Sunday Split: Lé Betre / King Buffalo

The devil's in the details, they say. I'd argue the devil IS the details. What else could explain how Goddamn delicious things can turn out when mass production is given the middle finger and boutique labels craft a product this enticing? I don't know who sold their soul, but the attention STB records devotes to its DIY ethos is incredible. The label has already proven they're no underdog, taking mere minutes to sell out of nearly every album they've released. But how has it remained sustainable? Especially considering the dearth of vinyl pressing plants paired with increased demand (not to mention all that Record Store Day bullshit).

Last month, STB delivered a 12" tandem from Goya and Wounded Giant, executing telegraphed stoner/sludge/doom and flattening our senses. The gorgeous slab o' wax brought with it an announcement of what fans could expect next: A heavy blues split showcase between Sweden's Lé Betre and Rochester's King Buffalo. Any way you dissect it, this beast covers every hunky corner and finds two perfect marriages. First, the bands fit side-by-side like round pegs, demonstrating echoes bounced off one another while suffering no busted continuity from Side A to Side B. Second is the marvel of bracketed senses, locking the visual with the aural and sending listeners skyshot into another time and place.

Lé Betre's plucky, psych-y fuzz-fest is auspiciously introduced on the quick cruise of Gowns & Crowns. Spooky elements keep us grounded only so long before we're brought up from the thicket and flung to another continent in another era. Snake Eyes smacks us upright under massive riffs, lifting like smoke and plunging like slow-motion boulders razing the hillside. Marcus Jonsson's vocal goes classic without being derivative as a riff-resin accumulates, ultimately sending us toward a fuzz-bath closer.

By The Great White Lights slows with a somber strum before rupturing into a punchy, mossy exposal. Basslines motor this stoner-blues cruise before breaking under the simplicity of fireside lament. Jesper Eriksson sifts ash in search of bony answers, shifting moods and tempos. Stomps become shuffles, shuffles become focused trots. And the coiled, revved heaviness of Mother crushes under the weight of all of Side A. Riffs weave, cymbals emit dust, and the trodden whole is fucking brilliant. As the thickness parts, take a breath. Lé Betre end on one final, gravel-drenched promise.

Vinyl's warmth augments King Buffalo's brand of spray-painted fur, blasting a blues crunch on New Time. A distant vocal float chases the steady stoner bass-roll, while guitars flaunt a late, fixated solo. Whew, thickness abounds! Alternatively, Like A Cadillac maintains the riff-'n-roll atop a more upbeat, beer-spilt bar jam. Guitars rolls downhill and storm back, breaking strummy passages with dust storm spirals, shimmying with furry comfort and smiling at every oncoming bump in the road. This is just too fun.

On the eleven-minute Providence Eye, KB build repetitive blues progressions toward a spacey dust-roll, an extended jam of deliberate assertions. Structuring steadily, one brick after another, this closer escalates heavenward on the gradual foundations formed. Thunderous roll-outs swell and contract to craft a sound that's immersive and captivating. Guitars flex for their marquee just before pacing gives a second wind. These cats know what they're doing, hitting the brakes and plugging holes with chugging riffs. Lacing their trademarks through a steady dousing of sandy, spicy deliciousness, this trio's punching their ticket.

Experiencing these sounds on any format other than vinyl is certainly better than a kick in the neck with a golf shoe, but why reach for ground beef with prime rib on the grill? The precision and care put into the craft reach their pinnacle on this split, offering the warmest and truest delivery of an already incredible sound. Whatever's coursing through the veins of STB Records is adept at sniffing out chops, and everyone involved with this split gets today's nod.

Check out the links below at 12:00 Noon EST on February 21st. Trust us, they'll go fast.

STB Records | STB Bandcamp | STB Facebook | Lé Betre Bandcamp | Lé Betre Facebook | King Buffalo Bandcamp | King Buffalo Site | King Buffalo Facebook

Sunday Sludge: Twingiant - "Devil Down"

Late in 2013, my five year-old son fell in love with Hot For Teacher when it aired on local rock radio. Figuring this could serve as an appropriate funnel into a larger, clearer picture of rock music, I purchased The Best of Both Worlds, Van Halen's over-inflated jumble that moves from brilliant to painful in-between songs. My kids quickly dismissed 34 of the 36 tracks, and shifting to Sabbath and AC/DC has yet to yield positive results. I was once told that Alexander may be the best all-purpose male name, whether placed first, last, or as part of a middle name. But figuring Van Halen to be the best all-purpose (amusing, albeit vanilla) rock band proved I still have some work to do.

Two of Van Halen's covers on that compilation sprung from 1982's Diver Down, arguably the band's most difficult material to digest. But Perhaps Phoenix stoner-sludgers Twingiant are big fans, considering the visual parallels offered by Devil Down, the band's excellent 2nd full-length. The front and back covers mimic Diver Down's format, and both albums feature three instrumental tracks. Fortunately for Twingiant, that's where the parallels end. Devil Down's seven tracks wrap us in fuzzy riffs and effortlessly saunter between rock and metal on a path blurred with cosmic dust.

The album's three instrumental tracks soothe and envelop, looming with distant plucks and leaving behind a pleasant trail of melody. Old Hag is steady, cathartic, and provides a perfect introduction to Twingiant's stoner-buzz nebula. Fuzz oozes and coats our itching craws, expanding on guitar noodles toward a closing sludge push. The huge, punchy hum on Under a Blood Moon buries us, and we can only smile. Swarms of guitar brilliance characterize Through the Motions, balancing clean licks and bristling riffs. The backdrop of sky-shot track marks builds on the foundation of heaviness and we begin wishing we never find our way back.

