I was somewhat hopeful, if bet-hedgingly so, that last year might’ve brought new music from Masters of Reality. Sadly, it didn’t. Though 2016 brought a reissue of the desert-rocking 2001 outing Deep in the Hole (discussed here), it’s been since 2009 that an actual new record from the band has showed up. That last full-length was the pop-experimental Pine/Cross Dover (review here), which seemed to take particular delight in its own strangeness of vibe even as it played from a foundation of ultra-solid hooks very much in the tradition of Chris Goss‘ songwriting — an element that, if you don’t know by now, is about as unfuckwithable as they come.

Early 2018 brings two new pieces from Goss, and they’re immediately distinct for appearing under his own name. Does that mean they won’t turn into Masters of Reality songs at some point? Does that mean he’s going to put out a solo record? Does that mean there’s going to be any kind of follow-up at all and the songs might not get taken down by the time this post goes live? I have no idea. I have no idea on any of it. One cut is an excerpt of a song called “The Workhouse Howl” that’s got kind a haunting ambience of volume swells and some keyboard-sounding string arrangement, and the other is the acoustic-based “Powder Man,” a quiet but memorable and melancholy chorus executed in an efficient three-plus minutes.

Again, I don’t know what if anything these songs are leading toward. Following Goss on Twitter is something of a mixed bag of retweets and conservative political whatnottery, but ultimately pretty light on info as regards new music. Still, these songs exist and for today that’s enough to make me really happy and renew my hopes that at some point the man will produce a new full-length, be it under the Masters of Reality moniker or even his own name. If it’s a solo piece in the vein of “Powder Man” here or something more progressive along the lines of “The Workhouse Howl” or both, or even just the solo single, I’ll take it. Shit man, it’s Chris Goss. Take what you can get and be happy for it.

Here are those tracks:

Chris Goss, “The Workhouse Howl (Excerpt)”

Chris Goss, “Powder Man”

Chris Goss on Twitter

Masters of Reality on Thee Facebooks

Masters of Reality website

Just one New York show? Maybe on the return trip? Hell, I don’t even care if it’s New York. I’ll drive to wherever on the East Coast. Unfortunately for me, nothing of the sort has been announced, and Chris Goss (interview here) and the rather considerable Masters of Reality lineup he’s put together around himself and long-tenured drummer John Leamy — including Mathias Schneeberger and Dave Catching — will be heading straight to Europe later this week and by all revealed accounts straight back to the desert from whence they came when they’re done.

The tour includes stops at Download and Sweden Rock and other fests and dates with Queens of the Stone Age, which is a bill I’d like to see anywhere, let alone Paris.

This from the PR wire:

Chris Goss’ Masters of Reality Announce European Tour

Including Dates with Queens of the Stone Age 

Masters Of Reality will embark on a European Summer Tour starting June 8. The trek will include stops at the Sweden Rock Festival, Download Festival and dates with Queens Of The Stone Age. Frontman Chris Goss was most recently a featured musician in Dave Grohl‘s all-star lineup band for his historic Sound City 2013 tour which had a set list including some of Grohl’s favorite Masters Of Reality songs. The band is currently at work on their as yet untitled new studio album.

Originally signed by Rick Rubin to Def Jam in 1988, Masters Of Reality have toured the world releasing nine critically acclaimed albums, five of them released on Mascot Records. Goss is regarded by many to be the godfather of the California desert rock scene and is a well respected producer known for seminal albums by Kyuss and Queens Of The Stone Age, as well as other acts such as Soul Wax, UNKLE, The Cult, and The Duke Spirit. 2013 started off quite abuzz for Goss, being featured in three current documentaries including the award winning Ginger Baker documentary Beware of Mr. Baker, the soon to be released Soul Wax documentary, and Dave Grohl’s Sound City.

Goss will be joined on the Masters Of Reality tour by longtime collaborator and drummer John Leamy (Surgery, Dr Mars). The live band also includes David Catching (Eagles Of Death Metal, Queens Of The Stone Age, Earthlings?) on guitar, Mathias Schneeberger (Gutter Twins, Twilight Singers, Earthlings?) on keys, and Paul Powell on bass.

