Posted in Whathaveyou on March 13th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
If you want a sense of some of the changes in White Dog‘s sound as the Austin-based ’70s-style heavy rockers make ready to unfurl their second full-length, Double Dog Dare, on April 5 with the backing of respected purveyor Rise Above Records, you don’t need to look far. The cover art is below. Check that logo. Then go ahead and dip back to their 2020 self-titled debut (review here) and take a look at that one — to make that easier, click here to pop out the image (click again to close) — then go ahead and listen to “F.D.I.C.,” streaming at the bottom of this post. Definitely some departure from the boogie and a bit of Southern-ish pastoralism in the melody of the new single, and the aesthetic of the new cover bears that out. Perhaps a little more ’74 than ’71, but then, time marches on.
A partially revamped lineup brings Jake LaTouf to the lead vocal role and Oscar Favian to keyboard, but personnel is only part of the shift being discussed here, and southbound seems like it might be just one of the directions Double Dog Dare ultimately heads. I don’t know about you, but I look forward to hearing this band do a radio jingle. They’re west of the Mississippi River, so I assume the call letters start with ‘K.’
The PR wire puts it all together:
Texan Rockers WHITE DOG Drop New Single “F.D.I.C.”
New Album ‘Double Dog Dare’ Out April 5th via Rise Above Records
Texan rockers WHITE DOG share “F.D.I.C.” the first single from their upcoming new album ‘Double Dog Dare’ which is due out on April 5th via Rise Above Records.
Returning after three years with their second studio album, ‘Double Dog Dare’, WHITE DOG has been reveling in a state of creative flux and is poised to share their revelations with the world.
“To say that we’ve gone through some changes in the last three years would be an understatement,” says drummer John Amoss. “After the release of our debut album, we had to make some tough decisions, one of them being the decision to replace our friend and original frontman, Joe Sterling. We also knew that we wanted to add organ and keyboards permanently. It took a long time to find the right players but finally, enter the new kids, our singer Jake LaTouf and Oscar Favian on keys.”
Recorded over a period of eight days at Stuart Sikes Audio (with engineer Andrew McCalla) in Austin, ‘Double Dog Dare’ takes all of their debut album’s deftly assembled ingredients and allows them to fly free, liberated from expectation. At times mellower than its predecessor, at others strident and ferocious, these new songs showcase WHITE DOG’s organic development, with elements of everything from wistful southern rock to crusty-eyed jazz rock finding a place. Somehow even more fluid and fiery than before, this band is growing and expanding before our ears.
“We learned a lot from recording our first record,” says John. “I’d say the biggest difference this go-round was that we were more focused and aware in the creative process. Early on we agreed that we wanted to add elements of southern music to the mix while still maintaining the core of our original sound. I’d be lying if I said everything just fell into place easily! We put our hearts and souls into these tunes. So in the end we felt like we were going into the studio with a solid group of songs.”
From thrilling, souled-out opener “Holy Smokes” to the gritty country rock of “Glenn’s Tune” and the meandering psych-prog blowout of album centerpiece “Frozen Shadows”, ‘Double Dog Dare’ is alive with great ideas and heartfelt authenticity. With a settled and refreshed line-up of Amoss, his guitarist brother Carl, bassist Rex Pape, guitarist Clemente De Hoyos, new vocalist Jake LaTouf, and keyboard maestro Oscar Favian, WHITE DOG have transcended their original ethos and have become an even richer and more addictive proposition. Both avowedly true to the bone and blessed with a gift for mischief, they have made an album that stands shoulder to shoulder with the classic records that inspired it, while also bringing the Texans’ uniquely skewed view of the world to the party.
“The subject matter of these songs is pretty eclectic, to be honest” notes John. “Let’s see… there’s a song about a bank heist and another one about the Vietnam War. Then there’s one about draining an old lake! ‘Glenn’s Tune’ is about Rex’s late father. Hell, we even did a radio jingle. So yeah we are kinda all over the place ha ha ha!”
‘Double Dog Dare’ Track List: 1) Holy Smokes 2) Double Dog Dare 3) F.D.I.C. 4) Glenn’s Tune 5) A Message From Our Sponsor 6) Frozen Shadows 7) Lady of Mars 8) Prelude 9) The Last ‘Dam’ Song
Still unique and rocking with abandon, WHITE DOG has undergone upheavals and transformations, and ‘Double Dog Dare’ is the scintillating result. Now free to peddle their incendiary wares, they will return to the stage with their strongest material to date, and a newfound enthusiasm for giving The Riff the respect and imagination it deserves.
“The plan right now is to get on the road as much as possible in 2024,” John states. “The touring that we have done has yielded really good results but there’s a whole world out there that we would like to see! What better way to do it than playing music with your buds? Currently, we are way beyond ready to release this puppy and to tour, tour, tour! We are always writing and evolving as people and as a band. Who knows exactly what tomorrow will bring? What we do know is that we love each other like brothers and we love making music together.”
White Dog are: Carl Amoss – guitar John Amoss – drums Oscar Favian – keys Clemente De Hoyos – guitar Jake LaTouf – vocals Rex Pape – bass
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 11th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats will release the instrumental conceptual soundtrack LP Nell’ Ora Blu on May 10 through Rise Above Records. It’s their first studio LP of any sort since 2018’s Wasteland (review here) and manifests the threat made when the UK garage doom innovators released their live album, Slaughter on First Avenue (review here), in 2023.
It isn’t the band’s first foray into atmospheres inspired by vintage Italian cinema, but at least on paper it’s inarguably the deepest they’ve gone in exploring it. Described by the PR wire below as instrumental save for voiceovers by Edwige French (All the Colors of the Dark and scores of others) and Franco Nero (he was Django in that crucial series of westerns and has appeared in over 150 movies, among them Die Hard 2), it’s an immediate departure for a band whose harmonies and hooks have always been a huge part of their approach. No doubt that’s the idea.
I’ll expect not to expect what I’m expecting, then, and you might want to do likewise, but I don’t think Uncle Acid getting weird and cinematic is going to hurt consider that’s another huge part of what they’ve always done. Lean this way, lean that way. Six years after their last record, it feels like a big shift, but it makes its own kind of sense.
The PR wire has it like this:
UNCLE ACID & THE DEADBEATS Announce New Album ‘Nell’ Ora Blu’ Out May 10th via Rise Above Records
Pre-Orders Available Soon!