Dead to Rights is a quick stoner-sludge romp highlighting the band's brand of focused freedom to do whatever they choose. Brash and self-assured, Jarrod's vocal enters to complement splitting guitars on a steadily progressive spiral toward the sun. As lights begin to dim, Daisy Cutter emerges on a low-burning thickness opened up by powerful, straightforward rock licks. It's harmonized and meticulously crafted, breaking into characteristic plucks staring into the past. When the clouds break, sludge flows freely and we again enjoy a tingle at the base of our skulls.

The closing title track is the disc's longest, and likely its most encompassing in terms of stoner and sludge metal tags. There's a bit more violence here, interrupting a brilliant calm and entering a buoyant, drawn-and-quartered swing against a tapestry of matted fur. The ominous gait ties-in to sludge vitriol, and we're carried home atop trademark chalky, sandy licks directed at the heavens. All we can do now is cruise and take in the twilight.

Devil Down provided me with a reality check, being that I crafted my list of 2014's favorites without having heard this album. Twingiant ease in and gradually throw back, introducing a sooty reality laced with surges, fades, and swoons. The detours are sticky and consoling, reflecting the band's commitment to finding harmony between evolution and allegiance. These seven tracks are distinctly Twingiant, but they're also fresh and dynamic. The sounds are never lost in the dust, never stuck in the mud, and never too high to die. And you may never want to stop listening.

Site | Facebook | Twitter

Sunday Sludge: Primitive Man - "Home Is Where The Hatred Is"

Much of the so-labeled doom we chew on is swollen with the promise of pain, an ominous descent into... well, something. Bands can reach the pit and the wolf at the door, as promised, busts through. Others present a threat and rely solely on those shadowy unknowns. I guess those sounds have their place. But sometimes, I just want a band to get to the fucking point.

By now we know Denver's Primitive Man to fall into neither camp. Since the trio's 2013 introduction of the brutal, excellent Scorn, they've set their own standard of blatant bludgeoning. Through various splits over the past two years, Primitive Man have all-at-once announced their presence, delivered their rust-fisted blows, and asserted their dominance by keeping a heel to our throats. Here, with the four tracks of Home Is Where The Hatred Is, they show no sign of relent.

The EP's half-hour of screeches and hovering spite begins with Loathe, tormenting behind sustained malevolence. Ethan McCarthy still gives zero fucks who may be in his way, and Spy's encircling drum work may as well be a hostile Korowai tribe for all the anxiety it catalyzes. This blackened sludge buries us so low that it's near-impossible to sense even a sliver of hope. The cavernous, all-encompassing infliction is parted by an icy wind that carries answers further out of our reach. And as doom timbers collapse in slow-motion, the jagged squalls only augment our misery.

Downfall finds a quick groove and laughs at restraints, later shifting blackened pitches but never escaping the mire. As McCarthy chokes out brutal truths, the supporting tapestry remains wholly caustic. Tone and mood are exceedingly bleak here, but isn't that consistent with PM's catalog? Over and over, we're dragged into a horrifying meld of loose dirt, hot tar, and spiking licks piercing the sludge glaze. It's a filthy, anguished roll in the hay. If hay were fucking razor wire.

In keeping with themes of doling calculated evil, the EP's closing tandem fails to let down. Double kicks head a charge on Bag Man, rolling into itself amid a cloud of soot. The steady escalation of ire is staggering, even for these guys. And when the tracks shift to introduce the closing A Marriage with Nothingness, we're simply ill-prepared. Pain and discord are reflected in a swirling, scraping, trippy mindfuck. As static gradually hazes, everything about this release grows more terrifying.

Buzzing throughout with equal parts callous disregard and deafening feedback, Home Is Where The Hatred Is marks another triumphant blow to our perceptions of the human condition. Ugly truths are never easy to swallow, and here there's no safe alternative. Primitive Man have snatched the torch and thrust it into our gleaming smiles. So what's it really sound like? I'd imagine slowly dying alone would look, feel, and sound something like this.

Pre-Order | Site | Facebook | Bandcamp | Relapse

Sunday Sludge: Bardus - "Solus"

Sandwiching several days' activities into one weekend bakes an atmosphere of little sleep, high tension, and snarls at those closest to you. Add a patch of ice under worn soles and you're surprised a trip to IKEA could get any fucking worse. Why does cabin fever lead to thoughts of redecorating, upgrading, enhancing, storing, displaying, constructing, and ultimately throwing tools? I woke up this morning scanning a backlog of submissions for some soothing, droning, cathartic, ambient post-metal pretentiousness that wouldn't be offended if I nodded off. Well, too bad. I stumbled on Bardus.

This Philadelphian trio formed in 2011 and released their first full-length in 2013. So I guess it's not new, I guess maybe you've already discovered them. And I can guess that if you haven't heard Solus, it's fair to consider you won't leave it behind after one spin. On the album's eight quick-spat tracks, I can't determine whether not a moment is wasted or if EVERY moment is wasted. Regardless, Bardus don't care if you've never been in a fight. This relentless push of sludgy noise wouldn't let me off the floor.

Tiny Teeth's hot-buttered drums and loose plunks blast fuzz through speakers and immediately rip at our skin. The sweaty, expanding thickness perfectly underlies murky stomps on this loud opener that announces the band doesn't really give a fuck. The grazing Death Letter follows with potent, violent churn, constantly shifting and leaving not a moment to catch up on breaths. As these tracks play out, the sound absolutely saturates, blanketing with shrapnel and subsequently glazing with jagged guitars. As Hex unfurls, we struggle to outrun the band's flick of a rusty knife headcharging for our heels.

