Somewhere between Killing Joke and Pink Floyd, maybe? I don’t know where the sonic terrain in which Germany’s Black Space Riders reside, but I know they don’t share it with many other bands. The Muenster five-piece released their third album, D:REI, at the end of January and have a new video for the track “Space Angel (Memitim)” from it. The song captures the group’s jammier, exploratory side, and while the video is an edit of the track, since it only cuts down the original 10 minutes to a little under nine, there’s still plenty of time to get a feel for the cosmic vibes Black Space Riders are honing.

Accordingly, the video crosses through a range of tripped-out visual effects. The band itself doesn’t actually appear, but there’s plenty to look at besides with the various swirls and constant forward-moving feel carrying you through. As the band states, they edited the track to catch the “shortened attention spans” of YouTube viewers. I guess we’ll see if cutting a minute off does the trick, but it’s a cool groove anyway, and however long they want to make it last, there’s little that’d make you want to turn it off once you put it on. I can’t account for the fickle realities of media in the age of instant gratification, but “Space Angel (Memitim)” is worth taking the time to get lost in.

As you can see by clicking play below. Enjoy:

Black Space Riders, “Space Angel (Memitim)” official video

An epic Space-Rock-Track taken from BLACK SPACE RIDERS third studio-Album “D:REI”.

This is an edited version, the intro was cut shorter matching to the shortended attention span of most YouTube-listeners (with – of course – the exeption of YOU!!!!)

The visuals and video-animations were created by our friend Blood Meridian (lost in space!).

Make sure to get your physical copy of that Album: http://www.blackspaceriders.com/shop

let´s stay in contact: https://www.facebook.com/BlackSpaceRiders

You would probably need a filing cabinet to keep track of the various players who’ve been in and out of Negative Reaction over the band’s 20-plus years. The lone mainstay is guitarist/vocalist Ken-E Bones, who to my experience is a singular figure in or out of music. He’s someone I’m glad to consider a personal friend, a former collaborator, and a player whose passion and dedication make many considered giants seem small by comparison. It had been a while since I last caught the band — SHoD XII in Connecticut, to be precise — so though I had family obligations to account for, I nonetheless popped into Allston to catch them at O’Brien’s sharing a bill with locals The Lorde Humongous, Xatatax, Slow Mover and Automatic Death Pill. A very heavy evening, to be sure.

I happen to know Bones — who’s also embarked on a solo career over the last couple years playing outlaw country — is a Boston fan. A fan of the city, its hockey team, its people, and so on, so I expected he’d be in rare form and was pleased to find that was in fact the case. At one point in their set, he borrowed a Bruins hat from someone in front of the stage and wore it for a song, and the mood despite Negative Reaction‘s persistent downer sludge was light and positive. A good time, in other words. Since I last saw them, drummer Joe Wood (also Borgo Pass) departed and Dave Ash filled the role with what served as rarefied swing for someone whose roots seemed to be so firmly in metal. You wouldn’t know it because Negative Reaction‘s material is slower overall, but I’d be surprised if Ash wasn’t a Dave Lombardo fan, if not now then at some point in the past, but he carried the material over with personality that played well alongside Bones and bassist Jamie Jervis.

Jervis has been around for a while — at least since 2012 — and came in to replace Damon Limpy, who played on Negative Reaction‘s last full-length, 2011’s Frequencies from Montauk (review here). “Dopamine” from that record was a highlight, and demonstrated how well this trio played together, the chemistry set between Bones and Jervis and developing between the rhythm section of Jervis and Ash. The trio made short work of Negative Reaction mainstays like “Go Die” from 2008’s Tales from the Insomniac and “Sludge” from 2003’s Everything You Need for Galactic Battle Adventures, and while I’d been thinking maybe they’d have some new material to show off, Frequencies from Montauk opener “Day after Yesterday” and “Shattered Reflection” were welcome ways to spend their time and both “Sludge” and the lumbering riff of “Worthless Human,” which Bones announced as “another uplifting, feel-good song” or some such, got the crowd’s heads banging and fists pumping. Literally. I wouldn’t call O’Brien’s packed out or anything, but those who were there were up front and way into it. I’m pretty sure Bones could’ve kept that Bruins hat if he’d wanted.

