We’re getting closer to the July 10 release date for Michigan four-piece Bison Machine‘s debut LP for Kozmik Artifactz/Bilocation Records, Hoarfrost (review here). That album, initially a digital self-release, will get its first physical pressing from the German imprints — when will they finally join forces as Kozmik Location Records? — and the Hamtramck outfit have already been on the road to herald its coming; in May, they were out alongside New Yorkers Geezer for a run of shows on the Eastern Seaboard. Given that and the obvious drive to spread the word about what they’re doing, maybe a new video isn’t such a surprise, but it’s a welcome arrival anyway, as it gives more of a look at what Bison Machine are all about.

To that end: Guns, motorcycle riding through scenes of urban decay, antlers on drums, bone-handle hunting knives, wah pedals, weirdly opaque and murderous woodland rituals, fuzz and memorable songwriting. I mean, there’s probably more there, but between the live footage from Smalls in Detroit and the sort of atmospheric visuals set against it, the band present a sense of mood that’s perhaps severe next to the song “Viking Hand” itself, but not necessarily out of place. It gets awfully cold in Michigan, after all. Seems likely that one way or another somebody would wind up with a knife in their back after running into a shrouded tree-worshiper someplace deep in the forest. Oh, and did I mention antlers on drums? Because that’s particularly awesome.

Video is below for the in-digging. Hope you enjoy:

Bison Machine, “Viking Hand” official video

Stream and share the official video for ‘Viking Hand’ by Michigan’s Bison Machine | Debut album Hoarfrost released 10th July

Burning bright with lysergic energy Bison Machine’s Hoarfrost – the band’s debut album originally self-released to notable acclaim among the stoner rock community earlier this year – will get an official release this July through Germany’s Kozmik Artifactz/Bilocation Records, Europe’s leading purveyor of heavy psych, blues and stoner rock.

Worshippers of volume, Bison Machine have gained a reputation for their frenzied, high velocity live shows, welding Graveyard and Pentagram influenced shuffles onto the back of 70s Motor City rock and 90s stoner grooves. If you’re a fan of pounding, colossal blues and heavy Zep-driven riffs then the Hamtramck four-piece’s gnarled and muscular guitar and vocal work on tracks like ‘Cosmic Ark’, ‘Gamekeeper’s Thumb’ and ‘Viking Hand’ will leave you floored, broken and bloodied.

Hoarfrost by Bison Machine will be released on CD and limited, high performance 180g vinyl on 10th July via Kozmik Artifactz/Bilocation Records
Bison Machine:

John deVries – Guitar
Breck Crandell – Drums
Tom Stec – Vocals
Anthony Franchina – Bass

Bison Machine on Thee Facebooks

Kozmik Artifactz

This past weekend, Michigan four-piece Bison Machine wrapped up their “Mind over Mountain” tour with New York blues rockers Geezer, supporting their debut full-length release, Hoarfrost. Following up a 2013 self-titled EP, Hoarfrost was initially released in Jan. 2015 digitally and has been picked up for a vinyl issue on Bilocation Records/Kozmik Artifactz next month. That it would be a European imprint(s) picking up the release makes particular sense given the Hamtramck outfit’s breadth of sound, which is as classically-minded as it is modern, ultimately, but more in line with a Euro-style focus on tone and shuffle, post-Graveyard boogie delivered with post-Queens of the Stone Age fuzz. It makes for an engaging blend over the course of Hoarfrost‘s 36 minute/six tracks, but ultimately it’s the band’s vitality that sells it.

Without that, songs like “Speed of Darkness” and “Cosmic Ark” might still have their motoring side, but no way it would carry over as well as it does. Vocalist Tom Stec moves smoothly between a croon and falsetto in easy-sounding command from the start, and guitarist John de Vries, bassist Anthony Franchina and drummer Breck Crandell tie together full-toned fuzz and rhythmic shifts either as beds for chorus hooks or, on longer cuts, explorations of their own. “Old Moon,” the second of the three songs on side A, has a bit of both working — perhaps more than “Speed of Darkness,” which is its side B counterpart — but each half of Hoarfrost caps with a longer cut and it’s clearly the intent of the album that one side should be in conversation with the other.

And so they are. “Cosmic Ark” and “Old Moon” set the stage for “Gamekeeper’s Thumb,” and “Viking Hand” and “Speed of Darkness” do likewise for “Giant’s Coffin.” The two finales are the most extended pieces on Bison Machine have on offer, and while neither is an all-out jam to the exclusion of structure, they both certainly carry that sensibility in their root. “Gamekeeper’s Thumb” moves from an initial bass intro to the album’s most satisfying heavy psych roll, while “Giant’s Coffin” develops its progressions into a balance between push and sprawl, managing to offer plenty of both and, in summarizing the record as whole, remains catchy and focused even as it plunges into the solo-topped reaches of its second half.

It’s the closer that I have the pleasure of streaming today ahead of Hoarfrost‘s release on Bilocation/Kozmik Artifactz. Please find it on the player below, followed by some PR wire background on Bison Machine, dig in and enjoy:

Burning bright with lysergic energy Bison Machine’s Hoarfrost – the band’s debut album originally self-released to notable acclaim among the stoner rock community earlier this year – will get an official release this July through Germany’s Kozmik Artifactz/Bilocation Records, Europe’s leading purveyor of heavy psych, blues and stoner rock.

Worshippers of volume, Bison Machine have gained a reputation for their frenzied, high velocity live shows, welding Graveyard and Pentagram influenced shuffles onto the back of 70s Motor City rock and 90s stoner grooves. If you’re a fan of pounding, colossal blues and heavy Zep-driven riffs then the Hamtramck four-piece’s gnarled and muscular guitar and vocal work on tracks like ‘Cosmic Ark’, ‘Gamekeeper’s Thumb’ and ‘Viking Hand’ will leave you floored, broken and bloodied.

