Posted in Whathaveyou on April 4th, 2014 by JJ Koczan
By virtue of their ready drive to experiment, it seems preordained that Queen Elephantine will remain somewhat underappreciated in the wider sphere of heavy, but their droning explorations engage both hypnotism and conscious acknowledgement, and when they burst forward, they can be viciously, unrepentantly weighted. The somewhat amorphous Providence, Rhode Island, outfit released their Scarab(review here) full-length last year, and it was an album both ambitious and expansive, stretching and pulling the mind like taffy with this or that evocative nuance. Truly one to get lost in, and a joy for that.
In addition to the dates listed below for their April tour of the Northeast, Queen Elephantine will also play this coming Sunday at Dusk in their native Providence, alongside Satan‘s Satyrs and somebody-sign-them-already doomers Magic Circle, at a gig presented by Armageddon Shop. Info on that is here.
Also note the appearance among the enviable lineup of the Hudson Valley Psych Fest on April 18:
QUEEN ELEPHANTINE —-Northeast US Tour—-
April 16 – 26, 2014
The heavy ‘avante’ psych band was formed in 2006 in Hong Kong but is currently based in Providence, RI. They have released four albums and several EPs, including splits with Sons of Otis and Elder. Scarab was released mid-2013 on Heart & Crossbone (CD, Israel) and Cosmic Eye (LP, Greece).
-APRIL 2014-
16 – Boston, MA. O’Brien’s. w/ The Modern Voice, Glacier
18 – Kingston, NY. Hudson Valley Psych Fest BSP. w/ White Hills, It’s Not Night: It’s Space, The Golden Grass, Eidetic Seeing
19 – Wilmington, DE. 1984. w/ Heavy Temple, Wizard Eye
20 – Brooklyn, NY. Don Pedro. w/ Theologian, Prana-Bindu, Sonic Suicide Squad, Andrew Barker/Michael Foster/James Ilgenfritz trio
23 – Florence, MA. 13th Floor Music Lounge. w/ Palace In Thunderland, Murder And The Timelords
24 – Portsmouth, NH. The Red Door. w/ Green Bastard, Northern Curse
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 19th, 2014 by JJ Koczan
II: Void Worshipwill be Pilgrim‘s first outing for Metal Blade proper after signing to the label following the success of their Misery Wizarddebut, which Metal Blade distributed via Alan Averill of Primordial‘s imprint, Poison Tongue. The band will also hit the road as openers for the reunited Spirit Caravan on their first North American run since getting back together, so it would seem their ascent continues. A new song, dubbed “The Paladin,” is streaming now, and album preorders are available through Metal Blade for what’s almost certainly one of 2014’s most anticipated doom releases.
This comes fresh off the PR wire:
PILGRIM: Rhode Island Doom Bringers To Release Sophomore Full-Length
New Track Streaming and Live Takeovers Confirmed
Wizards and warriors, rejoice, for the chosen one has returned! Since the early 2012 unveiling of their debut sonic behemoth, Misery Wizard, fans and critics alike have patiently yet anxiously awaited the second chapter from Rhode Island doom bringers, PILGRIM. Welcome II: Void Worship.
Wielding eight new epic tracks laden with tales of swords and sorcery, death, doom and destruction, II: Void Worship wasrecorded at Moonlight Mile Recording by audio architect Mike Moebius and supplies an extraordinary quality of tone and heaviness. With II: Void Worship,PILGRIM takes a new approach to their songwriting, replacing meditated, repetitive hypnosis-inducing dirges with more calculated and demented power-house riffs. They build, shape, and climb into frenzied climaxes and fade into sweet sonic releases, molding perfectly crafted rock songs into twisting spires of evil doom metal masterpieces. It is obvious that PILGRIM has matured, both musically and as individuals, in their past two years of global conquest.
Feel the gargantuan crush of third hymn, “The Paladin,” now streaming atmetalblade.com/pilgrim.
II: Void Worship track listing: 1. Intro 2. Master’s Chamber 3. The Paladin 4. Arcane Sanctum 5. In The Process of Evil 6. Void of Worship 7. Dwarven March 8. Away From Here
In related PILGRIM news, the band will bring their epic earth-rumblings to the stage next month supporting reunited stoner rock icons, Spirit Caravan. Set to commence on March 7th in Baltimore, Maryland, the trek will rupture nearly two dozen cities and include a performance at this year’s edition of SXSW. See confirmed dates below.
