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The end of the year hurtles toward us at breakneck speed. 2016 has been a signature year in many respects, not the least of which are the numerous new EPs and LPs released by both known and unknown stoner/doom bands, many of them of exceptional quality. I'm sure someone will reflect back and say it wasn't a great year for new music. Poppycock! Get off my lawn! There has been so much great new music this year I will STRUGGLE, mightily, to narrow the releases down to a 'Best Of' list of any reasonable length. But that's a chore for another day. Today's task is simple, and fun. There are three amazing, astounding, outstanding, wonderful new LPs released one each in September, October, and November that I want to share with you. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present:
Mississippi Bones - "2600 AD: And Other Astonishing Tales"
Mississippi Bones - "2600 AD: And Other Astonishing Tales"
Fresh off a banner release in 2015, followed by a 2016 vinyl release that we reviewed recently on HeavyPlanet (Songs for the Rejects, Slackers, and Rabble-Rousers) Mississippi Bones add to their prolificacy by releasing another romp stomp LP with 2600 AD: And Other Astonishing Tales, 12 more songs that rattle and crash with incredible energy, enthusiasm, and elegance.
I will be the first person to point out my own shortcomings when it comes to understanding the mechanics of music. I am simply a fan of what I love, all of which begins with big guitar, and can only be enhanced with melody and great vocals. Mississippi Bones provides those three traits in spades. When I listen through this album I hear elements of Clutch, which makes this music quite exciting to me, but that is only the starting point for what they've created here. Music of this quality, at this rate of production, has to be a product of great musicianship from each member, and with six full members that equates to a product of tremendous content and caliber. Listening to this album is like being involved in a Fight Club brawl. There are a LOT of hard hitting, bruising punches, hammer-like blows to the head, and unseen, unpredictable, razor sharp strikes, all leaving you spent, exhausted, and keenly satisfied. The difference is there is no pain or discomfort involved in listening, just sheer raucous rock n roll pleasure, a fierceness of execution, and a keen sense of joy.
Hailing from Ada, Ohio, Missisippi Bones is comprised of the following members:
Jared Collins - Vocals
Dusty Donley - Guitars
Jason Miller - Drums
Derik Dunson - Guitars and Vocals
Jason Rector - Bass
Heather Collins - Vocals
Mississippi Bones make perfect use of multiple instrumentation on their music, and I count vocals as one of the instruments. The use of three perfectly attuned rock vocalists adds greatly to the depth and quality of their songs. The blending and meshing of guitars as well as harmonizing vocals makes for a super huge sound that envelopes you in sticky sweet warmth, while simultaneously providing crystal sharp individual runs and riffs that weave a heavy quilt of intensity, intrigue, and interest.
Mississippi Bones are not signed to a label, which is perplexing as hell. They are prolific and they are accomplished. I would think there would be huge interest in championing what they have to offer for quality hungry stoner/doom rock fans. The good news is their music is easily accessible and available in this high tech day and age.
You want rough, tough, edgy, loud, and lewd on your plate of underground fuzz metal? Look no further than Wasted Theory and their new release "Defenders of the Riff". This band is one of hard work, grit in your craw, grit in your hand cleaner, of big bore engines and steel-toed boots, of backyard barbecue over fluid and coal, of well worn jeans and righteous facial hair, of All American ass kickin' in whatever way needs kickin'.
I follow the awesome album cover artist Alex von Wieding, who has created dozens of incredible fantasy pieces for metal bands around the world. He happened to mention how the music behind one of his latest album covers was contagious in effect and humongous in scope. That album was "Defenders of the Riff", which you can tell by the artwork above was a great inspiration to von Wieding's vision for the album cover, an extraordinary work of art for a remarkable collection of rocket-fueled retro blues rock n roll.
Hailing from the great states of Maryland and Delaware, Wasted Theory are:
Larry Jackson, Jr. - Vocals, Lead Guitar
Brendan Burns - Drums
Dave McMahon - Rhythm Guitar
Rob Michael - Bass
Just the song titles alone are enough to get your juices flowing with handles like "Get Loud or Get Fucked", "Belly Fulla Whiskey", and "Throttlecock" to name a few. The music behind those titles are big gauge buckshot blasts of big boulder stoner blues, without a doubt. All of the music on this album is a romping good time, with upbeat tempos driven by mangy riffs, decibel heavy, low tuned rhythm, and one sweet gravelly voiced front-man deftly leading the way. The music gives an aura of rawness, but is thoroughly grounded in melodies that immediately cut to the listener's primal core, carving deeply chiseled niches that will have you constantly playing the songs in your head long after you have had to plug in for a re-charge.
