When Mono began in 1999, they set out with a simple mission: From bliss to bludgeon, no matter how long or winding the path may be. Their debut album, Under The Pipal Tree, outlined that mission in twisted, psychedelic fury. Subsequent albums would see the band honing their craft, mastering their mission, and ultimately abandoning that path in favor of more grandiose pursuits. Flanked by increasingly larger orchestras, Mono performed live at some of the most prestigious venues in New York City, London, Tokyo, and Australia.
Mono had become an orchestral rock band, a spectacle of extreme melancholy and melodrama.
On 2012’s For My Parents, the band had finally reached the logical conclusion of that era; it was time to remember where they started, and to rethink where they were heading. Less strings? No strings? Louder? Quieter? Lighter? Darker? Yes.
The Last Dawn and Rays of Darkness are a pair of new albums by Mono. Recorded simultaneously yet conceptually and creatively disparate, the two act as both opposing and complementary sides to a story. No strangers to narratives, the twin albums explore familiar themes for the band: Hope and hopelessness, love and loss, immense joy and unspeakable pain. Those elemental parts of life and the complicated relationships they create have never been more resonant through Mono’s music than they are here.
Rays of Darkness is the first MONO album in 15 years to feature no orchestral instruments whatsoever. That fact alone is remarkable given the band’s reputation for sweeping, dramatic instrumentals that recall Oscar-worthy film scores. Instead, Rays of Darkness more closely resembles a jet engine taking off inside a small, crowded auditorium. It is MONO’s blackest album ever, a collection of scorched riffs, doom rhythms, and an unexpected contribution from post-hardcore pioneer Tetsu Fukagawa of Envy. The album ends with the smoldering wreckage of distorted guitars and ominous drones playing out a eulogy to the days when MONO shot blinding rays of light through seemingly endless darkness.
Alison Chesley aka Helen Money is a cellist who has become known for her adventurous sound, bold compositions, and compelling stage performance. Called “A classical-cellist-turned-avant-metal virtuoso” by the Boston Phoenix, Chesley channels her sensibilities and experience as a rock musician through a classical instrument, altering both genres without apology. She has played on over 150 albums with artists such as Bob Mould, Mono, Anthrax, Broken Social Scene, Russian Circles, and Archer Prewitt among others.
Oozing Wound is Zack Weil (guitar, vocals), Kevin Cribbin (bass), and Kyle Reynolds (drums), young men that have established themselves in the volatile Chicago underground in a short time, playing in Cacaw, Unmanned Ship, ZATH, Bad Drugs, and countless other groups that have populated packed, sweaty basements and lofts throughout the city.
Their music is made for people who have no faith in melody and happiness, and no resistance to heavy riffage. This is music by and for people with a desire to slay.
The band channels the inner 15 year old, offering little distinction between comedy and antagonism. As Weil puts it, Oozing Wound is defined by, “loud fucking guitar and screaming and shit. We don’t sing, and we don’t write big choruses. Anything like that gets checked by the wayside because, fuck it, it’s not us.”
Modernity is a bummer, and humanity’s drive towards its own destruction is at a fever pitch. Oozing Wound finds humor in our ridiculous habits and, by magnifying our most destructive behavior to its extreme end, allows us to laugh at the idiocy and the horror of it all. This mindset is at the center of their second full-length Earth Suck, a collection of destructive thrash that is seemingly teetering at the edge of control and collapse.
Zack Weil’s guitar is reckless, his palm-muted chugs coming at breakneck speed and pinch harmonics squealing like sonic bolts of electricity. Kyle Reynolds’ drumming is unrelenting, wild and unrestrained but executed with a level of jaw dropping precision. Kevin Cribbin’s manic, mammoth bass delivers wallop after wallop of fuzzed out low-end. Oozing Wound’s energetic and expansive variation on thrash thrives on antagonistic repetition and addictive riffage, avoiding pretense like a plague. Earth Suck is the explosive follow-up to their breakout debut Retrash, which earned the band praise from the NY Times, Pitchfork, Chicago Tribunel and more. www.oozingwound.com
The Golden Grass come hard with a strong backbone of deep-pocket funky flare and an earnest/uplifting southern/country/mountain rock vibe, layered with waves of psychedelic textures that explode into jaw-dropping proto-metal moves. And throughout their progressive arrangements and timeless grooves are lush and powerfully delivered vocals, stacked with gorgeous harmonies and maddeningly catchy verses and choruses singing the tales of real-life loves, losses, and the drive to keep on keepin’ on!
