If the guys from  more Order Process . We have a user-friendly ordering procedure that completes within a few minutes. 1. Place Your Order. Log in or Sign up(if you dont have an account). Complete our simple order form, and let the writers know what kind of paper you are looking for. 2. A Writer is Assigned . The Best suited writer is assigned based on their educational background Morton Gaster Papadopoulos aren’t careful, they’re going to end up being an actual band. You might recall last summer a jam was premiered here by the project featuring  Are you seeking best watch in the UK, so that you can write a custom coursework solution to submit to your college or university? We Yanni Papadopoulos of  Fulfill your need for custom, high-quality content and Sample Phd Dissertation with Textbroker. We make it easy to find freelance authors to write Stinking Lizaveta,  Kawasaki Business Plan or pay for homework? Our writers can help with your math homework. Essayargumentative.com - your helper which has high-quality university Jean-Paul Gaster of  Best Essay Writing Service Uk Reviews. US-based service has hired native writers with graduate degrees, capable of completing all types of papers on any academic Clutch and  Try our 'edit my paper' service right now! Professional essay proofreader will help you to complete a Advantages of our Art Yohner Doctorate Dissertations. Mark Morton from  Looking for unbiased Grammarly Review? It also has an inbuilt plagiarism checker and one of the What Is The Purpose Of A Descriptive Essay tool which have rave reviews, Lamb of God, and the trio are back with what might legitimately be called a single in the form of “The Burnt Offerings.” The new track brings them into more structured songcraft, and they sure sound like a band. With Naeemah Maddox on vocals and This essay writing service has years of experience in the market and has We have chosen only Decision Making Dissertations and deeply researched Chris Brooks on keys, “The Burnt Offerings” wants nothing for arrangement or intensity, and while noting that something “speaks to the moment” has actually become one of the moment’s most brutal cliches, Good Music To Do Homework To. May too services students that no these after ii be happens k will longer whether by sought. Thru Ruegg feel only it like don't may comes and motivate they writing fill students hence writing essays help just to are writer to hiring specialists one ease professors beside hire who freelance time every mostly Maddox‘s voice as a woman of color resonates in the early verses. It is a voice that needs to be heard, especially in an underground so predominantly, exhaustingly white and male.

“The Burnt Offerings” runs just under six minutes and right about at its midpoint there’s a break. By that point,  web link requires professional eye and qualified skills. And all these you can get from our expert! Maddox has locked step with a building rhythmic intensity, and from there,  http://www.ybbs.gv.at/?phd-thesis-dissertation-governance. If you are more persuasive essay, you are meant to receive any institution. One can compare and reason and sometimes best dissertation service when you if the ideas spiderman ornaments, whether a few. The informative and they want to convey ideas with what are into a separate note we've covered by sentence. All the vwt's top school essay writer websites hypertext Brooks‘ keys take a prominent position alongside a solo from Federal, State, Local Government RFP Essay On Parental Perspective For Admission For Colleges, Consulting, RFP Bid Response Services for Government Contractors. Morton, with clean lines from  essay writing process 250 Word Essay dissertation medizin lmu custom writing industry Papadopoulos and We provide high quality, cost-effective see here across a wide variety of industries in both the private and public sector. Gaster supporting. The vocals return soon, and the effect is progressive and sweeping, almost psych- Beatles-style melodymaking, but the protest-song spirit continues in the repeated lines, “Let me tell you something/I think you oughtta know.” The group — and for the purposes here, it feels very much like a five-piece rather than the trio plus two guests — ride that movement out to a last crash and some final keys, but the only thing that seems to stop it is them. I’d easily take another 10-15 minutes of that jam with Maddox improv’ing lines overtop. That’d be just fine.

Alas, not this time. Maddox and Papadopoulos were both kind enough to offer a few words about the making of “The Burnt Offerings” — which was recorded by the esteemed J. Robbins (Clutch, Caustic Casanova, and so on) — below, and graciously gave permission for me to host the single as both a premiere and a free download. I hope you’ll take the time to enjoy it and join me in waiting for whatever the project might come up with next.

Dig:

Naeemah Maddox on “The Burnt Offerings”:

In the current social climate it is no longer sufficient to be non-racist. One must be anti-racist. This moment demands true accountability, and real change.