If you ever want to study a band that is the absolute epitome of stoner rock then look no further than Geezer. While they don't stand alone in this category, they certainly stand at the top of the hill, a hill that they've worked hard to surmount. There are no tricks, no gimmicks, no shortcuts to their music, just good old fashioned heart and hard work laid over tremedous talent and uncanny ability. This has rendered a deeply beautiful collection of fuzz and grit on their latest release, the self-titled "Geezer", on both the Ripple (digital/CD) and STB Records (vinyl) labels, their fourth overall.
Hailing from Kingston, New York, band members include:
Pat Harrington - Guitar, Vocals
Richie Touseull - Bass
Chris Turco - Drums
There are two huge hallmarks of Geezer's music that immediately pull you in when you first hear them, the huge presence of wire melting FUZZ, which I love, and Harrington's equally fuzzy, gritty vocals. He has a quality that is perfectly suited to this style of heavy metal, full of metal shards and crunching concrete, but also crystal clear and athletic in range, a rarity among vocalists in a genre that too often relies on yelling more than singing.
But the goodies don't stop there. Behind the fuzz, of course, are the guitar and bass of Harrington and Touseull, but not before you are treated to the heart pounding stickwork of Turco to kick it all off and keep the music grounded in primal flow. There is absolutely nothing straightforward about what they do as they explore an exciting and enticing variety of sounds, tempos, emotions, and sensations on their intricately beautiful riffs and eloquent runs. This album ranges from darkly haunting as on "Sun Gods", and sweetly melancholy on "Dust", to jump jiving blues rock boogie on "Superjam Maximus", with mind and soul bending psychedelic carpet rides, such as those featured on "Bi-Polar Vortex" and woven throughout.
Following is a list of my favorite albums of 2015. This year I downloaded 539 albums from which I tagged 101 as 'worthy'. Thank you HeavyPlanet.net, and especially HeavyPlanet Radio on Facebook, thank you bandcamp.com, and thank you Richard Jones of Sheltered Life PR from whom my introductions to all 539 albums came. From the centenary list, plus one, of albums I flagged as worthy I settled on 30 favorites, of which I’ve listed here for your perusal and amusement.
There won't be any instrumental albums on my list as I find most of them to be tedious. Yes, that’s a character flaw of my own. Nor will you find any bands that affect a vocal sound, the most common being the growling vocals so common in today’s metal oblations. I prefer a vocalist’s natural sound. Many vocals can be awe inspiring, as much or more than the sound of a gifted guitarist. What you will find here is a narrow mix of music that has at its core a powerful guitar and a guitar pedal amp supplying plenty of fuzz and glorious distortion, at worst passable vocals but at best vocals that match ability and intensity with the core guitar, and employing cleverly to adequately crafted melodies, all of which will be playing classical seventies rock, blues rock, psychedelic rock, stoner/desert/fuzz rock, or a mad mixture of any or all of those rock attitudes. The overriding hallmark of all these albums, to me, is they represent the truest essence of rock and roll. It's heavy, but not the heaviest. It's melodic, but not poppish. It leaves plenty of room for artistic license in melody and lyrics, but always delivers pulse pounding, sweat inducing, primal, tribal reverberations resonating through to the ancestral core of our pattern seeking genes. And what typically differentiates these 30 albums from all the rest released in 2015 are the songs. An album is considered exceptional on the strength of its individual songs. The more great songs on an album, the greater the album. With all that said and hopefully in mind, here are, in descending order, my favorite 30 albums of the 101 I deemed worthy from the 539 I listened to throughout this glorious, monstrous year of 2015.
30. Shatner – Shatner
The sound of Shatner is unique. Guitars are huge, low, and fuzzy, the bass thumps, and vocals are good. The songs set this album apart in their unique structure, interesting melodies, and mesmerizing execution.
Shatner hail from Boston and consist of:
Jim Healey - Guitar and Vocals
Jesse Sherman - Bass and Backing Vocals
Rob Davol – Drums
Funky, bluesy rock with a beautifully gravel-voiced frontman, twin guitars that play off each other with blissful riffage, a bass that rivals both guitars in delivery and intrigue, and a drummer who is front and center in presence and delivery.