Closing out was “Loathing” from 2006’s Under the Ancient Penalty, which the way I see it was the beginning point for a lot of Negative Reaction‘s direction on their two subsequent albums, introducing an interplay of cleaner vocals with Bones‘ trademark raspy scream and refining their focus from punked-up sludge abrasion to rolling-groove songwriting that’s not about to shy away from an unabashed hook. “Loathing” has one of the band’s best to-date, and after “Dopamine” — a spiritual successor and a song that makes sense as a subsequent development of similar ideas — and “Shattered Reflection,” it makes sense as a way to round out what had been a riotous and fun set. I’ve seen Bones jump through more than one drumkit in my time, but he was kinder to Ash‘s gear than that, though the noisy finish of “Loathing” did come with a bit of rolling around, guitar-meets-cranium bashing and feedback enough to fill the entirety of Boston’s quota for the evening, let alone that of the other bands on the bill.

Negative Reaction have been an underrated band for a long time. Part of that has to be their constant lineup shifts, but this latest incarnation of the three-piece reminded me of what’s always been most on their side, and that’s the unabashed passion of Bones and the absolute catharsis at the heart of their deep-toned sludgy grooves. I expect they’ll continue to be a well-kept secret — sludge for sludgers — but for a band that has existed for the better part of 24 years to come across as having potential says something about the continued vitality at work. Fingers crossed for new stuff soon.

A few more pics after the jump. Thanks for reading.

Read more »

In looking at his work over the course of their collaboration, you can tell that German artist Alexander von Wieding is a fan of Karma to Burn. Not just because he does such excellent work for them — see his prior covers to their V and Appalachian Incantation full-lengths and splits with Sons of Alpha Centauri, ÖfÖ Am, etc. — but to the creativity he brings to their established goat mascot and the level to which he captures what the instrumental West Virginian outfit is all about. The latest partnership between Karma to Burn and von Wieding is the three-piece’s forthcoming album, Arch Stanton, set to release in August.

The album takes its title from the name on the grave in the Sergio Leone classic, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, where a fortune of gold is buried, and almost certainly, if riffs were treasure then Karma to Burn would be millionaires. Von Wieding‘s cover departs from the spaghetti west in favor of the American Civil War, which occurred before the events imagined in the film, and we see Karma to Burn‘s mascot — who’s well on his way to an Eddie-esque number of interpretations — storming a battle line of Union and Confederate soldiers, the flags of both sides represented. All around is chaos and fire and death, rendered with a frightening and otherworldly glow, and both armies recoil in bloody horror as the cigar-smoking beast devastates with a whip for each side.

Karma to Burn‘s Arch Stanton is out this August through Deepdive Records and FABA Records. More to come about it, I’m sure, but until then, check out the tracklisting, take a listen to the prior single “Fifty Three,” which will appear on the record, and click the image below for a closer look:

Tracklist:

1 Fifty Seven
2 Fifty Six
3 Fifty Three
4 Fifty Four
5 Fifty Five
6 Twenty Three
7 Fifty Eight
8 Fifty Nine

Label is: deepdive records & FABA records

Release 15.8.2014

Karma to Burn, “Fifty Three”

When it comes to Emanations, the second long-player from metro NYC-based Serpentine Path, you’re probably going to hear a lot of people talk about how dark it is. How extreme. How their death-sludge sounds even more like some kind of East River pollution tar pit that’s growing by the year and smells like decay. Okay, maybe that last one you won’t hear all the time, but you get my point. It’s fucking dark. What you’re not going to hear people talk about is the obvious glee the band — who probably qualify for supergroup status with vocalist Ryan Lipynski (ex-Unearthly Trance, The Howling Wind), guitarists Tim Bagshaw (ex-Ramesses) and Stephen Flam (Winter), bassist Jay Newman (ex-Unearthly Trance) and drummer Darren Verni (ex-Unearthly Trance), though I’m not sure if they’ve filled out the proper paperwork to be certified — have for the miseries they create. They’re well enough hidden, but in the soloing at the end of “Torment” or the unmitigated stomp that follows, or in the twisted hook of the preceding “Systematic Extinction,” it’s there. Just because a band is skull-cavingly heavy doesn’t mean they can’t also have a good time.

Maybe that’s not the thing to say, but when I listen to a song like the mournful “Treacherous Waters” and cringe at the grueling, malevolent churn that Serpentine Path have crafted as the follow-up to their 2012 self-titled debut (discussed here), it sounds as much like the band is celebrating their extremity as much as they’re using it to create bleak, abrasive soundscapes. It’s not like Serpentine Path are writing joke songs and goofing around, but neither is their deep-low-end viciousness delivered without passion. Emanations is not a cold album, and that separates it from a lot of extreme metal, which comes across as plenty heavy, but also clinical and more concerned with technique than atmosphere. As if to begin in direct contrast to the very idea, the way opener “House of Worship” hits immediately, no intro, and launches into its first verse is practically punk rock, just twisted into slow grinding and given a sludgy groove that, as “Treacherous Waters” and “Claws” move into the highlight cut “Disfigured Colossus,” answers back the depressive melodicism of ’90s Euro-doom with a gritty, particularly dismal reinterpretation that’s as nasty as anything that’s come before it.

