Posted in Whathaveyou on March 13th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Set for May 18, the inaugural Ripplefest Boston is announced as a new joint effort between Ripple Music and Grayskull Booking, and the lineup is quality front to back. King Buffalo will headline at the Middle East Downstairs — which, in a victory for Beantown weirdos of all stripes, has apparently not yet been turned into condos doubling as luxury dorms — and they’ll come from Rochester, New York, to do so, but lest you worry about homegrown representation, between Blood Lightning, Mother Iron Horse, Kind and Cortez, they’ve got it covered. Curse the Son (new album when?) will head north on I-95 from their home in Connecticut to lead off what I have no doubt will be a rager to remember and hopefully the beginning of a new annual tradition.
Ripplefest of course has long since joined the city-as-franchise model of heavyfest curation. Ripplefest Texas in September has a multi-day assemblage that’s among the finer lineups I’ve ever seen in the US, but they’ve also been doing it for a few years now, so give Boston time to get sorted and see what the response is to this initial edition before scaling up your expectations. In other words, worry about 2026 when we get there. For now just be stoked a thing is happening and don’t forget to actually show up so that it can happen again. I’m still not sure why nobody’s set up one of these in Parsippany, New Jersey, but I guess that’s just me.
The announcement was short and sweet and came from social media:
How much goodness can you take? Been keeping this under wraps, but now the kids gloves have come off. Get ready for RippleFest Boston!
Here’s where we tear it up Ripple Music-style with King Buffalo Blood Lightning Mother Iron Horse KIND Cortez & Curse the Son! Tickets on sale this Friday at 10 AM:
Posted in Reviews on November 28th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Day two and no looking back. Yesterday was Monday and it was pretty tripped out. There’s some psych stuff here too, but we start out by digging deep into metal-rooted doom and it doesn’t get any less dudely through the first three records, let’s put it that way. But there’s more here than one style, microgengre, or gender expression can contain, and I invite you as you make your way through to approach not from a place of redundant chestbeating, but of celebrating a moment captured. In the cases of some of these releases, it’s a pretty special moment we’re talking about.
Places to go, things to hear. We march.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
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Primordial, How it Ends
Excuse me, ma’am. Do you have 66 minutes to talk about the end of the world? No? Nobody does? Well that’s kind of sad.
At 28 years’ remove from their first record, 1995’s Imrama, and now on their 10th full-length, Dublin’s Primordial are duly mournful across the 10 songs of How it Ends, which boasts the staring-at-a-bloodied-hillside-full-of-bodies after-battle mourning and oppression-defying lyricism and a style rooted in black metal and grown beyond it informed by Irish folk progressions but open enough to make a highlight of the build in “Death Holy Death” here. A more aggressive lean shows itself in “All Against All” just prior while “Pilgrimage to the World’s End” is brought to a wash of an apex with a high reach from vocalist Alan “A.A. Nemtheanga” Averill, who should be counted among metal’s all-time frontmen, ahead of the tension chugging in the beginning of “Nothing New Under the Sun.” And you know, for the most part, there isn’t. Most of what Primordial do on How it Ends, they’ve done before, and their central innovation in bridging extreme metal with folk traditionalism, is long behind them. How it Ends seems to dwell in some parts and be roiling in its immediacy elsewhere, and its grandiosities inherently will put some off just as they will bring some on, but Primordial continue to find clever ways to develop around their core approach, and How it Ends — if it is the end or it isn’t, for them or the world — harnesses that while also serving as a reminder of how much they own their sound.