The cosmic, shit-soaked cruise of Maladroid grows into phantom scratches, shoving us toward something bigger, higher, and far more sinister. No frills needed. Bloodbrain's fuzz beating interrupts the onset's moment of clarity, a far-off swarm of locusts in the closing distance. The track's warbled, indiscriminate violence is strewn all over, and you're yanked back to your burlap sack nightmare, puss.

Sludge is most evident on Dave Groan, an exposed and grimy buzz-flutter steadily cruising under exhausting, crushing drums. Guitars levitate, but the malevolent stare just won't shake. As the track chops and trails off, a deceptive haze develops and briefly lets us get lost. Eh, don't buy it. Jobber is dark and unsettled, lined with questionable purpose. A jittery, captivating rise ensues and blisters have time to form. And then, well... we're immediately flushed back into blue flames before High Tide's stoner repetition brakes toward a cool burn, bouncing with a frightening fucking smile. The fadeout, though, is perhaps more stupefying than the beating we've endured.

Call today's feature a stream-of-consciousness account of a sound I struggled to keep pace with. The impossible task of documenting everything I heard grew tiresome, leaving me no choice but to summarize with colorful, illustrative descriptors that do Solus no justice. You'll wanna scratch your head trying to describe the sound, but you'll also have trouble lifting your arm near album's end. Bardus knit hot chaos within quick tempos, only to thrust that crochet needle just under your sternum. Sludge? Noise? Ugh... Hardcore? Nah. This is just genre-defying impetuosity. And you're the fucking tomato can.

Facebook | Bandcamp

Sunday Sludge: Koza

Ah, gettin' back to our Sunday Sludge roots... This whole thing began in 2011 and repeatedly seemed to circle South, as if every detour just above Mason-Dixon resulted in a magnetic bitch slap from Georgia, Arkansas, or Louisiana. Labels are broad, misleading, and generally unfair to bands and listeners, but Southern metal has its own hue. The family tree is tight, unwavering, and generally impenetrable from an outsider's perspective. So here I go again, worming my way to the table for loose scraps.

Served hot and violent this morning is Chattanooga's Koza and their 8-track self-titled EP. Their hue is distinctly Southern, but their sludge sets itself apart in being more to the point, never exhausting the listener and always lacing a scornful thread between tracks. It's hard to enjoy sweet tea when you're stuck in a thorny thicket, so take a hard swallow and do your best to endure Koza's spiked, hard-charged blend of heaviness.

Take Up the Serpent introduces a foreign guitar buzzing like flies, dropping a buoyant sludge gait under a dynamic veiled vocal. As this opener bulldozes through its choppy, stuttered thorax, the band's cyclical approach reveals itself and stomps back to brass tacks. Quickly and relentlessly, listeners have their comfort clipped and gnawed away. The quick-footed stoner cruise of Hoof is an abrupt juxtaposition, leaking Buzzov*en malevolence. For as amped as it gets, though, the track is somehow sticky. And now the unease has taken full grip.

The EP's midsection is an exercise in broad vision, never committing to a single rhythm or riff and shifting between doom, shoegaze, groove, and boggy stoner-sludge. Perhaps that sounds messy, but these songs have way too much to chew on for just one listen. You'll need multiple screenings, and Koza's push to grind you into powder is tense, tight, and strangely satisfying. Slow plucks on March of the Snails are merely a harbinger of fuzzy, columned doom. Death Rattle's wet cobblestone tip-toe wrings nerves like shadows in a greasy alley, fully cementing a cold, uneasy mood. At least, until an outward rip of the seams explodes into unhinged brutality. And when The Silent Bleed The Same drags guitar barbs across weathered skin, we realize we're in too deep.

While Tsunami's marriage of swarming hornets and thick sludge grooves stomps with more density, Koza set aside their crowning achievement as the EP's closer. Stench of Desire is immediately horrifying, breathing slow and opaque just behind your neck. Nodding toward Rwake and channeling the pragmatic narratives of Phil Anselmo, the track's quietest moments are its most unsettling. We're worn thin by the repeated slugs to our senses. The stylistic shifts are permeated by matted fur, and the final ceaseless stoner metal push is our last gasp.

Clocking just over twenty minutes, this goat's varied attack weighs like a lifetime of bruising. The jagged guitars, spiked tempos, and misty morning sludge crawls hardly begin to illustrate all this sound delivers. Koza drag us to a steamy swamp on a journey that's part judgment, part ostracism, and wholly taxing on our brittle frames. This EP hits all points to remind us there's still no fuckin' around down South.

Facebook | Bandcamp

Seth's 2014 Year In Review

I needed every second of 2014 to craft a list of favorites. Saying goodbye to the year and its bearded buoyancy (weren't beards the rage lately?), I left behind a trail of hard-earned dollars and dodged awkward gay-bar glances as things grew real foggy. I've scratched and scribbled in hopes of trimming down an impartial litany of the most-spun releases from the last twelve months. The task is daunting, so I'll work to keep things simple and clean.

Sunday's Best

I've got two stacks. One toppled by the bands served on silver platter Sundays. The other towering with records I wasn't smart enough to write about. Regardless, these lists are little more than a refresher on a year in which the best sounds blasted down Highway 251 as I ran out of colorful descriptors. Here are the Sunday smokers that lifted our heads highest.

Possessor - Electric Hell

I had a brief obsession with Vince Bugliosi's Helter Skelter years ago. Something about these nine grinders immediately took me back there (that album art surely played a role). From cavernous doom to rat-rod drudge, Possessor gripped my fuckin' nuts and beat me into compliance. Oozing sweat and sex and handshakes with Satan, Electric Hell immediately became my favorite album of 2014.

