SLEEP: Dopesmoker

Posted on February 11, 2017 by kevinsmusicblog

THE RETURN OF SLEEP

Southern Lord’s physical release of The Clarity marks the start of some proper Sleep activity this year, so what better prep for rock’s heaviest slumber than a nod or ten to the unstoppable Dopesmoker? This review was first written for Julian Cope’s Head Heritage Unsung back in 2004 so the time references are a bit out now, but that don’t matter … it still stands true, the bong remains the same.

*****

Now spreading its hefty gut over 3 sides of vinyl is the fully restored, who-ate-all-the-pies mix of Dopesmoker, the last album by cult doom/stoner trio Sleep.

Although the tale of its original recording and subsequent non-release has long since passed into underground lore, it deserves a hazy recap.

As the follow-up to Sleep’s Holy Mountain from 1993, this was supposed to be the band’s third full-length release. After spending a couple of years on the record, Sleep eventually dished up the mouldy fruits of their hard-smoked labours to London Records: a single track clocking in at over an hour. That, in itself, might not have been a problem (for the label) had their been some light and shade, some variety or even, dare we say it, a recognisable concept… but no. This is Sleep – the really deep, molten-eyelids stuff that’s just a stoner’s throw from Coma Tose Island. And that means one riff (pretty much) equals one song equals one hour, the simplest equation in the history of rock. Didn’t add up for the label, though. They refused to release it, Sleep refused to change it and a deadlock ensued; the threesome split and the album remained on the shelf, cementing Sleep’s legendary status. Rise Above did manage to put out a shortened version called Jerusalem but, finally, in 2003, Tee Pee Records did the honours. Here’s what the sleeve notes say:

“Dopesmoker is an alternate version of Jersualem that we felt our fans might enjoy. This early version, as yet unheard, contains a more dynamic recording and a heavier mix. So get high, crank it up and listen with open ears and mind…”

Dopesmoker uncut

So… let’s get started, eh?

Well, nearly. Dopesmoker almost doesn’t start at all. Beginning with a slow, arthritic guitar line that just about musters the energy to lumber out of bed, it sounds a wee bit lost, trying to work out where it should go and which path to follow. Once the rolling percussion kicks in, however, a massive revelation comes to pass: “Fuck it. I AM the path.” And from thereon, there are no questions – you go with it, or you don’t: The Riff has been set free, swaggering ahead with all the ludicrous brilliance of a hundred-mile tractor ride, and that is what sucks you into the vinyl… the compelling absurdity of an hour-long opus that warps the fabric of time itself. Never mind Superman flying the opposite way around the planet – too many rotations of this platter and the world would stop for good. Aside from the occasional solo, lyrical interlude or brief excursion into more subtle terrain, Dopesmoker just keeps going… and going …and going. Not in an interminable, ultra doom slo-mo sense because Chris Hakius’ busy drum fills give it urgency, or at least the illusion of urgency. Nope, this obstinate mass of Sabbath-inspired heaviosity is an exercise in endurance, momentum and constancy. Even when the needle nears the very end of its marathon run, there is no cornball climax or pyrotechnic finale, just a soft fadeout which suggests the Sleep guys could have carried on for another couple of earthly rotations. In fact, they probably did. I like to think so.

But there’s more to this album than one gargantuan ode to weed. Closing the record on side four is Sonic Titan, a live track with a groove so loose it almost shits itself, guitar strings flapping like flares in a force 10. Doom garage, anyone? At 9 minutes, it’s a mere slip of a toon.

Stubborn? Stupendous? Absolutely, but the sublimely ridiculous never went down this well. If thick guitars, repetition and maximum mileage are your bag, succumb to the temptation of Sleep. Your body needs it.

PIGS, OHHMS, FAIRIES AND BEER

Posted on January 30, 2017 by kevinsmusicblog

JANUARY REWIND: NEW HEAVIES FOR 2017

Been a busy month for new discoveries so excuse the gush of these short sharp first impressions but they’ve given January a bit of a jump start, y’ know? A frisson for the short freeze.

PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS

Pigs. One pigs is not enough (grammar violation overruled) for some people, which is how you end up with Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs as a band handle. Doesn’t look quite so bad when written down here, but when you’re scanning the DAB text scroll to catch the name of the band whose rough-arsed rollock has fully pricked your ears, it’s an infinite porker drag. What the fissing puck is all this pigs shit???

Worth the wait though, so it’s a big snouty thanks to Gideon Coe for playing whatever the track was in the first place, because without that introductory exposure to pigsx7, I’d have been forever deprived of The Wizard and the Seven Swines, their 22-minute one-tracker from 2013. Does Fugazi ire, Sleep heft and Thee Oh Sees scorch tease thy aggro-prog garage psyche cravings? Then check the Pigs, meet The Wizard and keep all ears peeled for new album Feed the Rats.

