Church of Misery at Myspace

Japan’s Church of Misery have offered up another solid album of groovy stoner doom metal  with Houses of the Unholy. The first thing that I should mention is that while this is a fine album, it’s not innovative by any stretch of the imagination, with the songwriting based firmly in the 1970′s. However, the Church do a great job within those confines. The band’s lyrics are all about serial killers, much like the band Macabre, but the similarities end there, as there’s little of Macabre’s grim humor in these lyrics. I have to commend vocalist Yoshiaki Negishi; he chooses to downplay his Japanese accent (not that I have anything against them), and does it extremely well; I never once would have suspected this band was Japanese if I listened to this release blind. His delivery is raspy without straying far from the style of 70′s metal vocalists.

The songs are frequently lengthy (five of the album’s eight cuts are more than seven and a half minutes long), so the grooves have plenty of room to breathe. The musicianship is fine but really takes a back seat to the hypnotic chord sequences; doom metal is more about the songwriting and riffs than technical skills. Fans of 70′s metal and hard rock would do well to check this out.

Bongripper at Myspace

Bongripper is a stoner/doom/post-metal outfit from Chicago. All of the members are just in it for the love of music and don’t care about money; from what I read in another review of this album, one of them even leaked it onto the internet. The brand of sludgy psychedelia on Hippie Killer is excellent; it is almost entirely instrumental (with the exception of the track “Terrible Bear Attack”) I do have to admit that I didn’t enjoy the drumless, dronier tracks as much as the doomier ones, but the latter type tend to be much longer so it’s okay. I also thought the album went on a bit too long; at just under the maximum 80 minutes for a CD, it felt like the band was just trying too hard to fill out the entire thing. Also, I felt the vocals on “Terrible Bear Attack” were really annoying, and I was glad that track was just 3 minutes long.

Those are my only real quibbles with the album, though; it’s wonderfully atmospheric with crushing riffs, and I totally would’ve gotten high to this if my social skills were good enough to obtain weed. My personal favorite track was the 16-minute “Reefer Sutherland,” although most of the album was strong. Fans of this style of metal will love Hippie Killer.

Capricorns at myspace

London supergroup Capricorns featuring members and ex members of Iron Monkey, Orange Goblin and Bridge and Tunnel play a form of instrumental stoner/post metal that takes significant influence from post rock yet is not another band that follows in the footsteps of Neurosis and Isis. There is a slight influence drawn from those two bands yes, but the music on display has a sinister foreboding edge to counter the usual spacey thoughtfulness of the genre, Pelican would be another obvious comparison but there is far too much aggression both naked and under the surface in Capricorns music for that to suffice. This is not to say there aren’t moments of calm yet eerie tension as exhibited on “A savage race by shipwrecks fed”.

For fans of stoner and post-metal who want something that isn’t the same old Oceanic/through silver in blood worship but don’t want something too out of the box, “river, bear your bones might be just what you are looking for.

Saviours at myspace

Mixing the old school classic rock of Thin Lizzy with the raging fast tempo stoner of High on Fire with the progressive experimentation of Baroness, Saviours are quite an intriguing proposition for Stoner Metal fans. Duelling lead guitars in a traditional heavy metal fashion are fused into a rhythm of resin soaked groove and a galloping rhythm section featuring the understated but powerful percussion of Scott Batiste.

Although this release can come under the banner of stoner metal it can be seen as basically a slightly diluted form of heavy metal itself. It’s as pure as any form of heavy metal that remains true to the greats of the genre whilst keeping the subsequent generations of thrash and those which came before it in reference. With one eye on the past and one on the future, Saviours are just one in a long line of bands creating metal that is both forward thinking but yet keeps the old traditions alive.

