As if you needed an excuse to with you could be in Europe this spring, Saint Vitus are headed over for a three-week round of dates with Mos Generator. The connections between the two bands are manifold, with Mos Generator leader Tony Reed having produced Vitus‘ 2012 full-length, Lillie: F-65 (review here), and worked with drummer Henry Vasquez in his other band, Blood of the Sun on their own 2012 outing, Burning on the Wings of Desire (review here), so if nothing else, you can bet the vibes will be cordial.

All the better for Mos, whose Nomads (review here) is still fresh on the consciousness. Hard to imagine even the doomiest of Vitus devotee couldn’t be won over by their ultra-catchy heavy rocking. Here’s the poster for the Vitus tour, followed by a couple other dates Mos Generator will be playing between now and then. Dig it:

UPCOMING SHOWS
MOS SHOWS 2013

1/12 coo coos nest – port angeles
1/18 rendezvous – port orchard
1/19 ash st. – portland
1/ 25 filling station – kingston
1/26 acme – tacoma
2/1 flights pub – everett
2/9 the breakroom – bremerton
2/23 club 21 – portland
3/1 chop suey – seattle

March 2013 – SAINT VITUS & MOS GENERATOR
5th Cologne, Germany @ Underground
6th Berlin, Germany @ C-club
7th Dresden, Germany @ Beatpol
8th Arnhem, Holland @ Willemeen
9th Paris, France @ La Maroquinerie
10th Vosselaar, Belgium @ Biebob
11th Brighton, England @ The Haunt
12th Southampton, England @ The Cellar
13th Birmingham, England @ O2 Academy 2
14th Glasgow, Scotland @ The Cathouse
15th Newcastle, England @ Northumbria Uni
16th Pwhelli, Wales @ Hammerfest
17th London, England @ The Garage
18th Rouen, France @ Le 106
19th Esch-sur-alzette, Luxembourg @ Kulturfabrik
20th Lyon, France @ Le Ninkasi Kao
21st Winterthur, Switzerland @ Salzhaus
22nd Vienna, Austria @ Szene
23rd Bologna, Italy @ Zr
24th Milano, Italy @ The Tunnel
25th Nürnberg, Germany @ Rockfabrik
26th Aschaffenburg, Germany @ Colos-sal
27th Hamburg, Germany @ Logo

Okay, let me rephrase right off the bat — Sleep don’t need to put out an album at all. Sleep don’t need to do anything. With Al Cisneros in Om, Matt Pike in High on Fire and Jason Roeder in Neurosis, it’s not like the dudes in Sleep are lagging either on output or asskickery. However,  “I think Sleep should put out a new record in an attempt to capture a special moment in the creative lives of its three members” hardly makes for a catchy headline. So here we are.

I’ve got a couple different levels of argument in favor of a new Sleep album, which would be their first since the epic Dopesmoker finally saw the light of day officially in 2003. At the most basic level is the nerdy, “OMG more riffs”-type impulse — the side of me that wants to hear new Sleep just because it would be new stuff from the band who put out Sleep’s Holy Mountain 20 years ago. I’m not about to invalidate that response. Fanboyism is what it is.

More than that, however, I think when you take a look at the response to the periodic shows Sleep have played over the last two-plus years (I first saw them in Brooklyn, Sept. 2010), their continued interest in performing live, their continued influence in the sphere of stoner metal, heavy psych, etc., and — because yes, this matters — the fact that there’s more of an audience for Sleep now than there ever was before, a new studio album is a logical next step. Most of all, creatively.

Take a look at this year’s releases from Om, High on Fire and Neurosis. All three bands had a records out in 2012, and all three were incredibly different. Cisneros explored lush melodies and a wider psychedelic expanse than ever before on Advaitic Songs (review here), while Pike issued High on Fire‘s most aggressive offering to date in De Vermis Mysteriis (review here), and in Neurosis, Roeder provided creative rhythms to ground some of the pioneering Bay Area outfit’s most complex material on Honor Found in Decay (review here). Each was a triumph completely on its own terms.

And that’s why I say now is the time for new Sleep. I’m not thinking that you put Cisneros, Pike and Roeder in a jam space and out comes “From Beyond Pt. 2.” Especially since it would be their first outing with Roeder on drums, I’d hope that a new Sleep record — while obviously steeped in Iommic tradition — sounded like nothing they’ve ever done before. If I wanted to hear what Sleep sounded as they were in their original incarnation, I’d put on one of the old albums. I want to hear what Sleep can put together sound-wise today. I want to hear Sleep with Roeder‘s drum fills, or some of the warmth of tone that Cisneros has developed in Om, or with the kind of solo that Pike wouldn’t have dared attempt at the time but has been decapitating audiences with ever since.

