I know a lot of people have been waiting for this one. Magic Circle (live review here), which features in its ranks a host of Boston hardcore luminaries dooming out as some are wont to do, have just released their self-titled debut via Armageddon Shop, the Boston/Providence record store of much ass-kickery also responsible for Elder‘s triumphant Spires Burn/Release EP last year. If you’ve gotta start with two releases, those make for a pretty strong opening salvo.

Announcement and purchase link follow, snagged from the PR wire:

Armageddon Shop is proud to announce the release of:
MAGIC CIRCLE “self titled” CD

Now available via Armageddon Shop.

Recorded in 2011 at the infamous Paincave in Massachusetts,
mastered by Carl Saff who did the recent ELDER 12″ we released in 2012.

Drawing from classic NWOBHM and traditional metal influences, this five piece comprised of veteran local musicians have turned out a well crafted solid as hell metal album. They’ve definitely done their listening homework over the years. Strong and catchy songs, heavy but not tuned down, recorded well but not overproduced, it captures the old DIY ethic of metal in the early 80’s. The vocals have an almost Ozzy quality at times, solid as hell. We’re totally stoked on this record!

Order directly with this link:
MAGIC CIRCLE s/t CD

Okay, stay with me on this one. Way back at SHoD XI in 2011, I caught a band called Nagato from West Virginia who kicked my ass a more than fair amount and whose demo I grooved on thereafter. Dark, ambient, bluesy, really heavy and moody but without making a show of it. Good stuff that warranted a follow-up and hasn’t gotten one yet. Nagato were playing shows as late as June 2012, so what their status is, I’m not really sure.

In the meantime, though, guitarist/vocalist Paul Cogle — whose tone and delivery was a major source of my appreciation for what Nagato were doing — has put together a new project called Black Blizzard. Joining him (he’s the one right on the camera in the pic above) is Brooklyn-based drummer Ben Proudman. The two were formerly bandmates in the punk outfit Vox Populi and got going as Black Blizzard in the middle of last year, playing a show the same night they decided they were a band. Nothing like a quick start.

The duo have just put out their first release, a three-song EP called Broken Hands, Broken Hearts that sets a surprisingly diverse course in a short span of time. All told, “Light up the Night,” “Loss” and “Black Blizzard” top out around 16 minutes, but in that time, Cogle and Proudman move fluidly from rocking riffage and a catchy chorus offset by distorted crunch to sullen instrumental guitar minimalism with some obscured layers of noise low in the mix, rounding out with Conan-style low end on their eponymous closer, a tide of guitar leading the course for a build that might have been what Helmet turned into had they decided early on that they liked kicking ass and wanted to keep doing it. Vocals on the closer are wetter with reverb than on the opener and stand up to the thump and crash in the guitars and drums, leaving an impression though the track is still mostly-instrumental.

Broken Hands, Broken Hearts culminates with a vicious dug-in groove that gets louder before cutting out and though I don’t know how often they’re going to be able to get together for writing purposes — West Virginia to Brooklyn or vice versa is a long way to go for band practice — the material on the EP, like Nagato‘s demo, deserves subsequent explorations. Let’s hope it gets them. Until then, here are the three tracks in full courtesy of the Black Blizzard Bandcamp page, also available for a free download:

Calgary chug-riffing four-piece Chron Goblin released their full-length debut, One Million from the Top, in Fall 2011, but just yesterday they premiered the new video for the song “Bring Your Idols” from the record. That and some of their mid-’90s C.O.C.-type guitar work might for sure make them stoner rock, but there’s something more metal underlying the proceedings in “Bring Your Idols,” and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that at some point vocalist Josh Sandulak was a screamer. Sandulak‘s production company, Pretty Dead, handled the filming and editing for the clip, which you’ll find right below this very sentence:

Foremost, it was cold. I don’t know what part of the world you live in, but here on the US East Coast, we got slammed last week with temperatures that ranged on the wrong side of zero degrees fahrenheit, and even walking into the dark bar O’Brien’s in Allston, I could feel the wind through my shoes. My jacket, shirt, etc. weren’t even a consideration. But for public courtesy, they might as well have not been there. It was so cold the wind cut through my shoes. Welcome to Boston, Mass.