With a partner in drummer Johnny Kelly (Type O Negative, Danzig, etc.), guitarist/songwriter Dan Lorenzo (Hades, Vessel of Light, Cassius King, etc.) has found an outlet open to various ideas within the sphere of doom metal/rock in Patriarchs in Black, whose second LP, My Veneration, brings a cohort of guests on vocals and bass alongside the band’s core duo. Some, like Karl Agell (C.O.C. Blind) and bassist Dave Neabore (Dog Eat Dog), are returning parties from the project’s 2022 debut, Reach for the Scars, while Unida vocalist Mark Sunshine makes a highlight of “Show Them Your Power” early on. Sunshine appears on “Veneration” as well alongside DMC from Run DMC, which, if you’re going to do a rap-rock crossover, it probably makes sense to get a guy who was there the first time it happened. Elsewhere, “Non Defectum” toys with layering with Kelly Abe of Sicks Deep adding screams, and Paul Stanley impersonator Bob Jensen steps in for the KISS cover “I Stole Your Love” and the originals “Dead and Gone” and “Hallowed Be Her Name” so indeed, no shortage of variety. Tying it together? The riffs, of course. Lorenzo has shown an as-yet inexhaustible supply thereof. Here, they seem to power multiple bands all on one album.
Just because it wasn’t a surprise doesn’t mean it’s not one of the best debut albums of 2023. Bringing together known parties from Boston’s heavy underground Jim Healey (We’re All Gonna Die, etc.), Doug Sherman (Gozu), Bob Maloney (Worshipper) and J.R. Roach (Sam Black Church), Blood Lightning want nothing for pedigree, and their Ripple-issued self-titled debut meets high expectations with vigor and thrash-born purpose. Sherman‘s style of riffing and Healey‘s soulful, belted-out vocals are both identifiable factors in cuts like “The Dying Starts” and the charging “Face Eater,” which works to find a bridge between heavy rock and classic, soaring metal. Their cover of Black Sabbath‘s “Disturbing the Priest,” included here as the last of the six songs on the 27-minute album, I seem to recall being at least part of the impetus for the band, but frankly, however they got there, I’m glad the project has been preserved. I don’t know if they will or won’t do anything else, but there’s potential in their metal/rock blend, which positions itself as oldschool but is more forward thinking than either genre can be on its own.
Based in Oakland and making their debut with the significant endorsement of Small Stone Records and Kozmik Artifactz behind them, atmospheric post-heavy rock five-piece Haurun tap into ethereal ambience and weighted fuzz in such a way as to raise memories of the time Black Math Horseman got picked up by Tee Pee. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. With notions of Acid King in the nodding, undulating riffs of “Abyss” and the later reaches of “Lost and Found,” but two guitars are a distinguishing factor, and Haurun come across as primarily concerned with mood, although the post-grunge ’90s alt hooks of “Flying Low” and “Lunar” ahead of 11-minute closer “Soil,” which uses its longform breadth to cast as vivid a soundscape as possible. Fast, slow, minimalist or at a full wash of noise, Haurun‘s Wilting Within has its foundation in heavy rock groove and riffy repetition, but does something with that that goes beyond microniche confines. Very much looking forward to more from this band.
Its point of view long established by the time they get around to the filthy lurch of “Hesher” — track three of seven — Cabin Fever is the first full-length from cultish doomers Wicked Trip. The Tennessee outfit revel in Electric Wizard-style fuckall on “Cabin Fever” after the warning in the spoken “Intro,” and the 11-minute sample-topped “Night of Pan” is a psych-doom jam that’s hypnotic right unto its keyboard-drone finish giving over to the sampled smooth sounds of the ’70s at the start of “Black Valentine,” which feels all the more dirt-coated when it actually kicks in, though “Evils of the Night” is no less threatening of purpose in its garage-doom swing, crash-out and cacophonous payoff, and I’m pretty sure if you played “No Longer Human” at double the speed, well, it might be human again. All of these grim, bleak, scorching, nodding, gnashing pieces come together to craft Cabin Fever as one consuming, lo-fi entirety, raw both because the recording sounds harsh and because the band itself eschew any frills not in service to their disillusioned atmosphere.