PILGRIMw/ Spirit Caravan: 03/07/2014 Metro Gallery – Baltimore, MD 03/08/2014 Straneg Matter – Richmond, VA 03/09/2014 Chop Shop – Charlotte, NC 03/10/2014 Drunken Unicorn – Atlanta, GA 03/15/2014 SXSW – Austin, TX 03/17/2014 Launchpad – Albuquerque, NM 03/18/2014 Cheyenne Saloon – Las Vegas, NV 03/19/2014 Thee Parkside – San Francisco, CA 03/21/2014 Rotture – Portland, OR 03/22/2014 El Corazon – Seattle, WA 03/24/2014 The Shredder – Boise, ID 03/25/2014 Burt’s Tiki Lounge – Salt Lake City, UT 03/27/2014 Marquis Theater – Denver, CO 03/29/2014 Reggies – Chicago, IL 03/30/2014 Cactus Club – Milwaukee, WI 03/31/2014 The Fifth Quarter – Indianapolis, IN 04/01/2014 Outland Ballroom – Springfield, MO 04/02/2014 Rock Island Brewing – Rock Island, IL 04/03/2014 Fubar – St. Louis, MO 04/04/2014 Hi Tone – Memphis, TN 04/05/2014 V Club – Huntington, WV 04/06/2014 Hideaway – Johnson City, TN 04/08/2014 Pyramid Scheme – Grand Rapids, MI 04/09/2014 Skully’s – Columbus ,OH 04/12/2014 31st St Pub – Pittsburgh, PA 04/13/2014 Empire – Springfield, VA 04/14/2014 AS220 – Providence, RI 04/15/2014 Saint Vitus Bar – Brooklyn NY
II: Void Worship is scheduled for release on April 1, 2014 in North America, and on March 28/31 in Europe/UK via Metal Blade Records. Special preorder packages, including vinyl, are currently available atmetalblade.com/pilgrim.
Posted in Buried Treasure on December 12th, 2013 by JJ Koczan
About two weeks ago, I visited the “Not Just” Rock Expo outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and while I found some pretty killer stuff there, one thing I didn’t pick up was the 2007 Concrete Lo-Fi Records split CD between Queen Elephantine and Sons of Otis. The dude wanted $20 for it and that was more money than I had left to spend. I was bummed out about leaving it behind, and all the more so since I couldn’t find a copy on the interwebs once I got back home and tried looking. Seemed like I was going to have to let it go, at least for the time being, and maybe keep an eye on eBay or Amazon or hope to randomly run into it at Armageddon Shop somewhere down the line.
Well, a couple days ago, Indy Shome from Queen Elephantine dropped a line and said he was sending a copy over. It showed up today and it’s been the perfect thing to get me through an overtired fuckoff of an afternoon. The split is comprised of three songs, two from Toronto stoner lords Sons of Otis and one from Queen Elephantine, totaling just under 44 minutes, and comes complete with Adrian Dexter artwork and vibe to spare. For Queen Elephantine, it’s one of their earlier releases, after they made their 2006 debut on a split with Elder, but before they released their first album, Surya, and for Sons of Otis, it arrived two years after their Small Stone debut, X, and two years before its follow-up, Exiled.
Sons of Otis go first, their “Tales of Otis” embarking on an eight-minute march that seems to slow time along with it. There’s little more to it than thud and vague riffing, but somehow it manages to be grooving anyway. There are no vocals on either of the Canadian band’s inclusions, and interestingly, both songs include drums, though only bassist Frank Sargent and guitarist Ken Baluke are listed as playing on it. Could be a loop, I guess. Both “Tales of Otis” and the subsequent “Oxazejam” are repetitive enough in their rhythms to have that be the case (and that’s not a knock on them), the latter also a slow-burning jam that keeps the smoked-out feel of “Tales of Otis” going as Baluke‘s guitar seems to sort of wisp into and out of lead progressions. They’ve always excelled that that kind of ultra-chilled semi-consciousness, and in the six years since this release, that hasn’t changed at all.
