It has been a strange road to bring Beelzefuzz around to their second album. Based in Maryland and Pennsylvania, the band issued their self-titled debut (review here) in 2013 via The Church Within Records, and this summer, they’ll follow it up with Beelzefuzz II: The Righteous Bloom on the same label. Three years between records isn’t all that long, but in the interim, Beelzefuzz added a lead guitarist in Greg Diener (also Pale Divine), broke up, started a new band called Righteous Bloom with Bert Hall (Revelation) on bass, and then finally decided to scrap it and go back to being Beelzefuzz.

No shortage of drama between all this back and forth, but what it works out to is that Beelzefuzz — guitarist/vocalist Dana Ortt and drummer Darin McCloskey (also Pale Divine) in addition to Hall and Diener — are back with half a new lineup from the first album. Today they unveil the first audio from Beelzefuzz II: The Righteous Bloom in the opening track, “Nazzriff.”

Also announced this week as taking part in Psycho Las Vegas this August, and “Nazzriff” finds them with the sense of humor behind their moniker well intact (say the title out loud and then think Loud ‘n’ Proud) alongside their progressive take on doom and classic heavy rock. A chugging central riff — perhaps the titular nazzriff — weaves in and out with Ortt‘s vocals, the rolling groove residing over smooth, straightforward drumming given warmth and depth by Hall‘s bass. Diener makes his presence felt before two minutes in, a grand-style solo fitting with the epic thematic of the lyrics layering with both itself and with Ortt‘s guitar-as-organ rhythm line. That’s about as signature as Beelzefuzz get, and the tonality displayed throughout feels much closer to their live sound than did the first album — not to take anything away from that record whatsoever — so both represents them and bodes well for the rest of Beelzefuzz II: The Righteous Bloom when it arrives in August.

If you don’t know Beelzefuzz, they’re not quite like anyone else out there, and yes, I mean that. Please hear for yourself enjoy the premiere of “Nazzriff” on the player below, followed by some comment from Ortt on the impending album:

Dana Ortt on “Nazzriff”

“Nazzriff” is the first track on the upcoming album The Righteous Bloom which will be released in the US in August. Church Within Records will be following up with a Europe release sometime afterwards. Looking forward to doing some shows in support of the album and playing the new songs live!

I think “Nazzriff” shows off our more traditional “rockin” Uriah Heep and Nazareth influences musically. We wanted to have a lead off track that featured to most of the elements of what we do, “Nazzriff” fits that description to us. The lyrics were based on The Repairer of Reputations by Robert Chambers.

Beelzefuzz website

Beelzefuzz on Thee Facebooks

The Church Within Records

Psycho Las Vegas

Tags: Beelzefuzz, Beelzefuzz II The Righteous Bloom, Maryland doom, The Church Within Records

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 2nd, 2016 at 10:49 am and is filed under audiObelisk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.