There’s an awful lot of sex going on in Splinter‘s Role Models, as the Amsterdam glam-minded heavy rockers follow their 2021 debut, Filthy Pleasures (review here), with cuts like “Soviet Schoolgirl,” “Bottom,” “Opposite Sex” and the poppy post-punk “Velvet Scam” early on. It’s not all sleaze — though even “The Carpet Makes Me Sad” is trying to get you in bed — and the piano and boozy harmonies of “Computer Screen” are a fun departure ahead of the also-acoustic finish in closer “It Should Have Been Over,” while “Every Circus Needs a Clown” feels hell-bent on remaking Queen‘s “Stone Cold Crazy” and “Medicine Man” and “Forbidden Kicks” find a place where garage rock meets heavier riffing, while “Children” gets its complaints registered efficiently in just over two boogie-push minutes. A touch of Sabbath here, some Queens of the Stone Age chic disco there, and Splinter are happy to find a place for themselves adjacent to both without aping either. One would not accuse them of subtlety as regards theme, but there’s something to be said for saying what you want up front.
Beginning with its longest component track (immediate points) in “Asteroid,” Terra Black‘s All Descend is a downward-directed slab of doomed nod, so doubled-down on its own slog that “Black Flames of Funeral Fire” doesn’t even start its first verse until the song is more than half over. Languid tempos play up the largesse of “Ashes and Dust,” and “Divinest Sin” borders on Eurometal, but if you need to know what’s in Terra Black‘s heart, look no further than the guitar, bass, drum and vocal lumber — all-lumber — of “Spawn of Lyssa” and find that it’s doom pumping blood around the band’s collective body. While avoiding sounding like Electric Wizard, the Gothenburg, Sweden, unit crawl through that penultimate duet track with all ready despondency, and resolve “Slumber Grove” with agonized final lub-dub heartbeats of kick drum and guitar drawl after a vivid and especially doomed wash drops out to vocals before rearing back and plodding forward once more, doomed, gorgeous, immersive, and so, so heavy. They’re not finished growing yet — nor should they be on this first album — but they’re on the path.
Sometimes the name of a thing can tell you about the thing. So enters Musing, a contemplative solo outfit from Devin “Darty” Purdy, also known for his work in Calgary-based bands Gone Cosmic and Chron Goblin, with the eight-song/42-minute Somewhen and a flowing instrumental narrative that borders on heavy post-rock and psychedelia, but is clearheaded ultimately in its course and not slapdash enough to be purely experimental. That is, though intended to be instrumental works outside the norm of his songcraft, tracks like “Flight to Forever” and the delightfully bassy “Frontal Robotomy” are songs, have been carved out of inspired and improvised parts to be what they are. “Hurry Wait” revamps post-metal standalone guitar to be the basis of a fuzzy exploration, while “Reality Merchants” hones a sense of space that will be welcome in ears that embrace the likes of Yawning Sons or Big Scenic Nowhere. Somewhen has a story behind it — there’s narrative; blessings and peace upon it — but the actual music is open enough to translate to any number of personal interpretations. A ‘see where it takes you’ attitude is called for, then. Maybe on Purdy‘s part as well.
A heavy and Sabbathian rock forms the underlying foundation of Spiral Shades‘ sound, and the returning two-piece of vocalist Khushal R. Bhadra and guitarist/bassist/drummer Filip Petersen have obviously spent the nine years since 2014’s debut, Hypnosis Sessions (review here), enrolled in post-doctoral Iommic studies. Revival, after so long, is not unwelcome in the least. Doom happens in its own time, and with seven songs and 38 minutes of new material, plus bonus tracks, they make up for lost time with classic groove and tone loyal to the blueprint once put forth while reserving a place for itself in itself. That is, there’s more to Spiral Shades and to Revival than Sabbath worship, even if that’s a lot of the point. I won’t take away from the metal-leaning chug of “Witchy Eyes” near the end of the album, but “Foggy Mist” reminds of The Obsessed‘s particular crunch and “Chapter Zero” rolls like Spirit Caravan, find a foothold between rock and doom, and it turns out riffs are welcome on both sides.
