Band Submission: Black Overdrive-Stoner Metal From Mexico City, Mexico

Band Name: Black Overdrive
Genre: Stoner Metal
Location: Mexico City
Brief Bio/Description: The band members of Black Overdrive were playing in different bands from Mexico's Stoner and Metal scene. Those bands for one or other reason, decided to stop playing. So, restless men, the four Black Overdrive musicians intended to form a cover band to play at friends parties and the like, just for fun. On the very first rehearsal session, the ended up writing a whole original song, given that they could play that better than any cover song we attempted to. And so Black Overdrive became a full time band, and their former bands were folded.

Four years on now, they have released a demo EP (S/T, 2012), recorded at a studio rehearsal and a full length album, Discord (Oz Music, 2015) was launched (first digitally, months later on CD). Up until now they have played some of Mexico's major festivals, sharing bill and as support of major acts such as Motorhead, Anthrax, Spiritual Beggars, Corrosion of Conformity, Black Tusk as well as many other very talented mexican bands.

Black Overdrive tries to keep the door open musically speaking, but keep it heavy. You can hear Doom, Stoner, Hardcore and Thrash running up and down the tracks. It's a declaration of war against weak music, which is widely spreaded all over Mexico. With Black Overdrive, it's gotta be Loud & Proud!
Band Members:
Rene Villanueva - Guitar
Angel Castillo - Bass
JC Pintor - Drums
Ivan Nieblas - Guitar/Vocals
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LP Review: Local Solo by Cardiel

There’s something about two-piece bands that just ooze energy, perhaps it’s the 200% effort they give to make up for the missing members, maybe it’s just the raw passion of owning the spotlight, that every moment is given greater authority. Whatever that spirit is, duos are appearing in increasing numbers, making it less of a niche thing, however, none of them hurl as many screams, thrash as many riffs, thump as much destruction, or serge as much adrenaline as Cardiel. These guys are gonna do their best to fuck you up!

Based in Valencia, Mexico City, the punk-dub-stoner-metal-psychedelic pairing of Samantha Ambrosio (drums, vocals) and Miguel Fraino (guitar, vocals) is as ferocious as much as it is euphoric. Based around an underlying love of skateboarding, the duo have crafted a record which throws you around the room by the neck from a thousand miles an-hour with their breakneck speed thrashing, to grinding to a dub-step-reggae halt with droned out grooves. Local Solo is as unsettling as it is exhilarating.

Whether you’re racing down the highway on a board or not, the sheer youthful aggressive riffs that Cardiel thrash out are staggering in their depth, pace, and time scale. If you knew where tracks such as ‘Tabla’ or ‘STYG’ were heading then you’d be a liar as their sheer power keeps you gripped and desperate to hear every last frenetic riff and venomous spat vocal. When you think you’ve got an idea of what the band  are about, they throw you into three minutes of dub reggae at the end of  ‘Preveral en el Coping’, or slap you across the face with gut-busting atomic riffs on ‘Sheriff Hernandez’.

What must not be lost amongst all of the riffs and thunderous drumming is the musical prowess of these two. Such dramatic turns of pace, changes of not just time signatures, but crossings of genres, feeding off of each others’ baited breath, to craft songs of coherence alone would be impressive, never mind the sheer beauty of their youthful destruction.

Cardiel cannot be held down and pigeonholed into fitting into genres or categories, they are a bomb in mid explosion, filling every space with their raw and brutal energy, and often devastating musical ability. For an album to give your day a severe kick to the head, Local Solo is a must.

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Sunday Sludge: Weedsnake - "Live Session"

I paid full attention through three years of Spanish and still retain only the most ridiculous framework of a language native to nearly a third of the population my day job introduces. Pocket translators take a tourist only so far, but they're sufficient in translating stoner metal lyrics. Plenty can get lost in translation, but lamenting broken relationships and singing pot's high praises is a universal language of hesh and haze.

You'd expect such a smoky perspective to limit the merits any one-take live recording, but Mexico City's Weedsnake bang out an eighteen-minute smog session that may be one track or six, depending on how unzipped you are. Careening between swampy stutter-stomps and breakneck dust-ups, its clear this stoner-sludge quartet either found their moment of clarity or smoked themselves sober; you may have trouble believing this was a one-off toss of buds and buzz.

Exploring the sounds as one long track puts Weedsnake's sound in a more progressive and dichotomous key. They seem to have more time to develop their slow sludge lumber than they were offered on previous releases, 2011's self-titled debut and 2012's split with Morelia's Akûma. Rhythms shift frequently, hitting all gears seamlessly between torrid tip-overs and filthy dirge.What's consistent is the band's commitment to exploring depths, heights, and every crack in the structure.

The slow-rolling opening echoes of EYEHATEGOD are met with stoner ease and quickly interrupted by white-knuckled frontseat finger-fucks, all held tightly wound by exceptional use of tempo. When chug and churn collect enough cymbal dust, high gears blister and Erick's bark grows more urgent. Listeners will have little time to make out what he's saying, let alone what it really means. You won't be allowed to nod off and tune out. Not yet, probably not ever. The pace always lifts and this live offering is alarmingly caffeinated for stoner-sludge weed metal.

Etziel's guitar is given free reign to wander and warp, crafting a balance with the dirt-caked chops. The backwoods drag between splintered trees is littered with fuzzy snaggers, numbing and distracting from the tense, frenetic moments of thrashing sludge. When you hear Weedsnake pulling themselves from the chaotic romp, you'll find yourself sinking under a slow storm of spraying shit.

The shifts in pace make for a good time here. Live music lends itself to a bit more groove, and these muddy moments swing like pierced udders with an almost doom-y malevolence. The despondent meters are buried by trippy buzzsaw distortion, and the psychedelic space-metal whispers flicker enough to make us squint even tighter. Weedsnake don't offer much explanation, but who the fuck wants it? Why ruin a good time with analysis and interpretation? From floor to ceiling, from sticky swamp to dry desert wind... it's all here in one toke. Er, take.

For fans of: Godhunter, Crowbar, Belzebong
Pair with: Chillwave Double IPA, Great Lakes Brewing Co.

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