Detroit rock kingpins Small Stone Records — who are the subject of this month’s podcast in honor of their two-day label showcase in Philadelphia next weekend — issued an update this week via the PR wire giving everyone the skinny on the label’s recent doings. Behold the report in its informative entirety:

First off, the new album from Denver’s Black Sleep of Kali, Our Slow Decay is now available at a better record store near you. If you can’t find it, feel free to get it from us.

The long awaited new album from Cleveland’s Red Giant, titled Dysfunctional Majesty rolls out to stores on the 28th of this month, but you can get it a little early right here on the Small Stone Online Store.

On the recording front, the new albums from both Suplecs and Roadsaw are almost finished (they just need to get mixed and mastered), and will both get released sometime between January and March of 2011. Also, the boys in Ironweed are still plugging away on their follow-up to Indian Ladder. Lo-Pan are scheduled to hit Mad Oak to record their follow up to Sasquanaut, and we will also be reissuing a new version of the Sasquanaut album that will be completely remixed by Benny Grotto and remastered by Mr. Goosman. This Winter both Dixie Witch and Sun Gods in Exile are scheduled to hit Mad Oak to record new albums for us as well.

You asked for it, so we are going to give it to you… Sasquatch’s III will be coming out on vinyl very shortly via Small Stone… That’s right folks, we are going to finally take the plunge into the vinyl game. We are currently getting the art together, and having the album remastered for the pressing plant.

Finally, we hope to see many of you in Philly next week… We have two rather kickass night of rock music all laid out for you at the Philadelphia Film and Music Festival.

The word that usually gets tossed around for the kind of music Denver, Colorado’s Black Sleep of Kali play is “apocalyptic,” and true enough, the first lyrics that show up on their Small Stone Records debut, Our Slow Decay, are “there is nothing to make it all better.” The crunching riffage and progressive angularity of the opening track, “There is Nothing” sets the tone to follow, and though we can all throw back our heads and exclaim how tired we are of post-metal, Black Sleep of Kali inject enough melody into their songwriting, particularly in the vocals of guitarist Taylor Williams, who founded the band after moving to Denver from Salt Lake City, to come out of it without sounding overly redundant.

If the phrases you picked out of that last paragraph were “Salt Lake City” and “Small Stone Records,” then you’re probably thinking of the band Iota, and indeed there is a connection. Andy Patterson from Iota recorded Our Slow Decay (he also recorded Iota’s excellent Small Stone debut, Tales), and Iota’s Joey Toscano donates a guitar solo to the Black Sleep of Kali cause. Joining Williams in the band are drummer Gordon Koch, heavy of hit, fleet of foot and large of sound, guitarist/backing vocalist Patrick Alberts, thick of tone, and bassist Austin Michel, lost of mix. Or lost in mix, rather. The guitars of Williams and Alberts, run though Orange heads, are practically a low end in and of themselves. As the bassist said when mixing, “More bass, please.”

Unlike a lot of today’s Orange-hued recordings, each twist and turn in the playing of Williams and Alberts is audible in the guitar, which makes me wonder just how much Patterson or Mad Oak Studios’ Benny Grotto, who mixed, had to compress them to make that possible. Nonetheless, the material on Our Slow Decay doesn’t sound unnatural, or at least anymore than it should for being what it is musically. For those looking for a comparison point within the label’s roster, Obiat is closer than Iota, though Black Sleep of Kali forgo any of Obiat’s quirky tendencies to keep their songs straightforward in a post-metal kind of way, the aforementioned vocal melody showing up quick in the style of Torche on “There is Nothing” and continuing through the album, making that track as well as “Eulogy” and “Big Sky” among the highlights of Our Slow Decay, although admittedly, the latter is much helped as well by a guitar solo rested on top of insistent Mastodon-type riffing that is a welcome change of pace late in the set.

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