They’ve got their blueprint to work from in terms of riffs, tones and overall approach, but with as distinct as the three personalities have proven to be over the course of this year — and especially with how well the trio works on stage at this point; their set at Roadburn 2012 was hands down one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen — it just seems like there’s an opportunity now to stand up to the challenge of bringing together something that captures the different sides of each member’s personality while also remains uniquely Sleep‘s own, adding to the breadth of their ever-expanding influence.

It seems like a ludicrous idea, right? Well, Black Sabbath have a new record in the works. Saint Vitus put out an album this year. Hell, even the dudes from Kyuss have something going at this point. So why not Sleep? I never thought I’d get to see the band live, and it’s been a couple times now. We live in a universe of infinite possibilities, and though it’s hardly the likeliest announcement to come down the PR wire, would you really have thought they’d get back together for shows in the first place? It’s been over two years now.

So yeah, they don’t need to release an album in 2013 — or ever, for that matter — but if they did, they’d be coming together at just the time when they each seemed to be most on their own path. Whatever that might result in, whether it’s another Dopesmoker or something completely different, it seems like a worthwhile endeavor no matter how you want to look at it.

The alarm went off three times this morning. Each one was more painful than the last. Even as I type this, I’m still burping last night’s wine. So of course, when it came time to pick a track for this week’s Wino Wednesday, “Dying Inside” by Saint Vitus was an obvious pick. The song’s a little more tragic than I feel about it — I got my standard greasy breakfast sandwich, took some ibuprofen, drank some coffee and the recovery is well under way — but I wasn’t far off from “I have ruined my soul” when I hit snooze for the second time.

This footage was filmed in 2010 in Hamburg, and I’ve posted other clips from the same show before, because they kick ass and because they’re pro shot. “Dying Inside” comes off 1986’s ultra-classic Born too Late album and is just one of that record’s several anthems, along with the title-track and “The War Starter.” And, you know, all the rest. The lyrics make it a standout, though, written with Dave Chandler‘s classic no-bullshit ethic and delivered — in this clip and every time I’ve seen them play it — with visceral conviction by Wino.

So yeah, while I continue to get my head together and face the rest of this afternoon, please enjoy “Dying Inside” and have a happy Wino Wednesday:

What a fascinating and confusing clusterfuck this week has been. Well, when you want to make sense of the universe around you desperately enough to drink cheap, shitty wine out of a La Quinta styrofoam cup, there’s only one place to turn: Dio‘s Holy Diver. Putting this record on is like putting on a pair of old pajamas: A little worn in, but just right on so many levels.

I was all set to catch Elder and Infernal Overdrive tonight in New Bedford, MA, but then The Patient Mrs. and I spent the better part of the afternoon hunting down sterno for her also-out-of-power grandmother, and by the time we left Connecticut, it presented a primo opportunity to sample Boston’s Revolutionary War-era civil engineering and city planning schematic. We sat in traffic for longer than I care to remember — such that, by the time we landed here at the hotel in Somerville, I not only would’ve been too late to the show to catch InfOv (that’s right, that’s what I call them), but the thought of getting back out in my car and getting to he No Problemo taqueria for the show sent a shudder down my mid-Atlantic spine.

I’m sorry, but no one in this fucking state knows how to merge. I know a lot of good people from here — Tim Catz, John Arzgarth, and on and on — but seriously, it’s called manual feed. One from this side, one from the other, and you should probably already know that.

So The Patient Mrs. and my sorry self grabbed dinner and a couple big cans of Sapporo — crisp and delicious — and I’ll just look forward to the Small Stone showcase tomorrow night at Radio here in scenic Somerville, and a week next week largely devoted to making up for all the ground I’ve lost in the wake of Hurricane Sandy over the last several days. Expect track streams from Pharaoh Overlord and Mala Suerte/Uzala, reviews of said Small Stone showcase and At Devil Dirt, among others, an interview with Curse the Son, news about Toner Low and much, much more. I’m so far behind, I feel like all I can do is drink and hope the power comes back on.