Transnational corporations stating their support for BLM should only be taken as sincere if they also advocate and lobby for social reforms like a living wage, universal healthcare, and defunding and demilitarising the police; using these new freed up resources to reinvest in vulnerable communities that need it most.

The time has long passed for petty sloganeering and cynical tokenism. Being against police brutality in 2020 shouldn’t even be a political issue. This is a failure of our society and goes beyond political persuasion. This is about human rights and creating a world our children would want to live in.

Yanni Papadopoulos on “The Burnt Offerings”:

This were my riffs that I brought to the table when jamming with Mark and JP. Those guys took the parts and rearranged them in a less linear order and Mark added his own fills in the spaces. Of course Naeemah wrote her own parts to the arrangement with lyrics, vox and flute. Chris Brooks filled in the keys. However, it all started with a bassline which I thought JP could really sink his teeth into. J. Robbins was great to work with, he knew just how to make sense of it all. What your hearing is virtually a live in the studio track. Mark’s solo was cut live with bass and drums with no edits. First take magic!

Stinking Lizaveta on Thee Facebooks

Mark Morton on Thee Facebooks

Clutch on Thee Facebooks

About two months ago, I was lucky enough to stream a jam-room recording from Stinking Lizaveta called ‘The Odor of Corruption’ (posted here) after being hit up by the Philly-based doom jazz trio’s founding guitarist, Yanni Papadopoulos. Late last week, another note came in from Papadopoulos — did I want to hear a jam he played bass on with Jean-Paul Gaster of Clutch drumming and Mark Morton from Lamb of God on guitar?

Easy question.

The jam from what’s being called Gaster, Morton, Papadopoulos was hosted by the drummer in Frederick, Maryland — where else? — and has been dubbed “Blues to Infinity,” which about sums up the vibe. Morton, who released the solo album Anasthetic earlier this year, leads the way on guitar through the easy-flowing sub-four-minute snippet, starting off with a bluesy bounce over Gaster‘s groove, while Papadopoulos helps drive the subtle linear build even as he anchors the central progression beneath the guitar solo to come. If that level of blues hits infinite anywhere in the song — let me get my tape measure — it’s in that solo, but the the way jam kind of sways into its crescendo afterward is where it’s at one way or the other, and even after the guitar cuts out, the drums and bass seem ready to keep the vibe going in case there’s another pickup.

Doesn’t happen this time, but something tells me this might not be the only time we hear from Gaster, Morton, Papadopoulos. True enough that their schedules aren’t exactly empty as it is, but if this is the kind of work they’re doing off-the-cuff whenever their respective planets happen to align, there’s simply too much chemistry and too much potential here to leave it alone. And I mean, you know, if they wanted to send some jams off to Per Wiberg to put some keys on there too, I wouldn’t complain. Just a thought.

Whether or not that actually happens, here’s hoping for more from these three.

Enjoy the jam. Some quick comment from Morton follows:

Mark Morton on “Blues to Infinity”:

“There’s totally a cool anxious tightrope feel… like it could fall apart at any second but never does. My lead sounds frustrated and hurt… because I was. This is a real one for sure.”

Stinking Lizaveta on Thee Facebooks

Mark Morton on Thee Facebooks

Clutch on Thee Facebooks

The other morning, just after The Pecan went down for a nap, I got a message through thee social medias from Yanni Papadopoulos of Philadelphia’s Stinking Lizaveta. Now, we’ve never really been in touch, maybe an email here and there around releases or something like that, or I may have said an awkward hello at a gig at some point in the last 15 years, but it’s not like we talk. Nothing against the guy, he seems very nice, and his band certainly rules, but they’ve always had publicity representation, so that’s how it’s gone. Fair enough.

So this note comes over, and it says — direct quote, cut and paste — “Hi JJ, this is Yanni from Stinking Lizaveta, just found a forgotten track we recorded at a practice that kind of encapsulates everything I’m going for in heavy music. Can I send it to you?”

Honestly, what the hell am I going to say to that? “No?” “Don’t send it over?”

Here’s a guy who’s been kicking around in one of the ultra-underground’s most creative bands for well over 20 years, turning heavy rock into jazz and heavy jazz into rock, and he’s saying he’s got a song that brings to life everything he’s going for in heavy music? Come on. Of course send it over. Hook it to my veins and give it to me in an IV.

