Album Review Geezer - "Psychoriffadelia"

From that little ol' band from New York comes yet another exceptional release of guitar-racked brilliance in the form of "Psychoriffadelia", Geezer's latest foray into heavy hitting blues rock, this time with cosmic encounters of bright, burning riffs and mind melting incursions of euphoric frenzy. Adding psychedelics to their résumé, Geezer have become a top staple of the stoner/blues rock genre, eliciting ragged anticipation from the junkies of great guitar anthems.

The album opens with the cover of Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog", a staple of 70s rock standards. Geezer make it theirs without trying to emulate the sound of the originators and do a superb job of injecting their own signature sound of massive riffs and searing solos overlaid with ragged vocal brilliance. "Stressknots" is a standard blues rock jam, the kind that Geezer are known for - fun and infectious. The title track sits in the middle of the tracklist and is their first foray into colorful runs and trippy rolls, cruising through a full ten minutes of mind-melting musical munchies. The odyssey continues on "Red Hook", a long slow burn of intoxication and escape. The closer is the incredible, massive "Dirty Penny", a thirteen minute excursion into bright explosions and cosmic detonations. It, too, burns slowly, but powerfully, as it wraps you in warmth and euphoria on its musical journey of magic and satisfaction.

Geezer are:
Pat Harrington - guitar/vocals
Richie Touseull - bass
Charles Ruggerio - drums

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King Buffalo: Live Review-Orion

I recently had the chance to catch up with our brothers from Rochester, New York, King Buffalo at Pittsburgh's own Club Cafe. Freeing myself from the mundane activities of a Tuesday evening for the enigmatic efforts of the New York natives I was treated to live cuts off of their freshman LP entitled Orion. A name fitting the spacey and psychedelic aura that has enshrined the trio since the falling of their 2013 Demo EP. If you have yet to spin said demo, do yourself a favor, scroll back a few words and click the link. Tunes like Pocket Full of Knife and Providence Eye don't just fall into your lap every day. The dreamy licks and spiraling rhythmic swirl of Providence Eye where near masterpiece material. Any fan of heavy psychedelia won't need too many spins to find that Orion is up to the task of satisfying those moist ears.

Orion delivers a psychedelic-punch that few modern day rock bands can deliver. Throughout the evening the Pittsburgh fans enjoyed Sean's guitar devotion and distortion pedal mastery which evoked a by-gone era of guitar virtuosos. Sure, there are tons of excellent guitar players out there, many that can incorporate the very same things with the right amount of distortion, but Sean and King Buffalo just let it come from the heart... and that my friends it what sets them apart. Scott and Dan's work pulse through the bodies very fibers, raising the hair on the sonically intoxicated listeners. Soaring higher, Orion's sub-structure of songs melds and fuses with one another building into an euphoric frenzy that complete the record. Subsequent listens only allow the listener to realize the immense growth King Buffalo have achieved throughout these recent years. Not only is it apparent throughout Orion, but even more so during a live set.

Orion is due out August 5th and can be purchased here. Pick up a copy and immerse your auditory cortex in King Buffalo's space-blues caravan or catch them on tour!

Members:
Scott Donaldson - Drums // Vocals
Sean McVay "Uranium Jesus" - Guitar // Synth // Lead Vocals
Dan Reynolds - Bass // Synth



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Band Submission: Shadow Witch-Heavy Psych / Stoner Metal From Kingston, New York

Band Name: Shadow Witch
Genre: Heavy Psych / Stoner Metal
Location: Kingston, New York 12401
Brief Bio/Description: "If Clutch, Red Fang, Mastodon, Sabbath and Another Animal had a baby, this is it...hell of an orgy "
Band Members:
Anton Van Kleek - Drums
‎David Pannullo - Bass & Voice
E.Walker Lundy - Lead Vocals, Mellotron, Loops
Jeremy H. Hall - Guitars
Links: Facebook | Bandcamp

Band Submission: Sun Voyager-Heavy Psych From Brooklyn, New York

Band Name: Sun Voyager
Genre: Heavy Psych
Location: Brooklyn
Brief Bio/Description: Described by the Obelisk as “Laid back atmosphere of heavy psychedelia and rolling low end groove,” Sun Voyager is a heavy psych rock group consisting of members Carlos Francisco, Stefan Mersch, Kyle Beach, and Steve Friedman. They released a pair of 3-song demos in 2013 (Cosmic Tides and Mecca), both of which received acclaim from a number of heavy music publications such as The Obelisk, Heavy Planet (you guys!), and The Soda Shop, before signing on with King Pizza Records in 2014.