Buffalo Hustle hail from Fayetteville, Arkansas and consist of:
Nick Brothers - Guitar
Garrett Parker - Bass/Vocals
Sam Solano - Drums
Julian Thomas - Guitar/Vocals
deaf horse are a unique sound, mainly in song structure, which is always a welcome breath of fresh air. The guitars are big and insistent and each song is an individual journey of intrigue and enjoyment.
Deaf horse hail from Bath/Bristol and are comprised of:
Jamie Noble - Drums/Vocals
Ben Noble - Guitar/Vocals
Hammer- Bass
Andrew 'Big A' Townhill-Keys/Guitar
Fast paced, hard driving melodies of power and grit, seventies influence, and blazing hot riffs underscored by a driving rhythm section.
Hailing from San Ramon, California, Space Probe Taurus are a part of Ripple Music, Inc. and consist of:
Sjöberg – vocals, guitars
Tömte – guitars, backing vocals
Enberg – bass, backing vocals
Boman – drums
Psychedelic fuzz from Germany, sung in the native language and beautifully rendered with a reminiscence of Colour Haze in its similar quality of heavy psych sound. The song Dantes Inferno was featured as a Song of Day on HeavyPlanet.net back in September ( HeavyPlanet Song of the Day).
Hailing from Cologne, Germany Monocluster consist of:
Marc – Vocals, Chris – Bass, Jan – Guitar, Ewald – Drums
Heavy seventies influence with heavy fuzz riffs and Ryder’s wonderfully gritty vocals lend a nasty quality to the bluesy vibe throughout this album. The strength of the album may very well be the supremely interesting songs with the great melodies paired with fetching lyrics, all wrapped up in a hard driving and fun hard rock attitude.
Adapter Adapter hail from Attleboro, Massachusetts and consist of:
Nick Ryder - Guitar, Bass, Harmonica, Vocals
Jim Schultz – Drums
Seventies influence with a bluesy grind, this album delivers some exquisite melodies in its song offerings, all rife with jagged chipped flint vocals, drums that pierce and drive with huge energy, and beautifully executed guitar riffs of fuzzy glory .
Beardmore hail from Aylesbury, England and feature:
Colin Steele - Guitar and Vocals
Ben Arnold - Guitar and Vocals
Tim Bentham - Bass and Vocals
Adam Connell – Drums
Isaak scored a hit with their debut album The Longer the Beard the Harder the Sound, which landed on label SmallStone Records and generated a much deserved buzz for their exotic stoner fuzz. These hard nosed Italian rockers are back with a new album, picking up right where they left off with another FULL length album, twelve glorious tracks, of European rockslides of crushing, pounding greatness.
Isaak hail from Genova, Italy and are comprised of:
Vocals - Giacomo H Boeddu
Bass - Gabriele Carta
Drums/Vocals - Andrea Tabbì De Bernardi
Guitars - Francesco Raimondi
Out of the blue, as they say, I was struck by the awesomeness of this uniquely low, deeply fuzzed out boulder-buster of an album. Huge, powerful riffs played deep and sludgy with vocals to match this is a fuzzy, gritty feast.
Routes of Neptune hail from Athens and Naxos, Greece and consist of:
Babis : (Vocals)
Chris 4 : (Guitars)
MiLoop : (Bass)
Joni : (Drums)
Big fuzz, deep honey sound, great rock vocals, bluesy vibe, beautifully crafted melodies….there’s a lot to love about this band. Crime of the Century was released back in March with just 3 songs, but a fourth song by the band has recently been dropped on bandcamp.com as well, Coming for My Baby.
Black Bear Tribe hail from New York, New York and consist of:
Jason Kraft - Vocals
Sam Perry - Guitar
Matt Cincotta - Bass
Andrew Nesbitt – Drums
Owners of the year’s best album name, The Vast Electric Dark, Witchskull have crafted hard driving, hard rockin’ album that has stoner and doom tendencies, but is its own beast, slathering, snarling, and scorching from the first note to the coda. Witchskull were reviewed by Pete in October on heavyplanet.net ( HeavyPlanet Album Review )
The band calls Canberra, Australia home. Its members include:
Marcus De Pasquale vox/guitar Tony McMahon Bass Joel Green Drums
Big Seventies blues rock sound, with huge guitar, huge vocals reminiscent of Lynyrd Skynyrd, and beautifully rendered songs. As a two piece they deliver a four piece sound, loading each song with deep, delicious fuzz and pulse pounding rhthyms, executing clever melodies replete with hooks that will stay with you for ages, ranging from bluesy hoe-downs to psychedelic powerhouses.
