They call it an EP, but the self-titled debut release from Rossville, Georgia, duo Alabama Church Fire tops 39 minutes, so it’s pretty much an album from where I sit. Let’s compromise on “demo.” That categorization may be up for debate, but what comes through much clearer is an rich affection for the tenets of Southern sludge. The seven-track affair makes an immediate show of its overarching tonal weight with “Smokevision,” a plodding riffer that sets guitarist/bassist/vocalist Chris Lamb and drummer/vocalist Jerry Wooldridge to work showing Stars ‘n’ Bars — turns out it’s both: history and racism! — and pot leaves in kind in an underproduced wash of stoner distortion.

What sets Alabama Church Fire‘s Alabama Church Fire apart, then? The creepy atmosphere that pervades. Recorded differently, I don’t know that there’d be much throughout the demo to distinguish the twosome from a lot of the post-Down II Southern riffers — certainly a cut like “Definifiniliate” draws on that influence — but as it stands, the muddiness in Lamb and Wooldridge‘s presentation gives the whole release a sense of malevolence even apart from its heaviness, so that the standalone guitar on “Trainsong” that Woodridge meets with far-back plod issues an indirect threat before it fades out about two-thirds of the way through the track, giving way to mournful and metallic guitar and bass contemplations upon return.

Covers of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and Creedence Clearwater Revival close out, the former becoming a minimalist acoustic ballad and the latter slowing down and beefing up an already dark arrangement and  stretching past nine and a half minutes as the longest track Alabama Church Fire have on offer. The multiple vocal layers — not sure if it’s Lamb and Wooldridge or just one of them recorded twice — bode well for future experiments the outfit might try, as does the meld of acoustic and hairy, distorted guitars, and if they can keep the buried-alive ambience they elicit here while continuing to develop these ideas, it’s easy to see them growing into something vicious down the line.

For now, the demo has its ups and downs, but gives some notion of where Alabama Church Fire might be headed. Check out the clip below for “Smokevision” to get a feel:

Alabama Church Fire, “Smokevision” Video

Alabama Church Fire on Thee Facebooks

Alabama Church Fire at ReverbNation

Contrary to the plodding dreary doom their name might imply, Portland, Oregon’s Crag Dweller get down — and I do mean get down — with classic proto-heavy shuffle and spontaneous blues shred on their late-2012 debut full-length, Magic Dust, resulting in a collection that might draw one to conclusions about which magic dust they were talking about were it not all so soaked in booze. The trio of guitarist/vocalist Richard Vivarelli, bassist/vocalist Clifton Martin and drummer Travis Clow boogie hard enough on the first couple tracks that it seems like the wheels are about to come off, but their stomp has only just begun its full reveal.

Their songs are familiar as much as they’re endearing, but they’re more the latter, and Crag Dweller — one might recognize the cover art style of Adam Burke from his work with Ice Dragon and his own band, fellow Portlanders Fellwoods — do right to allow their audience little time to stop and think. The opening “Chrononaut” on Magic Dust and “So Far, So Good, So What…” both get underway in hurry-we-gotta-go-this-way-right-now fashion, barely stopping to show off how catchy they actually are before rushing through to the next part, the next groove, the next swaggering lead. Martin‘s bass tone, well, it’s just right. He opens “Chrononaut” at a creep and “The Gate” with immediate swing, and there as well as running alongside the piano on “Gotta Have It” and the organ (if not, that’s a nifty guitar effect) that shows up in the unspeakable groove toward the end of “Chrononaut,” his presence oppositeVivarelli’s guitar bolsters the songs more than just saying so implies.

Ditto that for Clow as well, since if all three members weren’t on board, the energy in “Gotta Have It” or the brashness of “True Believer” would fall flat, which they most certainly don’t. The good news? Crag Dweller recorded Magic Dust live. The bad news? Nothing I can think of except for the fact that they’re on the other side of the country. There’s no letup in the pocket groove of “Madness” or the start-stop funk at the heart of closer “Motel Burnout,” and as much as I love a CD issue, Magic Dust seems like it’s just itching for someone to pick it up as a vinyl release. After digging this and the 2012 demo that preceded it with some of the same tracks, I’m inclined to hope for the band’s sake that it happens soon.

If you’re in California this coming weekend, Crag Dweller have shows in Chico, Eureka and San Francisco, and they’re back in Portland for a gig April 5. More details are that their Bandcamp page, from whence I also swiped this player:

And they say there’s nothing to be gained from spending your days dicking around on the internet. Wait, do they even still say that? Okay, I don’t know what anyone says about anything, but I know toadlicking tripped out doom when I hear it, and Swedish trio Salem’s Pot certain-fucking-ly provide that on their new tape, Watch Me Kill You. The name and the lack of lineup info, and even some of the stonerly swing later into the song itself might bring on an Uncle Acid comparison, but Salem’s Pot seem to be on a thicker vibe tonally, less classic horror atmosphere and more traditional doom lumber cut through by echoing space-minded vocals. Right on.