Disastroid - Missiles

It's always fun to say an album's sound defied categorization, but this was the year's best example. Missiles struck a chord and nestled into my frontal cortex, forming memories I didn't realize existed. Steady and damn-near perfect, the shifts are never forced and the 90's morning wood never kills my buzz. It's sonic anesthesia peppered with sobering stoner-sludge, and every minute is devastating.

Godhunter - City of Dust

I knew Godhunter would deliver the goods before I even heard this 8-track crusher. What was staggering was the message, and the caviling delivery of rebellion's impetus is Godhunter's true trophy here. City of Dust marked an assured stomp toward this band not only cementing their name, but more importantly fisting convention and never caving to blind acquiescence. If only we could all be so bold.

Druglord - Enter Venus

There was no prepping for this brand of heaviness. The doom crushes, yes. But the psychedelia and doped-out howls leave a glaze on your fingers and the crushing blows are relentless. Crashing timbers couldn't shake the Earth like these four tracks. This album is just one step too far in that bad trip. Point of no return? Shit, man... Your best bet is to own it, become it. (Just stay off your neighbor's lawn).

No Way - Sing Praises

The NYC edge hardly goes wasted here. No Way's violent blend of smoke, sludge, and noise put me on my back and never offered help getting up. The sonic deception can't cloud the album's smoothest moments, but Sing Praises is at its best when it's at its most rough. Savage for being so harmonic and sprawling for being so brief, these are four tracks I'll endorse over and over.

Lotus Ash - The Word of God

The post-metal marriage composed of members of two of Milwaukee's finest bands cultivates a bullied cadence that aches gorgeously. Lotus Ash offer metal of a more acute order, grooving with violent permutations and balancing prospect with cold, concrete realizations. Whether you're a thinker or a stumbling stomper, The Word of God holds plenty for you to fall in love with.

Ancient Altar - Self-titled

Twisted slabs of filthy dregs wriggle with strange, hot psychedelia on Ancient Altar's sludgy spiral into madness. Buoyant and laced with whispers of smoke, this debut offers four tracks promising more doomy wisdom than newcomers should have any right to. Balancing those sounds of the 70's with the ugliest, grimiest assertions of tomorrow, this album hits the nail on the head. Repeatedly.

MotherSloth - Moribund Star

Sullen complexity takes its time on MotherSloth's sophomore opus. Moribund Star sprawls with precision and sprays with abandon, hoping and deflating and completing a cycle of life that you'll have on repeat. Stoner-sludge rhythms never club you, but they leave just enough burn to slug your senses numb. Instrumental outfits appear to work just a bit harder, and this is the progressive payoff.

The Powder Room - Curtains

The swagger strapped to this noise is refreshing and unmatched. The Powder Room blow smoke in your face and get real punchy real fast. If you develop a stutter, you may need to step back and pass on this one. Curtains is that asshole at work who has the dirt on management and can do as much or as little as he wants. Luckily, we're still on his good side. These tracks are way too cool for guys like us.

Giza - I Am The Ocean, I Am The Sea

Instrumental swells and hovers slammed me through Giza's sludgy atmospherics, strangely prophetic considering not a damn word is spoken here. Slow, patient boulder tosses span these five depth-charging tracks and result in 2014's most accomplished marriage of brawn and brains. Giza here boast they're only getting better with age.

And the others?

The number of submissions we receive is ever-increasing and wholly humbling. Even more difficult than working through them all is actually enjoying the music NOT sent our way. So whether I was spoon-fed the sweetest sludge this side of the bayou or had to do some crate-digging, here are ten other 2014 releases that shouldn't go unmentioned.

Yob - Clearing the Path to Ascend

Point blank, this is the best record I heard in 2014. Yob are peaking, but it's difficult to imagine this band hitting a plateau of any kind. The musicianship has never been better, and the expanses crafted within these four songs are progressive, profound, and encompassing. Each listen reveals something new, and under each layer is another mouth-breathing moment I can't wrap my head around. Yet again, this trio fails to disappoint.

Monolord - Empress Rising

Relentlessly lumbering fuzz-doom that hovers, staggers, and resonates. Empress Rising took me by surprise with its gloom and unmatched gravity. Monolord's riffs spun a web in my skull and I haven't bothered mounting an escape. This is heavy, tasty, and worth every fucking cent. Ribboned with stoner repetition, this timber drops long and sits fat. Delicious.

Lightsabres - Spitting Blood

It's easy to be impressed, knowing this is just one man. But the true accolade should be tossed toward what that one man has shaped with the sound. Spitting Blood's lo-fi, muffled, point-on-a-spinning-globe approach sounds fresher than the bulk of bullshit dealt our way this year. There's something timely and beautifully unsettling about these songs, and I can say my biggest 2014 regret is not giving this release the Sunday treatment. You'll love this record.

Swans - To Be Kind

A year in review generally results in me flipping open my wallet as album copies run out. THIS album fucking blew me away! Is this the backlash against the backlash? Hipsters LOVE this album. Wait! Hipsters HATE this album. Dude, I just had my mind raped by Swans, so I don't give a good fuck where you think these sounds fall. My torso evolved into a littered cemetery as I listened. Essentially, To Be Kind is a mindfuck of an album and Swans remain patient, experimental royalty.

Electric Citizen - Sateen

Electric Citizen toured with Fu Manchu and made no haste in stealing the bill. Four decades of influence, no shortage of guitar fuzz, and Laura Dolan's witchy presence combine to make Sateen doom's sexiest response to Sabbath. The band's dark majesty is more substance than hype, trust me. The psychedelia buzzes and chops at comparisons, carving little option but to embrace Electric Citizen as your new favorite band.

