WM's Top Ten for 2016

It’s that time of year people, there is snow on the ground, the fireplace is flickering its satanic majesties in the background and I just curled up in my red and green Snuggie^TM with a Jameson neat to give you the gift that keeps on giving.  Yes, it’s time for my Top Ten List of new albums for 2016.  

2016 was a tough year, my spiritual guide Lemmy died three days before it started.  Then Bowie died and everyone else it seems.  But the music of 2016 was amazing.  We saw some new bands and some familiar ones put out an astounding number of great albums.  To put all of those together into a list of ten based on my personal preferences is tough to do because there was so much that I enjoyed this year.  But for you good people, I will do my best.  

10. First up is Mississippi Bones and their fourth release 2600 A.D.: And Other Astonishing Tales.  

Heavy, crusty blues rock from this 6 piece band from Ada, Ohio that is so prolific they don't have time to take themselves too seriously.  2600 A.D. is catchy, very well done and one I found myself going back to frequently this year.  



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9. Next we have from Bordeaux, France Mars Red Sky and their third release Apex III: Praise For The Burning Soul.  The album is a wonderfully crafted, complex journey of sound.  The ability to take a song from the first few notes of massive and crushing fuzz to a delicate meandering piano accompanied only by vocals, as they do in the title track Apex III, shows their mastery of dynamics and arrangement.  

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8. In the eight spot is Nine Years from Montreal, Quebec's Mountain Dust.  Pure, gritty, beautiful heavy blues rock and roll in all it's glory.  Nine Years is one you instantly fall for and fall hard.  It is a turbulent love affair and the emotion is always center stage, but brought forth in tones that shift from boozy bravado to placid introspection.  A tremendous album and now one of my favorite bands.      
   


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7. Orion by King Buffalo takes my seventh spot.  This album is a gorgeous and dizzying journey of heavy riffs and driving percussion delivered with vocal elegance from this Rochester, New York trio.  This is not one of those albums you skip from song to song trying to get to your favorites, it is an experience that can only be undertaken properly from beginning to end.  

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6. Whores. Gold. A raucous front kick in the face that is almost as good as seeing them do what they do in front of a crowd.  This album hits hard again and again and then it hits you once more for good measure after the cops have locked them in handcuffs.  This three piece out of Atlanta, Georgia have made an album that has taken aggression to its most beautiful state, completely raw and unforgiving with the sarcastic brilliance of the lyrics being the only thing as malleable as the title of the album.

     

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5. In my fifth spot I have the return of one of my favorite bands.  Greek stoner legends 1000mods brought us their third full length release Repeated Exposure To... and it is everything I could have wanted. 

 
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4. Coming in at the number four spot is the London four piece Elephant Tree and their self-titled first full length album.  This album is beautiful, cohesive and impressive.  Combining elements of blues, stoner rock, doom and psychedelia this is where music is headed.  The sixth track Echoes is my song of the year and a great illustration of their abilities to bring all these elements together and move music forward.  

 
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3. In the third spot is Swan Valley Heights from Munich, Germany and their self-titled debut.  You know you are listening to something special when after each spin you find something more to enjoy, your favorite song changes again and again until it covers every single one on the album.  This album is a masterpiece. 

 
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2. The second spot goes to Borlänge, Sweden's one and only Greenleaf and their Rise Above The Meadow.  With each listen I am more impressed with the talent, songwriting ability and obvious love of their craft that these four gentlemen possess.  Individually they are all amazing in their own right, together as they show through this release they are somehow even more.   

 

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1.  My album of the year goes to Boston's own Gozu and their fourth release Revival.  What struck me from my first listen of Revival is how resolute these four gentlemen are in their single purpose of  bringing something different and truly their own to the table.  To do so with the precision, style and fearlessness they display on this album is a triumph we all get to share. 
 
 

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Album Review: 1000mods - Repeated Exposure To...

1000mods are Greek gods and I love them.  They bring the heavy so very well, so perfectly that from the first day I heard them I was a fan.  Well now they went and did it, they made the album I knew they could and should.  1000mods released “Repeated Exposure To…”, their third full length album in September and it is one of my favorite albums of the year and of my entire life.  

The album opens with Above179, five minutes and 41 seconds of pay fucking attention.  “We are the gods, the kings of nowhere / we are the dogs that live in despair” Dani screams at you with his bass hung at his knees and the rest of the band obliges.  Showing you with every note that these bad asses from Greece are not to be taken lightly.  

The highlight of the album, for me, is the suddenly very personal “The Son”.  It is one of my favorite tracks of the year and as soon as I heard it I fell in love with it.  The perfect blend of beauty and rage.   My father died yesterday and this is the only song I wanted to hear, it is perfect.  For that reason you get every word of it and 1000mods, my brothers, you get a thank you for creating something that means a great deal to me personally.   