The Golden Grass formed in early 2013, and before they had even played their first show, they were signed to Svart Records. Their debut 7” was issued in October of that, as a split release with US label Electric Assault Records.
Hypnos play heavy action boogie rock and is at this moment one of the fastest growing bands on the Swedish heavy rock scene. Never before in the history of Crusher Records has a band been signed to the label this quickly!
Hypnos was formed in late autumn 2013 and it only took a handful of shows of intense energy backed by a solid repertoire to get Crusher Records immediate attention. Shortly a deal was struck! Hypnos wasted no time and in February 2014 the band entered Kungsten Studios to start recording their debut album.
Their self-titled debut album contains eight tracks of high octane heavy rock: the initiating and nearly eight minute long Hands of Evil offers a big dose of thunderous drums, heavy riffs and singer Philip proving his skills with the flute as well as his killer voice; The Mountain, which also precedes the album as a single release, with a lovely riff of twin guitar harmonies; the semi-ballad Nightmares bringing some dynamic and balance to the album; and five additional hard rocking memorable tunes.
Since 2007, Thou has released over 20 records (3 full lengths, 5 EPS, and a considerable amount of split releases) and has toured North America and Europe repeatedly, playing nearly 400 shows. They have made a name for themselves as one of the most prolific and consistent bands in the doom and sludge metal scenes, while retaining the ethics of DIY punk.
Their fourth full-length Heathen is painful and raw, but melodic and transportive. There are throat-shredders like the 15-minute opener “Free Will”, moody acoustic interludes (one’s called “Take Off Your Skin and Dance in Your Bones”), and ghostly female vocals (courtesy of Emily McWilliams) that make it one of the stand-out releases in heavy music´s 2014.
2014 also saw the release of a collaboration EP with their partners-in-crime The Body.
“A twilight dungeon crawl exploring the winding, ruined halls of Mad King Duro’s Castle, best friends at your side, enemies crushed beneath your heels, mysteries solved, and treasures found.”
Nottingham´s Moloch are in the business of unleashing crusty, ultra-heavy Sludge upon the apathetic masses. Think! Eyehategod, Dystopia, Crossed Out to get the picture.
Every now and then, a combination will go beyond “appropriate” or “good” and result in something that forever alters the universe. Just imagine a world without chocolate and peanut butter, Doc Martens and a leather jacket, Beavis and Butthead, and of course, Mudhoney and Sub Pop. April 2013 marks the 25th anniversary of both Mudhoney and Sub Pop Records, and there could be no better band to represent the label, past, present and future. Nirvana, Saint Etienne and Fleet Foxes are swell, but no other group has consistently kicked as much ass as Mudhoney, nor has anyone come close. Through two and a half decades, sarcastic grins remain implanted on their grizzled faces, even as empty bottles and the sneakers of a stage diver fly inches from their heads.
Mudhoney have recently bestowed Vanishing Point upon us. It’s not their first album. Or third. Or seventh. Vanishing Point is Mudhoney’s ninth studio album, a truly remarkable feat for any band, but almost statistically impossible in their case, as we are talking about a band whose 1988 debut Touch Me I’m Sick b/w Sweet Young Thing Ain’t Sweet No More was such a volatile and desperate single that it’s miraculous the band made it through a weekend, let alone another year. In an age where only the newest of the new can survive (and even then, only for a few weeks at best), what could the decades-old Mudhoney have to offer? What could they possibly have left to say?
The answer is plenty. Whereas most groups originally (wrongly or otherwise) associated with the grunge movement have broken up, fallen apart, reunited as shells of their former selves or disappeared entirely (I’m looking at you, Sugartooth), Mudhoney kept on kicking out the garage-rocking, punk-infused, psycho-blues jams, ignoring the trends of the day in favor of scorching feedback, rumbling bass and the inimitable voice of Mark Arm. Vanishing Point is full of that fervor, but the band isn’t masquerading as teenaged, beer-soaked goofballs wandering high school hallways—these are songs written from the rare vantage point of a band who went through the rock ‘n’ roll meat grinder and not only lived to tell such a tale, they came out full of the wisdom and dark humor such a journey provides.