Hoarfrost by Bison Machine will be released on CD and limited, high performance 180g vinyl on 10th July via Kozmik Artifactz/Bilocation Records.

Vocals: Tom Stec
Guitar: John deVries
Bass: Anthony Franchina
Drums: Breck Crandell

Bison Machine on Thee Facebooks

Bison Machine on Twitter

Bison Machine on Bandcamp

Kozmik Artifactz

Initially released by the Michigan outfit earlier this year to much hullabaloo, Bison Machine‘s full-length debut, Hoarfrost, has been tapped for a release through Kozmik Artifactz in July on CD and 180g vinyl. Not sure how that will mesh with the May 27 gig the band had slated as the release show as a part of their “Mind over Mountain” tour with NY blues rockers Geezer, but it’s their hometown show — Detroit, at Small’s — so they can do whatever the hell they want, regardless of whether or not the LPs are back from the plant. If you didn’t hear it, their “Gamekeeper’s Thumb” opened the latest podcast.

The official release date for Hoarfrost is July 10, as the PR wire informs:

Michigan’s BISON MACHINE announce debut release and US tour dates | Stream and share new song ‘Cosmic Ark’

Hoarfrost is out 10th July 2015 on Kozmik Artifactz/Bilocation

Burning bright with lysergic energy Bison Machine’s Hoarfrost – the band’s debut album originally self-released to notable acclaim among the stoner rock community earlier this year – will get an official release this July through Germany’s Kozmik Artifactz/Bilocation Records, Europe’s leading purveyor of heavy psych, blues and stoner rock.

Worshippers of volume, Bison Machine have gained a reputation for their frenzied, high velocity live shows, welding Graveyard and Pentagram influenced shuffles onto the back of 70s Motor City rock and 90s stoner grooves. If you’re a fan of pounding, colossal blues and heavy Zep-driven riffs then the Hamtramck four-piece’s gnarled and muscular guitar and vocal work on tracks like ‘Cosmic Ark’, ‘Gamekeeper’s Thumb’ and ‘Viking Hand’ will leave you floored, broken and bloodied.

Along with news of their official album release Bison Machine take to the road this month for a run of five dates alongside New York’s heavy bluesers Geezer as part of their Mind Over Mountain tour. (For full list of dates see below.)

Hoarfrost by Bison Machine will be released on CD and limited, high performance 180g vinyl on 10th July via Kozmik Artifactz/Bilocation Records.

Bison Machine/Geezer’s Mind Over Mountain Tour Dates:
Tues, 26/5 – 31st St Pub, Pittsburg (w. Sinister Haze)
Wed, 27/5 – Small’s, Detroit, Michigan (w. Wild Savages & SLO)
Thurs, 28/5 – Blind Bob’s, Dayton, Ohio (w. Grand Mammoth & Zuel)
Fri, 29/5 – The Living Room, Stroudsburg Pennsylvania (w. Wizard Eye)
Sat, 30/5 – Lucky 13 Saloon, Brooklyn, New York (w. The Golden Grass & Wolf Blood)

Bison Machine:
John deVries – Guitar
Breck Crandell – Drums
Tom Stec – Vocals
Anthony Franchina – Bass

https://www.facebook.com/americanbison
https://bisonmachine.bandcamp.com/
https://twitter.com/bisonmachine
http://shop.bilocationrecords.com/

Bison Machine, Hoarfrost (2015)

Heavy rockers Bison Machine will release their debut album, Hoarfrost, in 2015 via Bilocation Records. The Detroit four-piece get down on some serious boogie, as the check-out-our-vinyl-master sample track “Cosmic Ark” — not to be confused with the Mos Generator song of the same name — showcases, shuffling Graveyard style to do a wild roundabout back to ’70s Detroit influences: Detroit to Örebro to Detroit. Their impending Spring 2015 tour, with dates yet to be unveiled, may or may not take them that far, but it’s a cool sound one way or another and Bison Machine seem to wield it well.

The PR wire saw fit to provide the details and a bit of background on the band:

BISON MACHINE are signing with Bilocation Records

Detroit’s finest heavyrockers BISON MACHINE signed for a vinylrelease with Bilocation Records. Their album ‘Hoarfrost’ will be out during 2015 on limited high performance 180g vinyl.

“Conceived in a single family wigwam on the far eastern reaches of the city of Detroit, and thrust from the birth canal in a dusty basement in Hamtramck, Bison Machine giveth and Bison Machine taketh away.

No Prisoners; no one survives. Liveshows are things of wonderment. Volume, blues, saturation. That is the prevailing ethos. Hamtramck’s own rock spectacle, heavy and melodic. Things are broken, blood is spilled, clothes and loin cloths are rent from bodies, antler and hides are prevalent.

Picture a small child raised on the delta blues since birth, then force fed Zeppelin and Sabbath til they could no longer move, then beaten and whipped with Kyuss, Pentagram, Earthless, Dead Meadow, Willie and Waylon, Queens of the stone age and Thin Lizzy, until one day, the child rears its ugly bruised and mishapen head perched upon its grizzled, muscular, agromegalic body rippling with virility, shrugs of it’s chains, and runs down Jos Campau naked, riding a sabertooth tiger.

This is the music that poor soul would be singing.

Bison Machine.

…and no one survives.”

John deVries- guitar
Breck Crandell- drums
Tom Stec- vox
Anthony Franchina- bass

https://www.facebook.com/americanbison/
https://bisonmachine.bandcamp.com/
http://bisonmachine.bigcartel.com/
http://kozmik-artifactz.com/
http://shop.bilocationrecords.com/index.php?s=3
https://www.facebook.com/bilocationrecords

Bison Machine, “Cosmic Ark”