Red Fang deals in kick-ass heavy rock. On Murder the Mountains, the quartet wave a middle finger at fashion and bet the proverbial house on substance over style.
Red Fang are raw, occasionally distorted, and loud as fuck! They’ve got a distinct brand of metal — shreddin’, but with a groove — that’s formidable on disc but absolutely kills live. I’d impart some kind of face-melting warning here, but a face melt by the Fang ain’t something you wanna miss.
Savannah’s Black Tusk return with Set the Dial, the brand new, Jack Endino (SOUNDGARDEN, HIGH ON FIRE, SKELETONWITCH) produced disk of high-energy hard rock. Set the Dial’s ten tracks cook like the Savannah heat, raising up their signature brand of primal, triple-vocal, chromatic madness, and tattooing it across canyon-wide grooves.
While sludge is the term of endearment for Black Tusk, we get to hear some elements of hardcore fused with a thrashy-doom feel sporadically intermixed throughout.
„We like to describe it sometimes as Black Sabbath and Motorhead having a barbecue. We really have no idea how to call what we do ! It’s fun and heavy. When we get together to write, what comes out is just what we think sounds good. Genres aren’t really for bands to come up with in my opinion.“ http://blacktuskterror.com
Iron Heel from Vienna, Austria are doing their own thing. Low frequencies, sludgy filthiness, stoner hooks. Iron Heel is creating the perfect soundtrack for a hike in the swamps.
You can go to the shelf and study it: there are comparative religions, philosophy, metaphysics, mythology, and history. Turn around, and there is Om. Their vibrations of the philosophical and the physical are meant to move you. Believe.
With Emil Amos (Grails, Holy Sons) joining the Band on drums roughly 3 years ago newly invoked energy resonates in the sound of the band: the dynamics between Emil Amos and Al Cisneros have rendered these songs, and Om’s sound, into a higher evolution.
Om are in the process of making their newest, yet to be titled full length album available to the public through indie-powerhouse Drag City Records in the coming months.
Evan Caminiti (guitars, vocals) and Jon Porras (guitars, vocals, drums, harmonium) met in San Francisco in 2006 and immediately started playing music together . Over the following years, Barn Owl gradually sculpted a vast collection of hazy desert sky meditations – ominous, barren expanses of music for desert walks at dusk, and dark, pastoral passages embellished with psychedelic and atmospheric wash.
The lines between strict structure and ordered chaos blur as third-eye opening e-bowed drones explode like beams of light and corrode into crumbling distortion, baking tones that sizzle like brittle bones left in the desert sun.
Evocative as they are, the sounds here aren’t easy to tie down to particular imagery. A myriad of influences from blues and raga to the guitar style most often associated with the Tuareg people meld into a new universal sound that can only be described as cosmic and sublime.
Drone-Inventors Earth made a brand new song available to the public.
“His Teeth Did Brightly Shine” is taken of “Angels of Darknes, Demons of Light II”, which will be released on Feb 14th via Southern Lord Records.
Earth will be appearing at Arena on March 28th with support from Mount Eerie and Ô Paon.
Chicago trio Russian Circles return with not only their fourth and heaviest album to date — but also with Empros they’re poised to take the crown as innovators reinvigorating the staid trappings of genre.
Empros picks up where the anthemic riffs and melodies of 2009’s Geneva left off and injects evermore slithering rhythms amid skull-crushing heft with all the visceral intensity of Godflesh, Swans and Neurosis.
Like a lone surviving wooly beast emerging from a brutal winter’s frost, Empros is the sound of a band shaking the ages from its shoulders with all the brutal force of a behemoth awakened.
Russian Circles set out to experiment with their sound in new ways that would still reflect their live sound. In so doing, the band reached a new creative apex in which each of the musicians, guitarist Mike Sullivan, drummer Dave Turncrantz and bassist Brian Cook impart a streamlined and intensified attack to their songs that pummels even as it shifts throughout a range of moods and tempos.
Deafheaven are a genre defying aggressive band from San Francisco, CA.
Their hybrid musical approach is outright stunning. A melding of epic Post Rock leanings (Envy, Godspeed You! Black Emperor) with experimental Black Metal (Xasthur, Weakling, Leviathan), and classic era “Screamo” (Orchid, Crimson Curse) into something never successfully experienced before.
From the opening drone of the album it’s as if we are are peering through a dream into the private world that is Deafheaven’s “Roads to Judah”. Layers and layers of instrumentation build, tangle and swirl before the real onslaught begins. A ferocious drum fill then thrusts us from the serene into a free fall, as if the ground below suddenly gave way.
“Roads to Judah”, is a hypnotic thirty eight minute plunge into hazy musical darkness. A dizzying hybrid of Shoe-gaze shimmer, Hardcore vulnerability, and Black Metal intensity.