Oh, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, click here. And while I’m thinking about it, let me underscore the point of how lucky I fucking am to be alive and to have suffered nothing more than what in the context of the rest of my beloved Garden State is a minor inconvenience at best.

I can drink and be bummed about all the shit I didn’t get done this week, but at least I’m not drinking and being bummed about the tree that fell on the house, I guess is my point.

Though I still worry about the roving gangs of marauders breaking into the house and stealing my Queens of the Stone Age promos and Sabbath bootlegs. Please — they’re all I’ve got. Take the tvs and the formerly-frozen pesto instead. Leave the CD rack alone.

“And here it comes again/Straight through the heart.” Fucking a.

Wherever you are, I hope you have a great and safe weekend. If you’re in the area and headed to the Small Stone show tomorrow — as I am; have I mentioned that yet? — please, no matter what I tell you, I’d love a Palm. Cheers.

How could you not love those faces? So bright-eyed and innocent.

Today, I have the absurdly extreme pleasure of premiering three clips of heavy gods Sleep performing and being interviewed at the 2012 Scion Rock Fest. As with the Church of Misery premiere last week, these videos come courtesy of Scion A/V Metal, and I’m grateful for being given the chance to post them. With a hurricane bearing down outside my window and not knowing how long electricity is going to last, I can think of no better use for it than making public the videos of “Dragonaut,” “Jerusalem Pt. 1” and the interview below. Well, maybe showering, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

If you’ve been lucky enough to see Sleep in the last couple years, you already know both that the three-piece are something special to behold and that the dynamic between bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros (also Om), guitarist Matt Pike (also High on Fire) and drummer Jason Roeder (also Neurosis) more than lives up to the legacy they made for themselves with landmark releases like 1993’s classic Sleep’s Holy Mountain, from which “Dragonaut” comes, and the ultimate stoner epic Dopesmoker, from which “Jerusalem Pt. 1” is derived. As they’ve been playing live the last couple years — Roeder came aboard to replace original drummer Chris Hakius — they’ve broken up the pieces of the hour-long monster and dispersed them into the set, giving the whole thing an unhinged feel and continuing flow. I don’t feel the slightest bit hyperbolic when I say it’s among the heaviest things I’ve ever seen.

Please enjoy “Dragonaut,” “Jerusalem Pt. 1” and the following interview with Cisneros and Roeder.

Sleep, “Dragonaut” Live at Scion Rock Fest 2012

Sleep, “Jerusalem Pt. 1” Live at Scion Rock Fest 2012

Sleep Interview at Scion Rock Fest 2012

Thanks again to Scion A/V Metal for the permission to host these clips, and to Sleep, for all the riffs and badassery and crimson dragons and whatnot.

What do you say when staring into the face of the greatest album of all time? Fuck if I know.

For months, I’ve been kicking around the idea of starting a periodic feature highlighting the best and most influential albums in heavy rock, stoner rock, doom, whatever — a Canon of Heavy. All along I’ve known that, though I didn’t want it to be like a top-10 or to go by number or date or any other particular order, the first inductee into said canon would have to be Black Sabbath‘s 1971 masterpiece, Master of Reality. The rest of the time since has been trying to figure out what the hell to say about it.

Because while endless words have been written in its praise and its singular influence has bled into enough bands and records to make Helen of Troy’s thousand ships look paltry, the basic fact of the matter is that Master of Reality was and is perfect, and that’s all the explanation it really needs.

No doubt I could stop right there and an entire section of the population who might see this post could only nod in agreement — “Yup.” — but it would be half-assed, and frankly, it’ll be more fun this way. Here are just a few of my reasons why it had to be Geezer Butler , Tony Iommi, Bill Ward and Ozzy Osbourne, and why Master of Reality had to be the first Canon of Heavy inclusion.

Is it the Best Album Ever?

Yeah, pretty much. Opinions vary and we can go back and forth forever about this or that record, what’s better about what, but when it comes down to it, Master of Reality really is flawless. From the coughs that open “Sweet Leaf” to the last chord that closes “Into the Void,” there isn’t a moment misspent. Sure, you have interludes “Embryo” and “Orchid” and the whispered section after “Children of the Grave,” but even these are perfectly suited to their purpose, no longer than they need to be to bridge the gap to and from the song before into the next track while adding to the atmosphere.