HEAVY RESISTANCE: OHHMS

You know how some stuff, when you first hear it, is so massive and all-enveloping that it begs, nay commands, you to drop down for heavy duty worship to the Rok Godz?

OHHMS is that stuff. Long swollen subterranean Yob-bery that peddles a mainline in transcendent rifferolla, the Bloom/Cold EPs add up to a massive 60+ minutes for four just tracks – go for the total immersion entry point of The Anchor and see if you ain’t sold on Cold. New album on the way, and Jeezus HC only knows how The Cellar is gonna contain their oversized moltenalia when they hit Oxford on February 13^th. CANNOT WAIT. Support comes from Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard, by the way.

TWO MELS, A GENDER BENDER AND A MAN FROM MARS

Melvins have been obscenely collaborative in recent years, and now they’ve got another ID on the go though it’s not under the Melvins banner. Nope, the Buzz n Dale show have hooked it up with Mars Volta’s Omar Rodriguez Lopez and Teri Gender Bender to form Crystal Fairy, and if the album is anything like the tracks played by Henry Rollins on his Iggy Pop 6 Music sit-in then it’s gonna be tight like (a) Senile Animal. Album due out v soon on Ipecac.

ALCO POP: BEER-FUELLED DRUDENESS

The return! Of the former Lord Yatesbury! Yep, Julian Cope is BACK with a new album: Drunken Songs, a record celebrating Cope’s official embarkation on a Beer Trip that was launched in Armenia a few years back. W-anchored at the back by an oversized Road to Tralee and inspired in part by the funeral song that Cope wrote for himself – As the Beer Flows Over Me, first appearing on Psychedelic Revolution but rerecorded here – Drunken Songs finds the Drude in light mood musically, all mellotron-ic melody and Black Sheep-ish acoustica. He’s on tour as well so don’t miss this highly focused rambling, man – see you in Cardiff for that one.

ADAMS UN-AMPED

Finally, Do you still love me? by Ryan Adams – ace acoustic-only tuneage, nailing that gentle downer vibe.

’til next time!

Greg AndersonO))) on 6 Music

Posted on January 13, 2017 by kevinsmusicblog

After watching Bowie’s Last Five Years documentary on Saturday night, what could lift the late-night mood a notch above a re-opened Low?

Ermmm….death metal and midnight hardcore curated by a robed dronehead? Well, that was the tonic for anyone who fell into Stuart Maconie’s Freakier Zone Saturday night, aka zero-hundred hours SunnO)))day morning, because the Southern Lord Greg Anderson pulled together an hour’s mandatory cross-genre listening, much like his grimm-brother Stephen O’Malley did a year or so back on a Freakzone sit-in.

Tune in and you too can laugh along with Mortician, get blasted by Bolzer’s epic death metal and then feel the brutal burn of Anderson’s re-connector with the underground, His Hero is Gone – OMG (band) rage, for sure – though as you’d expect, it’s not all hardcore death mongery in these here 60 minutes: Erik B and Rakim, Ice Cube, John Carpenter and Big | Brave all figure as well.

As do Asschapel (what????)

Anyway, CHECK THE GREG ANDERSON HOUR RIGHT NOW before it effs off forever. ’tis time very well spended.

And if you need further on-air lo-frequency shake action, bugger me if the stupendous Sunn O)) & Boris collaboration ain’t the featured album on the Sunday night F-zone – worship at THAT Altar, ‘specially the disintegration tremor-fest that is Etna. H-u-g-e. Elsewhere in the same ‘zone there’s Wayne Coyne, Godspeed, Miles and long-form Floyd (Embryo, BBC session version)…. not a bad Sunday, right?

2016: the worst, the best

Posted on January 1, 2017 by kevinsmusicblog

Festive salutations and a happy new year!

Hope the bigfella Claus delivered the goodies, but whatever delights came spilling out of his magic sack, 2016 was a tough gig. What a remorseless cull of rock and pop names, and it didn’t even break for xmas – George Michael on Christmas Day, Rick Parfitt on December 23^rd. Surely there’s got to be a little bit o’ room for a little bit of Quo in everyone’s collection, so how about spinning a handful of harder-rocking SQ to celebrate Parfitt and keep the party going at the 12 bar, even if it’s only in your head? Mystery Song, Don’t Drive My Car, Over the Edge and Is There a Better Way will all do the trick.

So, another bit of chat about the music events and highs of 2016? We’ll list a few, right after the shortest of December Rewinds.

REZNOR’S RETURN

Nine Inch Nails came back in recorded form with a new EP. Not the Actual Events appeared earlier in December and a first listen to Burning Bright (Fields on Fire) shows Reznor and soundtracker-turned-bandmate Atticus Ross on slow-grinding, doomy form. More to follow in 2017?