They don’t take much longer than that first verse to distinguish themselves and set the course for what’s to play out over Emanations‘ seven-song/45-minute span, but in kind with the classic death metal sensibilities evoked by the music as much as the cover art, the wretched psychedelia they create is an abyss of deceptive depth, and one that warrants a headphone listen to experience correctly. Their tales may be morbid, and they may tell them with a lumbering brutality, but Serpentine Path also stand for the excellent end results that can occur with an assemblage of those whose joy derives from such dark artistry. And with the addition of Flam since the release of the self-titled, the continued chemistry of Lipynski, Newman and Verni bled over from Unearthly Trance, as well as the lethally heavy collaboration with Bagshaw which is all the more cohesive this second time out, they have plenty to be glad about with the crushing filth they’ve created.

The album is out today on Relapse and I have the honor of streaming it in full. Find it below and please enjoy:

[mp3player width=480 height=350 config=fmp_jw_widget_config.xml playlist=serpentine-path-emanations.xml]

Serpentine Path‘s Emanations was recorded by Jay Newman and is available now on Relapse Records LP, CD and digital. For more info, check the links.

Serpentine Path on Thee Facebooks

Relapse Records

Naam, Naam (2009)

The 2009 self-titled debut from Brooklyn heavy psych forerunners Naam is an album that’s only grown in my esteem since its release, now five years ago, on Tee Pee Records. I think at the time my head was still trying to wrap around the preceding Kingdom EP, so when the full-length came out with the sprawling, 16-minute “Kingdom” as the title-track, it was almost too easy for me to take it as an extension of Naam‘s first offering, rather than the standalone beast that it is. At least that’s how I see it now. Looking back on the interview I did with drummer Eli Pizzuto around when it came out, I seemed pretty into it. Half a decade can do funny things to your brain.

Point is that for as brilliantly open and far out as the entire hour-long stretch of the album is, there’s no part of it that’s to be overlooked. It was last July that I most recently had the occasion to catch them live, which frankly is longer than I’d prefer — Massachusetts has a lot of rock and roll but not much of it could be called psychedelic — and Naam have grown beyond where they were with the self-titled even before you get to factors like the full-time addition of John Weingarten on keys, but that doesn’t at all diminish the appeal of this record for me, the bombastic space rock moments or the quiet stretch of “Tidal Barrens.” There’s so much here that I still feel like I’m digging into something new when I put it on.

As always, I hope you enjoy.

—

I went and saw Negative Reaction tonight in Allston. Speaking of “been too long.” Ken-E Bones and company were in top form and got a great response from the crowd. Might be Tuesday before I get a review up, depending on holiday plans and whatnot for Memorial Day, but either way I got one or two pics at O’Brien’s to go with, so I’ll roll with that. Basically though it was just awesome to see them and to talk with Bones because, again, it had been a long time.

Also on Tuesday, look out for a full stream of the new Serpentine Path album. It’s out Tuesday, so we’re doing it up for the release date. I’m also interviewing John Garcia on Tuesday, and his solo album isn’t out for a while yet, but would be good to get that posted sooner rather than later. Wednesday I’m premiering a new Mars Red Sky video as well, so much goodness to come. At some point in there I’m also going to squeeze a Radio Moscow album review, and maybe one for that new Eyehategod too if I have time. That too depends on the holiday.

If you’re celebrating Memorial Day, I hope you have a good and not overly jingoistic one. Please have fun and be safe and I’ll see you back here either Monday or Tuesday for more of the ol’ clacky-clacky on the keyboard.

Please check out the forum and radio stream.

The Obelisk Forum

The Obelisk Radio

Spoiler alert: the self-titled Hjortene debut has actually been out since last month, but when the band got in touch I was at Roadburn and I didn’t get the chance to check it out. They boast guests like Valient Himself from Valient Thorr and Lorenzo Woodrose from Baby Woodrose, but the real appeal of Hjortene‘s Hjortene is the fluid Fu Manchu-meets-Queens of the Stone Age vibe the Copenhagen trio puts together on cuts like “Weber” and “Pounding Hammer,” a rich fuzz tone getting a memorable push from a clean, full production that seems to border on blown-out without ever sounding dirtier than it means to. It’s a cool if familiar vibe, and they flesh it out with some punkadelic touches on “James Brown” and the jammier stretch of closer “Canada.”