Members of Deadweight Express hail from Brisbane, Australia and consist of
Sonny Ingledew, Calvin Edward.
This follow up to 2012’s much ballyhooed self titled album does not drop off in quality, effort, or performance, delivering hard punching, fast paced, gritty, grimy, fuzzy bliss led by drummer Stanley’s hard driving beats, Quinn’s beautiful vocals, Barry’s blistering guitar, Böðvarsson’s tectonic rumbling bass, and songs that hook right and riff left throughout.
The Gentlemen Bastards hail from Huntsville, Alabama and consist of:
Will Quinn - vocals
Bill Barry - guitars
Dave Stanley - drums
Böðvar Böðvarsson – bass
Favorite Track: Skuggi
Father Wolf rips through the stonersphere with an insatiable force and hunger that is perfectly expressed in the vocals of frontwoman Lore and JuanP’s boulder crunching riffs. A haunting psychedelic sound blended expertly with a low thunder fuzz, this album is an exceptional stoner/psych experience.
Padre Lobo hail from San Sebastien, Spain. It’s members are:
Lore: Voz y maracas
JuanP: Guitarra y aullidos
Francis: Bombo y platillo volante
Alv: Bajo y alto
Manu: Guitarra trapecista
At spot fifteen comes another female fronted stoner/psych album of the utmost quality. The sound delivers its unique melodies and structures by reverberating through your skeletal core to the depths of your stoner heart, tinging the musical essence throughout with a murky blues-rock soul. Deep, loud, replete with delicious riffs and clever hooks, this is a treat for blues/psych rock enthusiasts across this vast and wondrous stonersphere.
Lord Loud, hailing from Van Nuys, California, consist of:
Chris Allison
Michael Feld
Arenna are the masters of psychedelic rock, on a pantheon with Colour Haze. Their music is beautiful, exquisite, otherworldly. It’s a mind blowing journey from the opening track to the last, transporting you far and deep away from terrestrial realities to universal possibilities.
Arenna hail from Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, its band members include:
Txus Dr. Sax : voz
Javi: bass
Guille: drums
Kike & Rober: guitarra
Perhaps it’s not fair to include a three track EP in a list that contains so many full album efforts, but if the music is damn good, brief as it may be, I feel compelled to include it. Year of the Cobra are an exquisite sound. The beautifully rendered fuzz is solely bass, delivering both the main riffs as well as driving the delicious melodies, while the vocals render a wondrous hypnotic quality, capping off the type of experience we crave when listening to stoner music. The Black Sun is truly that rare gem of stoner rock, and all the more incredible when learning this is a bass, drum duo.
Year of the Cobra hail from Seattle, Washington and consist of:
Amy Tung Barrysmith – Bass and Vox
Jon Barrysmith - drums
Favorite track: Wasteland
Labels: STB Records, DHU Records, Devil's Child Records, HMVP Records
Beautifully crafted melodies rendered in multi-faceted expertise are the hallmark of this album. The fuzz surrounds and permeates each song, while being driven expertly by the gargantuan rhythms of bass and drums, expounded by the exquisite vocals of Enrico, and punctuated adroitly with searing, blistering riffs.
Kayleth hail from San Bonifacio, Italy and include members:
Hugely entertaining sound. Big fuzz, gifted melodies and incredible song structures, beautiful lyrics delivered by adept vocals, Narcosis, formed originally in 1998, are the culmination of years of toiling in the trenches and improving their craft along each step of the way.
Narcosis hail from Greece. It’s members and contributors include:
Kostas Pappas : Vox/Guitar
Jon Toussas : Bass
Manos Spitieris : Guitar
Paulos Kounalakis : Drums
Anja Taraschinski : Keys on "A Hole In The Heart"
10. Geezer/Borracho - Second Coming of Heavy Chapter One
Two for the price of one! The underground world of rock often produces ‘splits’, releases by 2 bands on one album, which is a very cool thing. Quite often the music on them isn’t available on any other venue so investing in them is worthwhile in order to obtain the awesome music included. This split from Ripple Music is no different. Borracho and Geezer share a similar sound, not so similar you can’t tell them apart, but similar enough you know it’s blues rock at its finest, complementing each other loudly and emotionally.
