Whatever, the band’s cool, and good for them they get to be cool at the 013 in ‘013. Dig it:

Mr. Peter Hayden To Bring Their Lysergic Post-Metal / Space Rock To Roadburn 2013.

We’re very pleased to announce that elusive Finnish psychedelic crushers Mr. Peter Hayden will bring their lysergically elliptical planetary travelogues to Roadburn Festival 2013 on Saturday, April 20th at the 013 venue in Tilburg, Holland.

Mr Peter Hayden‘s post-metal-infused space-rock is comprised of intertwining movements built from long progressive builds reaching cosmically thundering apexes heavily immersed in the vastness and darkness of deep space. This is melded with spacey ambience, which ventures off into impressive prog textures and vaguely-melodic synth wash punctuated by rhythmic chug and drum thud. Their excursions rise and fall tidally, offering minute wave-like undulations to coincide with the larger push and pull.

At the peak of their gargantuan cosmic improvisational powers — spectacularly demonstrated on both their debut full-length, Faster Than Speed, and this year’s sophomore album, Born A Trip — Mr. Peter Hayden‘s space opuses are devoid of the rushes of light and the sun drenched jams present in so many contemporary European psychedelic bands; instead they are all about cosmic travel deep in throes of brown acid!

Alunah’s rise has been marked and impressive these last several years. The four-piece hail from Birmingham – a pretty good place to be from if you’re into the heavy – and their latest offering is White Hoarhound. The album is their debut for new label PsycheDOOMelic and their second full-length overall behind 2010’s impressive Call of Avernus debut (review here), a split with Queen Elephantine (review here) in 2009 and 2008’s preceding Fall to Earth EP, and the central difference between it and everything the band has done to this point is a clarity of mindset. With White Hoarhound’s seven tracks/47 minutes, what’s most apparent in listening is that Alunah have a much clearer idea than they’ve ever had before of who and what they are as a band. The guitars of Sophie Day and Dave Day are thick, viscous and forward in the mix alongside Gaz Imber’s bass, and Jake Mason’s drums beat out straightforward motion in line with the riffs. They are rarely showy as a band, but these songs deliver quality heaviness, a few standout choruses, and a solidified aesthetic rooted in pagan-style nature-worshiping lyrics. Sophie’s vocals are a defining element, and where in the past I’ve likened her voice to Lori S., that’s never been less true than it is on White Hoarhound. Some similarities remain, but as Sophie begins to come into her own as a singer, she necessarily leaves that and other such influences behind her. One still gets the sense in listening to their second album that Alunah are continuing to develop as a unit, but there are plenty of instances throughout the sophomore LP that show that potential beginning to pay off, both in terms of songwriting, as on the title-cut, and in terms of performance, as on the harmonized acoustic guitar/organ penultimate track, “Oak Ritual I.” The production of Greg Chandler (who also helmed Call of Avernus) and a mixing/mastering job from the increasingly ubiquitous Tony Reed finds the album moody but crisp, and with a darker atmosphere around them than last time out, the doom in Alunah’s sound has never come across better than it does here.