SHOCK of the year

David Bowie. Not over that one, even a year later, and Blackstar is still a difficult listen. The upcoming new Five Years documentary in January will no doubt be the most fascinating, and the most emotionally-charged, of the lot as it covers his last years.

TRACK of the year

OK, so the track came out in 2015, but Bowie’s Blackstar is a highlight for ANY year, as is the re-tooled Sue (Or in a Season of Crime). Iggy’s American Valhalla and Nick Cave’s Anthrocene are right up there for edgy atmos. And for something more manic, Spit Out the Bone is on heavy rotation over here too – fast and melodic Metallica with Hetfield in his most convincingly aggressive voice since the Black Album.

MISS of the year

As in, a gig on your doorstep that you really should have gone to. And in Oxford a few weeks ago, that was Primal Scream. Why a no go? Fear of too much Moving On Up and Rocks and Country Girl, not enough Vanishing Point Xtrmntr Evil Heat aggro. What did they play? Moving, Rocks, Country, but also Accelerator, Shoot Speed/Kill Light, Swastika Eyes and Kill All Hippies. ‘KIN ELL… ludacris decision making on my part. Kiran Leonard also a bad miss.

LUCKY MISS of the year

As in, a gig on your doorstep by a band you don’t know but, coz of who’s involved, you’ve got innerest piqued. Step forward Honky, the band of Butthole Surfers and Melvins bassist Jeff Pinkus. Check the music online – not great. Reject gig. Wonder if gig ended up being one of those ‘should have been there’ moments. Check trusted review source (Nightshift page 10). It wasn’t.

NEW SOUNDS of the year

Still getting into these new-to-me discoveries, but semi industrial groove psyche dealers Blackash from Birmingham and Belgian avant noise punks Raketkanon are doing the job nicely, as are Blackstar band leader Donny McCaslin – beefy modern jazz with a drummer who absolutely kills it – and downbeat electroni-cists worriedaboutsatan, who also have their music making its mark in Adam Curtis’s HyperNormalisation. Lofty company for the satanworrieds. Three Trapped Tigers and The Comet is Coming brought explosive prog math and Heliocentrics-fuelled heavy beats jazz-ish respectively.

ALBUM of the year

The old guard put out a lot of great great stuff this year, and the top 3 are linked by maturity, mortality and death: Bowie, Iggy and Nick Cave reached new highs in heavy themes, and Blackstar is the peak. Once January 10^th revealed its scalp, Blackstar became forever more than just a record.

Others: FUCKINGMETALLICA, Mogwai, Melvins, Crippled Black Phoenix, Kandodo and McBain, Cult of Luna w/Julie Christmas, Thee Oh Sees

PRINCE of the year

Prince. ‘nuff said. Check this clip, worship non religiously, then get a music fanatic’s view of Prince’s passing from Henry Rollins in what is one of his best LA Weekly missives of the year.

FISHY MEDIA FEATURE of the year

Did you see this feature in the Guardian back in the summer? Fishbone. Yes, Fishbone. Why??? Don’t know. But if, like me, you never got round to actually buying their albums when Swim and Freddie’s Dead and Everyday Sunshine were doing the rounds, here’s the prompt you need to pick up The Reality of My Surroundings and Give a Monkey a Brain…. the only downside is the 20-odd years without these phenomenal heavy funk rock ska metal explosions tripping out the (monkey?) brain.

BIG 3 AT 30 of the year

Three of the Big Four put out their meisterworks thirty years ago: Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, 1986. Anthrax shunted Among the Living out a few months later, in 1987… heady days for head bangers, right? Some, if not all, are ingrained so deep that we don’t even need to press play, but when DID you last press play and listen to Master of Puppets, Peace Sells and Reign in Blood end to end?

There’s nothing to say about Puppets. It’s pretty much perfect and reveals much less on a new listen, precisely because it was THE album of that bunch. Some say it needs a remix but nah, leave it – keep the mud on. Peace Sells and Reign in Blood can still bring surprises, though. With possibly the best opening track of any major thrash record, Megadeth’s #2 sounds even more accomplished today, and you can feel the chaos darkening the vibe. As for Reign in Blood, this is still the anomaly because it’s the least metal of the classics…way more disturbing and a truly diabolical force summoned in 28 possessed minutes. Still deadly.

Happy new year, have a great start to 2017. ‘til next time!

DAVID BOWIE: Earthling

Posted on December 31, 2016 by kevinsmusicblog

A man runs down a New York street, a figure of intimidation, or maybe a product of paranoid over-imagination. He’s chasing, but he’s no sprinter. His target is older but more nimble. Whip thin, dashing.

Johnny’s an American?

***

In 1997, there was big interest in the Dame. He turned 50 that January – has anyone else kept An Earthling at 50 on video, taped from the tellybox but now without any means of watching it? – but even though Earthling went top 10, the reviews weren’t top mark, not that I can recall anyway. Bowie back then, unlike 2013 and definitely unlike 2016, was not critic proof. His rehabilitation was still tentative, and his new direction raised questions: was it a bit forced, this Earthling appropriation of the Metalheadz rhythm pushers? A bit middle-aged desperate?