Masters Of Reality Tour Dates
06/08/13 Sweden – Sweden Rock Festival
06/09/13 Denmark – Copenhagen – Pumpehuset (w/ SAFI)
06/11/13 Germany – Cologne – Luxor (w/ SAFI)
06/12/13 Holland – Amsterdam – Bitterzoet
06/14/13 Holland – Pinkpop Festival
06/16/13 UK – Download Festival
06/17/13 UK – Glasgow – Cathouse (w/ The Mighty Stef and SAFI)
06/18/13 UK – London – Islington Academy (w/ The Mighty Stef and SAFI)
06/19/13 France – Paris – Trianon (w/ Queens Of The Stone Age)
06/21/13 Germany – Southside Festival
06/22/13 Germany – Berlin – Citadel (w/ Queens Of The Stone Age)
06/23/13 Germany – Hurricane Festival
06/25/13 Switzerland – Dudingen – Bad Bonn (w/ The Shit and SAFI)
06/26/13 Switzerland – Zurich – Komplex Klub (w/ The Shit and SAFI)
06/28/13 Belgium – Leffinge – De Zwerver (w/ SAFI)
06/29/13 Luxembourg – Rock-a-Field Festival
07/01/13 Germany – Munich – Strom (w/ SAFI)
07/02/13 Austria – Vienna – Stadthalle (w/ Queens Of The Stone Age)

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Masters of Reality, “Always” video by John Leamy

Yeah, I know officially that Masters of Reality‘s 1989 debut is self-titled, but whatever. Put that cover art on it and it’s The Blue Garden every time. The Chris Goss-fronted outfit released their last album, Pine/Cross Dover (review here) in 2009, some 20 years after the first one, and with a rich history of labels major and minor, tours and influential contributions to desert and heavy psych rock behind them, they’ll be coupling The Blue Garden with the How High the Moon: Live at the Viper Room live album, originally issued in 1997.

The PR wire heralds the Dec. 11 arrival of the 2CD/2LP:

MASTERS OF REALITY / HOW HIGH THE MOON: LIVE AT THE VIPER ROOM – DELUXE REISSUE

December 11th on Delicious Vinyl
Delicious Vinyl is proud to announce the reissue of two seminal albums from MASTERS OF REALITY together in one deluxe package on December 11th, 2012.  Originally released in 1989 on Rick Rubin’s Def American label, the Self-Titled album is being re-released together with the 1997 live album How High The Moon: Live At The Viper Room in 2CD Digipak and Double LP formats.

Chris Goss formed Masters Of Reality with Tim Harrington as a two-piece in Syracuse, New York in 1981. A Warner Bros. pressing of Black Sabbath’s fearsome 1971 LP Master Of Reality with misprinted labels that read Masters Of Reality gave them their name. (Goss: “Nobody listened to Black Sabbath in 1981 if they considered themselves cool.”) Copping the sonic assault of No Wave duo Suicide, Goss and Harrington gigged regularly at CBGB under a smutty black light haze, before expanding to a four-piece and adapting Black Sabbath’s blues-based evil deeds template as their own.

Fans of Kyuss and Queens Of The Stone Age should recognize the name Chris Goss. As godfather of the California desert rock scene that blossomed in Joshua Tree, Goss produced three thundering Kyuss LPs as well as QOTSA’s breakthrough album Rated R and their Grammy-nominated Era Vulgaris. The Masters’ legend has grown stronger ever since.

Masters Of Reality’s lead single from the self-titled release was “Domino”, a flat-out rabble rousing rocker, Goss serving up Tony Iommi-style sickness while in his pure but potent tenor commanding the listener to “Paint me a picture/ make it the devil/ then run down the hole if/ the roof ain’t level.” “Lookin’ To Get Rite” is a concise and country-fried front-porch toe tapper, while “Kill The King” is a seven-and-a-half minute regicidal epic roping in the legacies of Queen, King Crimson, and ZZ Top. Most impressive is “John Brown” where Goss brays “I declare a holiday…no matter what the doctors say” over a full-bodied realization of the sort of acoustically-strummed bombast that Led Zeppelin had pioneered with “Over The Hills And Far Away.”

Completists and come-latelys may want to know this reissue maintains the self-titled album’s track sequencing from the Delicious Vinyl version, which includes the song “Doraldina’s Prophecies” (produced by Chris Goss, Matt Dike & Mike Ross) not found on the Rick Rubin-produced Def American release. The original Def American cover art has been restored. Longtime friend of the band and current Masters Of Reality drummer John Leamy’s painting The Blue Garden is seen in its full glory on the 8-panel digipak (as well as the bonus poster). The song “Magical Spell” is returned here to its majestic five minute lascivious trawl, missing verse, guitar solo and all. As for the second disc, How High The Moon: Live At The Viper Room has been out of print for years, and never been available on vinyl. Its standouts include “Jindalee Jindalie” (featuring special guest Scott Weiland) and a romp through “John Brown” that betters the already awesome studio version.

If you’re so moved, recognize that Masters Of Reality remain to this day an active, potent proposition both on tour and in the studio (check out their incredible 2009 album Pine/Cross Dover). Rock on.