Sun Voyager recorded eight tracks at Ghostload Sound in 2014 which ultimately became Grease Voyage (split with Brooklyn’s Greasy Hearts) and 2015’s Lazy Daze EP which features some heavier tracks such as “God Is Dead” and “Gypsy Hill,” along with mellower psych grooves like “Be Here Now.” Mersch and Kyle relocated to Brooklyn somewhere along the way and lead guitarist Steven Friedman moved to Alabama, but the trio of continues to write, record, and play tons of shows all over the Northeastern United States.

The voyage has just begun. A debut LP is on the way in 2016 along with a split 7” with labelmates The Mad Doctors.
Band Members:
Carlos Francisco - Vocals/Guitar
Stefan Mersch - Bass
Kyle Beach - Drums
Steve Friedman - Lead Guitar
Links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Twitter | Website

Band Submission: Slush-Stoner, Garage, Doom, Proto-Metal From Brooklyn, New York

Band Name: Slush
Genre: Stoner, Garage, Doom, Proto-Metal
Location: Brooklyn
Brief Bio/Description: We're a Brooklyn, NY based band that just released our first full length, "American Demons" on cassette. It has stoned grooves, fuzzed out solos and face melting riffs aplenty.

Following their EP 6XTY and split with Doubting Thomas Cruise Control, Brooklyn band Slush are set to announce their next release, American Demons. The group's expanded sound ranges from raw cowpunk stomp to slow '70s death-cult groove - half heavy metal, half aluminum siding.

The album shares of a series of tall tales centering around the bloody origins and dismal present of the United States, each focusing on a different character or creature. First single "Suzerain" imagines Judge Holden of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian in the backwaters of modern-day Missouri, ruling over a coterie of lapsed priests, methheads, trailerpark prostitutes and gutterpunk slime. "Bathysphere," the second single, depicts the fall of Atlantis at the hands of a vengeful amphibious automaton.

The album is available digitally and on silver cassette with a custom 16-panel booklet replete with lyrics, stories and a full-panel image corresponding to each song.

Links: Tumbler/Bandcamp

LP Review: Death is the Mother of Beauty by DoOom

Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes! Almost a year since Barrytown, New York, instrumental doomsters DoOom released their Pure EP with much aplomb, the heavy grave dwellers are back with their full-length Death is the Mother of Beauty, and it’s a record that meets every expectation you will have from an instrumental fuzzy doom stoner drone band (yes, that good).

The album opens with deathly fuzzy feedback style demonic riffs, like all good doom bands do, with the concrete-style heavy ‘Greate Ape’ with even heavier undercurrents of stoner riffs seismically destroying the idea that the song was going down a deep droned-out path, but instead becomes a heavy song to almost thrash to. The beauty of DoOom is that they don’t necessarily fit to the “rules” of the doom genre, instead giving it a necessary kick up its gloomy arse when it’s needed.

Like many bands in the instrumental genre, the tight line between excellent and boring is tread without much other choice, but what stands the good out from the not so, is the band’s song structures, the layers they add to each track, either standing each out as a standalone song, or as a piece of a collective journey within the album. The poorer instrumentalists stand out a mile away, DoOom however fall into the first category, and make you question why there is a need for vocals in the first place. A track such as ‘Nothing Above, Nothing Below’ perfectly epitomises the band’s abilities, a deep fuzz riff smothers the top of the doom-onic underbelly that drives the band, at first screaming at you, before gently settling back to tell its story, before building once again to an apocalyptic conclusion of a psychedelic guitar soloing amongst a tsunami of riffs.

DoOom manage to make each track not only sound like the end of the world, but they make the occasion into a really good thing. Death is the Mother of Beauty is a fantastic record which fits into every genre you love about heavy music, it will satisfy lovers of the riff, fans of doom, and provide a gateway to introduce new people to what the genre has to offer, it’s really that good!

Bandcamp|Website

EP Review: 'Antique' by Lighteater

Lighteater are a post-rock ensemble out of Brooklyn, NY who dabble in the dichotomy of delicate intricacy and devastating brutality.  Antique, their debut EP, is a four song affair that weaves the graceful tapestries and crushing riffs created by guitarists Dominic Bartolini and Nate Derr with the steadfast precision of bassist Chris Kunitz and drummer Ryan Luby.  Give a listen to tracks like "10oz" or "Quiver" as the band transitions from meditative hypnosis to jarring cacophony instantaneously.  Vocals aren't even a consideration as Lighteater are content to let the music do their talking.  Listening to Antique is the aural equivalent of floating along in a calming sea, only to be pummeled by an unexpected tidal wave.  Realizing that may not be something you'd readily sign up to experience, in this case I'd suggest you wear your swim shorts and strap on a life vest, because this combination of grace and ferocity is a worthy endeavor.