The closing “Sex on a Grave” reminds of the slurring bluesy lasciviousness of Nick Cave‘s Grinderman, and that should in part be taken as a compliment to the setup through “Black Cat” — which toys with 12-bar structure and is somewhere between urbane cool and cabaret nerdery — and the centerpiece “Bad Day,” which follows a classic downer chord progression through its apex with the rawness of Backwoods Payback at their most emotive and a greater melodic reach only after swaying through its willful bummer of an intro. Last-minute psych flourish in the guitar threatens to make “Bad Day” a party, but the Louisville outfit find their way around to their own kind of fun, which since the release is only three songs long just happens to be “Sex on a Grave.” Fair enough. Rife with attitude and an emergent dynamic that’s complementary to the persona of the vocals rather than trying to keep up with them, the counterintuitively-titled second short release (yes, I know the cover is a Zeppelin reference; settle down) from Bandshee lays out an individual approach to heavy songwriting and a swing that goes back further in time than most.
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 31st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Following up on a video for the track “Blankets” that was unveiled in June with the first word of Blood Lightning‘s self-titled debut, Ripple Music has confirmed an Oct. 20 release for that album. The metal-leaning heavy project from members of — yes I’m doing the list; it’s a fun list — Gozu, We’re all Gonna Die, Sam Black Church and Worshipper (among others) got their start as a live one-off and, whoops, I guess somebody started writing songs. Then recording them. They’ve been trickling out singles since late 2021 with “The Dying Starts,” and that track will open the album, so that’s two out of five originals already public. A not-insubstantial sampling for a record that’s still the better part of three months out. And yeah, I’d be up for hearing them take on Black Sabbath‘s “Disturbing the Priest.” Of course.
Blood Lightning join a busy Fall for Ripple. In addition to the new LP from Blood Lightning‘s fellow Bostonians Kind out Aug. 11, recent announcements have been made for albums from Moon Coven (Aug. 25), Fire Down Below (Sept. 8), Dead Feathers (Sept. 22), La Chinga (Oct. 6) and Appalooza, who share Blood Lightning‘s release date of Oct. 20. It’s to the label’s credit that none of these releases steps too hard on the toes of the others sound-wise, and if you don’t think we’re living in a guilded age for heavy music, well, think about a leading label putting out stuff basically every other week from now until mid-Fall with more maybe to come before the end of the year, and then get back to me.
The PR wire has it like this:
Boston heavy metal supergroup BLOOD LIGHTNING to release debut album on Ripple Music this fall; watch new video “Blankets” now!
Boston-based heavy metal supergroup BLOOD LIGHTNING (with members of GOZU, Sam Black Church, Worshipper, We’re All Gonna Die) team up with US powerhouse Ripple Music for the release of their self-titled debut this October 13th. Watch their brand new video for “Blankets” now!
Watch Blood Lightning’s fire it up on new “Blankets” video Single available now on all digital streaming services
Formed in December 2020, Blood Lightning brings together the talents of vocalist Jim Healey (We’re All Gonna Die), guitarist Doug Sherman (GOZU), bassist Bob Maloney (Worshipper) and drummer J.R. Roach (Sam Black Church). What began as a 2019 Halloween show playing the entire Black Sabbath “Born Again” album just for fun has culminated in the release of original material by four veterans of the Boston metal/hardcore community.
Blood Lightning was formed with one thing in mind: get back to the real essence of heavy metal. No pretense. No subgenres to fit into. Only badass, straightforward, hard-hitting heavy metal with a nod to old school NWOBHM with contemporary firepower. They teamed up with award-winning producer and engineer Benny Grotto (Rolling Stones, Aerosmith), and mastering legend Alan Douches (Motörhead, Mastodon, High On Fire) to record five original songs and one Black Sabbath cover over the course of 2021 and 2022.
They were also honored to be nominated in 2021 and 2022 for Metal Artist of the Year by the Boston Music Awards. The band recently signed with acclaimed Stoner/Doom/Metal label, Ripple Music, and is excited to take the next step in that partnership to bring some new music to the masses.
BLOOD LIGHTNING “Blood Lightning” Out October 20th on Ripple Music
TRACKLIST: 1. The Dying Starts 2. Hitting The Wall 3. Bananaconda 4. Face Eater 5. Blankets 6. Disturbing The Priest
BLOOD LIGHTNING is Jim Healey – Vocals Doug Sherman – Guitars Bob Maloney – Bass J.R. Roach – Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 6th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
As tempting as it might be to liken Blood Lightning to fellow Bostonian unit Kind in terms of being a band comprised of dudes from other bands — in Blood Lightning‘s case, that’s Gozu, Black Thai, We’re all Gonna Die, Sam Black Church and Worshipper — but that and having standalone frontmen able to belt out hooks with the best of ’em is about where the similarities end. Blood Lightning signed to Ripple Music early last month and the intention toward a self-titled debut full-length was announced with that, and with their new video for “Blankets,” they offer the first audio to come from the album. Unsurprisingly, it’s a banger.