Not a bit. Earthling is a vivid technicolour assault from a prolific Bowie era that now seems less about reinvention than rediscovery – rediscovering confidence, artistry and those all-important New Sounds. Two years earlier it was Outside‘s hour and a quarter of artsome perfection that had fired Bowie from Black Tie/Buddha Suburbia clubfunk reawakenings into alt-rock’s contemporary orbit, bristling with distortion and aggression yet never at the expense of melody and experimental rock nous. The Outside album was/is Bowie at his (then) modern-day best, and a co-headline world tour with Nine Inch Nails shunned the safety of a megahitsbestof, stringing itself up instead on the new-age visceral. ‘twas bold and darkedge, gothy even. Bowie was 48.

Earthling, however, bore none of its predecessor’s interludes and art-murder narratives. Earthling gets back to songs – a lean 10 – all of ’em packed with Bowie hooks but jammed and comped with loops, cut-ups and electronic beats. Earthling has no space. Dense sensory overload is queen.

What this means is that even now, just about 20 years after its release, the hypertwitching drumnbass bigbeat skitter of Little Wonder hits hard like no other opener in Bowie’s back catalogue (Blackstar excepted, but for very different reasons). With his zeitgeisting muse fully open and receiving, Earthling was the last of his records – again, until Blackstar – that really pushed it, form-wise. Must have scared the shit out of the Bowie casuals, though they probably weren’t listening too hard anyway. Who was?

Earthling: db does dnb (a bit)

Young Lollapalooza and Sub Pop heads, surely – the 90s coming-of-agers, the naive souls who had no truck with Tin Machine’s Under the God, the NIN fans getting a kick out of the crossover. It’s those (us) who’ve got the hots for Earthling, and we don’t understand those who haven’t.

Little Wonder and I’m Afraid of Americans are the best known tracks, and for all of Little Wonder’s beaty thrill, it was Americans – the most overt hook-up of Bowie and Trent Reznor – that really planted an alt slant on the album. Trent-man appeared in the video, bloated and looking like shit – his Fragile years – but in the studio was peak-condition lean, forging six I’m Afraid of Americans mixes for an album-length maxi single including a radical 11-minute ambient deconstruction. Ice Cube and Photek got drafted in as well, making it a satisfyingly experimental listen in its own right, but even the original Americans – from the album, not on the single – has an abrasive NIN-jection, souping up the machinery with industrial production.

Seven Years in Tibet is the album’s sole nod to something calmer – sleazy mechanics lurk under clean chords (like Reznor’s Closer?) – with sax to soften, but for the chorus, the Earthling Overload Factor does a wreak-and-destroy job that exposes the lyrical noir all the more:

Are you ok?

You’ve been shot in the head

And I’m holding your brains

the old woman said.

Yeah… Bowie’s having an absolute blast on this record. It/he is urgent and nicotined and caffeinated and PLAYFUL, and so is the band. Cut-up non-sequiturs a la Burroughs, la-di-da lyrical tail-offs and guitar assaults from Reeves Gabrels (see Battle for Britain, you’ll know) combine to blow pretension and self censure clean off … no subtlety here, and Gabrels’s fireworking solos are built for the self-sampling chop-ups we got going. The Last Thing You Should Do has THE most violent eruption of guitar in a Bowie track ever. Probably. Heavyweight euphoria, total fucking release, go bask in its sprawling crunch after the 2nd chorus. Gabrels stamps all over Earthling, but then again, so does everything. It’s that kind of record.

Be afraid: the remixes

Got to mention Mike Garson as well, doing his thing as un-usual since Aladdin … check his whacked-out plonk at the end of Battle. Does it blend? No. Does it work? Same as it ever did: YES.

Dead Man Walking beats a hi nrg path to club night (is it true that the F-to-G riff was shown to Bowie by Jimmy Page back in the day and then used on The Supermen?) and Telling Lies takes the drum-bass flavour up a notch, but what about the last track, Law (Earthlings on Fire)?

Possibly the most overlooked track of an overlooked album, Law shifts Earthling’s balance. Without Law, we’d have had a neat I’m Afraid of Americans finale and a taut 44-minute record. With it, we get a paranoid streak of dark danceable menace that takes the self-sampling ethos of the album to an OTT climax: EVERYTHING is in here … robotic bass, disco hi hats, clipped guitar funk, heavy metallic chug, retro futuristic keyboards and, through it all, the endless repeat of a paraphrased Bertrand Russell:

I DON’T WANT KNOWLEDGE. I WANT CERTAINTY.

Prescient stuff. The soundtrack to a chase.

