Kudos to Portland, Oregon-based sludgers Stoneburner on signing to Neurot Recordings. The heavy, heavy (yup, they’re heavy enough to say it twice) four-piece will issue their new album, Life Drawing, through the venerable imprint this coming spring. Their last album, Sickness Will Pass (discussed here), was their full-length debut and came out in 2012 on Seventh Rule.

Having already shared the stage with an impressive list of bands that you can see below, Stoneburner will join Eyehategod, Graves at Sea and others at the Oakland Metro Operahouse on Jan. 24 for what’s sure to be one of the crustiest nights in the early New Year. Poster for that and announcement of the signing follow here, courtesy of the PR wire:

STONEBURNER: Portland Sludge Metallers Join The Neurot Recordings Family

The Neurot Recordings family is pleased to welcome the audio devastation that is Portland’s STONEBURNER to their expanding roster of forward-thinking music.

Featuring four members with a compelling musical ancestry that winds through Buried At Sea, Buried Blood, Heathen Shrine and more, STONEBURNER — named after a subterranean weapon from the novel Dune — spews forth a groin-churning orchestration of crust-strewn, hypnotic, sludge metal, their torrid odes glazed with pain and distress. The band will unleash the follow-up to their 2012 debut full-length, Sickness Will Pass, which The Sludgelord fittingly crowned, “an ugly, visceral and truly terrifying beast of an album,” via Neurot Recordings this Spring. Titled Life Drawing, the offering promises to take their sonic crush to entirely new levels of heaviness.

Notes the STONEBURNER collective on their union with Neurot: “We’ve been working on the material for this album for a long time now and couldn’t feel better about how it’s come together. We’re humbled and honored that Neurot have asked to be involved. Since the band formed, we’ve always done our best to work with people we respect and know personally, signing to Neurot is an extension of that…another step in combining our personal and musical lives and bringing it all full circle.”

STONEBURNER was spawned in early 2008 though the bands’ familial roots reach back two decades. To describe STONEBURNER’s music one need only look to the list of bands with whom they’ve shared the stage: Yob, Sleep, Eyehategod, Neurosis, Buzzov-en, Weedeater, Saint Vitus, Watain, Tragedy, Noothgrush, Graves At Sea, Lord Dying, Drop Dead, Whitehorse, Windhand, Bastard Noise and so on. For STONEBURNER, it’s all about domination through amplification and soul-cleansing catharsis.

STONEBURNER personnel:
Elijah Boland – guitar
Jason Depew – guitar
Damon Kelly – bass/vocals
Jesse McKinnon drums/vocals

Further STONEBURNER intel, including Life Drawing release date and track listing, to be announced in the coming weeks.

http://www.facebook.com/Stoneburner.PDX
http://www.neurotrecordings.com
http://www.facebook.com/neurotrecordings

Corrections House‘s debut LP, Last City Zero, is out now on Neurot. It’s received no shortage of hyperbole around its apocalyptic atmospherics, and I guess at some point soon I’ll probably add a dose of my own to that mix — please try to contain your excitement. Currently on tour in Europe and with two slots at Roadburn ahead of them, the considerably-pedigreed outfit will start 2014 on the road down the West Coast of the US. They’ve also got a new video out for the song “Bullets and Graves” from Last City Zero and while I wouldn’t recommend it for epileptics, you can watch at your own risk on the player that follows the PR wire info below.

It’s like this:

CORRECTIONS HOUSE: Nihilistic Collective Announces Stateside Takeovers; March Through Europe Underway

Having just begun their march through Europe, today the CORRECTIONS HOUSE legion — Mike IX Williams (Eyehategod), Scott Kelly (Neurosis), Bruce Lamont (Yakuza), Sanford Parker (Minsk) and their minister of propaganda, Seward Fairbury — announce a short run of Stateside takeovers to usher in 2014. Set to commence January 2nd in Seattle, CORRECTIONS HOUSE will pillage their way through Portland, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco, leaving souls in torment and stages in ruins.