I guess what it works out to is I probably should’ve checked this one out earlier and didn’t want you to also miss it if you hadn’t seen it yet. Info and audio follows from the PR wire:

VALIENT THORR and BABY WOODROSE on new album from HJORTENE

Well hidden in the forests of Denmark Hjortene have during the last year worked on their 3rd release – and their first album. The self titled record was recorded live at Black Tornado studios in Copenhagen, Denmark with Anders Onsberg Hansen (Baby Woodrose, Spids Nøgenhat, Highway Child) and the album is indeed very warm sounding since all songs are recorded direct to analogue tape (btw on the same tape recorder Nirvana used to record ‘In Utero’).

On the album, the band worked with three distinct handpicked guest musicians:

— Valient Himself from American Valient Thorr lend his vocal duties on the opener 180.000 km/t. The guest vocals became possible after a long correspondence between the lead singer and the band, and the recording took place in a conference room at the venue before Valient Thorr’s last gig in Copenhagen.

— Lorenzo Woodrose from Baby Woodrose and Spids Nøgenhat is an old friend of the band, who guests on Canada with a 1½ minute double fuzz- space echo-wah solo, where he plays against himself in guitar sequences intertwining endlessly.

— President Fetch/Molle from legendary danish punkband President Fetch participates on the shortest track of the record, James Brown. The President wrote the lyrics about the King of Soul, who wishes to fly with UFO’s in Thuringia and walk on coals with the Mau Mau.

The sound of Hjortene is like dry wood beeing chopped with a fuzz pedal set to 11, and an old tube amp puking blood. The album is packed with solid bass heavy riffs that will cater for fans of Fu Manchu, Brant Bjork, Nebula, The Sword and Mudhoney, but with more unconventional song structures and experimental (animal-)sounds. Previously all Hjortene’s songs have been in their native language, but on this album Danish and English is mixed. The lyrics are a bipolar mixture focusing from birth to death and on the mind’s darkets corners. For example the 9 minute long Canada: What happens, when you’re sitting in the most peaceful enviroment in the forests of Canada, and suddenly you feel yourself so clearly that all the bad things you have accumulated over time just comes tumbling.

In 2004 Hjortene won an P3 Guld-award and later they released the 10” mini album ’Brøl Stød Løb’ (2007). In 2008 Hjortene released the split-EP ‘World Domination’ (2008) with Swedish band Omar.

tracklist
a
180.000 km/t (feat. Valient Himself) 3:04
Igennem Hårde Tider 3:55
Weber 3:17
Classic Rock FM 2:47
Epic Indian 6:36

b
Pounding Hammer 4:36
James Brown (feat. President Fetch) 1:46
Hold Dig Væk 4:17
Canada (feat. Lorenzo Woodrose) 9:05

http://hjortene.bandcamp.com/
https://soundcloud.com/hjortene
facebook.com/hjortene

Hjortene, Hjortene (2014)

I haven’t walked away from seeing Clamfight play in the last four years without thinking to myself how devastating a live act they’ve become, so their new live tape, Thank You Delaware, is a welcome arrival as documentation of that phenomenon. Released by Contaminated Tones Productions with the first 20 copies in a limited blue liner, the six-song set seems to have been recorded late in 2013 in a North Jersey club called Dingbatz. At very least, that’s where the pics in the j-card insert come from, and at the start of side two — actually the sides are divided into “Side Clam” and “Side Strips” — drummer/vocalist Andy Martin makes some mention of being in Jersey playing with Tarpit Boogie, so it seems like a safe assumption. The title is a gag as it winds up, since at the end of the set, Martin says, “It’s been real, Delaware,” when they’re most definitely in NJ. They can thank whatever state they want, I’m still going to be on board.

That bias level for the Maple Forum alums and my personal affection for these dudes — Martin, lead guitarist Sean McKee, guitarist Joel Harris, bassist Louis Koble — no doubt colors my opinion of Thank You Delaware, but I’ve found since the “tape revival” began that some of the stuff I enjoy most of all are releases just like this one; live, raw recordings that you can’t get anywhere else. It’s not a bootleg, because it’s on a legit label — Contaminated Tones specialize in varying forms of extremity — and endorsed by the band, but it’s of that ilk. The label on the tape is pasted on, there aren’t a lot of them around, and while it’s not a DAT-in-the-pocket audience recording from 1974, neither is it overly clean in such a way as to detract from the impact of the live feel. A solid balance, in other words. You get the brutality from “The Eagle” and you get a taste of McKee‘s soaring lead work in the jam around the title-track from 2013’s sophomore full-length, I vs. the Glacier, from which the bulk of the material on the tape comes.