Seems I missed out on buying the tape, which couples “Watch Me Kill You” with the Wicked Lady cover “Run the Night” and was released last month by Ljudkassett in suitably limited fashion, but even with a decidedly-less-cult digital listen, it’s hard to fuck with the riffy psychosis of the 16:25 title-track, which plods its way through a tortured riff and morose vocals on a seemingly never-ending spiral into the purple-hued abyss. Smooth low-end rumble and crashes hold the movement together when the face starts to melt on the guitar, and after slogging through about 10 solid minutes of downer alchemy, Salem’s Pot kick into a faster stoner groove that’s as much Goatsnake as what came prior was Reverend Bizarre at their most ethereal. Listening back, you can hear the amps farting out the distortion. Once again, right on.

It’s almost impossible to come out of Salem’s Pot with a clean conscience. Their take on Wicked Lady‘s “Run the Night” follows the effects wash deconstruction that caps “Watch Me Kill You” and shows the same kind of affinity for slow-it-down-and-blast-it-out that Wicked Lady themselves once showed for flapper hotties. Of course the song works at the slower pace — its stomp is well suited to Salem’s Pot‘s thick, lower-budget Electric Wizardry, miserable and psych in like measure. Salem’s Pot don’t really sound like them either, but it’s a convenient stopping point for a comparison since the higher-than-thou ethic seems pervasive here as well. Sweden’s answer to Ice Dragon, maybe? Maybe.

Either way, one thing is sure, and that’s that next time around, I don’t plan on missing the tape. Watch Me Kill You is done just this side of 24 minutes, but it’s an easy 24 minutes to get stoked on if you’re down with modern doom that has its eye on candlelit miseries. Could easily see these guys under the banner of someone like Rise Above in the future.

Salem’s Pot on Thee Facebooks

Salem’s Pot on Bandcamp

Their sound is an tonic of classic rocking stomp, presented with the inimitable arrogance of punker youth, so when it came to my first listen of Grel‘s self-released debut EP, Red Sun God, my only real question was, “What’s the reptilian conspiracy?”

I ask because when Grel, who went by the moniker Deadweight at the time, sent along their first outing in the mail, it came with a note scribbled in permanent marker about said conspiracy, written on — what else? — a page torn out of a porno mag. Well, the most cursory of interwebular investigations has turned up the “information” about how many major world leaders are reptiles bent on enslaving humanity. This explains a lot. Not necessarily about the EP, but you know, in general. Wars and such. Low corporate taxes. The list goes on.

More importantly, the songs. Ah, the songs. Grel hail from Lawton, Oklahoma, and bask in Stooges brashness filtered through heavy looseness. One hears neo-psych commonality with Baltimore’s The Flying Eyes on “Silver Buckle,” but with the razor riffing of “Astro Cannibalism” — presumably that’s a different conspiracy — the sound is fuller, more barroom metal that’s already several beverages ahead of the evening. I dig the dichotomy, even if it means the recording (a self-done job) sounds inconsistent, a far cry by the end of “Astro Cannibalism” from the organ-inclusive ’70s vibing of opener “Lady,” on which the five-piece sound a completely different kind of unhinged.

Closer “Gannymead” follows suit sonically with “Astro Cannibalism,” with a return of the organ as well perhaps to tie the final moments together with the earlier material. Still obviously getting their style hammered out (emphasis on “hammered”), Grel carry the Hendrix fuzz of “Cosmic Lunch” across with fitting whatever-itude, and since I don’t think they’re ever as completely out of control of what they’re doing as they sound — for evidence, I’d cite the underlying build of the moody “Silver Buckle,” which reminds a bit of Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor before its payoff hits — their approach is all the more impressive.

But it’s the dirt that makes it that way. Clean up “Stone Frog” or pull out the feedback and I don’t think it would land with the same insistence in its march, so when it comes to Grel‘s debut full-length, which is reportedly in process, my only hope is that the reptiles don’t steal the cone-shaking soul out of these tones. If nothing else, the fivesome were right to change the name. Deadweight sounds like a nu-metal act on a pay-to-play opening slot. Grel is crazy enough that I don’t know what to expect, and going by Red Sun God, that’s just where they want their listeners to be.