Gradually the lights of the city come to new life, while the random flickering of the large neon sign three blocks away lasts and glances are lost in the distance. The sun slowly descends behind the silhouettes of the skyscrapers, taken over from the approaching night. The orange haze on the horizon is reflected in the windshields of the passing cars, raising the dust, which has been accumulated on the street. Here, between loneliness and hope, at places, no one is supposed to seek, stories, which are able to change lives and guide our being exist. Soaking with melancholia Our Ceasing Voice tells these stories with their mix of hypnotic ambient and epic post-rock outburst and help the listener to catch the memories of long forgotten times, in order to save them from transience.
Amidst the Tyrolean Alps the band was founded in 2006 already, but only with their debut ‘steadied stars in the morphium sky EP’ they drafted a journey through the mystery of gloom. Based on the upcoming novel by Sebastian Obermeir, Our Ceasing Voice’s new 2010 album pursues this concept, while the development to a darker, more dynamic sound is clearly noticeable.
Beautiful and saddening at the same time, the Austrians draw attention to fragility, passionately making one’s flesh creep and thereby portraying a dramatic story full of yearning and desperation.
How it will end, however, lies only in your hands.
Rosetta are on a mission to expand the minds and sentiments of listeners through auditory stimulation, blending both traditional and experimental forms of song writing and sound manipulation. Metal for astronauts.
“Their ballistic uniqueness is devilishly abrasive, You’d be a fool not to believe” – Decibel Magazine
“A dense raging avant post metal juggernaut” – Aquarius Records
“Apocalyptic endtime crushdrone-Outer space metal epics, cold and alone, urgent yet sprawling, and utterly immersive.” – Blabbermouth.net
“Rosetta leaves an indelible impression on your psyche, nestling deep within the recesses of your mind all of the swirling riffs, multi-textured rhythms, bombastic exhibits of metallic glory, and serene soundscapes.” – Metal Maniacs
Kings Destroy, NYC’s hybrid of stoner rock, doom and hardcore.
There are elements of Saint Vitus and Sabbath, but there’s a dirty rock edge to it too, some Church of Misery riffing and this badass ultra-groove that you just have to hear to understand.
And there are even some shades of the band’s collective NYHC pedigree in acts like Killing Time and Uppercut.
“brutal Sabbath heaviness with hardcore outbursts and disturbed vocals verging on the demented.”
Torn From Earth are a collective of heavy-enthusiasts from Budapest, Hungary who share a love for Doom, Sludge and Post-Metal.Their sound is somewhere between Oceanic-period-Isis and commanding sludge in the vein of EyeHateGod.
Drone-Inventors Earth are pioneers of a distinctive sound that continues to bloom; with each new studio album, they evolve. Openness to and experimentation with sound and instrumentation ensure Earth’s ability to remain consistently interesting and undoubtedly unique.
The second half of Seattle drone icons Earth’s Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light is being prepared for release on Southern Lord Records in North America this February 14th on CD, LP and digital download formats.
Recorded in the same two week session as 2011’s lauded Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I by Stuart Hallerman at Avast and mastered by Mell Detmer, Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II carries on in the freely and folkloric vein of the last release and invokes even more improvisational and unrestrained energy than its predecessor.
Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light II veers further into an entirely other direction, recalling sounds of the great British Acid Folk generation. This new material brings forth some highly original and deeply mesmerizing tones throughout, at times more hopeful and less dark and death oriented than previous work. Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light II is ultimately a completely unanticipated direction for Earth, and a very welcome one at that.
Phil Elverum is Mount Eerie. The 33 year-old multi-instrumentalist has played in other bands, and worked as a producer, but remains best known for this solo project, which began under the name the Microphones in 1997. In 2003, he renamed the project Mount Eerie (and added an “e” to his last name, Elvrum) after returning from a trip to Norway, where he lived alone in a remote cabin for a winter. “Mount Eerie” specifically refers to the mountain on Fidalgo Island, an island an hour and change north of Seattle where you’ll also find Elverum’s lifelong Anacortes, Washington hometown.
His work can be delicately spare or booming and ambitiously layered and noisy, often in the same song. Lyrically, he focuses on memory, first-person storytelling, myth, naturalism, the everyday as sacred, and a sense of place (in and out of Washington State), among other related things. In addition to his extravagantly packaged albums, Elverum has released self-published books (which he illustrates or fills with his photographs) via his own label, P.W. Elverum & Sun, Ltd.
“I started Ô Paon at home in 2007. I felt the need to start something new, to work harder. The songs of Ô Paon are often born out of frustration, events happen in front of me and I make my comments. I make stuff up, I create scenes. I fuck around a little bit because it’s important to forget to take yourself seriously sometimes. Ô Paon has sung a little bit everywhere: in Canada, in the United States, in Europe, in Japan, in Australia and in New Zealand. It was great. There will be more occasions for me to show myself in the near future.
I choose to write and sing my songs in French, my mother tongue. People often tell me I have a weird accent. I don’t know what to say about that. I sing the way it comes out. I am a well-traveled French-speaker.
I like recording by myself in my house. Clumsiness can become magic. For Courses, my first full length, I surrounded myself with people who really know music and how to play it. I went into a real studio. It was worth it.”