Unless I’m mistaken, Shome, who handles guitar and vocals in Queen Elephantine and is the only remaining member from this incarnation — the band having since parted ways with bassist Daniel Quinn, drummer Michael Isley and percussionist J. Alexander Buck — was based in New York at the time this split was issued. He gets around, be it to Providence, Rhode Island, or Hong Kong. In any case, the band’s 26-minute exploration “The Battle of Masscoit (The Weapon of the King of Gods)” is a fitting precursor to the types of jammed-out contemplative psychedelic experiments Shome has been leading even up to this year’s Scarab (review here), albeit somewhat less expansive in the sonic ingredients used and the overall atmosphere. The will to drone is there, however, and it serves Queen Elephantine well as the piece unfolds, molten and held together somewhat by the drums but by no means beholden to them.
Because the idea entertains me, I’ll use the phrase “ambient as fuck,” but let the point be that Sons of Otis and Queen Elephantine worked remarkably well side-by-side on this release, and both give ample opportunity to let your mind wander in their psychedelic and engrossing haze. I’m glad I got to hear it on disc, and I’ll look forward to future sonic escapes like the one it provided me today. Sometimes you just gotta check out for a while. May I suggest:
Queen Elephantine, “The Battle of Massacoit (The Weapon of the King of Gods)”
Posted in Reviews on October 24th, 2013 by JJ Koczan
It was a weird kind of night, but I like weird. Uzala were coming from the other side of the country — Boise, Idaho, and Portland, Oregon — and had brought YOB‘s Mike Scheidt along for the tour, also picking up still-nascent Chicago outfit Mount Salem on the way. The three acts weren’t exactly lacking variety between them, with Scheidt playing acoustic, Mount Salem indulging Korg-inclusive cult rock and Uzala crushing with plodding noise, but the show, which took place at Dusk in Providence, Rhode Island, was rounded out by local black metal shredders Bog of the Infidel. So yeah, kind of all over the place with a sphere of underground heavy, but still definitely a good time.
Providence is about an hour away from me. It still took me less time to get to Dusk than it ever took me to get across Manhattan and into Brooklyn from New Jersey, though, and I suspect that once I get used to the drive, I won’t find it at all unpleasant. I had Druglord‘s new tape (review forthcoming) along for the ride to set the mood and was excited to see Uzala particularly. The flyer for the show listed Scheidt at the bottom, so thinking there was a chance he’d be going on first, I took it as an instruction to get there fairly early. He did indeed wind up playing before any of the others, but even so, his set didn’t start until a little before 10PM. It was going to be a late night.
Sure enough, that’s how it played out. To get things moving and make up for lost time from the late kickoff, Scheidt played a shorter set, starting with a Townes van Zandt cover — pretty sure it was “Rake,” but don’t quote me on it — and part of a new song before going into two from last year’s solo debut, Stay Awake(review here), including the churning set-closer “Stay Awake,” which has only proved more of a landmark in Scheidt‘s songwriting in the year since the album was released and with a couple tours like this one under his belt. In that time, he’s clearly gotten more comfortable with the form of playing by himself. His set was loose, casual and relaxed, but still conveying emotion and the sense of purpose behind the songs. It looked like something he was doing because he enjoyed it, rather than an experiment in something new, and when he fucked up the new song, he laughed it off like it didn’t matter at all, and so it didn’t.
Mount Salem formed in 2012 in Chicago, and I was going to say something about how in another couple years they’d be ready to hook up with Metal Blade‘s current cult rock fetish, but it appears they already have, so kudos. Money’s tight, but I will at least admit to picking up a CD of their self-released debut EP, Endless, and since I’d seen their name around over the last few months, I was eager to see what they had on offer. Vocalist Emily Kopplin started the set alone on stage setting a mood with keys and vocals before being joined by bassist Mark Hewett, guitarist Kyle Morrison and drummer Cody Davidson for a round of songs mostly culled from that EP. Everything sounds likeSaint Vitus to me lately, but the stomp at the beginning of “Hysteria” seemed specifically indebted to “Born too Late,” though Morrison was sure to toss in lead notes and add personality to the familiar rhythm, and I found that though I had a pretty clear understanding of where Mount Salem were coming from in terms of their influences — taking that Vitus pace and offsetting it with strong cult/stoner blues chug while Kopplin topped with her powerful, versatile voice — they delivered everything I could have reasonably asked for such a new band on the road.