Baroness at Myspace

“The Red album” is a record that is of the age it was created but yet seems ageless. Combining  both metal influences (Mastodon, Isis, Opeth, Floor) and non metal (Fugazi, Yes, Tool, Pink Floyd) influences to give birth to a sound that is so individual its hard to describe. The foundation of this sound is Stoner tinged progressive metal that is both extremely technical yet flows organically. More than in most metal releases, the vocals play second fiddle to the guitars. The leads and riffs twist and turn down many musical passageways and wormholes yet each songs highly unique and memorable melodies remains as a central cornerstone anchoring the experimentation and innovation that happens in each song.

Baroness could certainly teach the Symphony X’s and other widdle-fest lovers out there how to do progressive metal properly. This musical technicality with a deep emotional resonance and an a ambience that harks back to the early 70’s glory days of prog rock itself. The production is warm and earthy and gives the music a splendidly human feel to it. There are notable psychedelic touches to it with the cosmic “Wailing Wintry Wind” being a notable example with its calm and chilled out Pink Floydian intro segueing into a post rock influenced stoner rock epic that although having a fairly relaxed tone has just the right amount of drama and tension.

There are some Appalachian folk elements with “Cockroach en Fleur” country acoustic instrumental being a prime example. Baroness are one of many acts to be hailed as “the new Mastodon” but they are perhaps the only of one those acts who could not only equal such a tag but might go on to beat Mastodon themselves in the Progressive metal stakes.

Electric Wizard at Myspace

Electric Wizard’s latest album ‘Witchcraft Today’ is a definite return to form after the disappointing ‘We Live’. There were two main problems with ‘We Live’ – It was too technical and the production was too clean. This problem is rectified with ‘Witchcult Today’, with the evidence being clear to hear from the titular first track which has the ambience of a loosely-improvised jam session dating back to the early 70s, a feel mostly due to the experience of capturing the vintage sound of producer Liam Watson, most famous for producing indie stalwarts The White Stripes’ album, Elephant.

The second problem with ‘We Live’ is that it was meandering, but not in a positive sense. The spacey drugged-up Electric Wizard classics such as ‘Come My Fanatics’ and ‘Dopethrone’ meandered in a marvellously dishevelled galactic way that added to the cosmic bong-driven atmosphere that made Electric Wizard’s reputation. ‘We Live’ meandered meaninglessly and tediously. Probably as a reaction to this, the songs on ‘Witchcult Today’, despite being on average around eight minutes long, are cut of all excess fat and baggage, meaning that every second of riffage counts in Electric Wizard’s effort to create a sonic drugstorm of a record. Apart from the pointless and mind-staggeringly needless and dull instrumental tracks, which thankfully don’t take up much of the records content, every moment on this album is vital and it seems that Electric Wizard have finally made a record that is at least the equal to Dopethrone, and maybe even better than that seemingly unbeatable masterpiece.

Taint at Myspace

Taint are a British Stoner band with progressive and epic tendencies despite on average, the songs on this their sophomore album being around the 4 or 5 minute mark. These are songs in which something is always happening and yet the hash fried groove still remains as gloriously delirious trippy as ever. Think members of Mastodon and Baroness smoking top quality weed for twelve hours straight whilst listening to Cathedral, Sleep and ‘Masters of Reality’-era Black Sabbath and you are nearly on top of how splendid this record is.

Lolloping riffs interplay with hillbillies on ganja-style psychedelic guitar leads all the while keeping within an intoxicating almost funky in a Clutch sort-of-way Groove. The groove on this record is immense; the songs change speed, density and direction regularly but each song’s distinct groove remains constant as the centrepiece of each track and indeed Taint’s entire sound. Highlights include the frantic bass solo on ‘Goddamn This City’ and the appearance of Circulus flutist Will Summers on ‘What the Raven Saw’.