Just take a listen to “I Don’t Remember You,” a raucous stomper that flicks off the wannabes and hangers-on that still come around while Mudhoney attempt to buy some eggs at the store. Or take “I Like It Small,” a rallying cry for the little things in life, literally—Mark Arm proudly holds GG Allin above Long Dong Silver and dingy basements over esteemed music halls, not because he should, but because it’s what Mudhoney has always favored: the dirty, the dejected, the fearless and free.
White Hills weaves in and out of anthemic chants, deep sonic bleeps and other worldly madness for a mix that proves to be intoxicating. Since the release of the band’s debut album, listeners have been praising their originality and unique brand of aural art.
“White Hills is one of the years gnarliest psych slabs – a schizophrenic trip through Acid Mothers Temple riff bludgeon, Boris chug, shaggy pseudo-grunge, and tender bursts of formless noise.” – Village Voice
“I found my infinite headbang in White Hills, a relentlessly heavy psych-rock band with scorching wah-wah and fantastic outfits.” – NPR All Songs Considered (Lars Gotrich)
“A perfect space-rock storm of drone, mind-melting psychedelia, overdriven guitars and heavy bass, White Hills is the rightful heir to Hawkwind’s massive legacy.” – Goldmine
Dirty Fences from New York City sling ‘70s street-level punk rock & roll. Tommy Ramone beat. Harmonies. Tons of vocals. From fast slasher power pop tunes to country ballads to Eddie Cochran style parentsjustdontunderstand sex rock and roll, they know their stuff and have a lot of fun with it.
“Perhaps I’m going through a mid-life crisis. Actually, I’m sure of it. It’s so damned scary when you get your first glimpse of the end of the road that you tend to look back hard at the journey so far. As much as I’ve resisted writing autobiographically on my previous work, I just couldn’t get around it on this album. I didn’t even try. So these songs are reflections of an upbringing in the Appalachian Mountains seen through the lens of several years of city life on the West Coast. Like when Tom Waits sings, ‘I never saw the East Coast until I moved to the West.’
“My musical memories always echo with Doc Watson, Ralph Stanley and other Old Time voices. But while working on the songs for Avery County, I’m Bound to You, I had records by Bad Religion and The Jam on the turntable and in my headphones. Bad Religion for directness, clarity and boldness of language, and the Jam for regional loyalty, passion and unashamed use of dialect. Those guys put the vocals up front and sing it like they mean business. It’s something I think they have in common with folk music.
Literature is also a big influence. After the long, blank-page sessions waiting for the lyric-muse to make an appearance, I would read Nabokov, Martin Amis, Saul Bellow, and Norman Mailer. Authors who can stretch words to the edge of their meaning. I did my best to channel them on songs like ‘The Straight Mile’ and ‘Laveda’. I re-read “To Kill a Mockingbird” and studied Harper Lee’s unique voice for ‘Mama’s Making Something on the Loom’.”—Barton Carroll
“We’ve always tried to balance our metal-influenced sounds with more nuanced, pretty, orchestral elements,” Cook says. “But this time, it’s far more polarized in that the heavy parts are much more blown out and exaggerated while the pretty moments are far more restrained, delicate, and atmospheric.” In the two years since Russian Circles released their landmark fourth album Empros, the Chicago trio toured worldwide nearly incessantly, encountering many heavy acts whose music seemed needlessly complicated. “We set out to make a straightforward, intense, heavy record,” Cook explains. “We subconsciously gravitated toward darker and more somber sounds. We wanted to get away from the overtly flashy.”
To a degree, the monolithic, juxtaposed moods on Memorial is the band’s reaction to the proliferation of iPod culture affecting how bands write music. Today, most musicians are trying to mash together disparate elements with results sounding as unpalatable as cooking a meal blindfolded. Russian Circles wisely and deftly sidestep the trappings of genre amalgamation. “I want to hear a band with a broad palette,” Cook says. “But it should find that weird balance with breadth and width. We wanted to make a record with more extreme peaks and valleys. I’m hoping that we can get away with making a schizophrenic record.”