The Patient Mrs. and I were in town for the night and into Sunday to look at residences, and as I’d seen earlier in the week that Gozu had a gig booked, I decided to hit it up and also get the chance to check out another local venue. If I’m gonna live there, I might as well get to know the spots where shows are, and I know O’Brien’s has had many in the past just from reading lists of tour dates, so even with the unreasonable temperatures and did-someone-just-cut-my-face wind, the rock and roll must get through.

I knew little about Hey Zeus and nothing about Whitey or The Humanoids, but fortunately ran into Black Pyramid/Blackwolfgoat guitarist and all-around super dude Darryl Shepard, who was kind enough to act as my sort of tour guide for the night’s bill, pointing out guitarist Pete Knipfing and drummer Todd Bowman from Hey Zeus, both formerly of Lamont whom I’ve been subjecting to some posthumous appreciation (see here and here), vocalist Bice Nathan and bassist Ken Cmar, who ran the label Wonderdrug Records and with it released records by the likes of Tree, Roadsaw and Scissorfight, among others. Cmar reportedly hadn’t been on a stage in two decades and it was Hey Zeus‘ live debut, but they basically killed it with an opening set of that Small Stone-style rock that Boston seems to have at a permanent bleed. Straightforward, heavy, dangerous and even if you’ve heard it a thousand times before, somehow fresh.

Knipfing added vocals here and there, and he, Bowman and Cmar were tight behind the Nathan, who periodically picked up a drum stick to smash one of Bowman‘s cymbals or bang on a cowbell. The songs were familiar but engaging and if this was a first-show type of performance, these guys are going to be lethal once they really get going. Before they played, I thought it was cool to see their premiere gig, as kind of a curiosity. By the time they were finished, it felt much more like an event, and though I didn’t know anything about Whitey or The Humanoids, I knew immediately they had a hard act to follow.

The place was fairly packed out for Hey Zeus as well. O’Brien’s isn’t big, and the stage rests on an angle — it reminded me of like a smaller mirrored version of Jersey’s Brighton Bar, with a lower ceiling and a lower stage (a good thing, lest someone bump their head) — but even in a bigger room, the crowd would’ve been considerable, and though people came and went as the night wore on, Whitey still had enough people watching for vocalist/guitarist Randy to toss out a couple snide comments between songs about the sold out show they were playing. Shepard had described them to me before they went on as bluesier, but still heavy, rock, and he was dead on. Double-slide guitar made more than one appearance and there was an healthy dose of down-home rocking to what they did, drummer Kyle Rasmussen (also of Phantom Glue) punctuating as shades of grown-up punk and rockabilly worked their way in as well.

Hightlights “Rainy and Wendy” and “Straight A’s” made me interested in hearing how they might sound on a studio version — Whitey have four records up on their Bandcamp — and though they weren’t as riotous on stage as was Hey Zeus, they were still fun to watch and made a solid setup for The Humanoids, who followed. They were, by Darryl‘s much-appreciated estimation and subsequently my own, more metal. They had the vests to prove it, and I was foretold of a Manowar cover of “Black Wind, Fire and Steel” that the double-guitar four-piece sometimes used for a set closer. They’d almost have to. What else could you possibly play after that?

Power metal was a factor for sure, but there was a gritty side to The Humanoids as well, fitting for their garage-punk moniker. The crowd at O’Brien’s ate it up, and with good reason. From their upright posture to their pumping fists to three-part vocals to the classic riffing, The Humanoids‘ metal-infused-rock was battle ready against poseurs and all that was non-metal or at least non-metal and in a close enough proximity to bother anybody. They were fun and they were clearly having fun with their sound, but as in the best of cases, the musicianship backed them up and kept them from seeming clownish.

They did in fact close with “Black Wind, Fire and Steel,” and sure enough they just about nailed it. I knew I was in good hands from the time I saw the Lock up the Wolves patch on back of the bassist’s vest and the drummer’s Bible of the Devil t-shirt, and The Humanoids lived up to those lofty ideals. Gozu was setting up and it was getting late, but I knew I wasn’t going anywhere until they were done. Their The Fury of a Patient Man record was still about as fresh in my head as could be, having just reviewed it two days earlier, and I grabbed a water from the end of the bar and waited for the four-piece to get going.