And each of its main tracks was a defining moment. “Sweet Leaf,” “After Forever,” “Children of the Grave,” “Lord of this World,” “Solitude” and “Into the Void” — you could look at any one of those songs and mark out its influence, whether it’s “Sweet Leaf” codifying what decades later would in no small part define stoner rock or  “After Forever” offering the earliest template for Christian metal — but more importantly to the idea of Master of Reality as a whole is how well they work with each other, driving you forward into the culmination of “Into the Void,” which comes as the final answer to successive exclamations of “this is the heaviest thing ever,” “no, this is the heaviest thing ever!” No matter how many times I hear Master of Reality, it never loses its power. One does not listen to it so much as one is brought into its countenance.

It was The Birth of The Heavy — and though it’s sold over two million copies since, it remains an underground treasure. You listen to Master of Reality and it’s not like putting on anything else, any other big release. The album connects on an individual level, and not just in a handshake-from-a-famous-person kind of way. Its thickened, sludgy lumber is the stuff of legend, but each legend is a personal, human story as well.

Third Time Around

We all know the cliche about thirds, so I’ll spare you that, but arriving in July 1971, Master of Reality came not even a full year after Black Sabbath‘s landmark second album, Paranoid and only 17 months after their self-titled debut, which is widely regarded as the moment that hard rock became heavy metal. Nonetheless, the growth the band underwent in that time — they toured as well, astoundingly — is stunning, and where Black Sabbath was formative and raw and Paranoid was chaotic and bitter, the third album refined all of Sabbath‘s ideas to that point into a drug-fueled lurch that they’d never again match. In their rush to get the next LP out and maintain their chart position, they wrote the single best collection of songs heavy music has ever known.

They were, by their own admission, drugged out of their minds at the time. And yet, their songwriting would never be in this space again. Black Sabbath and Paranoid are both truly great albums, and I don’t doubt that in time they’ll be included here as well, but the reason it’s Master of Reality first is because Master of Reality marks that crucial moment where “heavy” became more than just a mindset and truly manifested itself sonically in Iommi‘s guitar and Butler‘s bass, where the riffs came to ultimate prominence, and where the band hit the intersection of knowing what kind of music they wanted to be making without over-thinking their processes. The bassline of “After Forever,” the unmitigated stomp of “Lord of this World,” the percussive thrust of “Children of the Grave” — how much time did they actually spend on these songs? Hours?

With Master of Reality, Sabbath found the balance sound-wise they’d never be able to find in a real life filled with narcotic excess and personal drama. Further, it’s the most efficient album they ever made. By the time they’d record Vol. 4 in May 1972, that moment had simply passed, and while they were by no means done and there was still plenty more for them to say in their original incarnation, Master of Reality was as crucial as they ever got.

“Solitude”

There’s ongoing debate about whether it’s even Osbourne singing or Ward, but what’s special about the penultimate cut on the album is that it’s no less heavy than anything around it for its lack of assault. Sure, “Black Sabbath” from the same album was a creeper and “Planet Caravan” is a better execution of psychedelia, but “Solitude” is among the purest executions of doom ever recorded. You’re not journeying through space so much as through the depths of your own wretchedness, and long gone are tales of mysterious demons at the foot of your bed. All that’s left is yourself and the miserable bastard you’ve become:

My name it means nothing, my fortune means less
My future is shrouded in dark wilderness
Sunshine is far away, clouds linger on
Everything I possessed, now they are gone

Even “Paranoid,” which one could argue covered some of the same depressive lyrical ground, didn’t dare unmask itself to such an extent, and when they tried again to cover similar ground on “Changes” from Vol. 4, the result was a laughable farce of emotionality. The minimalist blues of “Solitude” is unmatched in the Sabbath catalog, which even elsewhere offers righteous judgment (“Lord of this World”) and brazen defiance (“Children of the Grave”), but never again the same kind of peculiar ambience and first-person exploration of damaged psyche. It is beautiful and doomed in like measure, and the lead-in it provides the introductory and signature riff of “Into the Void” gives both songs a context emblematic of the strength of the album as a whole work.

The Legacy

Goes without saying, again. Go grab a CD or record off your shelf of any even moderately heavy variety, and there’s a good chance that whether or not the band knows it, there’s some aspect of Master of Reality to be found therein. The album is elemental in the actual, scientific sense — providing the pieces through which compounds can be made. A lot of Black Sabbath from this period is like that. With Master of Reality though, this was the record the first two were driving toward and the record that the remaining five released by the original lineup were coming from.