CORRECTIONS HOUSE are currently touring in support of their Last City Zero debut, issued via Neurot Recordings in late October. Produced by Parker at Electrical Audio, Soma Studios, 60 Psycho Hum and Nodferatu’s Lair, Last City Zero is an audio product of societal ruin and psychological decay. At once beautifully hideous, graceful and terrifying, the record travels far beyond the confines of any one specific genre and continues to reap the applause of exploratory fans and critics globally.

In related news, CORRECTIONS HOUSE recently unleashed a video for the track “Bullets And Graves” upon unsuspecting masses. Directed by Brian Sowell, “Bullets And Graves” is a flagrantly violent, roadside nightmare dominated by shady characters, vicious beatdowns and nameless destinations. Shot completely in black and white, the production is as captivating as it is disconcerting.

CORRECTIONS HOUSE Live Actions 2013/2014 [remaining dates]:
12/04/2013 Loppen – Copenhagen, DK
12/06/2013 Srattbad – Berlin, DE
12/07/2013 DB’s – Utrecht, NL
12/08/2013 VK Club – Brussels, BE
12/09/2013 Patronaat – Haarlem, NL
12/10/2013 La Fleche D’or – Paris, FR
12/11/2013 Le Sonic – Lyon, FR
12/12/2013 Le Romandie – Lausanne, CH
12/13/2013 Dachstock – Bern, CH
12/14/2013 Cycle Club – Calenzano (Florence), IT
12/15/2013 Garage – Saarbrücken, DE
12/16/2013 Feierwerk/ Hansa39 – Munich, DE
12/17/2013 Arena – Vienna, AT
12/18/2013 Klub Pilot – Prague, CZ
12/19/2013 Dürer Kert – Budapest, HU
12/20/2013 Kitsch Off Scena – Krakow, PL
12/21/2013 Pod Palacykiem – Wroclaw, PL
1/02/2014 The Highline – Seattle, WA w/ Wrekmeister Harmonies
1/03/2014 Dante’s – Portland, OR w/ Wrekmeister Harmonies
1/05/2014 Echoplex – Los Angeles, CA w/ Wrekmeister Harmonies, Author & Punisher
1/06/2014 Soda Bar – San Diego, CA w/ Wrekmeister Harmonies, Author & Punisher
1/07/2014 Great American Music Hall – San Francisco, CA w/ Wrekmeister Harmonies, Sutekh, Hexen
4/10/2014 013 Venue – Tilburg, NL
4/11/2014 Het Patronaat – Tilburg, NL

Last City Zero is available via Neurot Recordings at THIS LOCATION.

https://www.facebook.com/CorrectionsHouse
http://www.neurotrecordings.com
https://www.facebook.com/neurotrecordings

Corrections House, “Bullets and Graves” official video

I have to wonder how one gets appointed the “minister of propaganda” for a band like Corrections House. Seems like a pretty good gig. Probably pretty cushy too, since the aim of propaganda is to win opinions to your side, and with the lineup of vocalist Michael IX Williams (Eyehategod), guitarist Scott Kelly (Neurosis), vocalist/saxophonist/etc.-ist Bruce Lamont (Yakuza) and programmer/engineer Sanford Parker (Minsk/Buried at Sea), the band sells itself. If nothing else, they are not short on built-in appeal.

The full-length debut from Corrections House, Last City Zero, is out now on Neurot, and in addition to the revelation this week that they’d be playing Roadburn in 2014 — performing solo sets and as the full band in a manner similar to what they did on their debut US tour earlier this year (review here) — word has come down of an earlier European campaign for this December.

Ever reliable, the PR wire puts it like this:

CORRECTIONS HOUSE Announce Live Takeovers Including Two Special Performances At Roadburn 2014; Last City Zero Out NOW Via Neurot Recordings

CORRECTIONS HOUSE – the collective musical extractions of Mike IX Williams (Eyehategod), Scott Kelly (Neurosis), Bruce Lamont (Yakuza), Sanford Parker (Minsk) and their minister of propaganda, Seward Fairbury – is pleased to announce their European takeover this December. The rituals will commence on December 3rd in Hamburg, Germany and sully more than a dozen European metropolises before coming to a close December 21st in Wroclaw, Poland.