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Sunday Psychedelia: Axis/Orbit

There's an old Deadhead at work constantly interrupting phone calls and conversations, never with anything more than a lament on his shitty Chicago Bears or an amazing story about his daughter finally wiping her own ass. There's always a sound softly escaping my speakers, generally something he can't stand. He'll go on for days about Warren Haynes and Ratdog, but he'll scoff at the heavy shit. "Ya can't even understand what they're sayin'!" I don't even bother explaining my take on that. I also don't give a fuck about anything Bob Weir is doing right now.

Friday's interruption came in abbreviated form. Before he could talk about this "good-sized muskie" he caught, he paused and asked "Whaddaya got goin' there? Some jammy stuff, huh?" That jammy stuff that prompted his approval was Long Island's Axis/Orbit, a psychedelic three-piece serving three cloudy tracks of heady stoner rock, throwing themselves back to decades lost on their debut EP. Cool fuzz and patient grooves clash, meld, and craft a quick promise of laid-back escape. An escape I needed.

It's been ages since I strayed entirely from shit-slung sludge on a Sunday morning, but Axis/Orbit struck me with their balance of smooth and fuzzy. Hazy opens gentle and deliberate, echoing beneath guitar reps and establishing a groove that's both fastened and focused. That fuzz is held at bay until a clean vocal haunts, hanging a tapestry that itches for an interruption of spiked buzz. The blur is excellent, and the subsequent chin-dribbling guitar goodness is nothing shy of delicious.

The Owl is quicker and more inquisitive. Again, A/O are gently pensive, but the underlying doubt saturates to the point of being rueful. The fuzzy midpoint is perfectly-timed and wholly engulfing, brief but poignant. Those sticky guitars stick to your teeth until the bass-driven submission splits the song in two. But closing with blazing, mossy layers of fuzz? Fucking artful.

Introducing the EP's final track on a tandem of immediate bombast and wet cobblestone tiptoes only scratches the skin of one awesome closer. Slow mist approaches as an evening ease settles. Cosmic guitars fork in any multitude of directions and lead listeners into a bass-driven stretch of panning rhythms, breaking into expeditious jams that (somehow) never lose footing. Escalations repeat until breaths can't be bought, but we're thankfully offered a cool, merciful release. It's the EP's best track, which speaks volumes.

Three quick spits are hardly an appetizer, but I'm sticking around. The band's pedigree is stout and whether these jams chew up five minutes or twenty-seven, Axis/Orbit know that to captivate, they need balance, groove, and ingenuity. Well, they have those things, and that hardly provides a summation. Fuzz doesn't hurt. But promising a full-length in 2015, an EP is a perfect tease. I'm listening. And so is that asshole at work. Thanks, guys. Now he's never gonna leave.

For fans of: '60s, '70s, revivalism.
Pair with: Mojo India Pale Ale, Boulder Beer

Bandcamp | Reverbnation | Facebook

New Band To Burn One To: VIRUSES

HEAVY PLANET PRESENTS...VIRUSES!

BAND BIO:

Viruses is M. Vitali (guitars, electronics), Jeffrey Smith (bass, electronics), and Rocco DiDonna (vocals, electronics). Popdust was recorded in Chicago and New York and was released through Magnetic Eye Records (MER018).

THOUGHTS:

"Who says you need riffs and distortion to burn one, eh? I couldn't possibly be succinct in pushing the debut release from VIRUSES, an ambient-electronic three-piece stringing together nine spacey barbs on Popdust. Ethereal, entrancing, and at times deceptively dark, this is one strange, gorgeous detour splintered by arresting digital distractions.

Opening on the tense and lush Glow (Forever Fangs), we're introduced to alternating layers celebrating the organic and the synthetic while child-like distraction grows with every delightfully sporadic blip on the equally taut Earth Family Immortal. The vocal haunt evident on Lago d'Orta (Those Who Feel) channels Isaac Brock, churning and spitting with gorgeous devastation over an atmospheric drone.

Industrialized stomp and primal caution somehow marry here. There are those detectable improvisations, fueled less by mind and more by heart. But just how free is this band? Subjecting themselves to no fine-tuning and relying solely on impulse seems to work pretty well, even when smoothed-out loungescapes (Landmines) evolve into peppered blasts of pixelated shrapnel (Revanans). At the end of the day, we're walking past her house. Reflecting, regretting, and yearning.

The juxtapositions should be impossibly difficult to execute, but somehow they're not. The über-modern and the traditional, the patient and the impulsive, the dark and the hope-laden. Maybe they're not tip-toeing with streetside icy sadness; maybe they're cautiously crossing a frozen pond. Their destinations and motivations matter to them, sure. What matters to us is how captivating such questions can be."