Grel on Thee Facebooks

Grel on Bandcamp

It’s not a great name. I think even Kris Clayton — the multi-instrumentalist and driving force behind the UK-based solo-project Camel of Doom — would have to admit that, as band monikers go, it’s far from tops. Hey, he started the band when he was 13. Put to that scale, I don’t think I could’ve been asked to do better, then or probably now, so if you’re spending time wondering what it is about the camel exactly that makes it so doomed, or if the camel is bringing doom or it’s just doom’s camel, you’re only going to be wondering until Clayton‘s latest full-length, 2012’s Psychodramas: Breaking the Knots of Twisted Synapse, knocks you on your ass with the progressive, psychedelic — and yes, doomed — soundscape it creates.

Clayton, a former live guitarist for experimental dirgers Esoteric, performed all the instruments on Psychodramas and handled much of the recording himself (vocals were captured by Esoteric‘s Greg Chandler), but the self-released, hour-long full-length wants nothing for texture, and is rich in its wash of heavy guitars and crushingly dense rhythms. Owing influence to the likes of Godflesh and the trailblazing cosmic doom of Ufomammut and YOB, extended tracks like “The Anger of Anguish” (13:21), “From the Sixth Tower” (11:47) and the massive apex of the penultimate “Machine of Annihilation” (21:09) hone in on a massive feel like space gone slow, Clayton‘s shouts echoing in from deep reaches while shorter set-pieces like the intro “To Purify the Air,” “In This Arid Wilderness” and the outro “So it is Done” add to the ambience.

Apart from “Machine of Annihilation,” the scope of which matches its runtime, the biggest surprise probably comes in “Self Hypnosis I: The Manual,” which ups the speed and the churn to elicit a more natural-sounding Godfleshy kind of inhumanity, steeped in some of the commonalities that band had with ’90s metal before slamming on the brakes as “Self Hypnosis II: The 18th Key” takes hold with a monstrously lumbering sensibility that moves from slow, to slower, to deconstructed noise, a sample paving the way into the aforementioned “Machine of Annihilation,” which opens sweet and contemplative in the tradition of some of YOB‘s epics — looking at you, “Catharsis” — before bridging the gap between Neurosis‘ riffy churn and an unending echo of psychedelic swirling.

The first time I listened to it, I was pretty startled, but don’t let the name fool you, Clayton has something to offer with Camel of Doom, and though the band’s bio is murky — there used to be other members and Clayton has revisited older demos in newer singles, and there was a prior full-length in 2004 called The Desert at Night — if you’re going to start an exploration, Psychodramas is the place to do it. Certainly the album has enough heft and enough space to keep you busy for probably longer than it will take Clayton to come up with another one, though hopefully that’s not nine years from now.

Check out Camel of Doom on Thee Facebooks or on their Bandcamp, from which I snagged the player below:

A young, organ-heavy four-piece out of Potsdam, Germany, Stonehenge make their debut with Bunch of Bisons, a mostly instrumental collection showing influence culled from classic rock jams and modern heavy psych. The four-piece, comprised of guitarist/vocalist Enrico Semler, bassist Michael Paukner, drummer Ole Fischer and organist Johannes Walenta, lock into some righteous if mostly familiar grooves, but what really stands them out is Walenta‘s organ work, the natural production of the album’s seven component tracks and the band’s occasional touches of flourish, such as the handclaps and vocals on opener “Arctic Brother.”

The requisite Deep Purple influence mostly shows up in the straightforward guitar-and-organ riffing of “Sun on the Asphalt,” on which Semler (also of the Potsdam sax-infused foursome Minerva), far back in the mix, seems tempted to start in with a verse but thinks twice and just tosses out a couple Cactus-style lines here and there for bluesy affect. Can’t say I blame him, since the instrumental portion of “Sun on the Asphalt” delivers enough of a hook and the songs themselves — not a one of them comes in under seven minutes — are jammy enough that when there isn’t singing, it doesn’t seem to be lacking. A series of “Hey!” gang shouts on “Concrete Krieger” is enough to get the point of a chorus across.

Tonally, they hint at heavy psychedelia, as on the opening of closer “Delay,” but even when Semler‘s guitar seems at rest and Paukner‘s bass is at its richest, Stonehenge — contrary to their moniker, which has earned its reputation by essentially sitting still over a great stretch of time — never come to a halt, switching from one groove to the next to the next, switching up who’s playing what and, in Semler‘s case, belting out soulful vocals way off-mic so as to barely be heard in the riff-rocking rush. That makes Bunch of Bisons a more energetic listen than one might think for something with extended tracks, and as “Delay” moves in its second half to a slower, building progression, one can only wonder how Stonehenge might approach a follow-up to Bunch of Bisons and if their next outing won’t find them a more patient band.

Not that they need to be — they hardly sound winded at the finish of their debut — just that their instrumental dynamic seems to be in its beginnings and could lead to any number of interesting evolutionary paths, particularly as Semler develops his vocals and Stonehenge continue to toy with the balance between the guitar and Walenta‘s organ, which adds melodic depth to these arrangements and is a clear focal point of their sound at this stage. Could be some fascinating things to come.