They had the tone, the vibe, and the approach pretty much down — not to mention the songs — and considering a lot of bands never get to that point, it’s all the more impressive that Mount Salem would essentially start out that way. The overall feel of “Good Times” was familiar within the genre, but the song nonetheless lived up to its name, and it seemed in watching them that all Mount Salem really needed to do was continue to put in work touring to refine their take. I’ll look forward to getting to know their EP, which came out earlier this year, and to finding out where their next batch of songs brings their sound. When they were done, they quickly loaded their gear off stage so that double-guitar five-piece Bog of the Infidel could get started.
My opinions on black metal vary widely depending on mood. Sometimes it’s all pretenders to the throne of two or three bands (what genre isn’t?) or dudes trying their best to sound Norwegian without thinking about why, and other times it’s ripping good fun, the brutality and extremity of something like Dark Funeral or Averse Sefira or any number of others providing its own excuse for being within a style that at this point has had three decades of development. Bog of the Infidel were tight and fast with some underpinnings of brutal groove amid a few showings of technicality — also armbands — and though I wondered why they, as the locals on an already late night, wouldn’t take the closing slot of the show and let Uzala play to what would almost certainly be the bigger crowd while also making more sense sonically coming after Mount Salem, they were solid at what they were doing and we should all enjoy anything in life as much as drummer Wraitheon seemed to delight in each blastbeat. Midnight came quickly as they ran through their set, as one imagines it would have no matter what time they’d gotten going.
After they were finished, Scheidt helped Bog of the Infidel load their gear out and Uzala set up on the quick, their logos cut into steel frontplates for their backlined cabinets. They’ve been too easy a band for me to let slide, frankly. Their 2012 split 7″ with Mala Suerte was streamed here, as was a bonus track from the cassette version of their 2011 self-titled debut full-length, but seeing them, I still didn’t feel like I’d ever really dug into what they were doing. Now a trio after parting ways with bassist Nick Phit (Graves at Sea), they split the guitar signals of Darcy Nutt and Chad Remains (whose name sounds even more like “charred remains” when said with a proper New England accent) through bass amps so the set lacked nothing for low end. Their new album, Tales of Blood and Fire, was released last week on King of the Monsters Records and they had both the tape and CD on hand and kept the setlist focused heavily on that material, only delving back to the self-titled to open with “Death Masque” and otherwise playing exclusively new cuts.
I hadn’t heard Tales of Blood and Fireyet, but it didn’t make a difference. Uzala‘s grooves were immersive on the immediate, and the periodic onslaughts of noise that came with Remains‘ solos only added to the overarching gnarl of their doom. They were, as so few bands are, an example of the difference a great drummer can make, as Chuck Watkins (also of Graves at Sea) alternately propelled and lumbered songs like “Burned” and “Dark Days,” the band hitting their own Vitus moment in the noisier wash of the former. Highlight moments came later into their set though, as the extended “Countess” proffered choice tempo shifts and a particularly right on performance from Nutt on vocals to go with the slowly unfolding riffs, and the subdued later stretches of “Tenement of the Lost” closed their set and Dusk alike. The house lights came up as Nutt, Remains and Watkins continued the quiet trance of what would be their last song (the image of the three of them continuing to pursue the demons in that song I expect will be what stays with me longest about this show), and as soon as they were done, one of the bartenders stood in the big, open window from outside and told the crowd in no uncertain terms to fuck off right out the door if they weren’t buying merch or in one of the bands. It was past one in the morning and I’ve always had a knack for following simple instructions.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 22nd, 2013 by JJ Koczan
As they make ready to enter the studio to record the follow-up to their 2012 Misery Wizardfull-length debut, Rhode Island doom upstarts Pilgrim have announced that they’ll join Windhand on a Fall 2013 European run. The two bands are no strangers, having done US dates together last year, and of course, Pilgrim played at Roadburn in 2013 as well, so this will be their second time on the continent this year. Still, good news all around for the band and for anyone who might find themselves in their destructive path.
Sayeth the PR wire:
PILGRIM coming back to Europe in November to support WINDHAND for a full tour!
Ready to enter studio next month!