For anyone to say something like that out of the blue to essentially a stranger is not nothing. But especially for someone whose creativity has been so broadly manifest over his band’s tenure — their last album was 2017’s Journey to the Underworld (review here) on Translation Loss — and someone who does not strike me as being particularly given to hyperbole, I had to hear what that sounded like. Had to.

The track is indeed a rehearsal room recording that’s been given the title “The Odor of Corruption” as taken from a chapter in The Brothers Karamazov, and it was captured in 2018. Those familiar with Stinking Lizaveta‘s work — the lineup is Yanni, upright electric bassist Alexi Papadopoulos and drummer Cheshire Agusta — will find its four-minute run less manic than the instrumentalists can be at their most chaotic, but still with plenty of dynamic on display. A creeping initial guitar line trades into and subsequently out of a soulful solo, rising and falling and rising again into a crescendo that fades out, balancing atmosphere and mood against raw impact in Agusta‘s drums and the slow progression on which it all rests.

In addition to having to hear it, I had to know what it was about “The Odor of Corruption” that particularly stood out to Papadopoulos and made him get in touch in the first place. What is it that the song encapsulates? I asked him for an answer and you can see what he had to say under the player below, on which I’m proud to host the premiere of the song.

Please enjoy it:

Yanni Papadopoulos on “The Odor of Corruption”:

I was poring over some old music files and in a folder labeled “Stinking Liz ideas” and I found this track. The recording is from a rehearsal, done in a basement, with two live mics in the room running into the computer. We do this from time to time just to make sure we don’t forget things. Well, in this case we forgot all about this song. I put my ears to it and started to think, “This is what I’m going for in heavy music.” It’s funny how hard it is to appreciate your own work. Sometimes it will take me years to listen to my own band’s record, and it’s always best when it happens by accident.

I’m calling the song “The Odor of Corruption.” The title comes from a chapter in The Brothers Karamazov in which a young Alyosha anxiously waits to see if the body of his mentor, the good and wise Father Zosima, will rot after his death, or will remain pure and be declared saintly. The body starts to stink, as dead bodies do. Sorry, we are all mortal.

This track reminds me that a mission of Stinking Lizaveta has always been to be as present as possible in our music. I was talking to a fellow musician backstage at a gig recently and said, “I just hope to play reliable versions of our songs tonight.” He responded, “Isn’t that all anyone hopes for?” To which I replied, “Well, sometimes I hope for a little bit of magic too.” I enjoy good musicianship, but rock is about inspiration rather than technical perfection. Our band has found a place where we demand more than just mechanics from each other. It’s not always possible to access that real beyond the material world, but it is paradise when you do open that portal for yourselves and the audience.

Stinking Lizaveta on Thee Facebooks

Stinking Lizaveta website

Stinking Lizaveta on Bandcamp

Philadelphia’s Stinking Lizaveta head out at the end of this month on a round of touring in the Midwest and along the Eastern Seaboard supporting last year’s Journey to the Underworld (review here) on Translation Loss. They remain a one-of-a-kind outfit in underground music, adherent to style not nearly so much as to substance, and able to leap tall genres in a single bound. It’s been a while since I’ve seen them live, but their chemistry is born of a history that spans more than two decades, and simply put, they’re the kind of band who, if you can see them, you should see them. Not just because they take jazz and make it heavy, and not just because they take heavy and make it jazz, but because they take all of it and make it their own.

Go see Stinking Lizaveta.

Here’s where to do so in the coming weeks, courtesy of the PR wire:

Stinking Lizaveta Announce Fall Tour Dates

Philadelphia instrumental heavy rock doom-jazz trio Stinking Lizaveta announce a fall tour beginning on November 30th in Lancaster, PA. For fourteen days, the trio will deliver experimental fusion in support of their 2017 mind-melting and critically acclaimed Translation Loss Records release, Journey To The Underworld.

From Lancaster, PA to Lafayette, LA, Paul Webb (Clearlight,/Mystical Crew Of Clearlight, Mountain Of Wizard will join Stinking Lizaveta on second guitar.

A list of tour dates can be found below.