MASTERS OF REALITY
1. The Candy Song
2. Doraldina’s Prophecies
3. John Brown
4. Gettin’ High
5. Magical Spell
6. Theme For The Scientist Of The Invisible
7. Domino
8. The Blue Garden
9. The Eyes Of Texas
10. Lookin’ To Get Right
11. Kill The King
12. Sleep Walkin’

HOW HIGH THE MOON: LIVE AT THE VIPER ROOM
1. How High The Moon
2. The Blue Garden
3. Alder Smoke Blues
4. Doraldina’s Prophecies
5. She Got Me
6. Jindalee Jindalie
7. John Brown
8. Tilt A Whirl / Swingeroo Joe
9. Ants In The Kitchen / Goin’ Down
10. 100 Years

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Chris Goss has been operating under the Masters of Reality banner for more than 20 years now, the band making its debut with 1988?s Rick Rubin-produced self-titled (aka The Blue Garden). Since then, Goss has proved the only mainstay, though for the last decade, drummer John Leamy has served as his creative partner in the band and there have been plenty of guests along the way, from Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri on 2001?s Deep in the Hole to David Catching and Brendan McNichol (both contributors to Queens of the Stone Age and other Palm Desert acts) on Masters of Reality?s latest, Pine/Cross Dover.

To say the album is long-awaited is an understatement. For more than a year, periodic release dates have come and gone with still no word as to when the record would actually be out. Goss, who initially pushed back the release because he wanted to keep writing, kept mostly silent throughout, leading to speculation as to the label situation with Brownhouse and Mascot Records. The upside is that although it?s only currently available in the US as an import, it?s still available. It?s been five years since Give Us Barabbas came out. A follow-up was long overdue.

And to that end, Pine/Cross Dover is an immediate success. Though opener ?King Richard TLH? doesn?t have the same striking sensation of ?The Ballad of Jody Fosty,? it also hasn?t had half a decade of me nerding out over it. Yet. One of the MySpace preview tracks for the album ? and for good reason ? it?s your quintessential latter day Masters of Reality track, with a lively rock progression and multiply tracked Goss vocals in the chorus. Of the two pieces of the album, divided in the track listing, liner notes and artwork as the separate entities Pine and Cross Dover, Pine strikes as the more straightforward. Even the darker, lonelier ?Absinthe, Jim and Me? is less druggy than the material on 1999?s Welcome to the Western Lodge, with a churning verse and distorted cabaret chorus. Likewise, ?Worm in the Silk? rests its head in a rich groove and hypnotic desert psychedelia.

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I literally dreamt last night that I got to see Masters of Reality. And what do I wake up to find on Blabbermouth but this press release which, semi-disappointingly, I wasn’t cool enough to get on the PR wire, containing an August 24 release date for the long awaited Pine/Cross Dover. From what I read below, it sounds like it’s going to be awesome. Oh, and in case you don’t make it all the way to the end (because it’s a long one), the new track “King Richard LTH” has been posted on the band’s MySpace page. I just listened to it. It’s very good.

Here’s the release:

Masters of Reality will release its long-awaited sixth studio album, Pine/Cross Dover, on August 24 via Brownhouse/Mascot Records.

Pine/Cross Dover was recorded at the Hacienda in North Hollywood, California and features guest appearances by Eagles of Death Metal bassist Brian “Big Hands” O’Connor and guitarist Dave Catching, as well as former Queens of the Stone Age guitarist Brendon McNichol, among others.

Masters of Reality leader Chris Goss stated about Pine/Cross Dover, “I did a rock ‘n’ roll record this time — I was able to exorcise a lot of different styles of music that are really important in my life. And not just Led Zeppelin, Cream, The Beatles, or Black Sabbath. It’s a lot of everything on this record. But proud to say, not one acoustic guitar — it’s all electric and very rhythm-oriented.”

The album’s origins can be pinpointed to a simple question. “It was in 2008 that Ed van Zijl, who is the head of [Mascot Records], wrote and said, ‘Do you feel like doing another record?’ So after a long period of recording it finally is done and I’m proud of it.”

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…Or “Cross Doubt,” more appropriately.

It seems that while my back was turned (blink and you’ll miss it), Mascot Records went ahead and pushed back the release date for the new Masters of Reality album, Pine/Cross Dover. Again.

I remember being so psyched last year around this time when the press release came in that Chris Goss was done recording and the CD would be out in July. Hell, I couldn’t wait. Then it was October, then December, then March, now it’s August. “24/08/2009” to quote the Mascot site. Here’s the rest of what they had to say for themselves:

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