Is Earthling the album Bowie shouldn’t have made? Listening to the classic forms he returned to, you could say that it was a step too far – but I don’t believe that. Earthling isn’t the seamless immersion in a genre that Young Americans and Low are, nor is it the creative totality that Station to Station, Heroes and Outside are. It can be a bit leaden at times, BUT…

…man, Earthling’s exciting. And for a production-heavy electronica-heavy record, it’s raw and alive with enough balls to rough things up. Earthling’s got an energy that has not waned – it STILL sounds tooled up on Red Bull and cigarettes. With no complex layers, no hidden meaning (though I suppose you never know) and no ballads, it’s like the brash younger sibling of Outside that you can rock out to. And again, true to Bowie form, it’s an album that sounds like no other in his back catalogue …another satisfying one-off from the Master.

Need convincing? Check a couple of live renditions right here.

RIP RIP RIP RIP DAVID BOWIE

MINOR VICTORIES: live review

Posted on December 19, 2016 by kevinsmusicblog

OXFORD O2, 13/12/2016

Stuart Braithwaite. STUART BLOODY BRAITHWAITE.

If Mogwai are anywhere near being one of your all-time top bands, you’re not gonna miss a chance to see the owner of THAT guitar sound – one of the biggest and unassumingly most influential in the whole rock landscape – doing his stuff a mere few feet away, are you?

No. And this explains why Minor Victories at Oxford’s O2 – on the small stage upstairs – became a last-minute must-see (thanks Nightshift for the tip) in the last month of the year. With band members from Slowdive, Editors and the Twilight Sad in the band and on stage tonight, there’s plenty of pedigree kicking about.

Expectations? Pop-ish electro-tinged rock – iced cool atmos, verse-chorus Rock Action accessibility, nothing fierce, a background role for the ‘gwai guy … an essence rather than a force. The reality? All of the above but louder and less restrained in all the right places. Give Up the Ghost opens up with arena-baiting stomp and a toughened half riff that gives a teasing glimpse of Braithwaite in action, and what follows is a set of surging, widescreen orchestrations with moto-Stereolab pulsations and the UNKLE Psyence heavyweight drum break (Breaking My Light), all topped by Rachel Goswell’s overfloater vocals. ’tis rich and spacious and fulsome – a proper group effort, definitely not the look of a band who made an album without being in the same room.

And what of the guitarist’s proposed delegation to Background Lurker? Not even close. Sure, this band ain’t Mogwai monolithic but where there’s space, where there’s soar and uplift and tumult, there’s S.B.Uncut, swaying and tussling and just about taming that wild guitar energy EXACTLY as you’d hoped, but didn’t really have the nerve to expect. If Boris (Attention Please version) indulged in a little Sigur Ros or Pumpkins’ Adore, you might get something a bit like Minor Victories live – oversized alt-pop roughed up at the edges by volume – and for anyone with Mogwai love in their bones, this gig makes for a pretty special moment-o.

GREENLEAF: live review

Posted on December 8, 2016 by kevinsmusicblog

GREENLEAF / DESERT STORM: OXFORD CELLAR, 29/11/2016

“We got one more for ya,” says vocalist Arvid Jonsson, and when that one-more becomes the mid-paced galactic burner With Eyes Wide Open, the best has been saved til last. The band are Greenleaf and-

No, me neither. Zero intel on these guys, ‘cept that they’re Swedish, they’ve toured with Clutch and most of the band are in fact Dozer, so with those kinda post-Man’s Ruin credentials, who wouldn’t hunker down in the Cellar on a f-f-f-freezin November night for the promise of toasty riffage? Especially when you’ve got girder-like support from Oxford Irn Bru-isers, Desert Storm.

Last time I saw Desert Storm was 2014 in this venue with Winnebago Deal, and they rocked it good-time. Tonight? They rock it good-time. With this lot, you just know you’re gonna get a great show, and the fact that two of Indica Blues have pitched up for a live earful shows that Desert Storm have got pulling power – there’s just summat about their riffs and sneaky little 5/4s that pulls you in and keeps you there. The C-word gets bandied about as a reference (already mentioned, go check) and that’s fair enough, but with Matt Ryan’s rough-neck roarin’ and a hefty bit of growl in the guitars, DS have definitely got a metallic High on Fire/Down thing going. Being woefully behind with their albums – to be sorted, promise – the track names passed me by (except for a colossal Convulsion, wherever that’s from), but it’s a sign of the band’s class that not knowing never matters: Desert Storm WILL get you going, and they will deliver the Rock. Guaran-fucking-teed.

After that, Greenleaf have a little bit of work to do. Frontman Jonsson is a singer – a good one – rather than a shouter, but his voice seems a tad thin after what’s just been and so we’ve got a slight pressure drop after the Storm. No worries, though. Favouring up-tempos and 60s vibes (we get the Doors twice – an impromptu Break on Through when Tommi Holappa goes string-busting, and Five to One later on), Greenleaf heat the joint with Cream-y blues and wah action til that spacious mini epic, With Eyes Wide Open, nails the set’s end with a spacey high, Swedish stoner style. Solid stuff, one to keep tabs on.