It hadn’t been that long since the Small Stone showcase at Radio in Somerville, so I’d had a recent enough memory of Gozu live to work from in knowing what to expect. Bassist Joe Grotto (brother and Motherboar bandmate to Mad Oak Studios‘ producer Benny Grotto) seemed more comfortable in his role than the last time out, and drummer Barry Spillberg challenging the rest of the band — Grotto, vocalist/guitarist Marc Gaffney and guitarist/backing vocalist Doug Sherman — to keep up with him as he blasted through “Charles Bronson Pinchot.” That was just one of the cuts off the new album that received a welcome showing, “Ghost Wipe” being another high point.

I guess the difference seeing Gozu this time was I was more familiar with the material so could enjoy it more. They hit up “Meat Charger” and “Meth Cowboy” from 2010 debut Locust Season (review here) and for an otherwise unremarkable Saturday night — that is, it wasn’t a showcase or a fest or anything other than a regular, albeit pretty good, show — they tore through it. At one point, Grotto blew out his head, but another was brought out on the quick and that was really the only hiccup Gozu had. The rest of the time, they spent dealing out riff after riff, Gaffney belting out the verses and even getting a little booty-shake in here and there while Sherman‘s high-hoisted guitar left him room for thrashing out and walking back and forth on the stage, picking up, it seemed, the gauntlet Spillberg was throwing down.

You don’t often see a band who are actually on the same side challenging each other like that. It was exciting, and Spillberg was as expressive in his drumming as he was precise, so all the better. I was beat when they were finished — it had been a pretty long day and there was still another to come behind it — but Gozu‘s set still felt short, which I take as a good sign. They’re an act I’m hoping to see much more often following this move (which unless a piano falls on me or The Patient Mrs. is going to happen sometime before the fall), and I think once more people get a handle on The Fury of a Patient Man, I won’t be the only one. I certainly wasn’t the only one into them at O’Brien’s, as they seemed to sum up elements from each of the prior three bands while appealing to anyone who might’ve been there to see someone earlier and stuck around. Even knowing what I was getting, I was impressed.

Gaffney had apparently been sick, not that you could tell in his vocals, so I wished him well and said goodnight to Shepard and others and made my way out of O’Brien’s and back to the hotel where The Patient Mrs. and I were staying. The wind still whip-snapped at us as we crossed the street to the car and I was glad to finally crash out when I did, but the show had been the right choice, no question. Looking forward to many more.

Extra pics after the jump. Thanks for reading.

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I recall digging Fellwoods‘ 2011 album, Wulfram, when they released it under their prior moniker, The Moss (review here), so it seems only natural to engage the follow-up, a 2013 EP called Gyromancer, which you’ll find above. The creepy, riffy Portland foursome have been playing shows and kicking around since the full-length — they also had a split with Ice Dragon out last year — and the new release seems to take the analog doom ethic to newfound sci-fi weirdness. Observe the concept, hoisted from their Bandcamp page:

This album tells the tale of an endangered civilization who has known for centuries that it’s home planet will suffer catastrophe as it is slowly sucked into a massive black hole. Plying all their planetary resources, they create a gargantuan spacecraft/arc capable of sustained deep space travel. They plot a course to another viable solar system, and escape just as their planet is being torn apart. Attempting to utilize the black hole’s herculean gravitational energy to propel them on their journey, they are accidentally captured in its grasp and must enter it’s dark and unknown depths. While there they encounter a traveler, The Gyromancer, who holds the secret to their salvation. Enjoy!

Sold.

It’s a good cap for what was a busy week, between trying to bang out the Neurosis review and the Corrections House review earlier and the Graveyard review today and still try to get a record or two in as well, but what the hell. There’s next week for other stuff. I’m gonna do what I can when I can and let the rest work itself out. It may or may not, but ultimately there’s little I can do to put more hours in the day.

