Wino - "Release Me" - Whoa, is this Mountain??? Man, lots of cool '70s guitar leads and soulful croonin' that sounds like a biker bar in the middle of a desert. Fitting, since this Wino cat is a middle aged dude with a relapsed speed addiction and fading forearm tats. Oh, and I think there's something about how he's also the guy who invented doom metal in the first place, having worn denim vests and played Pentagram covers in a time when everyone else was sporting neon Oakleys and shaving lightning bolts in their hair. "Release Me" is by far the most classically "Heavy Duty" cut on this disc and while it seemed like corny garbage to me on the first spin, I gotta say it's grown on me in a big way.
Pelican - "Embedding the Moss" - I find Pelican kinda boring, but this track from last spring's Ephemeral 12" sounds so great I can't help but forget that it's seven minutes of three riffs! The 'Can always brought the heavy, but this time around the guitars are heavy and dark, and the drummer lets loose with some truly thundering tribal beats that makes this the most aggressive thing these guys have ever done. I like! Here's hopin' the forthcoming full-length will be more of the same.
Eagle Twin - "Murder of..." - Fucking heavy. Two dudes from Salt Lake City pounding out some serious overdriven doooooom. I'm picking this up pronto.
Wolves in the Throne Room - "Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog" - You know how much I love the Wolves. Check 'em out.
Black Cobra - "Omniscient" - So even though Black Cobra signed to Southern Lord, "Omniscient" is from their 2007 album that came out on At A Loss Records. Pretty gnarly distorted bass and screaming stuff with some sludgy half-time breakdowns. I'm not too into the song, but sounds like the type of thing that'd slay live.
The Accused - "Splatterbeast" - Classic vomit-vocal thrash from the reunited maybe-legendary Seattle band. Sounds like the something Darkthrone's Fenriz would dig.
Orcustus - "Asphyxiokenisis" - Norwegian black metal fury featurin' Gorgoroth's Infernus and Tormentor on bass and guitar. The sound is awfully harsh, but unlike all those Leviathan records Southern Lord distributes, this actually rocks.
Black Breath - "Murder" - The bass player works at the record store by my house and I always wonder how he likes it when I browse around for a half hour and never buy anything. Seen these guys a few times over the past couple of months and their dark take on an Earth Crisis metal/hardcore hybrid has varied results. Album cover has a cool skeleton!
Virulence - "Blank Stare" - Eighties SoCal hardcore featurin' a young Scott Hill from Fu Manchu on guitar! "Blank Stare" sounds just like Gluey Porch Treatments and "Nothing Left Inside," which definitely works for me. No word yet on when this stuff'll get reissued, so bookmark the official site and stay tuned.
Earth - "Junkyard Priest (Live in Vienna)" - It's Earth so you know what to expect: country guitar tones and sloooooow tempos. Even though I like 2005's Hex, I'll admit these guys are kinda boring. This song even has a horn of some sort.
SunnO))) - "Isengard (chopped and screwed)" - As Mark Prindle said about Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music:
For the first 30 seconds or so, it seems like the really, REALLY cool introduction to a kickass rock song -- weird notes that sound kind of like a nightmarish calliope mix with squawks resembling metallic birds flying through the sky. But then the song never COMES! And the same noises repeat OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER again for fuckingEVER.
0 comments:
Post a Comment