Rhode Island Doom disciples PILGRIM have made an astonishing impact with the release of their debut album Misery Wizard and their European shows including a slot at this years Roadburn festival.
PILGRIM will return to Europe in November for a full tour with Windhand. Comments vocalist/guitarist The Wizard: “THIS IS GOING TO BE A TOUR WORTHY OF SONG AND LEGEND. Not only is it our first lengthy European venture, but we get to share it with our incredibly talented friends WINDHAND (whose music we worship). This is honestly a dream come true for us. We are will be featuring a new bass player for the excursion, whose identity shall remain a mystery for the moment. Unfortunately, we had planned to be supporting the release of our new record this tour, but due to various complications with our studio we were not able to meet our deadline. However, we just confirmed today that the recording of our second record will begin next month at Moonlight Mile Studios! And with that, so begins the next chapter of our pilgrimage. We have worked UNFATHOMABLY hard to make this tour come together. Blood, sweat, and tears. DO NOT MISS THIS TOUR!”
Windhand
+ PILGRIM 01/11/13 BE – Ghent – Charlatan 02/11/13 NL – Venlo – Mudfest 03/11/13 FR – Paris – t.b.a. 04/11/13 UK – Birmingham – Asylum 05/11/13 UK – Manchester – Star & Garter 06/11/13 UK – London – Our Black Heart 08/11/13 ES – Barcelona – Rocksound 09/11/13 ES – Madrid – Rock & Pop 10/11/13 ES – Bilbao – Sentinel Rock Bar 11/11/13 FR – Clermont Ferrand – t.b.a. 12/11/13 FR – Strasbourg – t.b.a. 14/11/13 NL – Groningen – t.b.a. 15/11/13 DK – Aalborg – 1000 Fryd 16/11/13 SE – Gothenburg – Truckstop Alaska 17/11/13 DK – Copenhagen – KB18 18/11/13 DE – Hamburg – Rote Flora 19/11/13 DE – Berlin – Cassiopeia 20/11/13 DE – Leipzig – Zoro 21/11/13 AT – Wien – Vrena 22/11/13 DE – Günzburg – Donaustüble 23/11/13 DE – Köln – MTC 24/11/13 NL – Amsterdam – Occii
Posted in Reviews on August 9th, 2013 by JJ Koczan
Since making their debut on the same 2006 split that marked the first recorded appearance of Elder, Providence-by-way-of-Hong-Kong-and-Brooklyn experimental doomers Queen Elephantine have been consistently hard to pin down — and not just geographically. Their latest full-length, Scarab (on Heart and Crossbone Records/Cosmic Eye Records for CD and vinyl, respectively), finds the amorphous outfit as ever led by guitarist Indrayudh Shome working with two drummers and exploring a drone-based mysticism that seems in partial conversation with Om‘s 2012 outing, Advaitic Songs, but taken to a more exploratory degree. The 50-minute album is comprised of four extended tracks — “Veil” (8:12), “Crone” (18:16), “Snake” (10:44) and “Clear Light of the Unborn” (13:05) — and each one builds its own flow within the overarching progression of Scarab as a whole. Joining Shome on his journey are two drummers, Ian Sims and Nathanael Totushek, bassist Matt Becker, returning tanpura player Srinivas Reddy and Brett Zweiman, who played bass on Queen Elephantine‘s last outing, 2011’s Garland of Skulls, but here contributes slide guitar and other drones, and the songs were recorded in one day (I would suspect entirely or at least mostly live) by Sims with a mix by Shome himself and a mastering job from Billy Anderson. The result of all their work is a varied but ultimately satisfying listen of heavy drone, and Queen Elephantine have done increasingly well over their last couple albums in shirking expectations and definitions of what “heavy” means. That continues on Scarab as well and makes their stylistic sprawl all the more boundless and more importantly, all the more their own. Almost immediately, “Veil” commences with a meditative drone and percussion, sparse guitar and bass that in another context might be akin to Earth metering out slow lines over a subtle build both in tempo and clash. Vocals arrive after the instrumental bombast peaks in spiritually desperate wails, and a lighter swirl plays out buried by heavier guitar strum and gradual return the winding line that delivered Scarab‘s first offering to its point of highest energy. Already we hear the flow is liquid.