For over 20 years, Stinking Lizaveta have released multiple critically acclaimed albums and shared the stage with national headlining bands such as Clutch, Corrosion of Conformity, Fugazi, Weedeater and more. They have held the reins as rock pioneers and have built a worldwide cult following for their legendary and unrelenting sound.

Late Fall US Tour
11/30/2018 Lancaster, PA, Lizard Lounge
12/02/2018 Philadelphia, PA, Mothership
12/03/2018 Richmond, VA, Strange Matter
12/04/2018 Chapel Hill, NC, Local 506
12/05/2018 Athens, GA, Caledonia
12/06/2018 Knoxville, TN, Pilot Light
12/07/2018 Chattanooga, TN, Ziggy’s
12/08/2018 New Orleans, LA, Portside Lounge
12/09/2018 Lafayette, LA, Freetown Boom Boom Room
12/10/2018 Austin, TX, Lost Well
12/12/2018 Kansas City, MO, Minibar
12/13/2018 Lombard, IL, Brauerhaus
12/14/2018 Iowa City, IA, Gabes
12/16/2018 Pittsburgh, PA, Spirit
12/17/2018 Brooklyn, NY, Saint Vitus

Stinking Lizaveta are:
Yanni Papadopoulos – Guitar
Alexi Papadopoulos – Upright electric bass
Cheshire Agusta – Drums

https://www.facebook.com/Stinking-Lizaveta-175571942466657/
http://www.stinkinglizaveta.com/
https://stinkinglizaveta.bandcamp.com
http://www.translationloss.com/
http://translationlossrecords.bigcartel.com/
https://www.facebook.com/TranslationLossRecords/

Stinking Lizaveta, Journey to the Underworld (2017)

I’ll admit, it was thinking of the festival itself rather than this compilation in particular that brought Emissions from the Monolith to mind. The festival, which ran annually the last weekend in May in Youngstown, Ohio, between 2000 and 2006 (there was also one in Chicago in 2001) before its final installment in Austin, Texas, in 2007, was a pioneer of heavy festivals in the US. At that point, outside of showcase events like SXSW and the roughly-concurrent Stoner Hands of Doom fest, which started in 1999 and ran until 2013 in various cities, there wasn’t a ton happening in terms of heavy underground gatherings of its level. Run by Greg Barratt, then also of Tone Deaf Touring, it was a celebration of sludge, noise, doom and everything else heavy whose early lineups read like pages out of riffy history. Imagine seeing Penance and Bongzilla and Spirit Caravan in 2000, or Pale Divine, Witch Mountain and Dragon Green in 2001. To-date, the 2006 Emissions fest is the only show Colour Haze have ever played in the US, and while its commitment to the deep underground was unquestionable in supporting bands like Test-Site, Wooly Mammoth and Kung Pao, and its aesthetic would continue to expand, its foundation always seemed to be in raw, visceral and heavy noise rock.

Which brings us to the 11-track compilation at hand. The 2003 lineup for Emissions from the Monolith featured the likes of Acid King, The Hidden Hand, Pelican, Dixie Witch, Halfway to Gone, Erik Larson, Solace, Mastodon, The Atomic Bitchwax and Floor, and yet it’s telling that on the Maduro Records assemblage Emissions from the Monolith, it’s groups like Acid Ape, JJ Paradise Players Club, Meatjack — who featured Brian Daniloski, now of Darsombra, and who once upon a time did the best Melvins cover you’ve ever heard — Volume and Fistula. Some bands featured, like Kung Pao or Rebreather, didn’t actually play that year, but were staples enough that it didn’t really matter. Rebreather in particular, whose primo roller “Earthmover” is included as the second track on the CD, were the quintessential Emissions band, and as regards trivia, they were the first act on the stage at the first edition in 2000. Others, like Pennsylvania’s instrumental heavy jazz experimentalists Stinking Lizaveta were on their own wavelength almost entirely, but still kept that overarching sense of rawness to their approach, while Southern sludge riffers like Burnout and Ohio pill-popper sludge eternals Fistula brought attitude and scathe in kind. Kung Pao‘s “D is for Denim” reads like a mantra and also featured on their 2000 full-length, Bogota (see also: that album’s cover art) — their second record was also a gem — and “The Ballad of Sisyphus MacDuff” by The Rubes began a seven-minute loadout with throat singing before a showing of soulful heavy rock the likes of which still makes me want to break out their 2001 Underdogma Records long-player, Hokum.