“The Eagle” and “Sand Riders” as a one-two are more or less staples of Clamfight gigs, and they sit well together in that role. I’m glad to have a live recording of “Block Ship,” and “Ghosts I Have Known” was a favorite from their 2010 debut, Vol. 1, that doesn’t always get played, so cool to hear that put to tape as well. If you’ve ever gone to see a band and then heard one of their live albums, you know that sometimes they can come off completely different recorded. Vocals are off, there’s too much separation. You lose the feeling of watching them. With Thank You Delaware, the four-piece’s wall of noise and vicious stage domination is preserved. It’s a big, heavy-slamming sound, and it rounds out at its most raucous with “Stealing the Ghost Horse,” though the intro jam has since developed even further than how it sounds here to boast some of McKee‘s best lead work. The tape finishes with excerpts from an interview conducted by Contaminated Tones in 2010 that recounts, among other things, some vomit-related band shenanigans. Very Clamfight, to say the least.

If you’re not into tapes, fair enough. I’m not likely to change your mind about that. For those not immediately biased along format lines, Thank You Delaware successfully captures the thrashing heft that Clamfight bring to their live performance. Maybe it’s a fan-piece and I’m a fanboy, but that’s not about to diminish my enjoyment at all, and if you’ve dug into I vs. the Glacier, this makes a more than satisfying companion.

Clamfight, “Ghosts I Have Known” from Thank You Delaware (2014)

Clamfight on Thee Facebooks

Contaminated Tones Productions

Black Bombaim‘s two-track third album, Far Out, continues the Portuguese heavy jammers’ affinity for sonic exploration. Each song is a side and what you get on both is the next stage in the development of a dynamic that’s been growing since the band got their start. At the same time, it seems like Black Bombaim have begun to branch out from their self-contained cosmic meanderings, and I find it particularly intriguing that both their collaborations noted below, with La La La Ressonance and Rodrigo Amado and Luis Fernandes are jazz-related. Fascinating to think of Black Bombaim in that regard as well, and their will toward improvisation certainly bears it out. You never quite know where they’re headed next.

That may be true sound-wise, but more literally, where they’re headed next is out on tour in Europe. They’ll start a run this weekend in Spain this weekend and end up back in their native Barcelos at the end of June, presumably digging into some serious jams in between.

They sent this update along the PR wire:

Black Bombaim New Record(s), Europe Tour and more!

Here at the Black Bombaim HQ, we’ve been pretty busy in 2014!

We released two records: a collaboration with post-jazz ensemble La La La Ressonance simply called “Black Bombaim & La La La Ressonance” (BBLLLR) and our 3rd LP to date, “Far Out”, out now on Cardinal Fuzz and Lovers & Lollypops.

Permanent Records also reissued our 1st album, Saturdays and Space Travels in the US as a Record Store day 2014 exclusive.

You can find out more about BBLLLR here: www.bblllr.com

All of the record was captured live on a forest, and everything was filmed.

Our 3rd album “Far Out” is a 35 minute avalanche of fuzzed out guitars and otherwordly grooves.

We’ve collaborated with free jazz tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado and Luís Fernandes aka The Astroboy on the modular synthesizer.

Find everything about this record and more, on our brand new WEBSITE!

If this wasn’t enough, we’re also up for an European tour starting next week! Besides that, we’re also scheduled for a few festivals, including the famous Boom Festival, the brand new Reverence Festival and the psychedelic Mecca Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia.

Check the euro dates below:
25.5 – Zona C – Santiago de Compostela, Spain
26.5 – Le Bukowski – San Sebastian, Spain
28.5 – Le Gazoline – Rennes, France
29.5 – The Windmill Brixton – London, UK
30.5 – 13th Note – Glasgow, UK
31.5 – Mello Mello – Liverpool, UK
01.6 – The Roadhouse – Manchester, UK
04.6 – Glazart – Paris, France
05.6 – Cinema Cartoons – Antwerp, Belgium
06.6 – SunBakedSnowCave – Gent, Belgium
09.6 – Jägerklause – Berlin, Germany
10.6 – OstPol – Dresden, Germany
11.6 – Fluc – Vienna, Austria
12.6 – Hana-Bi – Marina di Ravenna, Italy
13.6 – Schießstand – Latsch (Bolzano), Italy
14.6 – Officina degli Angeli – Verona, Italy
21.6 – 261 Club – Genova, Italy
27.6 – Festival Fumo – Setúbal, Portugal
28.6 – Casazul – Barcelos, Portugal

http://www.blackbombaim.com/
http://www.bblllr.com
https://www.facebook.com/blackbombaim

Black Bombaim, Far Out (2014)