This weekend, The Patient Mrs. and I head north to Massachusetts once more to look at a handful of houses for purchasing and subsequent residing in. Would be cool to find a place, especially since we’re still way ahead of actually needing to be up there for the start of the fall semester when she starts teaching, but I try not to hold my breath with that stuff. Too easy for things to fall through. While we’re up there, though, I’m gonna try to get out to see the recently-reviewed Gozu in Allston on Saturday. There’s family doings in Connecticut beforehand, but we’ll see. I’ve got my fingers crossed we get up there in time and I’m not completely dead to the world from the trip.

If I do get out to that, I’ll review next week, and also to come are writeups for New Keepers of the Water Towers and Helen Money, both of whom have fascinating new albums up for release. I’ll also have an interview with Pittsburgh’s Low Man and whatever news, videos, etc. come my way. I’ve been trying to stay on top of that as much as I can — it still nags at me that I only just now put up the news that Lord Dying signed to Relapse up, speaking of Portland bands — so hopefully it’s been of some use along the way. We’re coming up on four years of The Obelisk next week too, so I’ll probably take a minute out to mark that occasion, much as it is one mostly to me.

Special thanks to everyone who’s bought a Clamfight CD so far. If that’s not you, please feel free to rectify the situation.

Hope you dig the Fellwoods above, and that whatever your plans, you have a great and safe weekend. I’ll be running back and forth, but I’ll check in on the forum too, so if you’re around, please say hi or why you’re looking forward to the Clutch record, or whatever else might come to your mind (seems to me we’re due for a good trolling, hmm…), and otherwise I’ll be back in front of the keyboard on Monday with more zany shenanigans.

Doubly stoked for this news about a new Samsara Blues Experiment live Rockpalast Crossroads CD, and here’s why: First, I continue to dig the fuzz-laden heavy psych the Berlin four-piece emit, and having seen them live last year at Desertfest and at Roadburn before that, I can tell you they bring it live. Second, the disc — which is to be released on SBE guitarist/vocalist Christian Peters‘ own Electric Magic Records — is also set to include an acoustic version of “Singata Mystic Queen,” a blissfully psychedelic jam that I’m curious to hear how they’ve reworked.

So there you go. I believe I’ve stated my case fully and clearly. In summation, these guys rule. Here’s word they sent over about the release and a link to watch the performance in its entirety prior to the April release:

New CD: SBE at Rockpalast

As some of you already witnessed Samsara Blues Experiment teaching folks at WDR Rockpalast a lesson of what the Blues can be beside those shiny icons blurring them muddy waters these days. Electric Magic Records will release the concert on CD garnished with an acoustic version of “Singata Mystic Queen” which has recently been recorded at Big Snuff Studio Berlin. The whole package will be adorned by amazing new livepictures by Thomas Lang. The release of this CD is set for April 2013 and will be limited to 500 pieces.

Alternatively you can watch the whole gig as well on the website of WDR Rockpalast.

www.samsarabluesexperiment.com
www.electricmagic.de

Even as we gear up for the 2013 edition of Roadburn, the archive of 2012 audio streams continues to grow, this time with sets from Ancient VVisdom (they’re the spooky ones above), Huata, Kong, Necro Deathmort, The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation and Year of the Goat. I like when these things come out on a Friday because that way I get to check them out over the weekend. Hopefully you get some time to take a listen, and thanks as always to Walter, Marcel and the entire Roadburn crew for making these and the life-changing festival from whence they come happen:

Ancient VVisdom – Live at Roadburn 2012

Anekdoten – Live at Roadburn 2012

Huata – Live at Roadburn 2012

Kong – Live at Roadburn Festival 2012

Necro Deathmort – Live at Roadburn 2012

The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation – Live at Roadburn 2012

Year of the Goat – Live at Roadburn 2012

It was the second night of Graveyard and The Shrine‘s US tour and something of a victory lap for the Swedish forerunners of retro heavy, whose 2012 offering, Lights Out (review here), greatly expanded the soulful side of the band’s approach without — if the crowd assembled at Underground Arts in Philadelphia was anything to go by — alienating their fanbase or falling prey to accusations of going soft or betraying expectation. Lights Out is plenty raucous, as the Gothenburg foursome demonstrated once they took the stage, and the band showed why their reception has been so welcome over the last several years of crossover underground success. Because they rock, that’s why.