Ogre - The Last Neanderthal

I've loved Ogre since they served a strange hearken of classic predecessors in 2010, but here they cement their meld of doom and stoner metal in a hurried, focused fashion. This latest is honed and pared, resonating with the good-feel of brothers reunited. Fuzz-headed doom needn't overthink things, but Ogre find smarts when they find restraint. 70's influence saturates recent releases, and Ogre may be the most backboned of the lot.

Greenleaf - Trails & Passes

To which Keith alluded, these sounds vary and sprawl. The stoner supergroup that is Greenleaf has yet to stumble, and despite their loveseat haze, they still offer a bit o' heart. Not a damn one of these nine songs mimics the inflated horseshit of their imitators, yet none manage to posture in the shadows of the members' other bands. Greenleaf burn their own path, and every detour is just as delicious as the last.

Rodha - Welter Through The Ashes

I've finally found a Rodha ally in Pete. These boys pack emotion into every corner and the gravity injected into every note just fucking amazes me. Channeling sludge violence and (incredibly) funneling feeling under stoner-doom cadence is nothing short of miraculous. How the FUCK is this band not conquering the world right now?! Good GODDAMN this is gorgeous!



Indian - From All Purity

Indian opened up 2014 without a glimpse of hope. This is flat-out fucking violent and vile, six scorching sludgers that can't find relent. From All Purity is abrasive and scornful, so much so that I'm shocked I can even return to the bloodied corpse of last winter. Indian ensure you'll feel every barbed note and forget about enjoying your dinner. Sludge? Doom? Noise? Fuck. This album sounds like murder.

Floor - Oblation

Roaring over beautiful 'scapes and cascading melodies, Oblation is that devastating pull between hope and lament. The chewy sweetness complements the fuzziest of tones, structured underneath a shiny psychedelia rarely found. It's as if stoner-doom took the day off to spend some time under palm trees. Then again, the screeches and crushes remind us where to plant our feet.

Sunday Smoke:Doctor Smoke-"The Witching Hour"

I've grown into this, you could say. When I took this gig, it was all sandy descriptors, Sabbath nods, riff worship, and clouds of smoke that should've gotten me evicted. The journey's been littered with thorns, the expanded consciousness clouded by genre tags and limitations I've placed upon myself. Fuck. Tonight my wife tried dissecting my anxiety. She's no mental health professional, but she's also no stranger to my perks. These limitations, these rules... they're all self-imposed. They're all also quite fucking meaningless. You may have noticed these Sundays are lately more than just sludge. Today's feature is a perfect example of why I can't limit myself.

When Heavy Planet featured Ohio's Doctor Smoke last October, we met a quartet of stoner occultists going thick on soiled riffs and channeling an inner Bobby Liebling. Just a year later, the band offers not only an expanded tracklist, but an overall improved approach to the craft. The Witching Hour's nine tracks (six of them entirely new) illustrate Doctor Smoke's stomp into their own skin, shedding their reliance on doomy fuzz and trusting themselves more as songwriters and musicians.

We know three of these tracks. And rather than serving to fluff the run-time, they actually create a broader scope when sidled next to the newer tracks. Relentless and baleful, The Willow kicks off the immediately punchy, rollicking backwoods descent. Blood and Whiskey is still a smoker, sweat-soaked and groove-smacked. And those rhythms still flirt with evil and never get old. When The Seeker pops through before the album's final push, it's of course slow, dirt-caked, and the album's rawest offering.

Most notable on the new tracks are the self-realized, perfectly-structured lyrics. Evil Man is mossy doom, swaying and split with chafed licks, ultimately exploding into revved groove and guitar-pissing in all directions. But the plunge of the slow, murky vocal veil traps every-Goddamn-thing beneath it. The Toll emerges from soggy earth to find a torrid clip, pacing unpredictably and matching the erratic lyrical accusations. The whole of the album's thorax is a trip through a thorny, overgrown pass. Choppy, jostled, and pushing ever-deeper, these spilt-swill snags hardly heel the quick-twisted, punchy cruises. Doctor Smoke now have a hook in your lip.

Where the band's amped proficiency is most notable, however, is on the closing tandem of This Final Hour and Permanent Night. The former boasts as a heavy-hearted trench throttle, rattling you back to clarity with tempo shifts and sweaty rock-n-roll. The track progressively expands under a rueful mood, gently wheeling the track into pensive plucks. And by the time Permanent Night's bleak subject combines with the collection's deepest, grainiest groove, you won't know which elemental showcase takes the blue ribbon. The licks are more than just a sidecar, the throwback is more than just creepy, and the balance is more than you could ever want.

And The Witching Hour as a whole is so much more than a steel-toed stride. Eerie, distant malaise has never had such a pull. These songs creep among a thick timber until rhythmic deviations introduce a gleeful, punch-drunk vertigo. Guitars, vocals, lyrics, those low rhythms... ALL have their moment of showboated flexing. But where posturing would murder lesser bands, Doctor Smoke manage to make one another sound better. Collectively, the sounds never stumble. We're not sure exactly what corner of the woods we'll end up in. More importantly, we don't care. Hit me with another, drag me where you will... "My masters, pull my strings."

Bandcamp | Facebook

Sunday Sludge: Jucifer - District of Dystopia

So that walk home really sucked. I'm not terribly fond of interacting with law enforcement, so those flashing lights interrupting my route evoked that fight-or-flight retort. Fuck it. I'll take the long way home. And fuck them.

Oh, these new Jucifer sounds... It's not only unfair to scream "departure," it's also categorically inaccurate. The ever-ambulant duo have never allowed particular descriptors to stick, so calling their nine-track thrasher District of Dystopia a change of pace isn't fair. But it also doesn't fit their sticky-flogged mold of gigantic, expansive noise-doom. The largest head-turn here results not from the sound, but from the message. The duo would roll over in their roving bunks if they knew you'd given a listen and failed on realizing the larger fucking point. Turns out they care less about amped cabinets and more about what's just.