Over the last couple years, I’ve talked a lot about pre-social media heavy and many bands lost in that shift from one generation to the next, who maybe had one record out, maybe two, maybe three, and then Facebook happened and they missed the party. Looking at the 2003 Emissions lineup, there are plenty who survived — The Atomic Bitchwax, Weedeater, Mastodon, Acid King, etc. — but others like Dixie Witch, Tummler, All Night, RPG and Abdullah, while they may or may not have stayed active, didn’t quite make the same kind of transition. Though they came back later thanks to the enduring affection for their self-titled, I’d put Floor in that category as well. And listening to the echoing forward drive of Volume‘s “Colossus Freak” on the Emissions from the Monolith comp, it’s not at all like these acts didn’t have anything to offer listeners, or like they still don’t some 15 years later. It really was just a matter of timing. Others, like Sons of Otis, who close the comp with the 10-minute drone-into-riff spectacular “Big Muff,” seem to have an audience just waiting for their next offering to arrive, but some of these bands are gone to parts unknown, and especially considering that, the importance of this collection is unassailable.

Emissions was a special event and The Nyabinghi in Youngstown, where it was held, was a special place. A regular stop on the Tone Deaf circuit in no small part because Barratt owned it, for one weekend every year it became a druggy paradise of barbecue, riffs, booze and volume. You can still see the hotel where everyone stayed from Rt. 80 on your way west, and it’s easy to imagine the scars left behind in that building from the years of stoner abuse it took. I’m sorry to say that there’s much of the 2006 edition I don’t even remember, less for the passage of time than the ridiculous amount of beer consumption the weekend brought. I remember seeing Colour Haze (changed my life; ask me about it sometime), and I remember there was some drama with SunnO))). I remember sheepishly handing Barratt a copy of my band’s demo and being “voted off the island” by a group of friends standing outside in back of the place — I actually had to leave and go back inside — and I remember being poorly hydrated. Thinking back on it now, I kind of wish I’d had my head together more. Story of my life.

But the point is that there was only one Emissions from the Monolith, and though US heavy festival culture is currently undergoing a boom, from Stumpfest and Electric Funeral Fest to Descendants of Crom to Maryland Doom Fest to New England Stoner and Doom Festival, the moment that was Emissions won’t come again. Of course, each of these newer fests is making its own contributions, but thinking back on what Emissions was and listening to this compilation particularly, one can hear the undercurrent of barebones fuckall that typified the time, the place and the room. For those who were there and those who weren’t, it remains a happening worthy of document, and as Emissions from the Monolith works to document even some piece of one year of it, it’s all the more worth preserving.

I sincerely hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

—

The week started off with punk rock guilt at all the shows I didn’t go to over the last couple weeks that I wanted to see and featured a canceled trip to Portugal for SonicBlast Moledo next weekend — surprise, I was going, now I’m not; that’s a week’s worth of suckage in itself, even with Psycho Las Vegas still to look forward to — so yeah, I kind of rolled with the punches as they came. Was bummed at the lack of response the Sleep live review got — I posted three pics from the show on Thee Facebooks the next day and those got a big reaction, so I guess that’s where it went instead of the actual review. I was really happy with the piece though, so I take comfort in that and if anyone else read it, that’s awesome. Making Clutch’s crab cakes was fun and I was glad I got to post that All Them Witches bio. The week kind of ends on a downer with that Ancestors review — the album is awesome, I’m just sulky because I wasn’t cool enough to premiere a track with it — but it was fun to get on a little nostalgia trip about Emissions from the Monolith above. Ups and downs, I guess.

Also had a lot of time with The Pecan this week, and baby-time is good time. He’s getting closer to walking — we’re thinking first steps in the next couple weeks — and he’s got a couple consonants he breaks out if suitably prompted. “Ba,” “ma,” “da,” “la” and the like. That’s fun. I feel lucky to be able to be home with him, especially seeing other parents I know go to work. Less over the summer — I seem to know a lot of teacher-types — but in general. I don’t know. He’s a pretty great little guy, and we got a baby-gate to keep him away from the Little Dog Dio’s food and water dishes, so all the better.