I arrived at Underground Arts absurdly early, parked outside and waited for the 9PM doors to open. I know people in Philly. I’m not a complete stranger in the town, and I say this not to tout social connections like I’m not some fucking misanthrope who spends his whole life in front of a keyboard, but just to point out that I had options I could’ve probably exercised instead of, say, sitting for 90 minutes and staring at my phone, obsessively lurking on the forum or reading hard-hitting speculation about the Yankees’ prospects this coming season. I could’ve called somebody and gotten out of my car. It could’ve happened. But on the other hand, it was like 10 degrees out. Cold leads to immobility.

I was downstairs — because here’s a shocker: Underground Arts is actually technically a basement venue despite being able to hold 1,000 people — before the doors opened and waited around with the other early-types, who were right to wonder why no one was being let in to drink even as the DJ had already begun to spin ’70s obscurities from heavy lore. As usual, the issue was dropped once they started letting everyone through and soon, soon enough, Venice Beach retro punkers The Shrine appeared to run smiling through a set of their heavied-up no-frills jams. They pretty clearly dig what they do, and I like to watch that, even if their sound is more suited to an empty pool in SoCal summertime than Philly in January.

The bulk of what they played I recognized from their 2012 Tee Pee debut, Primitive Blast (review here), and I’d seen the trio before opening for Honkyand Fu Manchu in NYC, so I had some vague idea of what to expect, but it’s always different seeing a band after you’ve heard the album, and where so much of my impression of The Shrine had been toward the skate-punk end — perhaps because that aesthetic factors so highly in their presentation; both guitarist/vocalist Josh Landau and drummer Jeff Murray wore shirts bearing the logo of Thrasher magazine — I guess I’d forgotten how thick their sound actually was. Landau shredded through his Marshall, true enough, but it was , bassist Courtland Murphy‘s Sunn providing the foundation on which the songs rested.

And as quick as I was to relate Primitive Blast to Black Flag — not inappropriately, in the case of some of the material — their sound live was actually much fuller and less raw than their grainy video for “Whistlings of Death” would lead one to assume. Album opener “Zipper Tripper” and closer “Deep River (Livin’ to Die)” were memorable highlights, though The Shrine moved quickly enough that they probably could’ve played everything off the record had they so desired (and if they didn’t). As I said above, it was the second night of the tour, so front to back there were aspects of the show’s operation that will probably be tighter in a couple more nights, but The Shrine‘s set delivered more than I could ask for and more than anything else gave me the impression that their real potential isn’t to capture the essence of early ’80s hardcore punk — all but impossible — but to grow into something new and individual based off that, similar to how Graveyard and a (very select) few others have been able to do with ’70s heavy rock. I look forward to seeing how it works out.

I’d chosen to hit Philly for the show instead of Manhattan of Brooklyn for two reasons: The crowd at Bowery Ballroom when Graveyard came through just over a year ago with Radio Moscow (review here) and fond memories of Underground Arts from seeing The Company Band there over the summer (review here). I won’t have been at either New York show to know for sure whether or not I made the right choice, but my inclination as Graveyard hit the stage at 11PM and blasted through 90 minutes of blues rocking supremacy was that the extra road time was justified.

Actually, maybe “blasted” isn’t the right word, because where after 2011’s Hisingen Blues (review here), they’d amassed a short catalog of mostly blistering classic rockers, the songs almost terminally upbeat and jagged in their Zeppelin crotchal thrust, Lights Out is simply a more diverse album atmospherically, with subdued, building numbers like “Slow Motion Countdown” and “Hard Times Lovin'” — both of which were played in Philly — to complement the rush of a song like “Seven Seven” or “Goliath.” Their 2008 self-titled had some of that moodier edge, and Hisingen Blues did as well on “Uncomfortably Numb,” which they also played, but its most resonant moments were the testimony of “Ain’t Fit to Live Here” or the title-track, drummer Axel Sjöberg challenging the rest of the band to keep up with him and guitarist/vocalist Joakim Nilsson — and his throaty falsetto — rising to the occasion.