It remains so for the duration. At 18-plus minutes, “Crone” is an undertaking unto itself, but it unfolds with hypnotic patience and makes a consuming follow-up to “Veil,” working in a similarly-slow, temple-style atmosphere. An underlying synth-style drone — what might be referred to in the credits as “divine mosquito” and credited to Zweiman — plays out steadily beneath the minimal guitar-led progression, and even when the vocals arrive, the sense of open space is maintained. There’s room between the music overtop and that buzz, and it’s in that room that the listener is most likely to get placed, feeling one overtop and the other underneath, surrounded; especially at louder volumes. After five minutes or so, Queen Elephantine embark on a mild cacophony, and again the double percussion plays a major role. Guitar and bass get louder, and vocals return, the band moving within the sort of undulations of energy that they’re crafting to bring the track forward, then draw it back, all the while the drone underneath stays put. There is an instrumental push as they approach 10 minutes in that provides “Crone” a noisy apex at about 13:00, but they soon drop to quieter spheres as Shome establishes a bouncing sort of guitar nod that leads the way through the remaining time, punctuating pops and the bassline adding dimension as the drone finally comes forward near the end of the song before fading out again. If you’re not on board with Scarab yet, you won’t be. The record’s first half is a challenge that the second half rises to meet, but if you’re immune to the trance they’re working in and bringing their listeners into, the course is set. It’s not like they’re going pop once “Snake” hits, is what I’m saying. Rather, with a current of Reddy‘s tanpura, they resume the droning course, bringing vocals in early as they did on “Crone,” and revel further in the torch-lit contemplations. It is atmospherically gorgeous and a sure sign of Queen Elephantine‘s maturity that they’re able to maintain such a patient sense throughout Scarab, and if it turns some listeners off, it’s hardly the band’s loss. “Snake” never gets quite as rambunctious as did “Crone,” but string-esque drones give a sense of emergency all the same as the metered lurch is mounted.
Posted in Buried Treasure on February 7th, 2013 by JJ Koczan
Time was limited. It was Monday morning and I was supposed to go to work after all, but as I was in New England anyway, a quick run to Armageddon Shop in Providence didn’t seem all that unreasonable. I’ve never come out of there feeling less than satisfied, and even back in December at the Boston store, I was able to pick up a few winners. Plus, Armageddon‘s been on my mind lately with their handling the repress of Elder‘s Spires Burn EP and the release of Magic Circle‘s self-titled, for which I have a review pending. All that, coupled with my general desire to crane my neck before a CD rack, made the stop a necessity. Turned out work was still there when I finally showed up anyway. Go figure.
On the wall of my office is a post-it with albums I’ve been meaning to pick up — mostly review stuff that labels won’t send out physical copies of anymore that I’ll grudgingly buy and devalue the effort I put into writing about them while also diminishing my appreciation for the record out of the pervasive annoyance. It’s a vicious cycle. Anyway, most of what’s on it I couldn’t remember, but it was fine. I managed to find enough and then some, as you can see in the stack above. The new Bedemon (track stream here) and Seremonia (track stream here) records were a must, and I hadn’t actually gotten a CD of the last Enslaved (review here), so I figured if I was going to give someone the cash for it, at least I could feel good about it going to Armageddon. The rest was gravy.
The first Hooded Menace full-length, Fulfill theCurse,Orodruin‘s Claw Tower and Other Tales of Terror and the repress of Life Beyond‘s Ancient Worldswere cool finds, but I was even more stoked on the 2003 Cream Abdul Babar/Kylesa split on At a Loss. I think they came by their progression honestly and I think Spiral Shadow(review here) bears that out, but it’s easy to forget how blisteringly heavy that band was at one point, all noise and fury and potential. With the unbridled weirdness of Cream Abdul Babar to complement, that split was a killer. The punkish War and Wineby the UK’s The Dukes of Nothing was something I had my eye on for a while, with Orange Goblin‘s Chris Turner on drums, bassist Doug Dalziel (ex-Iron Monkey) and Stuart O’Hara (ex-Acrimony, current Sigiriya) as one of two guitars, and more on the hardcore end, the self-titled collection from Hard to Swallow was a pleasant surprise, spanning the short tenure of the outfit that featured Jim Rushby (Iron Monkey)on guitar and Justin Greaves (Iron Monkey and even later of Crippled Black Phoenix) on drums and a host of others from that sphere ripping out primitive, violent bursts in rapid succession.