Poised to stand out as the most radical album of UNCLE ACID & THE DEABEATS’ storied career, ‘Nell’ Ora Blu’ is a true tour-de-force of dramatic ingenuity. Inspired by the dark, mysterious, and often bloody Italian Giallo film scene, Kevin Starrs took a detour and created his own storyboard to play along with and the result is a beautiful and suspense-filled instrumental soundtrack…for a non-existent film.
Devoted fans will undoubtedly recognize the UNCLE ACID fingerprints here but this startling left-turn will also present a formidable challenge to even the most open-minded riff-heads. Like a tense and bewildering fever dream, ‘Nell’ Ora Blu’ is a vivid, lysergic excursion like no other.
“I know something like this might have limited appeal, but who cares?” says Starrs. “Most of what we do has a limited appeal anyway! It’s just a real mix of different styles that I like. There are no singles or ‘hits’. Instead, it all just flows along one thing into the next. You can think of it like blood seeping from a wound. It’s continuous. By the end of it, you’re left exhausted. It’s hard work for the listener. We don’t do easy listening!”
Unusual guest stars such as giants of the Italian film underground, Edwige Fenech and Franco Nero, present exclusive dialogue interspersed between tracks, contributing to a unique listening experience that throbs and shrieks with horrific intent.
Starrs explains: “It’s a tribute to 70s Italian cinema. It’s a story about people who decide to take the law into their own hands. Things get pretty dark straight away and of course, it doesn’t end well for anyone. It has elements of grimy poliziotteschi (Italian crime/action films) and classic Giallo (Italian cinema’s revered horror/sexploitation movement). Once I decided to do everything in Italian, I made a list of actors that I wanted. Franco Nero and Edwige Fenech were the first names I thought of. Two legends that had never been paired together before. I contacted their agents and both actors were interested in the idea, so we set it up from there.”
Having completed the project and been exhilarated by its creation, Starrs now has tentative plans to bring some of this incredible music to the morbid masses. What started as simply a new UNCLE ACID project, has evolved into a true project of passion bringing together the wonderful worlds of music and film in one dark, enthralling soundtrack for a film we can only wish to be actually watching.
‘Nell’ Ora Blu’ Track List: 1) Il Sole Sorge Sempre 2) Giustizia di Strada – Lavora Fino alla Morte 3) La Vipera 4) Vendetta (Tema) 5) La Bara Resterà Chiusa 6) Cocktail Party 7) Il Tesoro di Sardegna 8) Nell’ Ora Blu 9) Il Chiamante Silenzioso 10) Tortura al Telefono 11) Pomeriggio di Novembre Nel Parco – Occhi che Osservano 12) Il Retorno del Chiamante Silenzioso 13) Solo la Morte to Ammanetta 14) Il Gatto Morto 15) Guidando Veloce Verso la Campagna 16) L’Omicidio 17) Resti Umani 18) Sorge Anche il Sole 19) Ritorno All’Oscurità
‘Nell’ Ora Blu’ will be available on Vinyl as a double LP, CD, and for digital download on May 10, 2024, via Rise Above Records. Pre-orders will be available soon.
Posted in Reviews on October 2nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
It’s been quite a morning. Got up at five, went back to sleep until six, took the dog out, lazily poured myself a coffee — the smell is like wood bark and bitter mud, so yes, the dark roast — and got down to set up this Quarterly Review. Not rushed, not at all overwhelmed by press releases about new albums or the fact that I’ve got 50 records I’m writing about this week, or any of it. Didn’t last, that stress-free sit-down — one of the hazards of being perfectly willing to be distracted at a moment’s notice is that that might happen — but it was nice while it did. And hey, the Quarterly Review is set up and ready to roll with 50 records between now and Friday. Let’s do that.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
—
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, Slaughter on First Avenue
Recorded over two nights at First Avenue in Minneapolis sandwiching the pandemic in 2019 and 2022, Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats‘ 14-song/85-minute live album, Slaughter on First Avenue, is about as clean as you’re ever likely to hear the band sound. And the Rise Above-issued 2LP spans the garage doom innovators’ career, from “Dead Eyes of London” from 2010’s Vol. 1 (reissue review here) to “I See Through You” from 2018’s Wasteland (review here), with all the “Death’s Door” and “Thirteen Candles” and “Desert Ceremony” and “I’ll Cut You Down” you can handle, the addled and murderous bringers of melody and fuzz clear-eyed and methodical, professional, in their delivery. It sounds worked on, like, in the studio, the way oldschool live albums might’ve been. I don’t know that it was, don’t have a problem with that if it was, just noting that the sheer sound here is fantastic, whether it’s the separation between the two guitars and keys and each other, the distinction of the vocals, or the way even the snare drum seems to hit in kind with the vintage aspects of Uncle Acid‘s general production style. They clearly enjoy the crowd response to the older tunes like “I’ll Cut You Down” and “Death’s Door,” and well they should. Slaughter on First Avenue isn’t a new full-length, though they say one will eventually happen, but it’s a representation of their material in a new way for listeners, cleaner than their last two studio records, and a ceremony (or two) worth preserving.
Swedish retro soul rock forerunners Graveyard are on their way to being legends if they aren’t legends yet. Headliners at the absolute least, and the influence they had in the heavy ’10s on classic heavy as a style and boogie rock in particular can’t be discounted. Comprised of nine cuts, 6 is Graveyard‘s first offering of this decade, following behind 2018’s Peace (review here), and it continues their dual-trajectory in pairing together the slow, troubled-love woes emotionality of “Breathe In, Breathe Out,” “Sad Song” on which guitarist Joakim Nilsson relinquishes lead vocals, the early going of “Bright Lights,” and opener “Godnatt” — Swedish for “good night,” which the band tried to say in 2016 but it didn’t stick — setting up turns to shove in “Twice” and “Just a Drop” while “I Follow You,” closer “Rampant Fields” or the highlight “Just a Drop” finding some territory between the two ends. The bottom line here is it’s not the record I was hoping Graveyard would make, leaning slow and morose whereas when you could break out a groove like “Just a Drop” seemingly at will, why wouldn’t you? But that I even had those hopes tells you the caliber band they are, and whatever the tracks actually do, there’s no questioning them as songwriters. But the world could use some good times swagger, if only a half-hour of escapism, and Graveyard are perhaps too sincere to deliver. Fair enough.