The band cast themselves as metal, and maybe they are, but “Blankets” isn’t hyper-aggressive in its groove or melody, but you can hear everyone pushing. Not struggling to keep up with the song, because it’s not like they’re trying to thrash or anything, but pushing themselves to hit harder, play and sing with impact in mind, and while they’re still led by riffs and they’re still produced by Benny Grotto at Mad Oak — the only one of their other bands I’m not sure he’s recorded before is Sam Black Church, and maybe Worshipper now that I think of it? — there’s a twist in the intention that comes through in “Blankets,” which was also released audio-only as a single last summer.
Now it comes accompanied by a video recorded this past Spring in Cambridge that you can see at the bottom of this post. I haven’t seen a solid release date for Blood Lightning‘s Blood Lightning yet, but Ripple‘s Todd Severin had some comment on the video from social media, and if he’s stoked on it, that’s usually a good sign, even if he is the guy running the label:
The video for Blood Lightning’s “Blankets” was shot live at ZuZu in Cambridge MA on April 19th, 2023 by Frank Pino and Shawn Reilly of Doghouse East.
The song is the first release from our debut record on Ripple Music.
We are excited to share this tune and video and can’t wait for you to hear the rest of the album! (Due in October 2023)
Come catch Blood Lightning live at the Middle East Upstairs in Cambridge MA on Friday June 23, 2023 with Catching Hell and Scissorfight.
We are incredibly excited to be part of the Ripple Music family and are stoked to share this video with you!
Says Ripple Music’s Todd Severin: Damn, am I excited about this project. Blood Lightning, a Boston supergroup featuring members of Gozu, Worshipper, Sam Black Church, Black Thai, and others. They’ve already been nominated for several Boston Music awards, and here’s why. Proud to present to you the new video for Blankets, a song off their forthcoming Ripple Music debut.
BLOOD LIGHTNING are: Jim Healey – Vocals Doug Sherman – Guitars Bob Maloney – Bass J.R. Roach – Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 3rd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Cheers to Blood Lightning and Ripple Music on joining forces for the greater good of heavy rock and roll. The Boston-based pretty-gosh-darn-super-group came about in 2020 and thus far have posted two singles in “The Dying Starts” (posted here) and “Blankets” (posted here), and they’ll release their helmed-by-Benny–Grotto (who’s also pretty super) self-titled debut this October.
So who’s in the band? Check out Jim Healey and Doug Sherman, respectively known for their work in We’re All Gonna Die (also Black Thai, Set Fire, Shatner, solo, etc.) and Gozu (whose new record stands among 2023’s best and is out this month) collaborating. That’s a marquee match up from Boston in itself, but neither drummer J.R. Roach (Sam Black Church) nor bassist Bob Maloney (Worshipper) have anything to prove in my mind. It’s a band of dudes from other bands. You’ve been down this road before. But, in addition to the aggro vibes they’ve shown this far, there’s not a doubt in my mind they’ve got some tricks up their collective sleeve for the LP, and I’ll be completely honest and tell you that any album Healey is belting it out on is one I want to hear. Seriously. Dude could be singing over a 40-minute sample of the T running late and make it sound good. Throw Sherman‘s shred on there, Maloney‘s bass, Roach‘s drums, and, well, you get the idea.
More to come, is what I’m saying.
Ripple posted the following on socials:
Ripple is extremely proud to welcome to our family, the Boston supergroup, Blood Lightning!
Formed in December 2020, Blood Lightning brings together the talents of Jim Healey (We’re All Gonna Die), vocals; Doug Sherman (GOZU), guitar; Bob Maloney (Worshipper), bass; and J.R. Roach (Sam Black Church).