WASPs and tigers

Posted on December 6, 2016 by kevinsmusicblog

NOVEMBER REWIND: TWO-SPEED PSYCHE, MISSED GIGS AND A MIGHTY RETURN

John Peel: a man known for speed. How many times did we hear him get it wrong on a record, sometimes even sticking with wRongPM coz it sounded better? (if it sounds right, it can’t be wrong .. right?). Easily done. Not being schooled in the drumnbass arts meself, but tempted by a gnarly guitary Temper Temper collab with Gallagher Noel and the whole Goldie/Bowie thing, I jumped in and bought Goldie‘s 4-record Saturnz Return when it came out. Side 1 sounded OK but a bit off, but side 2’s Chico – Death of a Rock Star was way better, all mid-tempo breakbeating attitude and heavy on-the-level groove. Nice. Before even playing the rest of the album, I stuck that track on a tape I was finishing for a mate at work.

But Saturnz Return is a 45RPM record set, innit?

Which I learned soon after, but not soon enough to recall the tape (sorry Steve) and its revolutionary cock up. Still, it never did Peel any harm and anyway, Chico does sound pretty good on 33 (honest) so give it a go sometime, but flick the speed switch before the Bowie-sung Truth groans into half life – a downer on a good day, it’s last-breath deathly on the slowdown.

NEW-ISH NOISES

All of this is a long way of introducing a record that you CANNOT play at the wrong speed because it’s been created to be played at both: Lost Chants by Kandodo McBain. The McBain is John, ex Monster Magnet, Kandodo is three bods from The Heads, and with this double-speed set-up we get two albums from the same set of instrumentals. The 45 version has track titles like Blowed Out, Holy Syke and Chant of the Ever Circling (Last Vulture), and their 33 equivalents are Really Blown Out, Holiest Syke and Chant of the Ever So Slowly Circling (Last Vulture). Even with the revs set to 45, Lost Chants ain’t the freak-frazzle burnout you might have expected from Heads mainstays – nah, this is a mellower kinda flow with overlapping waves of guitars… echoes of Hendrix Ladyland 1983/Moon Turn the Tide, Earth Pentastar, Julian Cope s.t.a.r.c.a.r., Carlton Melton, maybe even a less-fucked Tab by McBain’s magnetic ex. Guitar loaded without being riff heavy.

Three Trapped Tigers landed in Oxford in Nov and bugger me if there was no way of making it – mildly gutting, but the Silent Earthling CD from Truck Store was some consolation and these instrumentals are definitely NOT Kandodo McBain high-plane drifters. Mathprog for the dance tent is what it is, all firecracker percussion and Battles/65daysofstatic/Aphex disorder with a Big Synth overload, and as right-now a production as you can imagine.

NO-DIOSCOPE

What were you doing on November 4th? Stacking up credibility points at Audioscope’s annual mindbender the day after Three Trapped Tigers?

Not me. Couldn’t make it this year, so while James Sedwards was no doubt killing it at Audioscope with Nought, I was doing the next best thing:

listening to WASP.

Ahem. But fuckityes, why not??? Blame Scream Until You Like It from the Hairy Halloween playlister – enjoyed revisiting that vid way too much, then wondered what happened to one of THE names of 80s metal: WASP, those crasser-dirtier-wronger descendants of Alice Cooper, the high-profile enemy of the State c/o PMRC. The Headless Children was my last brush with the Law-less way back in ’89, and that album – especially side 1 – is one whose lost-to-the-era greatness I’ll propagate to anyone anywhere. The Heretic (the Lost Child) and Thunderhead are metal classics in every sense and proof that WASP were capable of more than just fire-ejaculating sawblade codpieces…

…weren’t they? And so, after late night sampling, a WASP purchase was made just 27 years after the last one – KFD, aka Kill Fuck Die. ’tis a killer (WASP’s heaviest?) and blasts hard, taking you to a time when peeled-off solos by caricature heroes (Chris Holmes on this one) were the norm. Check the drum attack and the so-very WASP hook on Killahead … man, that track’s got some fury.

HARDWIRING

Back to 2016, but with another bunch of veterans with 80s roots: Metallica. In what seems to be even more controversial a move than getting haircuts or working with Lou Reed, they’ve gone and made a record that their fans* actually like!!!! Or at least, don’t hate. Yet. Maybe. Happy(ish) Metallica fans, the thing that should not be…who woulda thought? Still getting into Hardwired meself (also reopening tonnes of other ‘tallica sounds, as you do), but they’re the band of the moment and will be for a while yet. I really don’t get the level of criticism thrown their way, but more on the meninblack another day.