The aforementioned track begins as a piece of neo-medieval folk rock, before transforming into an ethereal and haunting piece of Sabbathian hard rock with the final change coming four and a half minutes in when some spiffing surf-cum-stoner guitar leads duel off against Summers Flute in a segment that sounds like Boris dueling with Jethro Tull. Vocalist Jimbob’s intriguing vocal style make these moments even more terrific, with his plaintive barks and croons sounding not like a more impassioned and soulful version of Mastodon’s Brent Hinds. If you like your stoner metal to be of the highest quality and hate the idea of repetition in music then it would be a good idea to check this release out.

The Freezing Fog at Myspace

One would not expect that a traditional heavy metal album would come from the same plectrums of the same people who gave you Converge-approved metalcore heroes Beecher, despite the fact that Beecher themselves were originally conceived as a doom metal band, but rest assured if you absolutely hate metalcore (if you don’t then check out Beecher’s “This Elegy, His Autopsy”) you’ll probably be interested to check this out. Apart from the mark of mid-period Cathedral, there’s not a single influence that’s later than 1976. The riffs of Sabbath, the twin guitar attacks of Thin Lizzy, the stomp of Budgie, the genius of Deep Purple, the muddy power of Blue Cheer, the progressive bent of Hawkwind yadda yadda yadda. Basically this is the sound of heavy metal before Judas Priest and Motorhead got their hands on it, revisited through a stoner prism.

The lead guitar work by one “Charles Edward Godby” (like Beecher they insist on using their middle names in the time honoured serial killer fashion) shows an immense sense of power and rhythm, as vast riffage collides with soulful and psychedelic leads. The songs are expertly structured with many different variations on 70’s heavy metal ebbing and flowing in a natural and delightful fashion with the spacey Jimmy Page meets Kyuss solos being an obvious highlight. David William Hopkinson’s soaring masculine yet distinctly Lancastrian vocals bring a passionate and forceful resonance to the music, somewhere between a lower pitched version of Budgie’s Burke Shelley and a hell of a lot more tuneful Lee Dorrian!

This is the perfect album for chilling out, drinking a few beers and smoking the odd joint (a subject visited by the band themselves in their stoner hobbit epic “No Light, No Smoke”) to on a summer’s day. If this band had been around in 1974 they would have been legends, as it is in 2008 it’s a godamn awesome piece of trad metal heavier than fiat punto full of hambeasts, with not a growl, scream, or a trace of punk rock in sight. Although released in the United Kingdom by Roadkill records late last year, this record is being re-released worldwide in August this year by Dental records with 2 bonus tracks, so I would take some marks off for some Roadrunner-esque tactics there, but it’s hard to stay mad at these stoners for long with such quality guitar work on display.

Deep Blue at Myspace

If there’s one continent mysteriously underrepresented in the metal world, it’s Antarctica. It should be a metal paradise – cold, brutal, isolated, and so mythic. Hell, if you go down there to have a jam session, your sound waves will cause all sorts of mayhem – you’ll crack ice, cause avalanches, and scare polar bears. On the other hand, Deep Blue apparently want a haven from the restrictive drug laws of the rest of the world. I mean, who doesn’t want to smoke doobies with their friends in a bleak, primordial world?

I don’t know if Deep Blue aspire to much more than that. Antarctic Abyss is a short little album, comprised of two 13-minute songs. You know the drill – fuzzy guitars playing slow, psychedelic riffs throughout. The riffs are gigantic, lasting 45 seconds before they start repeating. And they’re kind of cool, but neither of the main riffs is cool enough to merit 13 minutes of devotion. They might be saved by some interesting accompaniment, be it sweet solos or brutal lyrics, but instead we only get the occasional wah-laden guitar flourish and lyrics about how damn cold it is. They’re lucky ‘deep’ kind of rhymes with ‘freeze’, or they’d have nothing to say at all.

Now, when I’m getting blazed, I like a little stoner metal, but I’d rather hear fast, fancy riffs that would send the average stoney baloney running for the hills. But the bands I do like (Sleep, Bongripper, Earth, etc) are repetitive, yet still keep me intrigued throughout. This gets a lot of comparisons to Sleep, but it ain’t the real thing.