Those extremes are no more perfectly exemplified than on album opener “Memoriam”, which leads in with delicately plucked guitar notes and synth haze hovering in the background, vaguely reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here album. But the mood abruptly ruptures as the next song, “Deficit” forcefully kicks in with a wall of vicious, treble-bleached guitars blaring over Turncrantz’s half-time rhythm pummeling his drums with the sound of an industrial machine re-fabricating raw materials. Tension builds to a breaking point about halfway through, opening into a skull-thwacking chugging riff that becomes the foundation for multiple mutant variations slithering over the top. “1777” is possibly Russian Circles’ most epic and perfectly streamlined song of all time, incorporating both the physical dynamics of the studio in its sound — much like David Bowie’s emotive vocals on “Heroes”, but instead with drum beats and guitars jutting outward in dramatic fashion — while also developing a slow-burn build of elements purely focused on the emotional specificity of the song. Elsewhere, the uplifting melody of “Ethel” features a chiming finger-tapping guitar line that’s heavily treated with effects making it sound like a vintage synth laid over powerfully expressive drums and distorted bass notes cascading over the proceedings with the forceful cadence of a lead vocalist. Album closing title track, “Memorial” is a plaintive, somber ballad featuring Wolfe’s guest vocals. A hazy version of the album opening guitar notes hang in the distance as Wolfe’s reverb-soaked voice hovers above the dreamlike melody somewhat reminiscent of Julee Cruise’s Twin Peaks theme song.
Helms Alee‘s music is exactly the sort of mutant, fantastic hybrid that used to only occasionally erupt out of small, isolated scenes, uninformed by trends of the day instead inspired by the band’s own collective contributions. The Seattle trio’s unique amalgam of metal, art rock, pop and punk is charmingly reminiscent of the fertile creativity that groups once had before the Internet seemed to instruct bands to only copy one another. Helms Alee’s third album, Sleepwalking Sailors sounds like many styles combined into one, and none of it concerned with any notion other than creating vital, urgent and uniquely characteristic music.
Sleepwalking Sailors was recorded with engineer Chris Common (These Arms Are Snakes, Pelican, Chelsea Wolfe) in Seattle, with intentionally built-in limitations. “We recorded the album to tape in order to confine ourselves from ProTools refining every detail. We ended up with something that sounds really big, but also a bit more aggressive.” Helms Alee’s previous album Weatherhead was released in 2011 to much acclaim by their longtime label HydraHead just before it went under. Undaunted, and as a testament to the band’s strong fan base, Helms Alee originally crowdfunded Sleepwalking Sailors, eventually raising an impressive recording budget. Upon hearing Common’s early mixes, Sargent House quickly offered to bring the band onto their management roster and release the new album. Throughout the course of the album’s creation, the band’s independent aesthetic becomes clear: a dedication to truly representing themselves, regardless of trends and outside influence.
Sleepwalking Sailors was released everywhere worldwide on LP, CD and download on February 11th, 2014 via Sargent House.
sleepmakeswaves have had a busy 3 years since the release of their debut album ‘…and so we destroyed everything’ in 2011. 8 Australian tours, 3 European tours and a trip to the USA including SXSW. They’ve toured with 65daysofstatic, Karnivool, Russian Circles, Dead Letter Circus, Boris, Tortoise & in 2012 were unprecedentedly nominated for an ARIA award.
In 2014, the band have released their most epic record to date – ‘Love Of Cartography’ signals their continued desire to map new creative directions.
From a file on a computer sitting in New Delhi, to a full-fledged touring band with members from around the world formed over the internet – Skyharbor have defied convention every step of the way. The debut album ‘Blinding White Noise’ was released worldwide in 2012 to critical acclaim, and earned the band a dedicated fan following across the globe. Since then, Skyharbor have been performing regularly around the world and making waves with their distinctive brand of sweeping, ethereal prog-rock, fronted by Daniel Tompkins’ powerful and emotional storytelling vocal style. Having played at some of the biggest festival stages in the world barely 20 shows into their career, Skyharbor continue to grow rapidly as a group and musical entity as they prepare to launch their second album ‘Guiding Lights’ in November 2014.