The split opens with 4 tracks from Geezer who quickly demonstrate they continue their immense rise to elite rock status. Their songs are all intelligently written, emotionally delivered, fierce in execution, and joyous in the experience, layered throughout with exquisite vocals, blistering guitar, pounding drums, and rumbling bass. You will be hard pressed to find 4 finer blues rock tracks anywhere, this year or any other.
Borracho follows with 3 excellent tracks of their own, laying down a feral, pulse pounding occasion of blues/rock celebration. The guitar-work will bore through to your core, vibrating in rhythm to your primal base, leaving you as exhausted and satisfied as if it had been a physical encounter instead of an intangible electric one .
Geezer hails from Kingston, MY and consist of members -
Richie
Turco
Pat
Borracho hails from Washington, DC with band members –
Steve - Lead Guitar & Vocals
Tim - Bass
Mario – Drums
Favorite Tracks:
Geezer – So Tired
Borracho - Superego
This album is a bit unique in its sound and structure. Stoner funk? Could that be a tag to be used here? I’m using it, at any rate. The vocalist has a gritty, funky delivery that is perfect for the melodies The Old One-Two have crafted, as is the predominant guitar sound, replete with fuzzy distortion goodness. The Old One-Two, however, NEVER skimp on BIG sound for their guitarwork, either in amplified undercurrent or in gritty solo scorching delivery, making for a supremely entertaining and satisfactory rock experience on Foxbones.
The Old One-Two are from Greensboro, North Carolina. Their members consist of:
Into Your Mind, in my mind, mark the return of Freedom Hawk to their best, most stoner rock defining sound, not quite present since their 2nd album, the self-titled Freedom Hawk, which is one of stonerdom’s finest albums. Into Your Mind has a similar quality in which Morton’s unique vocal sound is modulated perfectly to match his super fuzzed out guitars. Make no mistake, Freedom Hawk have delivered a whole new bevy of brilliant music that demonstrate their world class sound and ability, employed gargantuan fuzz, massive bass and drum rhythms, and timeless rock melodies.
Hailing from Virginia Beach, Virginia, Freedom Hawk is:
Beautiful stoner sound is on display with this album of 6 exquisite rock gems. The vocalist is deep throated and clear, displaying vocal strength by never yelling, the guitars are beautifully low and replete with distorted sweetness. The bass is a wonderful presence, not satisfied with laying back and providing simple rhythms, but present front and center providing sweet low hum to complement the searing lead guitar riffs. Melodies are intelligent, primal, and unforgettable. The blend of it all is a super sweet stoner rock elixir.
Fairy Duster hail from Fürth, Germany. Its members are:
Bass & backing vocals Sebastian Fischer
Rhythm guitar & lead vocals Dani Jonescu
Lead guitar Alex Jonescu
Drums Tristan Prögler
Favorite Tracks: Viaţa şi Moartea, Love is a Dog from Hell
Self styled as a HEEVY RAWK band, Aye Mammoth sets themselves apart with a bevy of incredible, impeccable songs. They have the requisite FUZZED out guitars, exquisite in execution; they have an incredible vocalist who doesn’t strain or yell; and the bass and drums are exceptional; but, the true hallmark here are thirteen – 13! – pulse pounding pearls of perfection, enjoyable in every way. Their sound is a stoner/blues sort of sound, but very unique in that they sound like Aye Mammoth and no one else, and that’s a beautiful thing. Aye Mammoth featured on heavyplanet.net with a Song of the Day in November (HeavyPlanet-Song of the Day)
Aye Mammoth, from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, consist of:
Micah Loyed - guitar, vocals;
Phil Stem - drums;
Paul Haggard - bass
Favorite Tracks: Tear The Veil, Raise Horns, Dread Of The Deep
As part of label Heavy Psych Sound you could say they are the banner bearer as the psychedelic rock music Sgt. Sunshine have crafted here is enormous, important, and immensely satisfying, ticking off every stoner/psych/desert/retro rock facet available to be crafted into fuzzy melody. The guitar sound is COLOSSAL, fuzzy to its innermost metaphysical depths, executing a familiar stoner/fuzz sound but with enhanced nuances that matches or surpasses any music in the library of the genre.