During Covid lockdown. The guys decided to riff around remotely, eventually coming together to flesh out their ideas into songs.
Blood Lightning was formed with one thing in mind: Get back to the real essence of heavy metal. That’s it. Nothing fancy. No pretense. No subgenres to fit into. Just badass, straightforward, hard-hitting heavy metal with a nod to old school NWOBHM, with a bunch of contemporary firepower.
Award-winning producer/engineer, Benny Grotto (Rolling Stones, Aerosmith) and mastering legend, Alan Douches (Motörhead, Mastodon, High On Fire), recorded/mixed and mastered their self-titled debut.
Album release, vinyl, CD, and digital hitting you worldwide this October
Please give them a big waverider welcome!
BLOOD LIGHTNING are: Jim Healey – Vocals Doug Sherman – Guitars Bob Maloney – Bass J.R. Roach – Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 14th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
New in the sense of new-to-you and new-to-me, the second single from Boston four-piece Blood Lightning, who boast in their ranks members of Worshipper, Gozu, Sam Black Church and We’re All Gonna Die, is called “Blankets.” Clocking in at shortly under four minutes long, it fuses metallic aggression and heavy rock melody and groove, the vocals of Jim Healey layered at the forefront and pushing alongside the central riff of Douglas Sherman while Bob Maloney locks in bass and J.R. Roach manages the stomp of the drums, building tension in the verse, opening it up in the chorus, classic in its construction and borderline nasty in the execution.
Last year, Blood Lightning put up “The Dying Starts” (posted here), and “Blankets” arrives just as the band are about to take part in the sixth edition of the Grub, Sweat & Beers fest at O’Brien’s in Allston, MA. It’s a fitting tie-in, since Sherman and Healey — along with Aaron Gray of Grayskull Booking — put together the fest in the first place. It is an annual gathering of friends and tunes with a lineup drawn from New England’s evergreen underground, and if Blood Lightning have it in them to hit stage this Saturday with half the vitality Benny Grotto at Mad Oak captured in this studio version of “Blankets,” then there’s nothing to worry about. Apart, obviously, from liver damage.
Info on the track (the player’s at the bottom of this post) as well as the lineup and ticket links for Grub, Sweat & Beers Six follow here:
New Blood Lightning Track – Blankets
New Track!! See us this weekend at Grub Sweat & Beers Six: Day 2
“Blankets was a Doug riff that we all got together and hashed out in the rehearsal space. This was the second tune we wrote after The Dying Starts and I feel like it’s a pretty good representation of us,” says Jim Healey.
Recorded and mixed by Benny Grotto at Mad Oak Studios in Allston, MA. August 2021 http://www.madoakstudios.com
Mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side Music http://www.westwestsidemusic.com
GRUB SWEAT & BEERS LINEUP O’Brien’s, Allston, MA
Day 1 Fri, Jul 15- 8pm doors Ectovoid Night Hag Chained To The Bottom of The Ocean Wretched Inferno
Day 2 Sat, Jul 16, 2022 1PM Birnam Wood Blackwolfgoat Blood Lightning Blue Manic Cartridge Death Strider Evil 80 Gog Greylock Mollusk Paul Jarvis Sexless Marriage Waelmist Wire Lines
Posted in Questionnaire on November 22nd, 2021 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Jim Healey of Blood Lightning, Set Fire, We’re All Gonna Die, Etc.
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I am a singer, guitarist and songwriter. I’ve been in a bunch of bands and my newest one is Blood Lightning.
I came to music probably the same way a lot of people did. My dad was really into music and had a decent/weird record collection that he was always playing. Depending on the day, we’d hear anything from The Righteous Brothers to The Beatles, the Moody Blues, Roy Orbison, Roger Whitaker, Bee Gees, Sandy Nelson etc. We had a couple of acoustic guitars kicking around in the house (although my parents weren’t musicians) so I would always try to bang around on those. My Dad showed my brother and I a remedial version of the “Satisfaction” riff on one of the acoustics one day at that was it. He got us electric guitars and drums from the Sears catalog the next Christmas, and I never looked back.