From the quickly disjointed onset of Non Gratum Anus Rodentum through the blackened grindcrust of the swamp-ridden The Object of Power, Jucifer exercise a legislative muckrake from the bottom up. A soldier's misfortune, though partly pinned on his own poor judgment, also points to higher powers recruiting, promising, lying, and never giving a single fuck about the boys in queue. With honesty comes pain, and the band's brutal, scabby pace sets sights on capturing lo-fi consciousness with the hope that this audience digs deeper and pays attention to more than rattling speakers. More than metal, this is rebellion.

Quick, low-slung filth immediately puts light years between these sounds and the droning marriage of metropolitan doubt and teen angst lacing their previous work. It's as if these two intentionally gave a fistfuck to production and hope these runes get marquee billing. Utilizing no shortage of fuzz and Edgar Livengood's intermittent but never absent drummed violence, stop-start chops form swarms of hornets that encase the senses. Sure, the fur gets as saturated as you'd expect. But we're in trouble... When Jucifer pull a burlap sack over our heads and a breaching hammer makes its blows, we know this flaming gaze has a purpose. More importantly, though, it has a heartbeat.

Gazelle Valentine's vocal remains, at times, breathy as you'd expect. But these wheels come off quick, essentially gnawing with an overt aggression directed at D.C.'s representatives. The unrelenting spite is wholly infectious, so perhaps the duo's objective remains more clear and accessible than the sounds. Oh, you weren't expecting this? Did you hear Jucifer's LAST release?! The shifted tempos hide the lyrical depth, but there's a LOT to absorb here. And that this couple finds its mark in well-under thirty minutes is their exercise in hazy, shrouded brilliance.

District Of Dystopia will remind you of those demos your buddy handed you in ninth grade. More raw than the sound, though, is the sense that something's not right. Jucifer take that sense, smack it sober, and shove it in your face. It's revved and uncompromised, devoid of restraint and any second guess. Don't bother getting uncomfortable when your uncle brings up political incompetence as you're chewing Virginia Christmas fat. For those with any virtue, this album is little more than an adjunct argument. For the uninitiated, this sludge-thrash exercise is Insurgency 101. It's also one of 2014's most compelling releases, front to back.

Site | Facebook | Twitter | iTunes

Sunday Sludge Bouillaisse Volume III

Give it six months, and I'm gonna find that certain ennui. Submissions form a steaming pile, holiday obligations further tug at my sleeve, and by midnight I'm snarling and struggling to explain that these sounds are my sanity. I know, I KNOW! Scan the queue, pick and choose, draft your praise, close shop, shift back to parenthood. It's maddening. So maddening that I sit with a list of incredible bands and albums that I worry will go unnoticed. We thereby offer the acts you need to hear this Sunday in one setting, course for course matched with slug for slug.

Slug Salt Lava

Three crunched releases find their marquee on Radiated Soundscapes, a five-track EP of post-everything, essentially dialing pensive, buoyant repetition and stoner-sludge maturity that few young bands can boast. Patience chips and chops at lumbered riffs and the lingering cool buzz finds nostalgia, the oft-rejected (sometimes blistered) hot-mist soulmate so few embrace. Try it. You'll be stunned.

Facebook | Bandcamp | Twitter

Kurokuma

The overt violence echoes Grizzly and the goof element whispers of Big Dumb Face, but don't be fooled. There's a structured, distant puncture lacing this tandem. Something bigger is happening here, something primitive and unapologetic. Thump, burn, bubble toward a blister... As raw as this is, it's difficult to imagine polished production. Kurokuma mock compromise, hovering under strange, perfect swirls that move neither back nor forward.

Facebook | Soundcloud | Twitter

Comacozer

This Aussie trio weaves lilted, warped psychedelia and far-East hypnosis, all risen from sonic patches of hot sand. Patient, confident, and at times coated in beautiful filth, this triptych leads us into progressively back-breaking gazes toward monumental marriages of endearment and deception. You won't be able to keep your eyes open or your mouth from gaping.

Facebook | Bandcamp

Monte Resina

The five tracks offered on this EP shoot instrumental stoner sludge without offering a chaser. The quick-trotted fuzz is spiked with drum slugs and driven due South via grunge, groove, and gnarl. Monte Resina snatch victory from the soil, and peering into the clearing only offers brief gasps on this otherwise staggering, nut-dragging smoke stomp through the timber. Fuckin' awesome.

Facebook | Bandcamp

The Stone Eye

Yet I Feel So Fine is merely a one-track introduction to this Philadelphia duo, and it's a fine one. A sonic duality demonstrating the band's broad scope with a pair of all-too-quick strokes, the divide abandons only to return full-circle. Burning slow-motion rises and falls take us from dirt to cloud, all the while laced with a haunting vocal that somehow never makes us uneasy. Quite the contrary, in fact. This could open or close any Sunday, if you ask me.

Facebook | Bandcamp

Sunday Cinema: XV - 15 Years of Ufomammut

"Seth, where's the bin with all the Christmas decorations in it?"

Is she serious? I set aside a few hours this morning to saturate myself in the heaviest of Italian sludge cosmos and she's doing her damnedest to create a distraction. It's been a long time comin', but I've finally carved some time to dig into Ufomammut's DVD retrospective, XV. Countless extraneous variables contributed to this delay, but none more joy-bursting than the sound of my better half barking stupid questions about anything and damn-near everything.