Fairbury made the following statement on the adventures: “There is no possible way to capture and enslave what has already been freed from within. The destruction that is given is also forgiven and so begets the path that we all have chosen. CORRECTIONS HOUSE is on this path, the one and same path as those who have walked, crawled and bled before them. Europe, you are on this path. CORRECTIONS HOUSE will see you in December of 2013. And so it begins.”

Additionally, CORRECTIONS HOUSE will preach the end-time message atop the main stage of the 013 venue in Tilburg, at Roadburn 2014. On Thursday April 10th they shall be hoaxing the system and smashing out selections from Last City Zero. On Friday, April 11th at Het Patronaat, Kelly, Williams, Parker and Lamont will each perform solo material, aided and abetted by a selection of others as they see fit. As a precursor to the overseas assaults, CORRECTIONS HOUSE will level the Empty Bottle in Chicago on November 30th with additional stateside presentations to be announced in the coming weeks.

CORRECTIONS HOUSE will be touring in support of their Last City Zero debut released worldwide earlier this week via Neurot Recordings. Produced by Parker at Electrical Audio, Soma Studios, 60 Psycho Hum and Nodferatu’s Lair, Last City Zero offers up eight psychologically alarming hymns that span well beyond the traditional confines of sound. CORRECTIONS HOUSE is a meeting of minds and ideologies that sees all four members incorporating their obvious individual talents and voices while simultaneously carving paths away from the sounds for which they are usually known. On Last City Zero, they traverse tectonic plate-shifting doom and the downcast gloom of Kelly’s usual ouevre into mutated industrial hissing and clanging EBM beats from Parker, squalls and drones of oblique saxophone from Lamont and Williams’ familiar phlegm-drenched fire-spitting ire and all points in-between. Together they embrace the unkind, the diseased, the forgotten, the morose, their lush anti-soundscrapes and shadowy verses – at once beautifully hideous, graceful and terrifying — a manifestation of societal ruin and psychological decay. Cold, mechanical, prosaic and pungent, Last City Zero is boundless in its genre voyage.

CORRECTIONS HOUSE Live Actions 2013:
11/30/2013 The Empty Bottle – Chicago, IL
12/03/2013 Hafenklang – Hamburg, GER
12/04/2013 Loopens – Copenhagen, DK
12/07/2013 DB´s – Utrecht, NL
12/08/2013 VK Club – Brussels, BE
12/09/2013 Patronaat – Harlem, NL
12/10/2013 La Fleche D’or – Paris , FR
12/11/2013 Le Sonic – Lyon, FR
12/12/2013 Le Romandie – Lausanne, CH
12/13/2013 Dachstock – Bern, CH
12/14/2013 Cycle Club – Calenzano (Florence), IT
12/15/2013 Garage – Saarbrücken, GER
12/17/2013 Arena – Vienna, AT
12/18/2013 U Pilotu – Prague, CZ
12/19/2013 Dürrer Kert – Budapest, HU
12/20/2013 Lizard King – Krakow, PL
12/21/2013 Pod Palacykiem – Wroclaw, PL
4/10/2014 013 Venue – Tilburg, NL
4/11/2014 Het Patronaat – Tilburg, NL

https://www.facebook.com/CorrectionsHouse
http://www.neurotrecordings.com
https://www.facebook.com/neurotrecordings

Corrections House, “Hoax the System” Live at Saint Vitus Bar

As they begin to celebrate 15 years together, Italian cosmic doom trio Ufomammut find themselves working under two coinciding principles: They always surprise and they’re consistently voraciously forward thinking. Perhaps it’s somewhat less surprising than it might initially seem that eventually these impulses would run into each other. Their Magickal Mastery Tour began this week in Europe, with the band — bassist/vocalist/keyboardist Urlo, guitarist/keyboardist Poia and drummer Vita — putting together a setlist that spans their career from 2000’s Godlike Snake debut all the way up to last year’s mind-expanding Neurot Recordings two-parter, Oro (reviews here and here). The impulse to surprise remains strong.