With the siren that launches the album as their intro, they opened with “An Industry of Murder” from Lights Out, and if nothing else, it was clear that everybody had heard the record. That would prove to be the case throughout the 15-song setlist (it was numbered), which covered all three of their albums. Wider distribution for the last two through Nuclear Blast, the momentum of touring and growing repute are doubtless the cause of that. I’ll freely admit to not getting on board with what they were doing until the second record, despite having heard the first, but either way, they made the most of it on stage. Guitarist Jonathan Ramm had several instances of blowing out his Orange head — Landau‘s Marshall was brought in as a replacement and sounded fine, but they tried again with the Orange and met with similar results further into the set — and that derailed the initial push of “An Industry of Murder” into “Hisingen Blues,” which, since it was followed by Lights Out‘s fastest track, “Seven Seven,” clearly wasn’t where they wanted the break to take place.

Still, these things can’t be helped sometimes. Nilsson, Sjöberg and bassist filling in for Rikard Edlund jammed out for a bit while Ramm and the stage crew tried to sort out his amp situation, and before long, “Seven Seven” revived the energy of the set and carried into the downshift of “Slow Motion Countdown.” I thought this was an especially bold inclusion, since so much of what makes that song such a high point of Lights Out is the Rhodes, mellotron and piano added to the guitars, bass and drums, but Graveyard made it work, and where Nilsson had seemed rushed in “Hisingen Blues,” the slower tempo allowed him to work his voice more, much to the song’s benefit. It made a solid lead-in for “Ain’t Fit to Live Here,” “Buying Truth (Tack & Förlåt)” and “Uncomfortably Numb,” a trio from Hisingen Blues beginning with the opener that were each more welcomed than the last. They dipped back to the self-titled for “As the Years Pass by, the Hours Bend” and returned to Lights Out for “The Suits, the Law and the Uniforms,” which was rough — though lent extra presence by the bassline — but still grooving and “Hard Times Lovin’,” which Nilsson introduced as, “the most beautiful love song you’ve ever heard.”

I stood directly in front, just about in the middle, and the press of the crowd behind me was such that I’d have a line of bruise across my thighs from being pushed into the stage. This was enough at several points to make me think maybe I should head into the back and watch the remainder of the set from a more comfortable vantage, but to Graveyard‘s credit, they kept me where I was the whole time. “Hard Times Lovin'” turned out to be a highlight of the night, followed by “Thin Line” and “Goliath” (yes, those leads killed) to close out the regular set. After a couple minutes and some fervent chanting from the crowd, the band reemerged from backstage and hit into Hisingen Blues closer, “The Siren.”

The place went off. I continued to get pushed forward with nowhere to go. So what did I do? Motherfucker, I leaned back, trustfall-style. Among the few benefits of being a gentleman of such ample proportion is the knowledge that, if I want to go backwards, I’m going. That eased the pressure some and all was fine till some beardo decided it was time to stagedive, jumped up from the side and took my head with him on his way to the floor. After being summarily punched by his body, he caught my sweatshirt — and considerably more painfully, my hair — with him and then all of a sudden I was crouched over, caught and moving one way without really any choice in the matter. “The Siren” seemed 20 minutes long. Eventually whatever part of that dude was attached to my already-thinning-and-not-at-all-needing-to-be-ripped-out hair was unattached and he went on his way. It was… not boring.

He wasn’t the last, but thankfully everyone else was either tiny or going the other way or both. “Endless Night” from Lights Out and “Evil Ways” from the self-titled followed as a closing duo, the latter with an excellent jam included, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if by the end of this tour Graveyard are closing with “The Siren.” That got the biggest response and seemed the most fitting, with the “Tonight a demon came into my head/And tried to choke me in my sleep” chorus igniting even more of a singalong than had the rest of their cuts.

Whatever they do or don’t do with the order though, it was a quality set, 90 solid minutes that wrapped at 12:30AM and sent me back into the cold night for a two-hour ride home that I made shorter the best way I know how — by speeding. I guess Graveyard will have that effect on you.

Extra pics after the jump. Thanks for reading.

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