Colour Haze are a modern Psychedelic Heavy Rock Three Piece, in the tradition of classic Rock-Trios as Cream, The Jimi Hendrix Experience or Grand Funk Railroad. Founded sometime in the last century, the current line-up formed in May 1999. Since then some records have been made and a lot of following was gained.
2014 saw the release of their 12th LP “To the Highest Gods We Know”.
“To the Highest Gods We Know avoids the trap of being the “follow-up” to She Said. It dodges the bullet completely, and where She Said made its grandest statements in flourishes of arrangement, songs like opener “Circles” and the instrumental centerpiece “Überall” do precisely the opposite. They represent Colour Haze rediscovering their processes in this new space of their own studio. The warmth of tone from Koglek and Rasthofer, the steady roll and ever-classy style of Merwald arrive with an exploratory freshness throughout To the Highest Gods We Know because, essentially, with this record, Colour Haze are re-learning how to be Colour Haze. It’s not like they took four-plus years to build their own studio and they’re going to go record somewhere else. They’ve made themselves a home — like they did before with their own label — and these songs sound like the process by which they’re getting acclimated to it.“
-The Obelisk
Trends come and go, but the idea of a bunch of guys getting together in a garage and playing the kind of music that makes the neighbors call the cops — that’s forever. And it’s that idea that’s crystallized in the form of Radio Moscow. The power trio led by the Stratocaster genius Parker Griggs have found THE formula : powerful, crunching Sabbathstyle chords and fiery solos that earn the right to be called Hendrixian and plants its flag firmly in the territory where psychedelic rock and cranked-up blues meet.
Parker’s demo caught the ear of The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, who produced the 2007 self-titled debut. With « Brain Cycles », their second album Radio Moscow proves that they’re not a cheap time machine but a direct descendant from the golden age of Rock’n’Roll.
In 2011, Griggs continued his psychedelic trip with « The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz » released by Alive Records. Recently the band recorded their first album as a full trio untitled “Magical Dirt”.
Cherry Choke are an English rock band, formed in 2007. Founded by Josiah/The Kings Of Frog Island front man Mathew Bethancourt.
Think! Blue Cheer fighting it out with the Black Keys as the Jimi Hendrix Experience look on from the bar. Think! Molten guitars freaked out on dirty fuzz. Think! Heavy Gibson bass grooves and a furious drum attack.
The 2009 debut gritty, lo-fi self produced album ‘Cherry Choke’ (Elektrohasch 2009) featured Bethancourt (guitar and vocals), bassist Gregg Hunt and drummer Daniel Lockton, both formerly of The Dérailleurs. The band began with performances across the UK and Europe. Hunt left after the release of the group’s second album, “A Night In The Arms of Venus” (Elektrohasch 2011), recorded at Amphibia II studios with Mark Buteux.
Former Josiah bass player Simon Beasley joined the group in 2013 to record the third Cherry Choke album. “Raising The Waters” (Elektrohasch 2015) was recorded and produced by Stefan Koglek (Colour Haze) at the Colour Haze Studio, Munich, Germany with help from Super Mario Man. The new album promises to be the best record both Cherry Choke and Mathew Bethancourt have made so far…
Fatso Jetson was formed in Palm Desert, CA, in 1994 and are often credited as one of the fathers of Desert Rock . Fatso Jetson incorporate a broad variety of musical influences that includes punk, blues, jazz and rock music. prone to experiment with many musical textures, angular instrumental epics, and bizarre lyrics to create a punk, blues art rock all their own.
In 1995, the group recorded their debut “Stinky Little Gods” and followed that up in 1997 with “Power of Three” — both discs appeared on SST Records.
The band then teamed up with Bongload Records (Beck) who then released thier third full-length disc, “Toasted”, in 1998. The album produced by Chris Goss (Masters of Reality, Queens of the Stone Age).
The fourth LP was “Flames for All” in 2000 for Artist Frank Kozik’s Mans Ruin Label . Fatso Jetson also contributed to “The Desert Sessions” releases that Josh Homme (Kyuss,Queens of the Stone Age) . At these sessions Mario Lalli co-wrote two songs with Homme (“You think I aint worth a dollar but I feel like a Millionaire” and “Monster in the Parosol”) these would eventualy make their way on to the Queens of the Stone Age albums “Rated R” and “Songs for the Deaf”.