Ufomammut have had no shortage of triumphs throughout their career to date, whether it’s their landmark 2004 second outing, Snailking, or the growth of their visual-arts enterprise, Malleus as helping bring to life the vivid color and classic form of the European heavy psychedelic underground. From forming their own label, Supernatural Cat, to never failing to refine and develop their sound across 2005’s Lucifer Songs, their 2006 collaboration with Lento, as well as 2008’s Idolum and 2010’s masterpiece, Eve (review here), Ufomammut have continued to go bigger and deeper, creating a psychedelia that’s as crushing tonally as it is atmospheric and influencing countless others in their wake. Their style has never been anything but their own, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re one of the most pivotal and essential acts in heavy music today.

That being the case, as Ufomammut embark on the Magickal Mastery Tour, it seemed reasonable to hit them up for a few brief reflections on their time together these last 15 years, how things have changed for the band and where they might go following Oro. Having interviewed the band before, I know they’re men of brevity and the Q&A certainly follows that course, but two days into the run, here are the remaining Magickal Mastery Tour dates should you be fortunate enough to be someplace in the world that also happens to be in their path:

MAGIKAL MASTERY TOUR DATES:
27 sept – Kulturpalast – Wiesbaden (D)*
28 sept – Het Depot – Leuven (B)*
29 sept – Vera – Groningen (NL)*
01 oct – The Fleece – Bristol (UK)*
02 oct – Brudenell social club – Leeds (UK)*
03 oct – The Underworld – London (UK)*
04 oct – 4AD – Diksmuide (BE)*
05 oct – Römer – Bremen (D)*
06 oct – KB18 – Copenhagen (DK)
07 oct – Blitz – Oslo (NOR) (w/ Tombstones)
09 oct – Luttako – Jväskyla (FIN)
10 oct – Kuudes Linja – Helsinki (FIN) (w/ Suma)
11 oct – Yo Talo – Tampere (FIN)
12 oct – Nuclear Nightclub – Oulu (FIN)
17 oct – Progresja – Warsaw (PL)
18 oct – Bii Nu – Berlin (D)
19 oct – Keep it Low Festival – Munich (D)
*all dates with Zolle in support

The complete Q&A with Ufomammut follows after the jump. Please enjoy.

Read more »

The track “We Let the Hell Come” would wind up as one of the most memorable songs on Scott Kelly‘s 2012 Scott Kelly and the Road Home album, The Forgiven Ghost in Me. Interpreted with subtle, still-minimalist interplay of electric and acoustic guitar and Kelly‘s mournful, gravel-throated wonderings, it was a highlight of the record (review here), engaging with a sweet, sad melody and the persistent strum of Kelly‘s strings. Little in that version would link “We Let the Hell Come” to its prior interpretation — the song having been performed over two years earlier live by Shrinebuilder.

At the very start of the video below, filmed at Skully’s in Columbus, Ohio, as part of the 2010 Scion Rock Fest — Shrinebuilder headlined that venue for the night; YOB, Pelican, Acrassicauda and others also played — the band says that “We Let the Hell Come” will be on the next record. It may well still be, but more than three years later, a follow-up to Shrinebuilder‘s 2009 self-titled debut (review here) has yet to surface, and with the band’s members — Kelly (also in Neurosis), Scott “Wino” Weinrich (also in The Obsessed and Saint Vitus at this point, as well as putting out solo material), Dale Crover (the Melvins) and Al Cisneros (Sleep and Om) — busy with their respective main outfits, it may be that Shrinebuilder was a one-time planetary alignment that we won’t be fortunate enough to see again.