’til next time!

(Monster Magnet Tab review posted on Head Heritage 2004)

*loose definition

TYPE O NEGATIVE: October Rust

Posted on November 6, 2016 by kevinsmusicblog

MELODIC MISERY FROM THE BAND THAT LIVES WHEN THE YEAR STARTS TO DIE

The most luscious, consistent and popular long player in Type O’s blackened back catterlog?

Probably.

The most October-ly?

Without question. Pity we just missed the month, but no matter: October Rust is a mature stab at bucolic autumnal gloom that needs airing right now, if you haven’t done that already.

TON’s 1996 Roadrunner release, their fourth album, came off the back of a Bloody Kisses breakthrough which saw the Brooklyn greenmans reach new highs in pop culture, thanks to the MTV heavy rotator vid for Black No.1 (Little Miss Scare-All). It was an impressive break, exposing the bigfella Steele and his crew to a new bunch of corruptables.

That was in 1993. For October Rust, however, they stripped the most cartoonish excesses from their vamplified goth aesthetic – the self reference, the post-Carnivore thrashouts, the antagonistic call-outs – and opted instead for a long-player’s worth of the morose splendour they’d nailed on tracks like Bloody Kisses (A Death in the Family). October Rust is Type O’s pop album, not because the tunes are melodic (though they are) or short (nope) or danceably cheerful (AS FUCKING IF) but because, as a double-album spread, they’re as accessible a bunch of Type O tunes as you’re ever gonna hear. Type O Negative always had an ear for melody – they’re not called the Drab Four for nowt – yet still forged a sound unlike anyone else, and certainly not a derivative Sabbath-Beatles blend that the Drab moniker might suggest. Type O are just too damned Type O, even on an album like this… with a Steele-tipped pen at the helm, every album drips decadence, desolation and depression, often comically morbid.

Type O Negative: seasonal corrosion

Opening with exactly the kind of title you want from the dusk brothers (we’re skipping the first two transmissions), Love You to Death tinkles a genteel intro that disorients after the metallic sheen of Bloody Kisses – until, that is, the O-factor, all dry-bone fuzz and airless axe, rushes the joint and swells it to a fuller (dare we say affirming?) force that might, just might, be described as breezy. Layered and harmonied, it sets the direction for the whole record: expansive, mature even, but not at the expense of the Type O Negative lyrical experience. Love You to Death and Be My Druidess lay on the quintessexual lust ‘n black-lipstick tropes thick as ever, which may be why they’re on the fire side of the record (side 1 = fire, side 2 = water, side 3 = air, side 4 = earth).

Flipping over to the water side, we do get water, and it’s not clear: Red Water (Christmas Mourning). Doom slow and snowdrift heavy, it’s an album standout that lurks near the very peak of TON’s all-time least worst, and it would be almost funny if it weren’t so damned true:

My table’s been set for but seven
Just last year I dined with eleven
God damn ye
Merry gentlemen

Written after the death of Steele’s father, it’s a typically wry reality check.

But, as is often the case when trudging the Type-O Way, we lurch from the morbid to the libidinous and so it is here as we plunge into the three-way fleshpit that is My Girlfriend’s Girlfriend, all teasing goth organ (what???) and hammy vamp baritone that surely out-Sisters the Mercys for anthemic catchiness. Sleaze-o fun to the power three, My Girlfriend’s Girlfriend is Black No.1’s sticky, knotty heir and it’s fucking brilliant.

Sticking with the non-sombre for a sec, what about the non-Type O?

Having built a bit of a reputation for doing cover perversions of classic tracks – Hey Joe recast as Hey Pete, Paranoid slowed to a death crawl and, weirdest of the lot, the Isley Brothers’ Summer Breeze reaching new lows in vocal delivery – it’s no surprise that a cover crops up in October, and it’s Neil rustman Young’s Cinammon Girl. And it’s not the dirgesome Count Dragula you might have expected.

Getting back on the October trail, Burnt Flowers Fallen and Wolf Moon stretch the album’s airier vibe, with Wolf Moon perhaps the track that sounds most like it could have been shovelled off Bloody Kisses – bit of a Christian Woman thing (sans blasphemous bed-sin), maybe?

The last track on this 72-minute double is another top downer. Uber slow yet fragile too, Haunted could be dour-doleful-depressing over its 10-minute drift but somehow, it gets a lift – like Red Water before it – by sparse keys, though that lift might depend on your mood, bright or bleak. Whichever way you hear it, it’s a fitting Big End whose heavy elegance restores balance after lighter weights like Green Man, and sinking into the Rust again after all these years it’s Haunted that stands strong.