In terms of a Canon of Heavy, Blue Cheer and Hendrix were heavy before it, and others like Budgie, Atomic Rooster, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin ran concurrent, but none could stand in line with its crushing weight or sheer sonic mass. And none have since, Sabbath included. One need only name a band from either the heavy rock, doom or sludge genres to find someone who’s tried, pivotal or obscure, but Master of Reality stands unto itself, carved in stone. Time has not diminished it, and I think if time tried, the record would simply kick its ass, which is the same treatment it has dealt out to everything else in its path for the last 41 years.

Like I said: perfect.

I’ve done some cool shit in my day. Traveled places I thought I’d never go, seen things I never thought I’d see, and today, it’s my extreme fucking honor to exclusively host for free download a new Scion A/V Metal live EP from the gods themselves, Saint Fucking Vitus.

Get it right here:

The three songs on this new Saint Vitus live EP were recorded earlier this year at the Scion Rock Fest in Tampa, Florida, and there’s a good chance you’ve never heard Dave Chandler‘s guitar sound as buzzsaw-vicious as it does on this version of “The Bleeding Ground.” Full tracklist is as follows:

1. Mystic Lady
2. The Bleeding Ground
3. Born too Late

The occasion we’re marking — other than heretofore unseen levels of awesomeness — is the beginning tonight of Saint Vitus‘ tour with Weedeater and the reportedly at-least-somewhat-revamped lineup of Sourvein.

Saint Vitus will have a limited run of 600 copies 12″ vinyl pressing of the EP available at shows starting early next week, with the Jermaine Rogers artwork screenprinted on the cover.

Don’t miss the tour when it dooms through:

Scion A/V Presents Saint Vitus, w/ special guests Weedeater and Sourvein

9/13 Fort Worth, TX **
9/14 Little Rock, AR *
9/15 Memphis, TN
9/16 Nashville, TN
9/18 Atlanta, GA
9/19 Raleigh, NC
9/20 Richmond, VA
9/21 Huntington, WV
9/22 Lexington, KY
9/23 Pittsburgh, PA
9/24 Boston, MA
9/25 Brooklyn, NY
9/27 Washington, DC
9/28 New York, NY **
9/29 Cleveland, OH
9/30 Chicago, IL
10/1 Minneapolis, MN
10/2 Lawrence, KS
10/3 Denver, CO
10/4 Salt Lake City, UT
10/5 Boise, ID
10/6 Portland, OR
10/7 Seattle, WA
10/9 San Francisco, CA
10/10 Los Angeles, CA
10/11 Sacramento, CA
10/12 Santa Cruz, CA
10/13 Pomona, CA **
10/14 Santa Ana, CA
10/15 Tempe, AZ
10/16 Albuquerque, NM
10/18 Austin, TX

*No Sourvein
**No Weedeater/Sourvein

Scion A/V will also be hosting ticket giveaways, one winner per city, at their @ScionAV Twitter, so hit that up for even more “don’t have to pay for it”-type goodness.

Strictly speaking, the name of the CD is War Pigs, but I wanted there to be no confusion that what I’m talking about is Black Sabbath‘s gig at L’Olympia in Paris, France, from December 20, 1970. I know I’ve posted about it here before, and it’s probably the most famous of the many Sabbath bootlegs out there (if it’s second to anything, it’s Asbury Park, 1975; even that’s debatable), but it’s something I’ve gone back to a few times this summer for repeat listens, and it well earns its place as the Album of the Summer of the Week.

Whatever happened afterwards and whatever seemingly unending trail of bullshit infighting follows the band to this very day, in December 1970, Black Sabbath were basically dopey kids. This show was recorded a mere two months after Paranoid was released, and the performance is signature. From Geezer Butler‘s bass righteousness in “Hand of Doom” to Ozzy Osbourne even then not being able to remember the lyrics to “Iron Man,” Tony Iommi‘s burgeoning mastery of the riff and Bill Ward‘s manic fills, listening to War Pigs they sound like a band poised to create the greatest album ever — which of course they’d do with Master of Reality, released the following summer.

But War Pigs is overflowing with potential and if there’s a better way to end an hour-long set than “Fairies Wear Boots” — the verses of which are murdered here to hilarious effect — I’ve never encountered it. This being the age of ubiquitous online bootleggery (the up and down merits of which are a debate for another time altogether), the entire Paris 1970 set has made its way onto YouTube in glorious high definition, so please feel free to enrich your overheated summer afternoon with it below.