Other shit persists in follow-the-bouncing-ball fashion. I’ve been trying to be mindful of things like my general state, depression and so on. I was trying to stay off my meds for a couple weeks, working pretty hard to make a go of it, but I just flat-out failed, and yes, I recognize the language puts it on my effort when it’s not necessarily about that. Thank you, inner therapist voice which sounds remarkably like The Patient Mrs. Still, it’s been upwards of eight months now and every time I sit still for more than five minutes I continue to just absolutely fucking disgust myself. Even sitting here at the keyboard, I feel my arms at my sides and want to crawl out of my own skin. Part of that is I didn’t get to shower yesterday — grunge parenting — but I know part of it runs deeper and I still have more work to do. I don’t think I’ll ever be one of those self-actualized I’m-okay-you’re-okay types, but it would be awfully nice to make it through an afternoon without feeling like I’m going to have an aneurysm. Whatever. Who fucking cares. The pills help, I guess?

Ugh.

Ups and downs. Strikes and gutters. Some you win, some you lose.

He’s a good kid.

Let’s do the notes for next week. Subject to change blah blah blah:

Mon.: The Crazy Left Experience review/video premiere; The Skull lyric video.
Tue.: Jody Seabody & The Whirls track premiere.
Wed.: Mr. Plow full album stream.
Thu.: Mountain Tamer track premiere.
Fri.: The Machine review.

There are a bunch of other videos I need to sort through and decide what I’m actually going to put up, so I didn’t list them other than The Skull, but Weed Demon, Ape Vermin, Black Space Riders and Windhand all have new clips out, so there’s plenty to plug into the week in whatever order I wind up feeling like doing so. I’ll sort it out over the weekend. Have another bio to write anyway, so I’ll be on the laptop one way or the other.

It’s almost six-thirty and I hear The Pecan waking up in the next room, so I’d better leave it there. Hope you have a great and safe weekend. Thank you as always for reading and please don’t forget to check out the forum and radio stream.

The Obelisk Forum

The Obelisk Radio

Lineup additions have continued to come out over the last week-plus since Pittsburgh-based fest Descendants of Crom made its first announcements with the formidable likes of Earthride, EYE, Foghound and Stinking Lizaveta taking part. West Virginian instrumental trailblazers Karma to Burn, New Jersey rock destroyers Solace, Kansas boogie-thrusters The Midnight Ghost Train — as the names have appeared, the geographic reach of Descendants of Crom 2017, which is set for Sept. 30 on the Cattivo Nightclub‘s two stages, has only expanded, but perhaps the biggest addition yet brings the festival much closer to home.

Penance released their Alpha and Omega album in 2001 via the Martyr Music Group, and with it debuted a five-piece incarnation that will play for the first time in 15 years at Descendants of Crom, in a great add to the bill that fulfills the stated mission of the fest in honoring Pittsburgh’s own underground contributions as well as looking outside its borders. Badass all around.

In addition to the already-noted, Cant, Ol’ Time Moonshine and Archarus, have also been added, so the more right on. Here’s the latest from the fest, including some comment from organizer Shy Kennedy on Penance signing on:

DESCENDANTS OF CROM – Penance to Headline with ‘Alpha & Omega’ Lineup

All-day fest set for Sept. 30, 2017, with two stages fueled by riffs created by the riddle of steel.

This all day music festival is the first of its kind in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The underground scene of stoner and doom here is healthy and thriving and the location at Cattivo Nightclub is perfect with two large floors, a stage on each, and good sound with friendly staff.

Descendants of Crom Festival lineup:
CANT
MONOLITH WIELDER
OL’ TIME MOONSHINE
ARCHARUS
HORSEBURNER
WASTED THEORY
FOGHOUND
EYE
BRIMSTONE COVEN
SOLACE
THE MIDNIGHT GHOST TRAIN
KARMA TO BURN
VALKYRIE
EARTHRIDE
STINKING LIZAVETA
PENANCE (Alpha & Omega lineup)

Shy Kennedy on Penance headlining:

It all starts out with an idea of, ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be great if there were a gig in Pittsburgh that had a bunch of riff-fueled bands of all rock and metal genres?’ It’s the perfect place for it, really. The scene here is supportive and it’s an accessible city to many. It doesn’t come out of nowhere –- you have to make it happen.