As on the debut, that doom comes tempered with a fuzz rock mentality that ties these tracks closely to the riffs on which they’re founded. Alunah would hardly be the first band to be driven by the progressions of their guitars, but it sets up a singularity of approach that plays out across much of White Hoarhound. I don’t necessarily think it’s a detriment to the album, however, since the mood is varied along the way and the unit don’t tie themselves to just one structure. That is, not every verse sounds the same, not every riff sounds the same, not every song winds up in the same place. So while it’s the riffs being followed, the destination changes. They touch on psychedelia here and there, as in the very intro of the album on opener “Demeter’s Grief,” but on the whole, it’s a doomier kind of sound than last time out, thicker, with Gaz’s bass right up front playing off Sophie and Dave’s guitars. No complaints there. The grooves are weighted but not drudging, and “Demeter’s Grief” does a solid job in setting up the listener for what’s to come throughout the album, shifting smoothly between a slower verse and more upbeat chorus, catchy and memorable with semi-mystical lyrics that serve as a distinguishing factor throughout the whole of White Hoarhound, including on the title-track, which follows and features the best of the album’s choruses. Sophie layers and backs herself on vocals, and the song’s musical bounce and vocal cadence comes across not unlike that of Mars Red Sky’s “Strong Reflection,” the heft in the guitars and bass once more not weighing the song down in the slightest. Alunah move into an effective start-stop groove in the second half, playing up the swagger for a brief break before cutting to a section of noise and skillfully bringing back the verse with a gong hit and revitalized purpose. Rightly, they end with the chorus, and shift directly into Mason’s drum intro for “Belial’s Fjord,” which at 8:03 is the longest track on the album, closer “Oak Ritual II” having a longer runtime but ending earlier.

Read more »

Heartfelt congratulations, kudos and generic cop compliments to Ohio foursome Lo-Pan, who will tour all over the frickin’ place with High on Fire and Goatwhore starting Nov. 15. I can’t think of a band of their fuzzy ilk who’ve earned it more with the touring they’ve done and the fantastic records they’ve released, so well done, gentleman. Way to make all that hard work start to pay off. Now go do a bunch more hard work. Ha.

Kind of a wild bill, but heavy is heavy and I’ve no doubt Lo-Pan will make a lot of new friends on the road. Once again, congrats.

Here’s the news from High on Fire‘s point of view:

HIGH ON FIRE Announces North American Headlining Tour

California Power Trio to Storm Stages Across the Continent this Fall!

Oakland, CA heavy metal juggernaut HIGH ON FIRE has announced a full North American tour in support of its new album De Vermis Mysteriis. The eagerly anticipated run — the band’s first since the release of the new LP — will kick off on November 15 in Austin, TX and is slated to run through December 22 in San Francisco, CA. Support on the HIGH ON FIRE headlining tour will come from Goatwhore and Lo Pan with special guests Primate (featuring Mastodon‘s Bill Kelliher and Kevin Sharp of Brutal Truth) joining the trek from November 23 to December 1 and Corrosion of Conformity hopping on the caravan from December 18-21. Simply put, HIGH ON FIRE will hit the road with all guns blazing for what will undoubtedly be one of 2012’s best heavy music tours!

On December 20 at the Mayan in Los Angeles, HIGH ON FIRE will headline a special “Power of the Riff” show that will also feature COC and SunnO)))). For more details, visit this location.

HIGH ON FIRE fall North American tour:
(all dates include Goatwhore & Lo Pan)
(Nov. 23 – Dec. 1 also includes Primate)
(December 18-21 also includes COC)
November 15 Austin, TX Emo’s
November 16 San Antonio, TX Korova
November 17 Dallas, TX Tree’s
November 19 New Orleans, LA One Eyed Jacks
November 20 Pensacola, FL Vinyl Music Hall
November 21 Savannah, GA Jinx
November 23 Washington, DC Rock & Roll Hotel
November 24 Boston, MA Sinclair
November 26 Toronto, ON Opera House
November 27 Montreal, QC La Tulipe
November 28 Portland, ME Port City Music Hall
November 29 Philadelphia, PA Union Transfer
November 30 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom
December 1 Brooklyn, NY Music Hall of Williamsburg
December 3 Buffalo, NY Mohawk
December 4 Cleveland, OH Grog Shop
December 5 Columbus, OH Ace Of Clubs
December 6 St. Louis, MO Firebird
December 7 Chicago, IL Double Door
December 8 Minneapolis, MN Turf Club
December 9 Madison, WI High Noon
December 10 Kansas City, MO The Riot Room
December 11 Denver, CO Bluebird
December 13 Boise, ID Neurolux
December 14 Seattle, WA Neumos
December 15 Portland, OR Dante’s
December 16 Vancouver, BC Venue
December 18 Santa Cruz, CA The Catalyst
December 19 San Diego, CA Brick By Brick
December 20 Los Angeles, CA Mayan (* Power of the Riff w/ COC, Sunn O))) )
December 21 Santa Ana, CA Observatory
December 22 San Francisco, CA Slims