Describe your first musical memory.
I remember listening and dancing around to the old 45’s from my parents. My brother and I had a small Sears record player, and we would spend afternoons just playing through as many of these 45’s as we could. “A Taste of Honey” by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass was a favorite.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
There are many, but I would have to say We’re All Gonna Die touring Ireland in 2007 opening for Diamond Head. We were just three dopes from Boston, and we were received and treated well. Definitely a high-water mark for touring.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I find that in the current political climate, this is an everyday occurrence.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Artistic progression leads to being a better artist. I think the more you strive to be better player, singer or writer, the more “doors” that will open in your creativity.
How do you define success?
“Success” has been a moving target over the years. I find that now, I must be content to write and release music the I like and am proud of and just hope that someone vibes with it. Over the years, the best feeling has always been that one person who comes up to me after a show and tells me that they get it.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
The heavy answer is my Dad dying.
The light answer is Chris Cornell releasing a dance album.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I’d like to write a perfect album. I figured with all the downtime from the pandemic that I could have started on my The Dark Side of the Moon, but that hasn’t quite panned out yet.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
I believe art should convey emotion. Regardless of the medium, I feel that it’s the emotional response to art that keeps the world alive and moving forward.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
I’m looking forward to my family being able to hang together for the holidays this year.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on November 2nd, 2021 by JJ Koczan
New band, familiar faces. One will recognize Blood Lightning frontman Jim Healey — singing here, not playing guitar — from We’re All Gonna Die, his solo work, Black Thai and a host of others. He’s joined by Gozu‘s Doug Sherman on guitar, Worshipper bassist Bob Maloney and drummer J.R. Roach of Sam Black Church, The Men and a bunch more. Dudes from other bands playing together in a band, you say? Give me a second while I start my somebody-calling-them-a-supergroup countdown clock. I keep it around for just such an occasion.
No surprise, the formidable newcomer foursome arrive with a debut single that finds them well aware of who they are and what they want to do. Blood Lightning would seem to be one of those bands started around an idea; in this case, the idea of doing something more aggressive, more in-your-face than the heavy rock standard. More metal. Fucking a, gentlemen. Go to.
So here we have “The Dying Starts.” It is the first-unveiled of three initial songs recorded by the esteemed Benny Grotto at Mad Oak Studios in Allston — nice place; it’s not exactly in the guidebook, but if you can go, go — and if they’re looking to make a striking impression as Blood Lightning (pun way intended, live with it), then yeah, they got there. Healey‘s voice is immediately recognizable, and so is Sherman‘s riffing, and the later surge of energy from the band all around is a welcome reminder of that foundation in classic metal. Next time out, these guys might just go all-in on some thrash. Not saying it’s definitely going to happen — I haven’t heard the songs — just saying they’d be well within their rights to do so based on what I’m hearing in “The Dying Starts.”
Check it out for yourself in the lyric video or on the Bandcamp player below and see what you think. Blood Lightning have gigs coming up in Dec. (that’s a Grub, Sweat & Beers show, which I’m pretty sure means Sherman and Healey are involved in putting it on) and next March alongside Monolord and Firebreather. That’s a fun night.
Enjoy:
Blood Lightning, “The Dying Starts” lyric video
Blood Lightning was born during the later days of the pandemic in 2020 due to all of the other bands we were in not being active. We got together (with masks until we were all vaxed) to write some music that was in line with all of our shared metal roots.
We recorded 3 songs in August of 2021 at Mad Oak studios in Allston with Benny Grotto. The songs were mastered by Alan Douches (Mastodon, Converge) at West West Side Music.
We plan on entering the studio again in early 2022.
Here are our upcoming shows:
Grub, Sweat and Beers presents High Holidays December 18th, 2021 O’Briens Pub Day 2 – Leather Lung Blood Lightning Lunar Ark Wretched Inferno
Tuesday, March 15th, 2022 Sonia Monolord Firebreather Blood Lightning
BLOOD LIGHTNING are: Jim Healey – Vocals Doug Sherman – Guitars Bob Maloney – Bass J.R. Roach – Drums