Sgt. Sunshine call Malmoe, Sweden home. Its members include:
Eduardo Fernandez Rodriguez
Roberto Castro Sundin
Kalle Olofsson
This a big stoner/desert/fuzz rock sound, influenced directly from the 90s sounds of Kyuss, Slo Burn, et al., as well as more current bands. They can now add their names to that pantheon of distorted metal sound with this wonderfully crafted album that is one of the year’s best releases.
Dune Pilot hail from Munich, Germany and consist of members:
Andris - Vocals
Chris - Guitar
Georg - Drums
SH – Bass
Everyone knows the story of Clutch. One of underground rock’s greatest successes, they’ve been around for better than two decades, so the fact is they not only sustain the highest level of rock n roll production, they have actually gotten better, as their last two albums attest. Psychic Warfare is on this list, and on it this high, because it fucking rocks ass! It is the epitome of rock and roll. The best vocalist in the business helps tremendously, but the songs are incredible, the guitars THICK with syrupy riffs, and the bass and drums exquisite in their delivery. My hats off to these Maryland rockers for what they have been able to achieve. I hope the fire continues to burn for decades to come.
The song X-Ray Visions was featured in July on HeavyPlanet’s Song of the Day (HeavyPlanet - Song of the Day) as well as in Pete’s Top Ten Albums of 2015, coming in at #6.
Clutch hail from Frederick, Maryland. The band consists of members:
Neil Fallon – Vocals, guitar
Jean-Paul Gaster – Drums
Tim Sult – Lead guitar
Dan Maines – Guitar
Favorite Track: Behold the Colossus facebook / vevo 2. The Bad Light – Temples
Dropping in just under the wire is the phenomenal Temples by The Bad Light. These Santa Cruz rockers have crafted a fine psychedelic stonerrock album with their 4th release in 3 years. They employ more than one vocalist, a method that works exceptionally well and should, in my opinion, be pursued by other bands. It makes for an exquisite sound. The guitars are gargantuan, executing tremendous stoner/fuzz distortions, underlain heavily with massive drum beats and mammoth bass. The strength of this album is multifaceted as each song is breathtaking in its psychedelic fuzzy goodness, the guitars, bass, and drums are mighty, and the matching vocals between male and female are tremendous, but what really sets this album up on a pedestal are the songs, each of the 8 tracks beautiful to behold.
The Bad Light hail from Santa Cruz, California and consist of members:
EDU CERRO (GUITAR/VOCALS)
DANA SHEPARD (DRUMS)
EMILY PEGODA (VOCALS)
bandcamp / facebook / soundcloud / website / blogspot Before revealing my Number One for 2015 I want to revisit my Number One of 2014, an album that stands head and shoulders above most, even today. It is as unique a sound while carrying standard stoner metal qualities as an album can get. I will tell you the band hails from the Netherlands but you will be hard pressed to make the connection once you spin it. TBT 2014 and Nuclear Dog's #1 Album - Atacames by ¡PENDEJO!
And now without further ado, Nuclear Dog's 2015 Album of the Year! Enjoy! 1. The
Midnight Ghost Train - Cold Was the Ground
Which brings us to the album of the year. If I could have only one
album to listen to all year this would be it. The song Gladstone
alone is enough to sustain me for quite a while. Steve Moss, the frontman for
The Midnight Ghost Train has taken his love for songsmiths young and old, such
as Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Muddy Waters, and Edith Piaf, using them to channel
his own creativity into the finely crafted music of Cold Was the Ground. HUGE!
Huge enough to make Donald Trump envious. The guitars are simply enormous,
turned loose and riding roughshod through the clever and exquisite songcraft of
Gladstone and Twin Souls, BC Trucker and The Canfield....and
the entirety of this relentless force of nature. I can’t recall music eliciting
in me the excitement I experienced with the initial spinning of Gladstone
since I first heard the one two hammer blow of Thumb and Green
Machine. Whenever any new album is discovered, the anticipation upon
playing it the first time is for exactly what Cold Was the Ground
delivered that fine February day of 2015.
The Midnight Ghost Train hail from Topeka, Kansas. They are:
Steve Moss – Vocals, Guitar | Brandon Burghart – Drums | Mike Boyne – Bass | John Fernandes – Violin (track 9)
There you have it. 2015 was a scorcher filled with a ton of
great stuff. There’s another truckload of great music out there that I haven’t
even listed here. Stay tuned to Heavy Planet in 2016 for the best stoner/doom/sludge
rock on the planet.