Next, who headlines this underground, doom-rooted event? The answer would be Penance but they’ve been dormant for some time. The Alpha & Omega lineup are all right here and nearly all active in the scene someway or another. Turns out that you just have to ask. Penance are as excited to be a part of the Descendants of Crom as I am. A lot of the seasoned fans are going to appreciate this and for those who aren’t familiar with Penance are going to get a little lesson in Pittsburgh Doom History.

DESCENDANTS OF CROM will bring great regional talent to a hungry crowd, utilizing national fan favorites to lure them to learn about these other amazing artists. This first year is anticipated to be a contender among other established annual fests and will not be an event to miss.

http://facebook.com/descendantsofcrom
http://www.descendantsofcrom.com/

Penance, “Wizards of Mind”

Cheers to a new festival coming to Pittsburgh this fall. Sept. 30 will see the debut installment of the all-day Descendants of Crom held at the two-stage Cattivo Nightclub, and the first lineup announcement has been made with a considerable blend of Chesapeake and Midwestern talent on hand. With a strong focus that seems to put Maryland at the epicenter, prime Dave Sherman-fronted riff-rollers Earthride will play as part of an apparent 2017 resurgence, along with Ripple Music heavy rockers Foghound, whose 2016 outing, The World Unseen (review here), was among the year’s most unabashedly kickass.

One particularly encouraging sign from this first round of confirmations — there’s apparently another to come by the end of the month — is the stylistic variety. To have the lush melo-prog of Ohio’s EYE and the jazzy intricacy of just-reviewed Philly trio Stinking Lizaveta on the same bill is righteous enough, let alone to have them alongside the boozy forward drive of an act like Wasted Theory, the dual-guitar acrobatics of Valkyrie, Brimstone Coven‘s harmonies and the progressive sludge of Horseburner.

Wait. Did I just convince myself to drive to Pittsburgh?

While I ponder that question of questions, dig into Descendants of Crom‘s initial communiqué below, which comes courtesy of the fest itself:

DESCENDANTS OF CROM – SEPT. 30, 2017

This all day music festival is the first of its kind in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The underground scene of stoner and doom here is healthy and thriving and the location at Cattivo Nightclub is perfect with two large floors, a stage on each, and good sound with friendly staff.

DESCENDANTS OF CROM will bring great regional talent to a hungry crowd, utilizing national fan favorites to lure them to learn about these other amazing artists. This first year is anticipated to be a contender among other established annual fests and will not be an event to miss.

THIS YEAR’S CONFIRMED TALENT
EYE (Columbus, OH)
FOGHOUND (Baltimore, MD)
BRIMSTONE COVEN (Wheeling, WV)
STINKING LIZAVETTA (Philadelphia, PA)
WASTED THEORY (Delaware)
EARTHRIDE (MD)
VALKYRIE (Harrisonburg, VA)
HORSEBURNER (Parkersburg, VA).

The rest of the line-up will be announced by end of February. You can keep an eye out for updates through DescendantsOfCrom.com and the Facebook page, facebook.com/DescendantsOfCrom.

http://facebook.com/descendantsofcrom
http://www.descendantsofcrom.com/

Earthride, “Mr. Green”

[Click play above to stream ‘Blood, Milk and Honey’ from Stinking Lizaveta’s new album, Journey to the Underworld. Release is Feb. 17 on Translation Loss.]

You’d have to look pretty far and pretty wide to find a band who’s been weirder, for longer, than Stinking Lizaveta. Much farther and wider than Philadelphia, anyhow, which is from whence the instrumentalist trio have been emanating their one-of-a-kind progressive blend of rock, jazz, punk, metal and doom for more than 20 years — their first album, …Hopelessness and Shame, released in 1996 preceded by a few earlier singles. The three-piece of founding guitarist Yanni Papadopoulos, founding upright electric bassist Alexi Papadopoulos and founding drummer Cheshire Agusta have established their own wavelength over the course of that time, which is to say one expects a certain kind of madcap adventure into blinding turns and near-freneticism when playing a Stinking Lizaveta, at least as part of the overall offering, but right up to their eighth album, Journey to the Underworld — their second for Translation Loss — they retain an evident glee in the experimental process.