The shifting movement of red hot sand, spiralling around the withered trunk of a gnarled tree are among the hypnotic visions Kylesa evoke with “Spiral Shadow”. Drawing deeply from the roots nourishing their unique sound with the essence of crust punk, psychedelic and stoner rock as well as sludge metal, the US-band is tapping into an even deeper musical universe than ever before. It all begins in Savannah, Georgia, where guitarist and singer Philipp Cope founds Kylesa together with Brian Duke on bass and drummer Christian Depken of his former Sluge Metal act Damad during the year 2001. They are joined by singer and guitarist Laura Pleasants.
Throughout the past decade Kylesa became a band able to combine avant-garde experimentalism with relentlessly sludgy riffs, drop-tuned guitars and heavy hazed psychedelia.
„Ten years into an unbroken wave of revitalized and omnivorous metal bands, it feels almost ridiculous to have to keep saying this, but: If you’re not paying at least some attention to this stuff, you’re screwing up. Like many of the best “extreme” metal albums in 2010, Spiral Shadow is less about alienating outsiders through heaviness, volume, or violence than it is about blurring those extremes (hook and noise, dreamy and ragged, virtuosity and bluntness, metal and pop) on the same record, on the same songs.“ -Pitchfork
In 2004, Savannah based experimental post-hardcore group Circle Takes the Square turned the scene on its ear with the release of their critically heralded, ferocious debut full-length, As the Roots Undo; Seven years later, the band has made their long-awaited return to the studio to record their highly anticipated follow-up, Decompositions Volume 1, which they will self-release this fall on their newly formed label Gatepost Recordings.
Winnepeg’s Ken Mode blends the dirt and filth of 90s noise rock with the frenetic, hyperactive characteristics of modern metal and hardcore.
“There are drummers and there are drummers. Then, there are drummers. Ken Mode’s skin basher Shane Matthewson belongs to the latter kind; the ones that organize and gather the masses. The ones that make the difference and are, through skills and gusto, able to elevate the sound of a band from the above par to the outstanding. And kudos to the band too. Quite frankly I wasn’t expecting a three piece to come off as potent as Ken Mode. Guitarist vocalist Jesse Matthewson (is this one musical family or what?) bends his axe in quasi mathematical manners, the riffs are played in Forrest Gump ping-pong speed angularity, shooting off in all directions and…the result is an explosive encounter between post hardcore and noise rock. ” – Deaf Sparrow Zine
Siena Root is a group and an experimental project with its roots in analogue old school rock music. The foundation is a trio from Stockholm that’s been around since the late ‘90s. The sound is classic but yet original, founded on heavy organ, strat leads, bass riffing and big drums. It is also often enriched with bluesy soulful vocals, indian classical instruments and psychedelic vibes.
In the sense that blues is blue, hard rock is black, and reggae is pan African coloured, this music has the colour of siena. It is a warm, earthy colour, originally from the muddy roots of Toscana. Because this sound has roots that go deep, it was also natural to let root be a part of the bands name.
Four full length albums and one 7” single have been released so far, each one marking the development and refinement of the bands diverse style. Through touring the music has developed in such a way, that jamming and improvising has become an essential element, always keeping you on the edge of your seat. A Siena Root concert is dramatic and exciting, visually, as well as emotionally. It’s a dynamic rootrock experience.
Torso is an quartett from austria, playing complex Psychedelic/StonerRock influenced sets.
Formed 2009 as “Montezuma”,an instrumental 3 piece performing trippy psychedelic jams.
After recording a song for a compilation,a fourth member joined the band.
From this moment on it wasn’t only tripping to outta space.
Early 2011 a new drummer joined Torso,completing the actual lineup.
The first album “Inside” was recorded on september and will be released in 2012.
4 guys.
A psychedelic journey.
Influenced by early rock.
From deep in a hole.
The Obsessed, Saint Vitus, The Hidden Hand, Spirit Caravan, Place Of Skulls, Shrinebulider and his recent accoustic solo effort „Adrift“. Scott “Wino” Weinrich is a one of a kind underground enterpreneur.
In 1977 he founded legendary metal band The Obsessed. In the 80s he became the frontman for the iconic doom legends Saint Vitus and synonymous for the whole genre. Throughout his career he hasn´t made half an attempt to cater to the mainstream. Instead he focused on delivering brutally honest, heart-felt heavy music for those who care to listen.
Wino’s latest project, Premonition 13, sees him plugged back into his amplifier and the full band format. A musical entity that finds its genesis in jam sessions dating back two decades, when Wino first met fellow guitarist Jim Karow and their series of informal jams over the years have finally coalesced with the release of their first full length album, 13. Rounded out by Ostinato’s Matthew Clark on drums, Premonition 13 ventures into territories both new and familiar for Wino.
Dirt Reflector are from Linz, Austria. They worship at the altar off the riff.
Doomed out with a certain Grunge-vibe. Dirt Reflector are not in a hurry.
roadtriptoouttaspace.com 