The thing about Hexvessel that has been revealed over time is that each record is its own context. Grown out from the black metal history of UK-born/Helsinki-residing songwriter Mat “Kvohst” McNerney, the band returns to that fertile ground somewhat on the eight-song Polar Veil, applying veteran confidence to post-blackened genre transgressions. Songs like “A Cabin in Montana” and “Older Than the Gods” have some less-warlike Primordial vibes between the epic melodies and tremolo echoes, but in both the speedy intensity of “Eternal Meadow” and the later ethereally-doomed gruel of “Ring,” Hexvessel are distinctly themselves doing this thing. That is, they’re not changing who they are to suit the style they want to play — even the per-song stylistic shifts of 2016’s When We Are Death (review here) were their own, so that’s not necessarily new — but a departure from the dark progressive folk of 2020’s Kindred as McNerney, bassist Ville Hakonen, drummer Jukka Rämänen and pianist/keyboardist Kimmo Helén (also strings) welcome a curated-seeming selection of a few guest appearances spread across the release, always keeping mindful of ambience and mood however raging the tempest around them might be.
Bookended by its two longest songs in “Drink Some More” (8:44) and closer “Letter Full of Wine” (9:17), Munich-based troupe Godsground offer seven songs with their 47-minute third long-player, working quickly to bask in post-Alice in Chains melodies surrounded by a warmth of tone that could just as easily be derived from hometown heroes in Colour Haze as the likes of Sungrazer or anyone else, but there’s more happening in the sound than just that. The melodies reach out and the songs develop on paths so that “Balance” is a straight-up desert rocker where seven-minute centerpiece “Into the Butter” sounds readier to get weird. They are well at home in longer forms, flashing a bit of metal in teh later solo of the penultimate “Non Reflecting Mirror,” but the overarching focus on vocal melody grounds the material in its lyrics, and that helps stabilize some of the more out-there aspects. With the roller fuzz of “A Game of Light” and side B’s flow-into-push “Flood” finding space between all-out go and the longer songs’ willingness to dwell in parts, Godsground emerge from the collection with a varied style around a genre center that’s maybe delighted not to pick a side when it comes to playing toward this or that niche. There’s some undercurrent of doom — though I’ll admit the artwork had me looking for it — but Godsground are more coherent than bewildered, and their material unfolds with intent to immerse rather than commiserate.
Ambition abounds on Sleep Maps‘ Reclaim Chaos, as the once-NYC-based duo of multi-instrumentalist Ben Kaplan and vocalist David Kegg — finds somebody that writes you riffs like “Second Generation” and scream your ass off for them — bring textures of progressive metal, death metal, metal metal to the proceedings with their established post-whathaveyou modus. Would it be a surprise if I said it made them a less predictable band? I hope not. With attention to detail bolstered my a mix from Matt Bayles (Isis, Sandrider, etc.), the open spaces of “The Good Engineer” resonate in their layered vocals and drone, while “You Want What I Cannot Give” pummels, “In the Sun, In the Moon” brings the wash forward and capper “Kill the World” is duly still in conveying an apparent aftermath rather than the actual slaughter of the planet, which of course happened over a longer timeframe. All of this, and a good deal more, make Reclaim Chaos a heady feast — and that’s before you get to the ’00-era electronica of “Double Blind” — but in their reclamation, Sleep Maps execute with care and make a point about the malleability of style as much as about their own progression, though it seems to be the latter fueling them. Self-motivated, willful artistic progression is not often so starkly recognizable.
A reminder of the glories amid the horrors of our age: Dread Spire‘s Endless Empire — am I the only one who finds it a little awkward when band and release names rhyme? — probably wouldn’t exist without the democratization of recording processes that’s happened over the last 15-20 years. It’s a demo, essentially, from the bass/drum — that’s Richie Rehal and Erol Kavvas — Cali-set instrumentalist two-piece, and with about 13 minutes of sans BS riffing, they make a case via a linear procession of crunch riffing and uptempo, semi-metal precision. The narrative — blessings and peace upon it — holds that they got together during the pandemic, and the raw form and clearly-manifest catharsis in the material is all the backing they need. More barebones than complex, this first offering wants nothing for audio fidelity and gives Rehal and Kavvas a beginning from which to build in any and all directions they might choose. The joy of collaboration and the need to find an expressive outlet are the best motivations one could ask, and that’s very obviously what’s at work here.
A roiling post-metallic churn abides the slow tempos of “Torch Bearer” at the outset of Mairu‘s debut full-length, Sol Cultus, and it is but one ingredient of the Liverpool-based outfit’s atmospheric plunge. Across eight tracks and 49 minutes, the double-guitar four-piece of Alan Caulton and Ant Hurlock (both guitar/vocals), Dan Hunt (bass/vocals) and Ben Davis (drums/synth) — working apparently pretty closely over a period of apparently four years with Tom Dring, who produced, engineered, mixed, mastered and contributed saxophone, ebow, piano and additional synth — remind in their spaciousness of that time Red Sparowes taught the world, instrumentally, to sing. But with harsh and melodic vocals mixed, bouts of thrashier riffing dealt with prejudice, and the barely-there ambience of “Inter Alia” and “Per Alia” to persuade the listener toward headphones, the very-sludged finish of “Wild Darkened Eyes” and the 10-minute sprawl of “Rite of Embers” lumbering to its distorted gut-clench of a crescendo chug ahead of the album’s comedown finish, there’s depth and personality to the material even as Mairu look outside of verse/chorus confines to make their statement. Their second outing behind a 2019 EP, and again, apparently in the works on some level since then, it’s explorational, but less in the sense of the band figuring out who they want to be than as a stylistic tenet they’ve internalized as their own.
At first in “Hope Shines in the Autumn Light,” Brazilian instrumentalist heavy post-rockers Throe remind of nothing so much as the robots-with-feelings mechanized-but-resonant plod of Justin K. Broadrick‘s Jesu, but as the 14-minute leadoff from the apparently-mostly-solo-project’s three-song EP, O Enterro das Marés (one assumes the title is some derivation of being ‘buried at sea’), plays through, it shifts into a more massive galaxial nod and then shortly before the nine-minute mark to a stretch of hypnotic beat-less melody before resolving itself somewhere in the middle. This three-part structure gives over to the Godfleshier “Bleed Alike” (6:33), which nods accordingly until unveiling its caustic end about 30 seconds before the song is done, and “Renascente” (7:59), in which keys/synth and wistful guitar lead a single linear build together as the band gradually and with admirable patience move from their initial drone to the introduction of the ‘drums’ and through the layers of melody that emerge and are more the point of the thing itself than the actual swell of volume taking place at the same time. When it opens at about five minutes in, “Renascente” is legitimately beautiful, an echoing waterfall of tonality that seems to dance to the gravity pulling it down. The guitar is last to go, which tells you something about how the songs are written, but with three songs and three different intentions, Throe make a varied statement uniform most of all in how complete each piece of it feels.
Well guess what? They called the first track “Punkstarter,” and so it is. Starts off the album with a bit of punk. Blind River‘s third LP, Bones for the Skeleton Thief corrals 10 tracks from the UK traditionalist heavy rock outfit, who even on the likewise insistent “Primal Urges” maintain some sense of control. Vocalist Harry Armstrong (ex-Hangnail, now also bassist of Orange Goblin) belts out “Second Hand Soul” like he’s giving John Garcia a run for his pounds sterling, and is still able to rein it in enough to not seem out of place on the more subdued verses of “Skeleton Thief,” while the boogie of “Unwind” is its own party. Wherever they go, be it the barroom punkabilly of “Snake Oil” or the Southern-tinged twang of closer “Bad God,” the five-piece — Armstrong, guitarist Chris Charles and Dan Edwards, bassist William Hughes and drummer Mark Sharpless — hold to a central ethic of straight-ahead drive, and where clearly the intended message is that Blind River know what the fuck they’re doing and that if you end up at a show you might get your ass handed to you, turns out that’s exactly the message received. Showed up, kicked ass, done in under 40 minutes. If that’s not a high enough standard for you in a band recording live, that’s not Blind River‘s fault.
Rifftree of life. Rifftree‘s fuzz is so righteously dense, I want to get seeds from it — because let’s face it, riffs are deciduous and hibernate in winter — and plant a forest in my backyard. The band formed half a decade ago and Noise Worship is the bass-and-drums duo’s second EP, but whatever. In six songs and 26 minutes, they work hard on living up to the title they gave the release, and their schooling in the genre is obvious in Sleepery of “Amplifier Pyramid” or the low-rumbling sludge of “Brown Flower,” the subsequent “Farewell” growing like fungus out of its quieter start and “Brakeless” not needing them because it was slow enough anyhow. “Fuzzed” — another standard met — ups the pace and complements with spacey grunge mumbles and harshes out later, and that gives the three-minute titular closer “Noise Worship” all the lead-in it needs for its showcase of feedback and amplifier noise. Look. If you’re thinking it’s gonna be some stylistic revolution in the making, look at the friggin’ cover. Listen to the songs. This isn’t innovation, it’s celebration, and Rifftree‘s complete lack of pretense is what makes Noise Worship the utter fucking joy that it is. Stoner. Rock. Stick that in your microgenre rolodex.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 4th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Church of Misery‘s current lineup — if there is one — is the stuff fire-emoji splurges are made of. I saw them less than a month ago at SonicBlast in Portugal (review here), so no, I’m not just basing that assessment on the record. Though, if I were, the work of Japanese doom rock legend, bassist and auteur Tatsu Mikami in riffcraft there would probably be enough for the statement to stand. The very definition of ‘on fire,’ or perhaps it would be more thematically appropriate to describe them as: killer.
Guitarist Fumiya Hattori, also in Tatsu‘s Sonic Flower side-project and visibly the youngest member of Church of Misery, is a huge part of why. I’ll allow that having Tatsu‘s riffs to work from is for sure a leg-up in that, but the character in his solos and what he brings to the material in his style, sitting right in the pocket on those Sabbath-worship grooves, new and old — that is, not only on Born Under a Mad Sign(review here), which is his first appearance with the band — is not to be understated.
He’s a special player, not the least because he’ll continue to grow. And yeah, Church of Misery run through personnel on the regular — even in in the post making it official with Fumiya, Tatsu notes they’re looking for singers and drummers — so it may or may not be forever, but hopefully his will be a career to follow. A player like that will always find someone in need of their services.
Here’s that post from Tatsu:
Fumiya Hattori (Sonic Flower) has joined Church of Misery as a guitarist.
After Sonic Flower’s new recording and Church of Misery’s two European tours, Fumiya Hattori (Gt.) has become an official member of Church of Misery.
<<< Vocalist, drummer wanted >>>
Vocalist and drummer are active with the cooperation of support members, so we are still looking for vocalists and drummers.
Those who have an understanding of this kind of music and can lead a life centered around a band, including overseas tours. Practice in the city. Cannot be shared with other bands. The drummer is male or female. It doesn’t matter whether you recommend yourself or others.
If you are interested, please contact the Gmail posted on the website.
Dorset stoner doom magnates Electric Wizard released Black Masses (review here) on Nov. 1, 2010, through Rise Above Records, and their mere doing so was something of an event. The by-then-already-long-running band had undergone a sea change in 2007’s Witchcult Today (discussed here) that resulted in an emerging new generation of listenership timed well with the beginning of the spread of mobile internet, the explosion of mobile social media, and so on.
And with Black Masses, the UK outfit led by founding guitarist/vocalist Jus Oborn continued to leave behind their sludgier, rawer beginnings in favor of a swirling and dark psychedelic doom rock, Oborn‘s sneering voice calling out to Satan in the opening track “Black Mass,” “Hear me Lucifer/Black mass, black mass/Take me higher, higher/Black mass, black mass,” in a one-man chant that would become a landmark in their career. That song, and this record in combination with the one before it, helped set the stage for the stoner-doom delve into cultism of the heavy ’10s, happening before the ascent of bands like Uncle Acid and Ghost, Monolord, etc., but informing and influencing those and countless other acts along the way. It was a record that wound up being as ‘important’ as it was catchy and listenable, and those things don’t always coincide.
While pushing deeper into the atmosphere of threat and VHS horror and remaining always very, very stoned in sound, Electric Wizard — then comprised of Oborn, guitarist Liz Buckingham (ex-13), bassist Tas Danazoglou (now of Mirror, Friends of Hell, etc.) and drummer Shaun Rutter — offered eight songs across a dank, willfully lo-fi 59-minute 2LP, and brought listeners with them on their journey through various miseries and terrors.
It was also a direct sequel to Witchcult Today in that many of the Black Masses songs spoke directly to the record before, whether it was “Satyr IX” on Black Masses taking up the mantle of “Saturnine,” which closed Witchcult Today, or Black Masses‘ eight-plus-minute noisefest closer “Crypt of Drugula” answering “Satanic Rites of Drugula” from Witchcult Today. Certainly, Electric Wizard had long since been making references to horror flicks and various occult texts all along, but to turn that pastiche inward was a fresh take, and their doing so helped reinforce their own cult following. If you knew, you knew. I interviewed Oborn in 2011 and he had this to say about it:
It’s not always conscious at first, but the references slip themselves in. We’ve created a few of our own elements anyway – “Drugula” and stuff like that, and “We Hate You.” It’s easy to become self-referential at this point – we’ve got seven albums for fuck’s sake. Not many bands do that, to a degree. It’s inevitable, possibly. I’ve hopefully created a sort of iconography for Electric Wizard. That’s more important than the band sometimes, than the lineup or the instruments (laughs).
That iconography, the drugs, the murder, the grueling chug of “Night Child” as it turns through another chorus, and Oborn‘s vocal delivery — able to convey melody while still sounding like an embodiment of ‘fuck it’ as a defining life course — there and elsewhere helped to make Black Masses a pivotal outing for Electric Wizard, sealing their place among the UK’s foremost riff purveyors of their generation and setting them out on a years-long cycle of touring and festival appearances. Shit, Jus Oborn curated Roadburn in 2013. It was quite a time to be alive.
To be nasty without sounding nasty in a caustic sense. Yes, Black Masses was still pretty barebones in sound, and that’s something Electric Wizard would continue to foster on 2014’s Time to Die (review here) and 2017’s Wizard Bloody Wizard (review here), but that rawness becomes the world the songs inhabit. It is an atmosphere suited to the material, an aesthetic choice. Instead of going bigger after the success of Witchcult Today as many other acts might’ve done, Electric Wizard dug in, and working with Liam Watson at Toe Rag Studios, conjured a scathing and molten sound. Would “Venus in Furs” have the same effect if its strut and layered-on midsection solo didn’t come across so rough? Maybe, I don’t know. But the point is it works as it is, and with the production as an asset.
Plus, the songs. Whatever else Black Masses is or however one might feel about Electric Wizard generally, the album is a parade of memorable hooks and riffs. The lead cut was already mentioned but it’s worth underscoring “Black Mass” as a brutal earworm. And from “Venus in Furs” through the Mellotron-laced “Night Child,” through “Patterns of Evil” and the slow unfolding of the especially-wretched “Satyr IX” with a procession that would seem to inform Uncle Acid‘s “Valley of the Dolls” a few years later, followed by the speedier churn of “Turn Off Your Mind” and the coming apart of “Scorpio Curse” which declares the world dead and gives over eventually to the drones and noise that hypnotize in “Crypt of Drugula.” It is a full-album linear flow, and it lasts even through the purposefully unpleasant morass — there are drums deep in there, you know — of “Crypt of Drugula” at the finish, individual pieces adding to the whole each in their turn, the band standing over all of it, swaying, probably high.
Black Masses captures the ideal form of what it is. It is defined in part by Witchcult Today in theme and style, but it also demonstrated how to internalize a self-influence and use one’s past work as a springboard for the next thing. If you believe in due, Electric Wizard are due for another full-length with Wizard Bloody Wizard turning six later this year, and it would suit them to drop a record with no notice — thud, there you go — as well as for a stylistic shift like the one that took them to where they were in 2010. I don’t know if that’s possible, or what they’d be going for in their first album of the 2020s, but to be sure, their place waits for them. Perennial demand for fest appearances and other live shows is probably a decent way to fill the interim.
As always, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy.
—
Oof. I guess I made it to the end of the week. We got back from Connecticut on Monday morning. Last weekend’s memorial-service-and-wedding one-two punch between Saturday and Sunday certainly kicked my ass, and kind of defined the start of this week still. Tired as shit, in other words. Continuously.
We also had a window put in in the kitchen after doing the floors last week, and so the house was all taken apart and covered in dust and it was blazing hot and all the more overwhelming for that. As if the sensory input from that and a visit with friends on Tuesday wasn’t enough — and for The Pecan especially, it wasn’t — we went to Six Flags, which was just called Great Adventure when I was a kid, on Wednesday, and it was sunny and sweaty and I told The Patient Mrs. that one of the rollercoasters shifted a kidney so that now I have two on the same side, and so on. It was a lot. After a lot. With a lot happening otherwise.
Thus I took a couple lighter days at the start of the week. I said I intended to do so on social media — this week was one of a couple this summer with no camp for the kid, so it was full-on, all-go, all the time — and got a bunch of nice answers from people who probably thought I was taking more of a break than I intended, but honestly, not reviewing anything until Wednesday and doing two or three posts a day for a few days was a break for me in terms of time, and with the July 4 holiday it wasn’t even that unreasonable to do. It’s weird that I feel guilty and anxious about having done it. A federal fucking holiday.
Compulsion.
We’re not in CT this weekend — it took us four and a half hours to get up there last Friday; we just don’t have it in us again at this point — but we’ll be working more on the kitchen with cabinets and maybe installing the sink and so forth. Whatever you’re up to, I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Watch your head, drink all the water, tell someone you love them. Back Monday with more.
It’s taken Church of Misery seven years to release Born Under a Mad Sign, their seventh album, and it has seven tracks, so perhaps mad signs abound on the seminal Japanese doom rockers’ latest LP for Rise Above Records. The band, led as ever by bassist Tatsu Mikami — who belongs in the conversation with the likes of Matt Pike and Leif Edling when it comes to Iommic inheritors — will cross the 30-year mark on the back of this 54-minute onslaught, which remains true to their modus of writing songs about serial killers and other cult figures.
In the past it’s been Ted Bundy and Aileen Wuornos coupled with a Cactus cover — that was 2004’s The Second Coming, by the way — here it’s Fritz Haarmann (as seen on the cover), H.H. Holmes and Haystacks Balboa‘s “Spoiler” being covered, so perhaps over time Tatsu has had to dig a little past the obvious in terms of people to write about and bands to cover, even if the essential formula remains consistent. The same could be said of the riffs, and make no mistake, the riffs are central both on Born Under a Mad Sign and throughout Church of Misery‘s catalog. While there’s plenty of the up-front Black Sabbath sludge boogie for which Church of Misery are so widely and so correctly lauded, Born Under a Mad Sign also stretches out in terms of jams and solos in a way that the band’s most recent album, 2016’s recorded-in-America And Then There Were None (review here) was less interested in doing.
Not particularly surprising since, Tatsu aside, the band is working with a completely different lineup. This too is part of how Church of Misery operate, with members coming and going over a course of decades and serving pretty much at Tatsu‘s say-so until the don’t. This collection brings back vocalist Kazuhiro Asaeda, who sang on Church of Misery‘s 2003 split with Acrimony, the recorded-in-1996-released-in-2007 Vol. 1 (reissue review here), and who featured on the 2022 offering Me and My Bell Bottom Blues (review here) from Tatsu‘s Sonic Flower side-project last year.
Kazuhiro is a big piece of what makes Born Under a Mad Sign work so well. To hear his guttural squeal amid the roll of closer “Butcher Baker (Robert Hansen),” like if Satan decided to stop teaching guitar and just play and sing the blues himself, or his rasps from under the lumbering tonal chaos of centerpiece “Murder Castle Blues (H.H. Holmes),” he is as organic a fit in terms of personality as Tatsu‘s lyrics have ever had, and in listening, I find I’m perfectly happy to not know the words save for picking up a few things here and there, as on the opener “Beltway Sniper (John Allen Muhammad),” which in addition to being one of the album’s upper-tier ass-kickers is interesting for crossing a line between someone who’s a serial killer and a mass murder. The difference, as I understand it, is serial killers go one at a time. Does this mean Church of Misery would write songs about mass shooters? And what response would they get to, say, a song about Columbine, or Sandy Hook, or Uvalde? Is that a line they would cross? Is there a line they wouldn’t?
One’s own sensibilities and interests will invariably inform opinions on what’s discussed and how throughout this or any other Church of Misery work, and it seems silly to feign moral pearl-clutching for something they’ve been doing almost since their start, but the chance the band take in exploring more modern murder in its various forms, particularly at the level they’re doing it, is that someone from outside the underground in which they reside will notice and call them out on the generally horrific nature of their themes. I’m not saying that will happen with Born Under a Mad Sign, though it could since people are still alive who remember David Koresh or the Beltway Sniper, but Church of Misery have trod this ground before and gotten away with it so there’s nothing to say they can’t again. All I’m saying is with riffs this good, they run the risk of being heard.
Even more endemic to the personality of the record is the guitar work of Yukito Okazaki, whose bluesy pulls in the second-half solo of “Beltway Sniper (John Allen Muhammad)” and the density of the subsequent chug set a high standard that the songs that follow thankfully meet. With Toshiaki Umemura on drums, a(nother) new incarnation of Church of Misery is complete, and they sound extra vicious in so much of Born Under a Mad Sign, whether it’s the make-a-nasty-face nod of “Most Evil (Fritz Haarmann)” or the wah-complemented shove and shout of “Freeway Madness Boogie (Randy Kraft),” the groove loose and the danger of coming apart high as the band nonetheless hold it together as of course they would.
“Most Evil (Fritz Haarmann)” tops 10 minutes and “Freeway Madness Boogie (Randy Kraft)” is one of the shorter cuts on the 2LP at 6:16 — the shortest is “Spoiler,” the aforementioned Haystacks Balboa cover — but both are unabashed riff-fests, and the same holds true throughout. Church of Misery know who they are, what they want to be, and how they want to sound, and Tatsu, as the perceived auteur of that, could fairly be called a visionary. Listening through the swelling roll in the verse of “Murder Castle Blues (H.H. Holmes),” or the way in which “Come and Get Me Sucker (David Koresh)” picks up from the sample of its titular cult leader opining to this or that news organization about Americans arming themselves as a political position to unveil the full threat of its bassline and riff before the blowout verse actually takes hold ahead of the made-for-the-stage shout-along chorus delivering the title line, Tatsu‘s vision comes through clearly.
This is the underlying message of Born Under a Mad Sign, and of Church of Misery circa 2023 more broadly — that the group in whatever form it takes is beholden to Tatsu‘s will, and steered by his direction and whims. They end with “Butcher Baker (Robert Hansen)” and wah-drench the middle before going back to the verse and chorus before jamming out, but even as madcap as the song gets, Kazuhiro comes back on for a final verse to end out, because whatever else Church of Misery are, whoever else they are, as they approach the 30th year of their tenure, they are songwriters. Tatsu is a songwriter. They just make it sound like they’re completely out of control, and the methodical, almost ritualized nature of what they do is perhaps an even greater tie to their subject matter. They are masters of what they do. Wherever you sit on the scale of interest in serial killers or murder more generally, their mastery on display is something to appreciate.
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 20th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Pretty stoked on the idea of an Uncle Acid live record. That’s all well and good. I’ve been lucky enough to see the band a couple times — not in a while, admittedly — and they’ve always been an experience. I wonder how the songs will come across without the surrounding darkness, the low-to-absent lighting, staticky tvs behind, and the air of the audience’s anticipation for each individual riff, never mind entire songs. Slaughter on First Avenue comes from two shows in the same place in Minneapolis, recorded on either side of the pandemic, in 2019 and 2022.
And I bet it’s great. What, a band like Uncle Acid is gonna put out a live record if it’s a dud? Not likely. They’re not at a level where things like this happen by accident — that is, they’re not just throwing a thing on Bandcamp just to do it; there’s time and money involved — and reading through the copious narrative below that came courtesy of the PR wire, I’m of course drawn to the last paragraph where it says a new studio album, will happen and will see release without warning. Fair enough. Not like they need the hype. I’m glad it’s a thing they’re saying is going to happen, not the least because it’s the inevitable first question here, even though the answer doesn’t actually do much to change the marker’s position from ‘could happen at some point maybe’ when it comes down to it.
For now you can revel in the live version of “Dead Eyes of London” from their very first LP, 2010’s Vol. 1 (reissue review here), and sit tight for about a month till Slaughter on First Avenue arrives. You’ll make it.
Onward, to more words!
UNCLE ACID & THE DEADBEATS Announce New Live Album, ‘Slaughter on First Avenue’ Out 7/28 on Rise Above Records
Share New Single “Dead Eyes of London”
UNCLE ACID’s reputation as one of the most devastating and authentically psychedelic live bands on the planet became impossible to dispute, not least when they found themselves supporting the immortal Black Sabbath on 16 dates of their sold out reunion tour in 2013. Until now, however, the band’s unique and mind-melting live show has never been captured for posterity.
‘Slaughter On First Avenue’, the first official UNCLE ACID & THE DEADBEATS live record, is a furious and righteous document of Kevin Starrs and his henchmen at the height of their unearthly powers. With performances taken from two separate shows at the same venue – First Avenue, Minneapolis – in 2019 and 2022, it’s an 86-minute career retrospective that crackles with malicious intent.
14 songs deep and proudly devoid of gimmicks or distractions, ‘Slaughter On First Avenue’ is a riveting and raw account of UNCLE ACID in full flight. From early classics like “I’ll Cut You Down” and “Death’s Door” (both from ‘Blood Lust’), to more recent works of lysergic aggro like “Shockwave City” (from ‘Wasteland’) and sinister epic “Slow Death” (from ‘The Night Creeper’), this amalgamation of two fiery and unforgettable live shows has a mesmerising momentum all of its own. As Kevin Starrs explains, ‘Slaughter On First Avenue’ is a purposefully rough-hewn snapshot of two moments in time.
“People have been asking for a live record, and sometimes it’s nice to give people what they want. Especially if you follow it up with something they definitely don’t want! Overall it’s a very raw sounding recording, and that’s just how it was on the night. There was no specific reason for choosing the first show, other than some guy just turned up and offered to record it, so we let him! It’s a proper live record with all the mistakes kept in.”
“Tonight you will be subjected to an all-out audio assault that will begin here shortly. There will be no respite from this until we release you. The group will show no mercy, and will likely not communicate with you. There will be no dynamics and a complete disregard for expectation. It will all sound the same. Do you understand?”
The greatest bands exist out of necessity and UNCLE ACID & THE DEADBEATS fit that description to a cobwebbed tee. Led by singer/guitarist Kevin Starrs, the Cambridge-born masters of occult doom and psychedelic brutality have carved their own singular furrow since 2009. If they didn’t exist, we would have to invent them.
Defiantly dwelling in their own curious corner of the heaviness spectrum, UNCLE ACID & THE DEADBEATS have conjured a series of grimly spellbinding albums, starting with 2010’s ‘Volume 1’ debut and its spiky, shadowy successor ‘Blood Lust’, which marked the start of the band’s close relationship with Rise Above Records. Critically lauded masterworks ‘Mind Control’ and ‘The Night Creeper’ emerged in 2013 and 2015 respectively, and their most recent opus, the bleakly macabre ‘Wasteland’, garnered much effusive praise in 2018.
“I think one of our strengths is that most of what we do live is the exact opposite of what’s expected at a rock show,” says Kevin Starrs. “There’s no warm chit-chat, no rehearsed anecdotes, no pleasantries, no running around. It’s so dark you can’t see our faces, and sometimes we play with our backs turned. It shouldn’t work, but it does. We just lock into the music and feed off the crowd. Some people still want all that old-time stage banter stuff and want to feel loved, which is fine, but I think a cold relentless hammer attack on the senses works better for a band like us.”
“The second show had a few different songs so it made sense to add those in,” he adds. “The first show was better, though. I remember the crowd was pretty wild that night. The second show was more subdued and a bit looser. That was just as gigs started happening again, so I think people were still a bit cautious. Either that or all the wild ones had died!”
A throwback to the days when live albums were magical things, rather than cynical stopgaps, ‘Slaughter On First Avenue’ is a jolting dose of dark electricity and psychedelic terror. Swollen with the greatest of riffs and performed with grit, power and haughty disdain, it loudly confirms that UNCLE ACID & THE DEADBEATS have the raw, fuzzed-out power to drag everybody into their bewildering, bewitched vortex of doom. A dazzling, devilish squall to mark the beginning of a new chapter, ‘Slaughter On First Avenue’ also clears the decks for this band’s next malevolent move. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
“Yes, There will be another record which will hopefully appear at some point without warning or explanation,” Kevin Starrs avows. “It will be completely different to anything else we’ve done. You can think of it as a late night detour. Its appeal will be extremely limited but that’s OK… ‘When you’re slapped, you’ll take it and like it!’”
‘Slaughter on First Avenue’ Track List: 1. I See Through You 2. Waiting for Blood 3. Death’s Door 4. Shockwave City 5. Thirteen Candles 6. Dead Eyes of London 7. Pusher Man 8. Ritual Knife 9. Slow Death 10. Crystal Spiders 11. Blood Runner 12. Desert Ceremony 13. I’ll Cut You Down 14. No Return
A certain portion of Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats‘ ultimate impact on underground and/or heavy rock will forever be tied to their second album, 2011’s landmark Blood Lust (discussed here, also here), but as the UK outfit mark the 10th anniversary of that LP’s follow-up, 2013’s Mind Control (review here), a revisit seems warranted. Or, at least one would if I’d been able at any point in the last 10 years to get some of these songs out of my head.
By the time Uncle Acid — fronted and steered by guitarist/vocalist Kevin R. Starrs (anyone remember finding out who it was?), the band just off a May tour that made headlining stops at Desertfest in London and Berlin and Soulstone Gathering in Poland — got around to releasing the nine-track/50-minute Mind Control, the secret was out. Even I knew about them by then, having put off listening due to annoyance at the hype in 2011. Stupid, but true. I don’t know how many pressings of Blood Lust LPs burned through the Rise Above Records offices (which in my head are Barad Dûr in Mordor but probably are just part of Lee Dorrian‘s house) between 2011 and 2013, but I’m sure it was plenty. They were immediately at the forefront of underground consciousness. It was stunning. They’d put out Vol. 1 (reissue review here) in 2010 in an edition of something like 30 CDRs — and yes I’d love one, thanks for asking — but once heavy-heads got wind of “I’ll Cut You Down” and “Death’s Door,” they were everywhere. All of a sudden, a whole lot of bands wanted to sound like a Hammer Horror VHS that’d been buried in a moist basement for 20-25 years, but somehow also watched religiously.
Can’t blame them. It’s not often a genre based at least in some part on sounding like the past gets a genuinely fresh take, and Uncle Acid were that. Mind Control came out April 15, 2013, again through Rise Above — which was distributed/licensed/whatever in the States through Metal Blade at the time — and as much as Blood Lust set the path that many have since attempted to walk, I’ll argue every time for Mind Control as the better record.
Even its ‘lesser’ tracks in the middle third, “Desert Ceremony,” “Evil Love” and “Death Valley Blues” — which arrive after the holy-shit-this-is-for-real opening salvo of “Mt. Abraxas,” “Mind Crawler” and “Poison Apple,” and before the far-out hallucinogenic decay of the longer last three cuts, “Follow the Leader,” “Valley of the Dolls” and “Devil’s Work” — it’s a landmark in terms of aesthetic and craft. It is among the most recognizable heavy rock albums of the last 20 years, with a fullness of production that nothing the band did before or has done since — that’s 2015’s The Night Creeper (review here) and 2018’s Wasteland (review here) — has attempted to match. Even in their discography, it stands out.
The work itself is incredible. “Mt. Abraxas” laying it on the table right at the start, the strutting hellchild of The Beatles and Sabbath. Here’s this riff, eat it. Then boogie cuz it’s “Mind Crawler” next. It is emblematic of the level of songwriter Starrs is that the band can so gleefully buy in on and roundly endorse even vague heinous shit and be both psychologically affecting and catchy as hell. They get in your head, these songs, which is the point. And “Poison Apple,” swinging into its own chorus like it’s alt-reality 1969 — a fair enough preface for “Devil’s Work”‘s Manson Family-based lyrics later — and holding that swagger in the solo. Shit.
“Evil Love” is all about the careening push. It’s like you’re falling through the verse and then falling again through the chorus. Dude sounds like he’s nodding off to sleep and it’s brilliant. The chug, and that lyric, “You are dear to our purpose.” The swing in the drums and the way the song seems to sneak around its own hook. Beautiful and sinister. All this shit you’d think would never work, very much working. And the sweep into “Death Valley Blues.” The way the song stops and redirects through that clumsy part and straightens itself out in the bridge. I love that clumsy part. Uncle Acid weren’t the first to approach the concept of SabBeatles — Type O Negative did it pretty well that one time — but they owned it on this record. I feel like it was either Uncle Acid or Ghost who were really bound to hit the mainstream and I’m glad this band didn’t become that one. It would have been a shame to lose an act so willing to revel in dirt to the demands of actually-commercial production.
But speaking of sleepy which I think I was at some point back there, look at “Follow the Leader” tapping classic psych hypnosis through repetition. Or gaze at it and feel your eyelids grow heavy and your breathing relax. By the fade, those strums are echoes of themselves and they just go on and then there’s an acoustic in there and feedback and it’s like it’s still there when it’s over. And I will be forever god damned if “Valley of the Dolls” isn’t one of the best heavy riffs of all time. I mean it. I don’t care if you’re putting it next to “Into the Void” or “South of Heaven” or “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” or “Gardenia,” it’s on that list.
And that bassline. And the mellotron. And you think the verse is the march but fuck that they’ve still got “Devil’s Work” up their sleeve. Layered solo respectful of the riff, but making its own place. Then it’s the even more sneering change in the lyric into “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” — which was not a good, but admirably bad, movie — on the way to oblivion crash hits that were probably a pain in the ass to record, which, faster, is also how “Devil’s Work” starts. Also where it dwells in the brain, barely stopping as that chug does during the song at all if you follow the bass, which you should. They hold to it, dum-dum-dum-dum, until the song just kind of sees itself out in slow motion, some guitar picking up for a watery last word before the noise/drone and whatever-else-it-is-I-think-I-knew-at-one-point takes hold and it’s over.
Look, don’t get me wrong, I’m really, really glad Uncle Acid on the last record kinda-sorta pivoted away from writing songs about killing women and I very much hope they continue in that direction. I’m not fucking stupid. I know it’s horror culture worn as aesthetic, murder as sex, and that doesn’t mean it’s not misogynist. If knowing that and also still being astounded by this album puts me in a lower moral standing — and it probably does, if we’re being honest — then, as with every now and again really wanting to eat a hamburger, it’s a hyper-low-stakes moral compromise I’m apparently willing to make. But in the last decade the times have changed a bit and maybe that’s not a terrible thing. I’d call it kind of unfortunate that another part of Uncle Acid’s legacy and influence is tied to that, but those records are still monumentally good.
And golly shucks I hope they do another at some point.
Thanks for reading.
—
So, uh, I’m going to Freak Valley next week. Next week. I find myself feeling neither mentally nor physically fit enough for that kind of travel. I will limp, on multiple levels, into Netphen on Thursday, hopefully after a short nap. It seems like a good idea. I feel a little nuts. But sometimes you need to go and I’m booked for it, so anxious or sad-dad-bad-had as I am, I’m going. I also threw my back out yesterday, but that only hurts when I move, so should be fine. I’m 41 years old. I’ll confess I feel a bit silly.
But I think I need it more than I realize. A few showless months — just owing to the way my life is arranged right now; I acknowledge it won’t always be how it is — and I don’t feel right. Couple that with meds that I don’t think are doing me any good — but that I nonetheless just stopped writing to send a refill request for, because I do what I’m told — and being in kind of a wretched place in my own head. I have an announcement going up on (I think) Monday for Ruff Majik that I wrote the top part of on Wednesday and it’s so raw I’m not even sure I can use it. And you know I’m not shy about that kind of thing. But it’s been like that. I’m disappointed in myself as a parent, as a husband, as a person. I don’t really have anywhere in my life that I feel good right now, anywhere I can let my guard down a bit, and I’m hoping a couple days of traveling abroad will help reframe my perspective. Because it could use it, trainwreck of a human being as I am. Then maybe some therapy.
And then, in like another week and a half, Maryland Doom Fest. Not even going to try to see every band playing that. But am going to try to see plenty of them.
So that’s the story of it. I don’t know how much travel-type writing I want to do, and I’ve got other projects — bios, PostWax liner notes — eating at my brain, and maybe being stuck on an aircraft will allow me to focus enough to do some of that. Or maybe I’ll get lucky and fall asleep.
Things to pack: Advil, earplugs, camera, Salonpas, more Advil.
I hope you have a great and safe weekend. It’s starting to get hot out there, don’t forget to hydrate. Watch your head, have fun, do the thing. I’ll be back on Monday with more of this kind of thing. It’ll be a hoot.