It was Homme’s record lable Rekords Rekords that would release the next Fatso album in 2001 “Cruel and Delicious”. For this session the band was joined by Vince Meghrouni (Bazooka, Mike Watt, BellRays) on Sax and harp adding a new dimension to Fatso’s hard to pin sound.
Influenced by everything from the psychedelic to the folkloric, jazz, hard rock, roots punk, world music, the sound of this trio while hard to describe is visual and cinematic , heavy and melancholy. driving & daydreaming.
Yawning Man are quite a different musical beast from those they inspired. Drawing heavily from the SST roster of artists which set the world ablaze in the 1980s – Black Flag, Minutemen, Meat Puppets – their music is caught in the nexus of surf, psychedelia, Krautrock and the Spaghetti Western soundscapes of Ennio Morricone. Or, if you will, a missing link between the worlds of Dick Dale, Syd’s ‘Floyd, instrumental Black Flag and Pell Mell.
More than twenty years later, Yawning Man still is going strong; not specifically the band itself as a name, but as that which inspired and drove the members thereof to do what they do, which is an innate drive to create and connect landscapes of the real to surreal- the end result being the beautiful, swirling and other-worldly music you know as Yawning Man.
Powder For Pigeons is an Australian/German two piece that was founded in 2012 in the dusty regional back drop of Western Australia.
Inspired by the rugged surroundings they have crafted a gigantic sound that fills the frequency spectrum with punchy, warm, low, fuzzy guitar riffery and thumpin drums to be heard for miles around.
“It’s like a Hammer House Of Horror psychotic death trip through the mind of Aleister Crowley. Dark, groovy and to the uninitiated fantastically creepy.”
Ride With The Devil
Sweden’s band of blood drunkards Salem’s Pot return this April to consecrate their union with the LA based label EasyRider Records with a follow up to last year’s Watch Me Kill You.
Following in the footsteps of the sprawling and self-indulgent jam albums of the early 1970s, over three tracks of swirling heavy psych offers the listener little chance of escape. Summoning the writhing sounds of demon fuzz and distant death knells the opening swell of ‘Creep Purple’, a 14 minute purge of lo-fi garage metal riffs and lysergic comedown finds Salem’s Pot setting out their stall from which to peddle the darkest of doom.
Loose, low slung and inspired by the legends of Sabbath and the extended jams of Hawkwind ‘Dr Death’ and the pounding ‘Nothing Hill’ complete the unholy trinity of tracks replete with lyrics that propel the listener into worlds unknown. Atmospheric realms populated with weed and witches in a reality as miserable and malevolent as it mind-bending and majestic.
Sweden’s psychedelic doom band Monolord released their first full length Empress Rising via EasyRider Records this April. The five-song album clocks in at almost fifty minutes of skull crushing heavy grooves and guitars that summon the spirits of Norse gods when played at volume.
Originally formed as a side project in 2013, Monolord is made up of Swedish rockers Thomas Jäger, Esben Willems and Mika Häkki. Born out of the Swedish boogie band Marulk as a means to make heavier, more psychedelic sounds, founding members Jäger and Willems added Häkki (The Don Darlings, ex-Rotten Sound) to their line-up and realised instantly that they had something very special. Recording commenced in early 2013 and in no time at all the LP was picked up by EasyRider Records, one of the newest and most passionate purveyors of heavy doom, metal and rock’n’roll.
With all the flavours of an iconic doom classic Empress Rising follows in the footsteps of Sleep’s Holy Mountain, Pallbearer’s Sorrow and Extinction and Electric Wizard’s Witchcult Today with melodic vocals and harmonies that are as mind bending as they are anthemic.
Already touted by some as the year’s best doom debut this is a shot of pure hellfire, unrestrained from first to last.
MANTAR is a two piece monster from northern germany. debut: “death by burning” recorded in early 2013. no fancy art production -> just raw display of power.
the half german / half turkish band exists a little over a year.
true battle hymns and sinister sounds of darkness. no gimmicks, no image, pure rage. bone crushin’ like the berzerker’s path.
in spite of the fact no bassguitar has been used on their debut record “Death By Burning”, MANTAR manages to sound even meaner and heavier than a five piece band due to superior skills in general.
flogging beats and blackened melodies meet feedback orgies and doom mayhem.
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