The latest record from Salt Lake City’s Top Dead Celebrity
is a ferocious beast, spewing out screeched hardcore vocals over a landscape of
stoner/bluesy/punk songs, each one as effortlessly catchy as the last.
Opening with the bluesy riffs of ‘Ghost’, it’s not long
before the guys kick start their assault on the senses with their own brand of
rock, grabbing your head an shaking it until breaking point as the track
continues to grow through levels of stoner, punk, with hints of a pop
sensibility to boot. Top Dead Celebrity are a band to keep you guessing as to
their next move, and they generally tend to creap up on you from behind with a
blunt knife. A track such as ‘Runaway’ perfectly sums this aesthetic up by blending
an aggressive six-minute song through practically every genre of music you’d
care to endeavour without losing its identity as a rock song.
The rest of the record follows through similar channels
of snarled aggression and catchy hooks, before the band throw a curveball with
the spookily whispered ‘Pull The Knife’ carrying a Mark Lanegan Band style of
musicianship, which proves a needed rest bite before the fuzzed guitar riffs of
‘The Closing’ throw the bricks back in your face, and the assault continues.
It’s going to be hard pushed to find a record with as
many memorable hooks and choruses as this all year, and putting that alongside
its brutality, the album is a benchmark to beat. With High Horse, these Utahans
have ultimately created a great rock and roll record.
You know when a sound hits you, and it entwines itself
around your very essence, matching its shape and flow with the contours of your
body, a bluesy smoke-filled, whiskey flowing, primal sound which pauses your
day for its duration? Geezer have created such a sound on their latest EP Gage,
and it has the power to leave us transfixed, trembling in front of the speaker.
As the opening psychedelic blues riffs of ‘Ancient Song’
gently sway into your consciousness, you’re already drifting away on a smoke
cloud of heavy blues jams, at peace, until frontman Pat Harrington’s vocals
tear through you like a rusty cut-throat knife, wielding a sound of ancient
wisdom and damning context. The musicianship of all the band is an impressive
collective, soaked deeply in a Memphis vibe that can’t be faked.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that Gage was simply a
gentle blues record as ‘Thorny’ delicately tickles your ears, but Geezer are a
heavy blues band, and they bring the HEAVY when the phenomenal ‘Ghost Rider
Solar Plexus’ kicks in with destructive fuzzy guitar riffs to melt the coldest
of faces, blasting you through six-and-a-half minutes of sonic blues brutality.
The epitomised track on this EP, ‘Tales of Murder and
Unkindness’, is a lengthy example of the range of musicianship that Geezer has
to offer, steeped largely in a 1960/70’s hard psychedelic rock phase, with
underlying blues riffs, and added stoner jams. Gage is a record which is heavy, not necessarily heavy in the sense of loud angry noises, but in its
truest sense; deep layers of passion, soul, and grooves to make your soul
shiver.
With softly sung vocals masking over the top of driving
stoner rock, it’s no real wonder that these Austrians are compared to QOTSA at
almost every opportunity, and with the sound and promise that the later band
had originally sparked, it’s as much of a compliment that Witchrider deserve.
Having signed with Fuzzorama earlier in 2014, their debut
full-length Unmountable Stairs is greeted with much anticipation, of which
the band carries with ease from the start. The band play a brand of fuzzy
alt-rock that fits in with the hardcore troupe, as well as the poppier
sensibilities of the genre. ‘OCD’ kicks things off with driving lo-fi riffs
that yell out teenage angst, showing that these newcomers have something to say
amongst their contemporaries. No matter how “pop” the sound becomes, theres
always an underlying stoner riff and guitar lick waiting to burst out and
remind you of just what the band truly have to offer (just listen to the climax
of ‘Black’ for evidence).
Witchrider show that with fuzz music, you don’t
necessarily have to be the loudest, or the most cut-throat, to excel: ‘SB’ is a
soft grungy song that carries pounding drums throughout without needing to yell
at you to grab your attention, while the title track is a space rock track
Monster Magnet would stick on repeat. The Austrians can glide easily through
many different genres with ease, making the record an exciting listen as there
are no safety zones to fall into.
What Witchrider carry with them, forgetting all of their
tags of alt-rock or mentions of pop and QOTSA, is potential. With their knack
for being great songwriters, their preference for things on the stoner/fuzz
side of the scale means that the band have the ability to take themselves onto truly
great things. It all started with Unmountable Stairs.