If that’s the case, all the better that clips like this one of “We Let the Hell Come” are out there — the song also showed up on Shrinebuilder‘s Live in Europe 2010 vinyl, which I regret not buying when I had the chance — to give a sampling of what might’ve been or, who knows, might still be when and if there’s a second Shrinebuilder outing. This video was filmed by Chris Kimbrough and I hope you enjoy and have an excellent Wino Wednesday:

Shrinebuilder, “We Let the Hell Come” Live at Scion Rock Fest 2010

Pretty bold move to even think about leaving your house in the Southeast in July, let alone get in a vehicle and do shows, but intrepid North Carolinian psych purveyors U.S. Christmas are taking on the task nonetheless. With Generation of Vipers in tow they’ll be facing the swelter head on, finding refuge in venues alongside the likes of Sons of Tonatiuh and Divine Circles.

Get your icepacks on:

USX To Tour Southeast US With Fellow Appalachian Act Generation of Vipers This Week

Appalachian masters of dark psychedelia, USX, will take to the road this week for a run of shows through the Southeastern US states alongside local brethren Generation Of Vipers. The five-city run begins on Wednesday, July 17th in Asheville followed by Athens, Atlanta, Savannah and Columbia through next weekend, the two acts to share the stage with Sons of Tonatiuh, Across Tundras and more throughout the trek.

Stated USX founder Nate Hall of the trek: “We are anticipating some good hot and sweaty shows with our good friends Generation of Vipers, Sons of Tonatiuh, and some cool new southern bands. We are hitting some of our favorite cities and it would be cool to see a ton of people come out. As always, we will play as loud and hard as we can. And we are LOADED with merch.”

USX Tour w/ Generation Of Vipers:
7/17/2013 The Boiler Room – Asheville, NC
7/18/2013 Flicker – Athens, GA
7/19/2013 529 – Altanta, GA w/ Sons of Tonatiuh, Across Tundras
7/20/2013 The Jinx – Savannah, GA
7/21/2013 Jakes – Columbia, SC

A six-pack of talented musicians, USX, having converted the name from their initial moniker U.S. Christmas, is a long-running and major element to the Neurot Recordings roster, with a plethora of LPs and other releases as well as Nate Hall’s maiden solo effort on the label’s roster. The latest USX studio effort, the epic The Valley Path, was released via Neurot in mid-2011, the expansive album consisting of one mammoth, nearly forty-minute track of esoteric beauty, showcasing the sextet’s uneasily-classified folk and psyche-driven rock at its most expansive yet.

U.S. Christmas, The Valley Path (2011)

If the response to the track streamed here is anything to go by, the Neurot debut from Arkansas-based Iron Tongue, The Dogs Have Barked, the Birds Have Flown, arrives with no shortage of advance fanfare, but might still prove a creeper to the general public. Catching immediate attention because of Rwake‘s Chris “CT” Terry in the frontman role, the moody Southern grooves and heavy vibes nonetheless carve out their own identity across the album’s seven cuts, and it was for that reason I thought the record was worth a release date plug. The Dogs Have Barked, the Birds Have Flown is out now.

PR wire info and a live clip of opener “Ever After” follow here:

IRON TONGUE Debut Out Today Via Neurot!

Neurot Recordings is pleased to release the debut from Arkansas southern rock collective IRON TONGUE! Fronted by Chris “CT” Terry, the founding frontman of sludge legion Rwake, IRON TONGUE formed when a group of veteran players with diverse musical backgrounds found a common interest in the need to get down and dirty and way, way gone.

Churning a soulful blend of girthy, heavily amped, blues-based rock, IRON TONGUE aren’t singing of magical moonlit escapades. The band offer up songs of pain, regret and heartache that recall everything from the proto-metal stomp of Blue Cheer and Grand Funk to the darkest hours of Kiss, Deep Purple, Buddy Guy and ‘Skynyrd. Having spent over three years performing steadily throughout the South, IRON TONGUE has traversed the Midwest and East Coast with Memphis kindred spirits The Dirty Streets, in addition to sharing bills with the likes of Black Tusk, Scott Kelly, The Sword, High on Fire, Crowbar, The Body, Lita Ford and fellow Arkansans Pallbearer. A split 7” with The Dirty Streets, featuring a ballsy version of KISS’s “Two Timer” served as a precursor to the creation their debut full-length for Neurot.

