UK outfits Lacertilia and Cybernetic Witch Cult have teamed up for a run through their native land that’s on now and will run through Oct. 30. Shows started this past weekend in London and the as-Welsh-sounding-as-it-is Merthyr Tydfil (I honestly don’t know how there’s a word in the Welsh language without a black metal band named after it) and find Lacertilia supporting their 2016 release, We’re Already Inside Your Mind, which came out at the end of July on Red Sound Records, while Cybernetic Witch Cult in May issued their second full-length, Spaceous Cretaceous, as the rhyme-consistent follow-up to their 2015 debut, Morlock Rock.

Respect to a couple outfits who’ve very clearly taken it upon themselves to get out and spread the word about what they’re doing for what’s sure to be a week off work and away from whatever other obligations real life might present to them. This is the kind of stint that doesn’t happen unless people really believe in their work.

Dates and info follow:

Lacertilia / Cybernetic Witch Cult: Wizards and Lizards UK Tour

Lacertilia & Cybernetic Witch Cult are teaming up on a UK run of shows. Dates posted below

Lacertilia are a cosmic blend of primal rock ‘n’ roll energy, heavy psychedelia and sludgy groove rock. Their new album ‘We’re Already Inside Your Mind’ is out now on Red Sun Sounds and is available to buy via their Bandcamp page https://lacertilia-uk.bandcamp.com

Cybernetic Witch Cult are a groovacious metal trio from Cornwall who take their influences from Doom metal, 70s rock, stoner rock, space rock and science fiction/horror B movies. A serious band with a fun outlook on music, the lyrics tell stories of invasions, time travel, space and cult horror, the riffs are grandiose and the drums are pounding.

Lacertilia & Cybernetic Witch Cult:
22/10 – Underdog Gallery, London
23/10 – New Crown, Merthyr Tydfil
24/10 – Crowley’s Rock Bar, Swansea (with Suns Of Thunder)
25/10 – Buffalo Bar, Cardiff
26/10 – The Black Swan, Bradford
27/10 – Opium, Edinburgh
28/10 – Arches Venue, Coventry
29/10 – The Anvil, Bournemouth
30/10 – The Junction, Plymouth

https://www.facebook.com/LacertiliaUKBand
https://lacertilia-uk.bandcamp.com/releases
https://twitter.com/LacertiliaUK
https://www.facebook.com/cyberneticwitchcult/
https://cyberneticwitchcult.bandcamp.com/
http://www.cyberneticwitchcult.com/

Lacertilia tour promo video

UK heavy psych rockers Lacertilia will release their debut, We’re Already Inside Your Mind, on July 29. Due out through Red Sun Sounds, the album follows last year’s Crashing into the Future EP, which found the band working in a post-Steak vein of desert influence but bringing their own swirling twist to the style as well, leaving space in their songs for the driving riffs to melt away into hypnotic jams, almost Naam-esque in how utterly liquefied they became. They also recently played Hellfest 2016 in France, which is pretty good for a band still waiting to release their first record, what with the thousands of people in attendance and whatnot.

As to what the full-length holds, I’ll keep you posted. Here’s the release announcement from the PR wire:

LACERTILIA REVEAL DETAILS OF DEBUT ALBUM

South Wales-based psychedelic heavy rockers, LACERTILIA are gearing up to unleash their first full-length album, We’re Already Inside Your Mind, on July 29.

Since their inception in 2013, LACERTILIA have built up a solid reputation through their energetic live shows and relentless gigging, having already shared the stage with the likes of Karma To Burn, Elder, Trippy Wicked, Bloody Hammers, Sir Admiral Cloudesley Shovell, Peter Pan Speedrock, and countless others. With an EP and two UK tours under their belt, the band are now ready to release their debut album.

We’re Already Inside Your Mind was recorded at One Louder Studios in Newport by Phillip Smith (Hogslayer, Haasts Eagled), and mastered by Joe Gibb (Jane’s Addiction, Depeche Mode). Intent on capturing their live sound in the studio – a mix of primal rock ‘n’ roll energy, heavy psychedelia and sludgy groove rock, with nods to proto-punk, 60?s psych, 70?s heavy rock, the free festival movement and contemporary stoner and doom – LACERTILIA have created a rich melting pot of sonic indulgence that takes the listener on a journey. This heady mix of influences is perfectly enraptured on lead track The Wired And The Weird.

The album’s main theme centres around the human brain, a prison for the psyche which has been subdued by modern technology, and law and order. LACERTILIA are personified as wise elders, here to help the inhabitants of planet Earth to see things as they really are. The cosmic vibrations and messages within their music are designed to make mankind face its fears, strip away the layers of mental conditioning bestowed upon us and ultimately reveal the power and utmost truth that lies within us all.