Fifteen years? Hardly seems like it. These spacey sludgers have spanned an entire career evolving, innovating, and preparing lesson after lesson on how to structure and craft what amounts to a marriage of the ethereal and the unwritten. As the film points out, Ufomammut initially sought to fuse space with prehistoric men. Extracted relics have, for years, been slung beyond our galaxy's man-made bounds. They've drawn dyads so distinct, one of distance and staggering intimacy, one so exhausting that it's hard to believe it's also so immersive. This peek into the band's magick parallels Ufomammut's objective as well as it explains it.

Consider first the live twelve-track performance, a grainy, snuffed context accompanying the galactic sludge-doom infancy of early tracks like Superjunkhead and Zerosette. Filtered through black-and-white and sepia masks and laced with disorienting lumbers, you'd think you'd stumbled into a club's back gate and struck psychedelic gold. Over time, though, you're privy to an ongoing chemistry few acts can boast. Urlo, Poia, and Vita rip the same page and inflict the same glaze, performing as if they either don't know or don't care that viewers are having their senses raped by Helter-Skelter imagery. Throughout their tenure, Ufomammut have steadily swelled the importance of visually-stimulating sidecars. Here they blur lines between band, fan, and stagehand. And when Poia offers a warm smile at Stigma's end, we know that they know: they fucking nailed it.

On the documentary's end of things, the band's formation and initial lineup changes quickly give way to explanations on why they've remained a power trio. And when one former keyboardist sounds all at once vain and jealous while another dons a Lucha Libre mask and offers odd praises, it's hard to argue the band's decision to keep the fat trimmed. But where the doc most excels is not in what it historically explains, but in how it offers the explanation. Malleus delivers simple, straightforward, and chronological reflections on Ufomammut's evolutions. Much like their songs and, later, their albums, Ufomammut developed slowly over time. Godlike Snake was rough, they say. Snailking was an extension that received no promotion, and Lucifer Songs offered the band a chance to transition their sound. But oh, what followed...

This is just as Ufomammut has always been. The commitment to evolution and progress is evident throughout their catalog, and this is both directly and indirectly outlined here. Even as they discuss their early works and the accomplishments therein, the band is quick to acknowledge their shortcomings and resulting strides. It's also refreshing to learn a band as accomplished as this is open to criticism, is engaging with audiences of any size, and holds true to the roots they set down fifteen years prior. They honor fans and touring support as much as they honor their own sound, and they insist on doing it all them-fucking-selves. Awesome.

XV essentially offers two films. Magickal Mastery Live is low-slung sludge jams laced with a visual haze dripping from every moment's borders. At times, the band appears swallowed and any epileptic should turn back now. Jumpy, nervous, and laced with ancient symbols, there's no better supplement to one of the world's finest psychedelic doom acts than these eighty minutes. The visuals blanket the sounds with malevolent imperfection, crafting a full-circle experience that's a trippy cocktail of dark warps and burned retinas.

Of course the interviews are more sobering, though they're hardly less interesting. The band's DIY ethic runs a ribbon through 2012's double-album Oro (Opus Primus / Opus Alter), essentially one riff expanded into ninety minutes. The band delves deepest here, and not because the double album is their most recent. It's assertively their most complex and mature, another in a series of statements and stomps forward. Vocals are another instrument, something most Heavy Planet readers would acknowledge. But it's the visual element that's developed into the missing link, the emotive corner the band truly polished over time.

For fifteen years, Ufomammut have strung a series of increasingly expansive and fluid sounds, all interwoven and fortified with the threads of unmatched heaviness. So when the band's members deflect accolades and attempt to acknowledge the luck they've experienced, it's difficult to buy. These three men have become Ufomammut, and Ufomammut has become these three men. They set out to "play the heaviest stuff in the world." XV holds three-plus hours of footage illustrating just how they managed to pull this off.

Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Supernatural Cat | Neurot Recordings | Malleus

Sunday Split: Goya / Wounded Giant

Enough of the leftovers. I've gorged myself into a turkey-hash and cranberry coma over the course of three days, placing me in perfect position to try something new, fresh, and (as luck would have it) fucking sinister. I don't feature many splits on these Sundays, primarily because so many end up featuring (heads:) one band's best effort and (tails:) another's obligatory toss-off. But pair two left coast stoner-doom titans and you've piqued my interest.

"In ancient Rome, there was a poem... About a dog who had two bones. He picked at one, he licked the other... He went in circles 'til he dropped dead." 

Come 2015, STB Records will release a split LP tandem featuring Phoenix's Goya and Seattle's Wounded Giant, certifiably cementing both acts as forces in a riffed landscape of dust and sand. After one spin, you'll struggle to decide which act deserves the first nod toward another listen. It really doesn't matter, so long as you make no haste. I do my best to be cerebral and offer poignant, insightful perspectives on the sounds sent my way. But these three tracks kicked in my teeth and made my hands shake, rendering me damn-near unable to even grip a knob to elevate the decibels.

First consider Goya's fourteen-tick No Place In The Sky, shelling their own weed-doom blitz while staying true to the form evident on last year's crushing 777. This opener immediately drips with hovering fuzz, masking a patient riff-mist and snagging reluctant drums for the ride-along. In hindsight, it's deceptive considering the full-brunt drop of doom ushered in by the succession of relentless blows. As riffs manipulate a canopy of smoke, Jeff Owens' vocal is haunted by its own shadow and stalked by his fractured fret licks. Beyond the midpoint, his guitar cracks what's disheartening and desolate by imposing blisters you'll never let heal. The rhythmic churn never loses steam behind Nick Lose and Chad Moline, slow-rolling toward an acceptance of fate. Short of a few brief, sporadic firings, the ungodly stagger leaves us peeling at our own hot skin, barely seeking sense in this teeming pool. Fourteen minutes? I'd let this one glaze me for fourteen days.