People are telling me how
Blank is the world
Freedom is giving me now
The soul that I sold
I am a son of a gun
I'm shooting my life
You're gonna see the one
The one you don't like

Heaven rejects me
And throws me back
I am forgotten
I live in the dark
I'm smoking woods
And I'm sniffing the clouds
I am the name
That nobody shouts
The skin of my mother
Is under my veins
I feel so empty
I got no remains
The voice of my father
Is so long and gone
I am the son of a loaded gun

Happiness is full of lies
I'm killing my dreams
I'm speaking and everything dies
I wake up in screams
Emptiness sparks in the light
Watching you fade
Please don't give up the fight

Follow your fate

Heaven rejects me
And throws me back
I am forgotten
I live in the dark
I'm smoking woods
And I'm sniffing the clouds
I am the name
That nobody shouts
The skin of my mother
Is under my veins
I feel so empty
I got no remains
The voice of my father
Is so long and gone
I am the son
I am a gun

This is one of the best albums of the year, no matter what style of music you favor.  Dani, Giannis, George and Labros have created something that demands and deserves your attention.  I do not know them, but I thank them for what they made and cannot recommend more that each and every one of you get this album and get to experience it for what it is, a glorious, heavy masterpiece.  

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WM 

Review: 1000mods - "Valley of Sand"

1000mods are a quartet from Chiliomodi, Greece, schooled in the arts of black stoner metal, black imagery, and Black Sabbath. Their new four song EP entitled “Valley of Sand” is essentially a seventeen minute single with three live tracks. The single (“Valley of Sand”) is droney, sludgy, and dark repetitive mood music that slowly builds in dynamics, and I mean SLOW like a Mogwai record on quaaludes. It begins with whispery vocals, hovering around a swing drum feel very Bill Ward, so constantly flowing, it almost doesn’t feel like a rock band once you fall into it, but an ambient platform. The guitars trickle in with blues licks minute by minute while the rhythm section holds down the groove. 

The three live tracks are more upbeat. First, “7 Flies” is a hard rocker with garage rock production akin to those old MC-5 recordings. So many bands are striving for the sound of what The Stooges would have offered if they had made another album directly after Raw Power in the 70’s. 1000mods nail it. Unaffected by modern digitalia, the core ingredient of their music is raw collision jamming. I would assume this is chaotic music to witness live in a small club and monstrous in a arena sized venue. Few bands can pull this off, that vintage swamp-blues aura. “Navy in Alice” continues in this vain, swinging drums, crashing cymbals attacking the beat like it’s forceful in spite of itself. The mid-section is muted pulsing atop screaming vocals that sound like they’re reverberating through a gargantuan tunnel. About 3/4 into the song, a symphony of feedback explodes into a ripping guitar solo, like Tony Iommi through multiple Big Muffs. “Track Me” concludes this EP with a sense that this kind of music can only be produced live. It’s too pure to be tracked and overdubbed in a fancy modern studio. Dueling guitar leads make way for a staggering vocal presence reminiscent of Iggy Pop’s younger days, before he was a mere guttural howl. 

1000mods are not a brand new band, but their sound is fresh and something that’s not going to get stale. The more you listen, the more tripnotic they become. They paint a visionary picture of sorcery and black magic through their music, much like their influences, but they have their own thing when classification is in order. Anyone that wants raw-as-fuck stoner rock with their morning coffee will ‘get this’.

The members of 1000mods are:

Dani / Bass & Vox

Giannis / Guitars

 George / Guitars

Lab / Drums

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New Band To Burn One To - 1000mods

As also seen on The Soda Shop

Do you like down tuned psychedelic desert stoner rock? If you do then chances are you'll like our next New Band To Burn One To.The band is from Greece and they're called 1000mods.

1000mods is a psychedelic stoner rock band from Hiliomodi, Greece.
They formed in 2005 and after a few changes the final lineup was made up in summer 2006. From that time and later on they have played numerous live shows and sometimes they accompanied bands like Nightstalker (greek stoner rock legends), Brant Bjork and My Sleeping Karma. They tend to impress everyone that attends their shows with their commitment to vintage equipment, their thick and heavy analog sound and their remarkably passionate performing on stage.
In the beginning of 2007 they released their first self-financed EP named "Blank Reality" on CD, and now - December 2009 - they strike back with a brand new 7” EP titled “Liquid Sleep”. Available on colored (light green) vinyl.

You don't really need to burn one to enjoy these guys. Hell, their music will do it for you. The down tuned psychedelic desert stoner rock is about some of the best you'll find without listening to Kyuss. You can purchase their 7" EP from many fine mail order website worldwide including All That Is Heavy. I couldn't find their demo anywhere to purchase. Perhaps the band can upload it to a Bandcamp site for download (hint hint)? The demos are available for free listen on their Myspace page. Check them out.

 

1000mods Myspace