Facebook | Buy Digital | Magnetic Eye Records | MER Soundcloud | YouTube

New Band To Burn One To: IT'S NOT NIGHT, IT'S SPACE

Heavy Planet presents... IT'S NOT NIGHT, IT'S SPACE.

Today's "New Band To Burn One To" comes to us from New Paltz, New York.

Band Bio:

"It's Not Night: It's Space describe their music as "heavy raga-roll drone journeys to the depths of inner & outer space." The band formed in at the very beginning of 2010 when guitarist Kevin Halcott and drummer Michael Lutomski started playing together. The duo took a free form version of their wordless psychedelic narratives out to Open Mics in their hometown of New Paltz, NY and began writing material for what would become their first EP. By the summer of that year, they welcomed a fuller lineup which went through some changes before it settled in its current form: a three piece anchored by bass player Tommy Guerrero. The trio self-released their EP East of the Sun & West of the Moon in October of 2011. One of the hardest working local bands, they continue to list a virtually endless stream of show dates, and have made known some of their big plans for 2012: a couple of shows with Tee Pee recording artists Weird Owl and the release of their first LP."



Thoughts:

"Jamming their fucking faces off for the pure love of music is what this band is all about. You can sense the raw passion and unbridled energy they breathe into everything that they do. Without lyrics, It's Not Night, It's Space is able to get their point across by a substantially heavy use of drifting psychedelic interludes and crushing guitar chords. As they say, the music speaks for itself. Check this killer band out today and if you like what you hear, support them on their recent Kickstarter campaign. Check out the video below for more info."

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New Band To Burn One To: AUNT HILDEGARD

Heavy Planet presents today's "New Band To Burn One To"...AUNT HILDEGARD!

Bio:

Aunt Hildegard, the two piece Power Duo mixing Stoner, Punk, Rock and Doom featuring "Johnny Stupid" on Guitars/Lead Vocals and "Crock LaRock" on Drums/Backing Vocals is proud to announce it will releasing their new album entitled "Sweet Secret Love".

This new 11 song full length was recorded at Method Of Groove Studio in Brooklyn, NY with all tracks Recorded, Produced and Mixed by the legendary "Joey Z." from Life Of Agony/Stereomud.

The album has just been Mastered by "Eli Brown" at Sterling Sound in New York City and is due to drop spring 2012.




Thoughts:

"I think that the term "power duo" is becoming more commonplace in music these days. Remember when the "power trio" Cream were all of the rage because of the full sound they could get from only three musicians, albeit three tremendous musicians? Anyways, a band such as Aunt Hildegard from New York City sets forth on destroying the scene with their minimalistic yet determined approach as a "powerful" duo. The band combines elements of punk and doom into their very 70's influenced garage rock sound. The sincere raspy warble of the vocals fits in nicely with the pulsating crunch of the guitars to create an amazing wall of sound. The band is in post-production of their debut release set to drop sometime soon. Stay tuned!"

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New Band To Burn One To (Evening Buzz): WHISKEY AND THE DEVIL

WHISKEY AND THE DEVIL is today's "NEW BAND TO BURN ONE TO" Evening Buzz...

Bio:

We're a three piece band from Troy, NY called Whiskey and the Devil. We write pissed off music that most people describe as "progressive metal" or "stoner metal". We formed as a four piece band back in 2009, but our original guitar player moved to Oregon. We just released our second demo which is six tracks.

"Whiskey and the Devil is a three piece band from Troy, NY. They revel in highly emotional music that combines dynamic progressive rhythms, angry vocals and a mind-bending uneasiness. Add a wallop to the gut of heaviness and you have the perfect elixer to wash away your mundane worries. Check them out now!

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New Band To Burn One To-Scattered Earth

The "New Band To Burn One To" today is Scattered Earth.

Beginning in late 2007, the seed for Scattered Earth was planted as a conversation between friends on the way home from a concert. Slowly, unsteadily, but surely, the pieces came together to form the complete unit that they are today. Discontent with Long Island's cliché-ridden scene, the band takes pride in being the proverbial black sheep. With songs ranging from slow, plodding dirges to fast-paced sonic barrages, their sound is unpredictable, unconventional and most of all, unrelenting. Their first demo, "To Suffer..." was released in January 2010 and they are currently focused on playing shows and writing for a second demo and full-length in the imminent future.

Drawing influences from bands such as Down, High On Fire, and Alice in Chains, Scattered Earth from New York has one goal in mind and that is to break your eardrums. The band blasts its way through songs filled with bombastic devastation.



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