If you’ve never heard them before, GURT‘s trailer for their new EP, You Ain’t from around These Parts?, might not be the best introduction, since there’s no music in it, but for a self-releasing band, the packages the London four-piece have put together are still pretty in-depth. You may remember the band from their split with Dopefight, and to give some better sense of their sound, I’ve included the video for the track “Soapfeast” from that release below.

Here’s the trailer and the info about the different editions of You Ain’t from around These Parts? Dig it:

Featuring the opening Intro track ‘(Pre) Verted’ this video introduces the NEW EP from GURT entitled ‘You Ain’t From Around These parts?’….

The ‘You Ain’t From Around These Parts EP’ features:

1: (Pre) Verted (Intro)
2: You Ain’t From Around These Parts?
3: Inverted Pill Willy (Wollop)

Pre-orders are available now from www.gurt.bigcartel.com ahead of release in early November and will only be available on CD format produced independently by the band.

As well as the CD release you can order a special Edition Release pack which features:

A copy of the ‘You Ain’t From Around These Parts EP’ CD.
A special edition T-shirt featuring Front and Back design.
A Limited Edition woven patch featuring the Band logo.
A sticker and badge pack based around the New artwork.

Yeah, I know I’ve closed out with Acrimony before, but I’ve decided to do a UK special next week, and as Acrimony were one of the best British stoner rock bands ever, I figured I could hardly go wrong. The clip above is for “Million Year Summer” from 1997’s Tumuli Shroomaroom. Great stuff that still sounds great 15 years later.

What exactly does a “UK special” entail? Well, for starters, the four or five reviews I do will all be of British bands. At very least, I’ll have Alunah, Groan, Litmus and Blut writeups. The kind souls in Undersmile also signed on to do a Six Dumb Questions feature, and I’ll hopefully have that before the end of the week, and I’ve been granted permission to stream the recent Black Magician release, so I’ll have that in as well. Toss in some On the Radars, maybe a Debate Rages and a Buried Treasure and you’ve got yourself a British special.

Of course, if there’s news or something like that that’s not about a UK band, I’ll have that too, but I thought it would be a fun thing to do since there’s so much happening over there right now. As always, I hope you’ll enjoy it.

I’ve got a couple email interviews to bang out this weekend, including one to Colour Haze in which I hope to have Stefan Koglek catalog the various hindrances to the release of their new album, She Said, so stay tuned for that maybe the week after this one coming. While I’m thinking about that record, thanks to everyone who took the time to read that review the other day. At the time, it was the longest review I ever wrote and probably the most detailed as well, so if you read it, I hope it was at least useful. If you missed the news that the CD of She Said is available, you can get it through Elektrohasch now.

And the reason I said “at the time” is because it was the longest and most detailed review I ever wrote… until today. It took me more than six hours to put together that Neurosis review for Honor Found in Decay this afternoon, but I genuinely felt it was worth the time and the attention and I hope that, whatever else came across, that did. One of those two will end up being my pick for album of the year, I have no doubt, but it’s going to come down to the wire as to which it actually is.

There’s a while before I have to pick and I’m thankful for that. In the meantime, I’ll try my best to bang out some work this weekend and get a little decompression time in if I can, maybe watch a little Star Trek tonight, sleep late tomorrow. I hope that works out.

And wherever you are and whatever you’ve got going, I hope you have a great and safe weekend. I’ll be kicking around on the forum zapping spambots and so forth, so if you’ve got a minute, feel free to say hey. See you there and back here on Monday for the start of that UK special and all kinds of riffly shenanigans.