We’re Already Inside Your Mind
1. Inside Your Mind Part 1
2. The Wired And The Weird
3. Tangled Up
4. Never See The Sun
5. Ride With Us
6. EARTH
7. Journey To Agartha
8. Fire Up The Engine Of God
9. Round And Round
10. Inside Your Mind Part 2

We’re Already Inside Your Mind is scheduled for release through Red Sun Sounds on July 29, 2016 via the band’s Bandcamp HERE. The album will be available digitally and as a digipak CD limited to 500 copies.

https://www.facebook.com/LacertiliaUKBand
https://lacertilia-uk.bandcamp.com/releases
https://twitter.com/LacertiliaUK

Budgie, Budgie (1971)

There are plenty of people around more qualified than I am to comment on Budgie‘s enduring legacy or their effect on heavy rock and metal, but one doesn’t exactly need a masterful knowledge of the form to hear the roll of “Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman” and have a lot of things subsequently make more sense. The Welsh trio’s self-titled 1971 debut is one of those albums you hear and recognize pieces of from the work of other bands who’ve snagged a riff here, a melody there, and really you can take your pick from among their first three full-lengths — this, 1972’s Squawk and 1973’s Never Turn Your Back on a Friend — for supremacy. What ultimately does it for me is Burke Shelley‘s bass tone. With guitarist/vocalist Tony Bourge and drummer Ray Phillips along with Shelley on bass/vocals, Budgie was nothing if not a power trio, but to hear the weight in the production by Rodger Bain (who also helmed early outings for Black Sabbath and Judas Priest) as “Guts” gets the album going, yeah, it’s a pretty easy sell.

And in classic ’70s heavy form, they open with this killer heavy track and then move immediately into ballads, in this case the quick “Everything in My Heart” and subsequent “The Author,” which picks up as it makes its way to toward the aforementioned “Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman,” which rounds out side A. From there, “Rape of the Locks” picks up with an immediate slam and proto-shredding solo, and all the swing and swagger you could hope for, leading to the fuzzed out “All Night Petrol,” an acoustic resurgence on “You and I,” and the unfuckwithable closer “Homicidal Suicidal.” In the spirit of many of the best records of its era, it gets in, kicks ass and gets out — probably because by the time it was finished Budgie were due either out on tour or back in to start tracking Squawk.

If you know heavy rock or doom, you don’t need me to tell about this one I’m sure. Frankly, I was surprised to find that I’d never closed out a week with Budgie before, so consider this my way of making up for lost time. Of course, I hope you dig it.

—

Nothing to say, really. If you’re wondering about that job, I heard today [after this post first went up] that they want to do another interview. Between phoners and in-person, this will be number four. It’s in two weeks.

I also put in for a bartending gig yesterday, just out of a need to try for something. No word back.

Next week, audio from Insect Ark and Mos Generator and reviews of Cigale and Ichabod. Akris interview too at some point. Unless I get a call in the next two hours telling me to start work Monday, I was supposed to head to Brooklyn on the 5th for Kings Destroy‘s record release with Elder, Apostle of Solitude and Clamfight, but it occurs to me that in addition to having no job and no money, my car is also dead in the parking lot outside and needs a new battery before it can go anywhere. Which of course I can’t afford. So we’ll mark those plans as “tentative” for the time being.

Got some cool vinyl this week though and was referred to twice as a “legend.” Feels great. Feels legendary.

Fuck it.

Great weekend, forum, radio.

The Obelisk Forum

The Obelisk Radio

Well, if there’s one thing “Mountain Goat” and “Deathtrip,” the two brand new tracks posted by the UK‘s Sigiriya, show us, it’s that the dudes from Acrimony have been keeping up with stoner rock for the nine years since their original band broke up. Sigiriya has four out of the five Acrimony members — only guitarist Lee Davies is absent — and under their new moniker, the band plays a totally modern, much less shroomed take on riff metal. In no way is Sigiriya a throwback or an attempt to recapture Acrimony‘s past greatness. One expects if they wanted to do that, they would have just reunited Acrimony.

The shorter “Mountain Goat” and more expansive “Deathtrip” were posted on SoundCloud, which I’m going to pretend to have heard of before for fear of being behind the times. SoundCloud allows for embedding its players, so you can hear both songs below (or click here). “Mountain Goat” is definitely the more straightforward of the two songs; at 3:22 it’s a recognizable stoner excursion. At over 10 minutes, however, “Deathtrip” does the bulk of the work distinguishing Sigiriya from both Acrimony and the modern stoner metal scene. The guitar of Stuart O’Hara comes on well-layered, offering melody and crunch, and vocalist Dorian Walters seems more melodically capable as well for his time away. It’s been nine years. A little development shouldn’t be much of a surprise.

And the rhythm section — bassist Paul Bidmead and drummer Darren Ivey — are as locked in on “Deathtrip” as they ever were on Acrimony‘s now-classic Tumuli Shroomaroom, proving no less adept at keeping a groove going during the song’s lengthy jam than during the riffy freakouts of yore. I’ll say if you dug/dig Acrimony you’ll like Sigiriya, but that’s not because they’re the same musically. Despite the subtle end of “Deathtrip,” Sigiriya is (at least going by these two songs) much less psychedelic. They’re doing what the age demands of them, and they’re doing it well. As someone into Acrimony, but more as someone into Sigiriya, I look forward to hearing more.