Stonehenge have made Bunch of Bisons available for streaming, and you can listen on the player below courtesy of their Bandcamp:

If my details are foggy, you’ll have to forgive me as I’ve only known this band existed for a couple hours. Zun is a new trio from the Californian desert that features Sera Timms (Black Math Horseman/Ides of Gemini/Black Mare) on vocals, Gary Arce (Yawning Man, etc.) on guitar and bass, and Bill Stinson (Yawning Man) on drums. Not to be confused with the Zune, which was Microsoft’s mismarketed attempt at competing with the iPod, Zun have just released the first audio from the collaboration, the sweetly toned and dreamy “Come through the Water.”

The track was recorded by Harper Hug at Thunder Underground, and if the statement put out through Yawning Man‘s Thee Facebooks page — which also updates on some new stuff from that band, including a split with fellow desert types Fatso Jetson — is anything to go by, it’s the first of several installments to come:

Behold, we have GREAT news! Songs from an upcoming 7″ split with FATSO JETSON and ZUN are hot off the mixing board, and will be available soon! ZUN is Gary Arce’s latest endeavor, and it features the revered Sera Beth Timms (Black Math Horseman), whose intense and haunting vocals meld alongside Gary’s signature guitar and lapsteel tones- and bass lines. The one and only thunderous Bill Stinson is on Drums.

Thanks to Harper Hug who engineered this project, which was recorded at Thunder Underground (http://thunder-underground.com/). Artwork by Christina Bishop.

AND if that isn’t exciting enough, get ready for ANOTHER killer release to come…another split EP with songs from your favorite Desert Rock Godfathers Fatso Jetson AND Yawning Man! More news about that to come. For now, stay tuned to hear sounds from ZUN. We will be sharing that within the next few days. Cheers, and thanks for your continued support!

Being a dork for Arce‘s inimitable guitar tone, it means something when I say that in Timms, Arce has a suitable complement. To wit, on “Come through the Water,” how both vocals and guitar are enhanced as they rise together just before the two-minute mark. The track, as does much of Arce‘s work, has a predilection toward wandering, echoing, and sliding into a wash of heavy psychedelic melody, but Timms also grounds the song with verse lines as Stinson provides the direction on the drums. I was not yet through the full five and a half minutes of the song before I decided I liked it a lot.

I’d love to hear and hope to hear how Zun might develop these ideas and change things up over the course of a full-length, but that’s probably a long ways off. Until then, the desert expanse portrayed in “Come through the Water” offers plenty to dig into, as you can hear on the stream below, hoisted from Soundcloud:

Take note: Spanish outfit Mind! have just released their first album, Stunde Null, on LP/CDR through their own Not on Label Records in cooperation with several others (Odio Sonoro among them). Pressed in an edition of 500 copies, the record finds Viaje a 800 guitarist Alberto “Poti” Mota heading the Algeciras-based four-piece on guitar/vocals/keys/theremin, joined by Matt (guitar/vocals/keys), Pow (bass/vocals) and Serg (drums), and while his distinct voice and tone are bound to result in comparisons between Mind! and Viaje a 800, who released their long-awaited third album, Coñac Oxigenado (review here), in 2012, the new outfit has a definite personality of its own, given to blending elements of space and psychedelia without the same kind of moodiness Mota presented last year. True to its artwork, Stunde Null is a much brighter affair.

And to put a point on it, gorgeous. It’s not lush in the kitchen-sink sense, but a song like “Cosmic Tide” still has plenty of patience and cautious flowing to it, while elsewhere, Stunde Null plays driving Hawkwindian rhythms off Pink Floyd stoicism and electro-acoustic blend. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a good portion of the release is instrumental, but whether it’s the minimalist “Magallanes” interlude that follows the grand swirling payoff of “Cucumbers from Mars” or the early krautrocking Eastern scales of “Time to Fly,” which later settles into the most distinctly Floyd-esque progression of the album, Mind! satisfy the urge both for immersion in a psychedelic listening experience and for dynamic arrangements and songwriting. At its core, Stunde Null marks a richly impressive debut for the outfit, strikingly mature and exploratory. Listening back to the unfolding groove of opener “Sundrun Hreyfingarlaus,” my only hope is that Mind! puts out records more often than does Viaje a 800.

Indeed, that may well be part of Mota‘s impetus for getting the new project off the ground (and into the stratosphere), but time will tell. The aesthetic is different enough between the two bands to make me think that’s not the whole story, but certainly fans of Viaje a 800 will be pleased here, as should followers of jam-ready Euro space rock. Mind!‘s Stunde Null is a welcome surprise.

The band are on Thee Facebooks here. Check out Stunde Null on the player below, courtesy of the Mind! Bandcamp: