Rocky’s Pride & Joy Premiere “Your Hell”; All the Colours of Darkness Out Sept. 29

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on September 6th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

Rocky's Pride and Joy (Photo by Jack Fenby)

Rocky’s Pride and Joy will release their debut album, All the Colours of Darkness, Sept. 29 through Electric Valley Records. And it is miserable. So miserable. 39 miserable, slogging, miserable, miserable minutes. The acoustic song too.

But hey, a miserable acoustic song can still go a long way on a record like All The Colours of Darkness, which finds the relatively-nascent, formed-in-2020 trio of guitarist/vocalist Brenton Wilson, bassist Dominic Ventra and drummer Jessi Tilbrook doubled-down on hard on dark and druggy riffing, most of the eight songs working under a strong influence from Electric Wizard with some of the clarity that earliest Monolord brought to that style of willfully primitive lurch. And whether it’s the nodding lumber of opener “Red Altar,” the similarly-riffed penultimate cut “Your Hell” (premiering below), a somewhat faster charmer like “So Said the Roach” or the large-sounding dog barking at the start of “Crawl,” or the sonic manipulations throughout, be it the grim swirl at the start of “So Said the Roach” or the complementary noise in closer “Pure Evil,” the above-noted misery is never far from the center.

They know of what they speak, and their abiding moroseness becomes the totem through which All The Colours of Darkness unfurls, “Red Altar” riffing one measure on standalone guitar before hitting its mark on the first of the roller grooves. Volume worship, riff worship, filth worship, Sabbath, drugs, satan and squalor — these are the stuff of life in the world of Rocky’s Pride and Joy‘s making. The thick shuffle of “Revenge,” coated in dirty fuzz, sneering in Wilson‘s layered-in-the-chorus vocal, a bit of metal chug in the verse, remains doomed as it offers one of the album’s most vital hooks, rivaled by “Your Hell” to come and directly backed by the harshly acidic — like call poison control if you accidentally ingest any — blowout impact of “So Said the Roach.”

Rocky's Pride and Joy All The Colours of DarknessAt the same time, “Crawl” dares harmony in its later guitar solo, the wailing “Your Hell” has flashes of Uncle Acid-type garagery, and though it’s basically devil-worshiping bedroom folk, “Lucifer’s Lullaby” is also an unexpected divergence from the by-then established norm of addled tonal dredge, so Rocky’s Pride & Joy aren’t entirely unipolar, but their hearts are clearly in the muck and rot. They have the wretched atmosphere to prove it.

As “Your Hell” and “Pure Evil” pick up from “Lucifer’s Lullaby” for the final salvo, the band seem like they’re digging even further into that part of their approach, reinforcing the message that “Red Altar” began to deliver at least four therapy sessions ago with capstone riffing introduced at 4:38 into the 6:08 by a sample maybe from Detroit Rock City of a woman talking about seeing the devil in the flesh, seeing pure evil, and that’s when they hit it. The underlying message there is that Rocky’s Pride & Joy are conscious in their stylistic choices; they know what they’re doing, and as much as they seem bent to convince their audience that the material has simply bubbled up from some steaming primordial mud, it has in fact been crafted on its own, raw, somehow-punk-in-its-ethic level.

Marching that last riff to a cold finish, the three-piece carve a place for themselves in the drear, and their doom will sit well with misanthropes, cave trolls, increasingly middle-aged blogger types and other suitably disenchanted entities. If any of those might apply to you, and/or if you think you’re at risk of becoming someone capable of looking outside on a sunny day and not thinking about how the world is fast ending in fire, flood, plague and mass extinction, driven faster and faster through greed and capitalist exploitation — because what the fuck else can you really do but try to firebomb your mind with drugs and volume? — All The Colours of Darkness has your back. The sound of today, tomorrow, righteously dead.

“Your Hell” premieres below, followed by some brief word from the band and more background from the PR wire.

Please enjoy:

Rocky’s Pride & Joy, “Your Hell” track premiere

Rocky’s Pride & Joy on “Your Hell”:

“This song offers a warning. ‘Your Hell’ is coming, and its arrival is inevitable.”

Rocky’s Pride & Joy began in a cursed railway cottage in the western suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia in mid 2020. Unexplained appearances of handprints, falling candles, disquieting sounds in the night, and vivid dreams of a tortured previous tenant haunted the residence for 12 months while the band wrote their first collection of songs including “Crawl” and “Time’s Up”. With a friendship formed between vocalist/guitarist Brenton Wilson, drummer Jessi Tilbrook and bassist Dominic Ventra at Jessi’s rock n roll club night, the trio’s unbridled love for doom and fuzz led them to explore their collective vision and bring their first live performance to life at the end of 2020.

Now in 2023, after a slew of live shows, the release of ‘Time’s Up’ and ‘Future Self’ and months of writing and recording, the band have signed their debut album ‘All The Colours Of Darkness’ to International label, Electric Valley Records, set for release in late 2023. Recorded at Adelaide’s Twin Earth Studio, the band have continued their exploration of the dark side of life on this 8 track LP. Occult rituals, parasites, paranormal encounters and cold hard revenge are just a few themes covered on the album. Through nasty fuzz saturated riffs, heavy pounding drums and window rattling bass, Rocky’s Pride & Joy are putting their stamp on doom.

Tracklisting:
1. Red Altar
2. Revenge
3. So Said The Roach
4. Crawl
5. Tunnel Vision
6. Lucifer’s Lullaby
7. Your Hell
8. Pure Evil

Rocky’s Pride & Joy are:
Brenton Wilson – vocalist/guitarist
Dominic Ventra – bass
Jessi Tilbrook – drums

Rocky’s Pride & Joy, “Red Altar” lyric video

Rocky’s Pride & Joy on Facebook

Rocky’s Pride & Joy on Instagram

Electric Valley Records website

Electric Valley Records on Facebook

Electric Valley Records on Instagram

Electric Valley Records on Bandcamp

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