So there we are: seasonal in scope and acoustic in attitude, October Rust’s twilight vibrations make it a must-play metallic/goth opus for this time of year, every year. In the Type O canon, it’s a one-off – next time out, they’d revert to grimmer tales and new heaviness for what is, in my view, their defining album World Coming Down. But October Rust stands alone as their rustic outdoor soundtrack… dig it out, drag through dead leaves and remember:

‘Functionless art is simply tolerated vandalism. We are the vandals.’
October Rust sleeve notes

October Rust on youtube.

Hairy Halloween

Posted on October 30, 2016 by kevinsmusicblog

Last year we took in a few soundtracks and noir-funk jazz scores to make a break from any metallicus extremicus noise stuff. This year, we’re going for the retro metal sound: mostly classic bands from the late ’80s or thereabouts, a bit of a slasher vibe, a bit of ‘remember that?’ in 11 (yes) tracks. WARNING: hair metal is on this list, no apologies.
DOKKEN: Mr Scary
Big hair kick-off? Too right. George Lynch had one of THE guitar tones of the 80s, a tone that would sit on any commercial horror of the day (maybe that’s why they did Dream Warriors for Nightmare on Elm Street 3) but this heavy instrumental from Back for the Attack is a shock for anyone who missed it, thinking that Dokken were nowt but hair and teeth. Well, they ARE hair and teeth, but Mr Lynch’s Mr Scary is a scorching exception and a horror-themed must.
OZZY OSBOURNE: Suicide Solution (live version from Tribute)
Can there be a rock voice more suited to Halloween than Ozzy’s doleful projections? Doubtful. But this live version (can’t find it on youtube) does more than showcase Ozzy – as the album title says, it’s a Randy Rhoads gig and the Suicide Solution solo has enough stuttermoanandscreech to commune with the undead any time of the year.
MEGADETH: Go to Hell
Snarling sneering wavy Davy, so Mustainey. Lost on a Bill and Ted OST, Go to Hell makes the list because it’s not overplayed, it’s literally hellish and it’s got one of those thrash-sinister vids that captures the right atmos – low sophistication and max impact, just like the flicks we’ve already mentioned. Bit weird. Decent tune. Exhume.
JANE’S ADDICTION: Ted, Just Admit It
Right, we’ve had George Lynch and Dave Mustaine, but what connects them? Dave Navarro (yep) – they both appeared on Navarro’s guitar tutor videos online (well worth a look, ‘specially to see Dave N fail to master Dave M’s admittedly awesome spider-chord) – and so we might as well have a bit of Jane’s … might as well have Ted, Just Admit It. Detached and creepy and wrapped in Ted Bundy, it erupts as violently as the lyrics: art shocker. What a band.
CARCASS: Incarnated Solvent Abuse
Video. Black rubber. That’s all I’m saying, scared the shite outta ma younger self. Weirdly disturbing and low-budget effective, it’s a grindsome tempo shift with a guitar tone to die for. Or be suffocated by.
CELTIC FROST: Rex Irae (Requiem)
Haunting theatrics abound on 1987’s cold bold foray Into the Pandemonium, and none more than Rex Irae (Requiem) here as a half-dead sounding Tom G trades lines with afterlife siren Claudia-Maria Mokri over heavyweight orchestration.
DANZIG: Soul on Fire
Evil Elvis, Fonzig, whatever he’s been called he’s definitely a singer with a fine bag of halloween pipes, and there’s enough demon, possession and Samhain refs for some proper rocking out on All Hallows’ Eve. Not spooky, but it’s Danzig, right? It just fits. Got the attitude. In fact, you might as well just play the whole album from Twist of Cain right through to Evil Thing.
MOTORHEAD: Nightmare/The Dreamtime
The least-Motorhead track Motorhead ever did, except for the one that named the album that this track came from (1916). Semi-ambient, drumless, bassy, keyboardy and loaded with Lem-menace thanks to a fistfulla backwards masking. Golgotha, ace of spades, damn right.
METALLICA: The Small Hours
Check that opening. Tension? Ominosity? Double yes, that’s the soundtrack to Stalkerville Central and it’s backed by a predatory proto-grunge riff lurching outta the shadows of 1987. Still haven’t heard the original, mind.
MELVINS WITH JELLO BIAFRA: In Every Dream Home a Heartache
Hunter S Thompson said that when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. Melvins have been pro all their lives, but on Everybody Loves Sausages they went for Roxy Music at their creepiest and outcreeped it by letting Jello Biafra do the vocals. Not only does he sound uncannily like Bryan Ferry – true, hear it here – but, being Biafra, he ups the sinisterism without even trying. Oh, and it’s heavy as a bastard as well.
WHITESNAKE: Still of the Night
Go on, HAVE IT. Light relief with ace riffs. He hears the wolf howl (honey), sniffing around your door. Here’s the tune, but if you want the video for an old-time’s laff….
Not cool enough? Seriously? Then here’s a lawless screamer to bang a final W.A.S.P.-sized nail in a hairsome playlist before you load up a late-night film… Prince of Darkness, anyone?

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