Titled The Dogs Have Barked, The Birds Have Flown, the seven track offering was recorded and produced by soundsmith Billy Anderson (Melvins, Sleep, Neurosis, etc) at IRON TONGUE guitarist Jason Tedford’s Wolfman Studios. Called “a solid slab of balls to the wall shameless rock, with a power and an edge and soul that rarely exists in music today,” by Neurosis’ Steve Von Till, The Dogs Have Barked, The Birds Have Flown is set for release via Neurot Recordings on May 27th in Europe and May 28th in North America.

Comments drummer Stan James of joining the Neurot family: “IRON TONGUE is excited and honored to be a part of the Neurot team! We are looking forward to working hard every step of the way and we are committed to making music that everyone will be proud of.”

IRON TONGUE:
Jason Tedford – Guitar
Mark Chiaro – Guitar
Andy Warr – Bass
Stan James – Drums
CT – Vocals
JR Top – Keyboards
Stephanie Smittle – Backing Vocals

http://www.facebook.com/Irontongue
http://www.neurotrecordings.com
http://www.facebook.com/neurotrecordings

Iron Tongue, “Ever After” Live

Those looking for similarities between Iron Tongue‘s full-length debut, The Dogs Have Barked, the Birds Have Flown, and frontman Chris “CT” Terry‘s work in post-doomers Rwake will find them few and far between — but not completely absent. Terry is joined in the Little Rock, Arkansas-based six-piece by backing vocalist Stephanie Smittle, guitarists Jason Tedford and Mark Chiaro, bassist Andy Warr and drummer Stan James and he brings to his approach a style of clean-sung but still throaty shouts, at times veering toward that bottom-of-the-mouth soul that Phil Anselmo brought to Down II, but as on the centerpiece “Moon Unit,” he finds his own personality within the material as well. Pacing also helps — Skynyrd by way of Crowbar — and where so much Southern heavy is bent on ZZ Top riffs rehashed at double-speed, Iron Tongue keep their grooves slow, coupling Tedford and Chiaro‘s trodden guitar work with organ textures and Warr‘s consuming low end.

But for the earlier “Witchery” — distinguished by the line, “The cocaine has a lock on my brain,” which opens the chorus — and the stomping finale “Said ‘n’ Done,” most of The Dogs Have Barked, the Birds Have Flown keep the workingman’s downer feel set by opener “Ever After,” Smittle‘s vocals coming on in layers to introduce a key element in Iron Tongue‘s approach: the band’s unabashed penchant for melody. They could’ve easily started the record with a rager, but if the title wasn’t enough of a hint, they clearly wanted to make it plain that there’s more to what they do than redundant burl and dudely posturing in songs about drinking. So be it. Likewise, the penultimate cut on The Dogs Have Barked, the Birds Have Flown, “7 Days,” summarizes much of the record’s emotionality before the final rush of “Said ‘n’ Done,” nestling into a mid-paced groove over which Terry delivers some of his most effective work, answered in the chorus by Smittle to result in one of the best hooks present throughout.

Obviously Terry‘s tenure in Rwake is going to earn at least a mention when it comes to Iron Tongue‘s work, but the album — cumbersomely titled as it is — makes no bones about establishing its own context and working on its own merits in establishing an atmosphere and constructing a genuine sonic breadth out of slow riffs, organic production, Southern woes and heaviness that goes beyond the tonal. As a piece of the whole, I think “7 Days” represents these aspects well, and I’m thrilled to be able to premiere the track on the player below.

The Dogs Have Barked, the Birds Have Flown is due out May 28 in North America (day before in Europe) on Neurot Recordings. Please enjoy:

[mp3player width=480 height=150 config=fmp_jw_widget_config.xml playlist=iron-tongue-7-days.xml]

Iron Tongue‘s debut, The Dogs Have Barked, the Birds Have Flown, was recorded at Jason Tedford‘s Wolfman Studios by Billy Anderson. More info at the following links:

Iron Tongue on Thee Facebooks

Neurot Recordings