The rumor I hear is that Los Angeles-based, ultra-weed-worship extreme sludge lurch absurdists Vape Warlök are going to be a real band, at least for guitarist/vocalist Collyn McCoy, if not the lineup with which the dense-fog riffstompers played their first show early in February. Alongside McCoy — known as ringmaster for the avant-garde Circle of Sighs and the dark-techno experimentalists Night City, now also bass in the reignited Unida, ex-Aboleth, Trash Titan, The Ultra Electric Mega Galactic, on and on — for the gig were bassist Mariana Fiel (High Priestess) and drummer Rick Ferrante (ex-Sasquatch, The UEMG, etc.), and the set took place as part of a showcase held at the Suspirium warehouse art space that seems set to become a DIY epicenter for these players and their surrounding creative consortium.

A heartfelt ‘fucking a’ to that, and more generally to Vape Warlök, which made its debut last June with the Inhale Death EP (review here), collecting four songs of absolutely gross-sounding dankness, like if you were to scrape black mold off the walls of a musty tomb and say to yourself, “Oh yeah, I think this’ll go nicely with that bit of hash I have leftover.” Stoned rot righteousness. You will not hear me complaining about more of it should that manifest — one never knows with something so superlatively bombed-out — but I’m likewise glad to have a new video for the Inhale Death title-track, with footage from the aforementioned show run through a range of in-app effects and so on by Sean “Skillit” McEleny, whose praises I happened to be singing just the other day in an announcement for Circle of Sighs‘ upcoming live release (info here).

Now, before I turn you over to the YouTube player, let me put emphasis on just how perfect the method by which the video came about actually is. Not only does the resultant clip look completely over-the-top lysergic-goop wash to match the thickness of the tones, slow plod and indecipherable vocal gurgle — all of which rule, if it needs to be said — but the fact that you can see social media tags in some of it, the intentionally haphazard, tossoff hodgepodge fuckall with which it’s made could not possibly be more appropriate for what this band’s mission seems to be. If I lived in L.A., I would just keep showing up until they let me scream in my socks and sandals about how I want to get high to do the dishes, and that’s a fun little daydream in which to dwell for a moment, but more important is that you take the WTF-factor here as part of the artistry.

Thus far — and if there’s going to be more, we are at the beginning — Vape Warlök dwell in that place between genre satire and genre itself, and if you can’t watch the clip and see it as a show of love and oh-so-fitting tribute to the project and the ceremony, then I guess maybe we’ll have to work on that. And that’s fine. Rumor has it there will be more opportunities. I certainly hope so.

Enjoy the video:

Vape Warlök, “Inhale Death” official video

Vape Warlök “Inhale Death” video by Skillit

Please visit the VW bandcamp: https://vapewarlok.bandcamp.com/album/inhale-death

Created with live videos from friends phones and a loop of a close friend of ours childhood photo singing the baby shark song thanks to a sketchy iphone app. Much like the quick DIY nature of the VW EP this was done with effects from Instagram, Tik Tok, iMovie and Photoshop. It was a labor of love on the part of SkilliArt, that and cannabis (but not vaped!).

Live video from the Feb 4th Vape Warlök debut show at Suspirium featuring Collyn McCoy, Mariana Fiel and Rick Ferrante, music from the VW debut release.

Vape Warlök, Inhale Death (2022)

Vape Warlök on Facebook

Vape Warlök on Instagram

Vape Warlök on Soundcloud

Vape Warlök on Bandcamp

Based, according to them, in Greenland and proffering three ready-to-be-called-slabs tracks of crusty, sludgy stoner fuckall, Vape Warlök will release their debut EP, Inhale Death, tomorrow. The release tops 21 minutes of huge, willfully-ugly tonality, the bass and guitar finding only so much room to breathe as to cast a dank psychedelia, stoned to the nines in leadoff “Orbital Cube” while vocals gurgle beneath, more death metal than not, but not really death metal. There’s backward guitar, a sample here and there, but the primary factor is the resin-coated lumber of the riff itself, which makes no bones about its sense of ritual worship at altars weedian and distorted. It’s the only song on Inhale Death under seven minutes long, and you just nod the whole time and that’s all you need. One gets the sense the band are doing the same.

Samples and synth add breadth, but the overriding impression Vape Warlök make moves air with its raw-captured lumber, giving the EP a demo sensibility as “Orbital Cube” breaks down into silence before giving over to the sample at the start of the title-track, which proceeds (the weedian, Nazareth) into even nastier, harsher sludge, like some kind of mega-Bongzilla, unbridled in its density and unwilling to move off its central figure with a refusal that feels as righteous as it does stoned. There is another riff in “Inhale Death,” ultimately, but let’s not hold that against it. Something has to set up the gnashing-teeth shred solo that will eventually return to shred the song apart. That leads eventually to the sample at the start of “U.S.S. (Under Satan’s Spell),” which is both the most active and the most complex of the three tracks. That backwards guitar, the relatively speedier chug, and the descent into channel-swapping narcotic haze metal, synth, chanting and noise takes on an atmospheric purpose of its own, but in wrapping the EP, it brings a new degree to the brain-numbing effect of the bludgeoning riffery. This is extreme music.

Mind you I don’t know and won’t make suppositions about the lifestyles of any of the three members involved in the band, but for a group whose status goal was the “dankest, skunkiest, stickiest, stinkiest stoner metal around,” as they say, then they’re off to a good start. I’d take a tape of this any day of the week. The louder you listen, the more consuming it gets, but one way or the other, Vape Warlök harness brutality in the name of cannabinoid trance. This is their first EP, and it is indeed stank as all anything. May they continue to be as they move inexorably, probably crawlingly, forward.

The clip for “U.S.S. (Under Satan’s Spell)” would be a good projection for a live show.

Enjoy:

Vape Warlök, “U.S.S. (Under Satan’s Spell)” official video

Hello again! We are Vape Warlök. We love weed and Satan.

We told you last week about our EP, “Inhale Death,” which we’ll unleash like a suffocating cloud of apple-scented THC-smog on Friday, 3rd June, which is right around the corner.

But what we didn’t mention is that we also have a VIDEO for the song U.S.S. (Under Satan’s Spell) which you can view at the link below.

We are Vape Warlök. We love weed and Satan. And we hope you have a wonderful week.

“INHALE DEATH” releases 3rd June, 2022 on Bandcamp (Bandcamp Friday!) and all the usual DSPs. If you smoke weed make sure to do so immediately before listening, and listen loud on proper speakers or quality headphones! There is far too much low end on these recordings for cell phone speakers, your phone will explode and it won’t be our fault.

Our modus operandi with this project — our raison d’être — was to create the dankest, skunkiest, stickiest, stinkiest stoner metal around.

We honor the path blazed by our progenitors. We honor Electric Wizard, Iron Monkey, Bongzilla, Sons of Otis, and of course the alpha and omega — Black Sabbath and Sleep. We honor those before us who have dropped out of life, bong in hand, to follow the smoke to the riff-filled land.

Vape Warlök is:
“Baron” Georg von Traphaus – guitar, vocals
Alyster “Smoke” Kraken – bass, synthesizers
“Mad” Abdul Alhazred – drums, sampler

Vape Warlök on Soundcloud

Vape Warlök on Bandcamp