With 13 tracks in 27 minutes, there’s little room for screwing around, so Hard to Swallow get right to it, blending raw riffage with extreme punk fuckall. The compilation was released on Armageddon‘s own label, and though it’s more hardcore than what I’ll generally grab, it’s a solid, intense listen. A secret track incorporating Sabbath‘s “Under the Sun” into a grind medley made a decent, meaner answer to The Dukes of Nothing‘s album on Tortuga, and the metallic outing from Enslaved and Seremonia‘s distinctly Finnish weirdness. More local to home, I grabbed Halfway to Gone‘s split with Alabama Thunderpussy, which I already own but figured for six bucks I’d take a double, and the 1997 debut from underrated Jersey-based psychedelic rockers, Lord Sterling.
Your Ghost Will Walkwas one of those albums I figured I’d probably never happen upon, perhaps even less so in Rhode Island. I haven’t been chasing it down for years and years or anything like that — a preliminary search can find copies out there — but neither was I going to pass up the chance to get a new one. The pressing is on Chainsaw Safety Records, may or may not be original, and for anyone who heard Lord Sterling‘s Weapon of Truth(2002, Rubric) or Today’s Song for Tomorrow(2004, Small Stone), the first one is a little more jagged, a little more post-hardcore, somewhat less psychedelic, though the ethereal garage via The Doors vibes of the later albums are definitely present in some nascent form. I always dug those guys, so it was cool to hear where they came from a little bit.
Because I can’t resist a CD on Man’s Ruin and because I’m forever a sucker for NYC noise, I impulse grabbed The Cuttroats 9‘s self-titled. The band had Chris Spencer and Dave Curran from Unsane in it, so I figured I couldn’t go wrong and I was right. It was a last-minute thing as I was looking through, but I’ve done way worse. All told, the haul was well-rounded and with a cup of coffee from the bakery down the street, I felt like the win was even more complete. About five hours later, I strolled into my office like I owned the place.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 13th, 2012 by JJ Koczan
In their enduring dedication to that which is as aurally fucked as possible, collaborative outfit The Body & Braveyoung have announced a run on the East Coast for the early part of February. After seeing The Body the last time they came through Brooklyn at the Saint Vitus bar, I can safely say if you like volume, you’ll probably want to catch them if they’re headed out by you. Nothing Passes was also one of 2011’s most unrepentantly creepy records.
The PR wire speaks to YOU — do you listen???
Following a myriad of regional touring together, as well as their recently released fully collaborative full-length Nothing Passes, apocalyptic doom duo The Body and orchestral/drone rock outfit Braveyoung have just confirmed another stint of shows together.
The new Braveyoung & The Body tour will tangle with eight East Coast cities in early February, which will see both acts performing individual sets, in addition to an additional collaborative set with both bands simultaneously performing material from their NothingPasses album on several of the dates. Braveyoung are on their way to Providence to record new material during this special tour, which immediately follows the current West Coast tour The Body are embarked on with Thou — including the band’s first-ever shows in Mexico this week.
The BodyWest Coast Tour w/ Thou (remaining dates): 01/13 Burial Grounds Salem, OR 01/14 924 Gilman Street Berkeley, CA w/ Brainoil 01/15 Submission San Francisco, CA w/ Brainoil 01/16 Pioneer Santa Cruz, CA 01/17 The Smell Los Angeles, CA 01/18 Bica Tijuana, Mexico 01/19 house show Rosarito, Mexico 01/20 Che Cafe San Diego, CA 01/21 The Trunkspace Phoenix, AZ 01/22 The Train Yard Las Cruces, NM 01/23 Sons of Hermann Hall Dallas, TX 01/24 Zeitgeist New Orleans, LA
*NEW – The Body & Braveyoung Collaborative East Coast Tour: 02/04 Bull City Metal Fest Durham, NC 02/05 The Courthouse Downtown Rock Hill, NC 02/06 Drunken Unicorn Atlanta, GA 02/07 The Milestone Charlotte, NC 02/08 Floristree Baltimore, MD 02/09 Saint Vitus Brooklyn, NY 02/10 Dad City Amherst, MA 02/13 AS220 Providence, RI