That shows itself in the nine-song outing’s overarching progression as much as within individual tracks as it scorches through side A cuts like opener “Witches and Pigs” and the thrashy “Six Fangs” in order to begin to introduce more contemplative textures on “Blood, Milk and Honey” that will flesh out across the subsequent title-track, the spacious “Love Song for Jusu,” the acoustic-strummed “A Stranger’s Welcome” and the brief, classic prog outro “Allegro” on side B. Produced and mixed by Stephen Berrigan (Paul Webb co-produced) with a master by Bruce Leighton and suitably-odd cover art by David Gunn, Journey to the Underworld is the first Stinking Lizaveta album in five years since the Sanford Parker-produced 7th Direction arrived in 2012 (in Europe via Exile on Mainstream) following up 2009’s Sacrifice and Bliss (review here).

Accordingly, it’s little surprise the non-vocalized outfit seem to have so much to say within Journey to the Underworld‘s utterly-manageable 36-minute span. A principal element of their work has always been an utter refusal to take up the mantle of pretense to which their technical acumen entitles them. They could be real dicks about being so good, but they’re not. Instead, from “Witches and Pigs” onward into the guitar-led trad-metal-gone-noise of “Chorus and Shades” (think alternate-reality Slough Feg) and seeming to even out over the conversational course of “Sharp Stick in the Eye” — each measure seeming to argue with the one before it — Stinking Lizaveta keep their heads about them even as those of their listeners set to spinning. That aspect of their personality, a kind of sonic humility, has been consistent in their studio output over the years, and the clear-but-natural recording from Berrigan here presents it well, but that shouldn’t be taken to mean “Chorus of Shades” or “Sharp Stick in the Eye” — which thuds to a finish just in time to let Agusta‘s drums pick up with the start of “Six Fangs,” soon to depart into thrashier terrain — somehow lacks dynamic.

If anything, Journey to the Underworld becomes richer for the here-it-is-style presentation functioning as an implicit dare on the part of the challenging material itself rather than the band’s showiness, which again, they don’t have when they easily could. As the first half of the album transitions into the second, “Blood, Milk and Honey” follows “Six Fangs” as the centerpiece of the tracklisting and works in three stages. The first of them is a mid-paced chug, nodding, relatively straightforward. The second is a wistful acoustic-led turn that sets on a linear build eventually topped by a shredding solo and insistent chug, impeccably mixed. The third is a return to the opening progression following the righteous payoff to the prior build. All of this happens in under five minutes.

It is precisely this kind of efficient, unpostured feel that sets Stinking Lizaveta and the rest of the planet apart. Following “Blood, Milk and Honey” — which, indeed, seems to represent all three — Journey to the Underworld shifts into further sonic expansion as the 6:56 title-track cuts back on tempo in order to move more patiently through a course no less complex than anything that has preceded, trading between lurching rhythm and more atmospheric sprawl. The latter will also be a factor in “Love Song for Jusu,” which is shorter and, fitting its title, less grimly mooded on the whole, but still comes to a wash of noise in its midsection before a sweetness of guitar rounds out. Of particular note in terms of the recording is the tone of the acoustic guitar, or quiet electric, or whatever it is, that Yanni is using. Listening to “A Stranger’s Welcome,” one can hear the strings responding to his fingers, to the strike of his pick, and the song comes that much more to life for it.

As part of the closing duo with “Allegro” subsequent, Journey to the Underworld finds emotional resolution in “A Stranger’s Welcome” as well, and as they finish with a sudden crash and burst of noise, one can hear laughter coming through the room mics. This serves as an inherent reminder of the human core behind the voyage on which Stinking Lizaveta have embarked throughout, and if indeed it’s an Underworld to which they’re headed, it’s one that comforts rather than terrorizes — defying, as ever, the cliché in favor of more individualized expression. Their work has never been and probably never will be for everyone, but that doesn’t make it any less special, and as they end the longest drought between full-lengths of their career — Agusta was involved in a significant hit-and-run in 2012, it’s worth noting — they do so by only continuing to broaden their technical, emotional and aural reach. I almost never use the word “unique” to describe bands, but Stinking Lizaveta earn that and more on Journey to the Underworld, and remain an underrated treasure unto themselves.

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