Flip the wax and you'll find Wounded Giant's one-two, led by The Room Of The Torch. Juxtaposing side one as more than a shade quicker, the track is no less imposing. Bathed in hot shit but looking toward a fading sun, these sludge rhythms give way to doom sensibilities. As a ritualistic gathering appears imminent, listeners are quickly pulled back into dragged-knuckle cruises and coated with skin-tingling sustain. Strap in and hold on as we quickly convert to unhinged stoner acceleration. Psychedelia saturates as we dig into a steamy swamp escape that's as deceptive as it is delicious.

Swaying and swinging with concrete fists is Dystheist, the split's epic closing coup. If this giant's wounded, he's hardly fucking bothered by it. Distant hover is merely a harbinger of the settling spook and ethereal pipes brought by Bobby James. Riff tarps wrap and suffocate atop a sticky, malevolent tempo led by Alex Bytnar's punchy charges. This track, boiled down to terms your haze can understand, is an embrace of the negative. Wounded Giant's unmistakable 70's salute remains in their back pocket, but the swirls toward an epic closing storm of exploding light marks a stomp apart from their brilliant Lightning Medicine.

You're wasting your time in search of another split this complete. Goya and Wounded Giant each bark their case as the marquee act. But clearly, both trios commit to embrace the other and peer downhill at the devastation they've collectively scattered behind them. Perhaps these three tracks can finally provide your mom with enough worry to simply leave you alone in the basement rather than investigate that skunky waft. If you've made it this far, she knows she's lost you. STB is only churning 430 of these on wax. I know you're weary, but try acting fast.

Specs:

Released January 3rd, 2015

Limited vinyl pressing of 430

Die Hard Edition - 80 pieces
Band Only - 100 pieces
OBI Series - 100 pieces
Not-So Standard Edition - 150 pieces

Mastered specifically for vinyl

Exclusive artwork done by David Paul Seymour

STB Records | Facebook | STB Bandcamp

And in the meantime...

Bandcamp | Facebook

Bandcamp | Facebook

Sunday Stoner Sludge: Olmeg - "Primordial Soup"

This is as much time as I've spent with any one single band in ages. Melbourne's Olmeg consumed a frigid November weekend with their 2012 debut, Slab, only to follow it up by introducing the sophomore epic Primordial Soup. I'd hoped to wrap up a few loose ends at home, but this trio of diggers managed over two hours of distraction that I'd welcome back without hesitation. As a student of the 90's, these nine tracks presented me the makings of a disenchanting trap. What I found was instead a trip marrying my past and my present, an incredibly staggering ambivalence between looking back and facing forward.

That Slab was all I could've wanted, littered with quick, punchy grunge dropped into a bath of fuzz and jangled funk. Riffs, sludge rhythms, meaty choruses, and occasional catharses lulled me into a build toward poignant ascents, steadily swelling behind a slow and cavernous psychedelia drifting into barroom blues and southern fists. Those bloody knuckles bobbed for stones and came up caked, but the trippy mirages stole marquee billing. This band wants to come unhinged, it's clear. What's more evident on their nine-track return, due out December 12th, is the crafted strides these mates have committed to making.

Spacey, smooth, tripped-out... Trans-dimensional hits a gait and becomes all things. Jammy instrumentals immediately showcase the strides the band made in those two years, complete with focused warble and thick-riffed skyshots. The chippy sandiness of Megalomaniac sits low, simmering and dazzling with lo-fi QOTSA stickiness that stares with head-up fuzz deflation under a slow stagger. The Wolves billows with stoner crunch, buoyant without being cartoonish. Olmeg's engine hums and purrs with a tasty viscosity. So here we are, fellas. Lightyears ahead of where we'd expect.

The immediately pensive, somber Nest is distant until meat-riffs fall like boulders. These courses vary from more-than-you-can-chew to whisper-sniff-swipe servings, the main course a gristle sitting long on the tongue. Wash it down in cosmic guitar bursts and rest that sorrow under a blanket of warm stoner fuzz, bro. And that reflection returns with Scolder, Olmeg's swamp-swagger sway that relents to rueful lumbers. Oh, that sad stoner, struggling to find his place between two divergent atmospheres. This is for him.

For all its tip-toeing, though, Primordial Soup lays down some fucking beef. Tilt the landscape and welcome Told You So, the band's return to stoner-sludge groove. Swirls crash with epic gravity, but what's heaviest is the patience the band exercises. Sure, those quiet moments hold a spooky, touching gravity... But the track truly serves as just another showcase of improved craft and expansive, evolving style. Crunching and punching with loose limbs, Olmeg swell in every direction toward a shameless, hard-boiled cosmos. Mettle is melodic and hopeful, steadily plugging and plodding as the best stoner-sludge does. It's grungy and quite patient, breaking into a fuzzy bass isolation. So hey, isn't that just SO, like, 90's?

I don't have enough space, and if you've made it this far into this gushing diatribe, it's fair to ask why you haven't just clicked the links and screened the tracks. There's a LOT here to digest, and every bit holds a fair balance between past, present, and future. Every track from Primordial Soup provides an exercise in pulsing strength, but still manages the sack to hit every corner. These passages display endless evolution and aren't about to shy from the pain that comes with it. With unmatched tonal movement, these nine tracks offer unpredictable shifts that are deceptively uncalculated and unfairly precise. Olmeg break us, fold themselves, and expand our atmosphere. As this band welcomes the dirt, they encapsulate us without apology.

As stated, 12-12-14. Until then...

Facebook | Bandcamp

Sunday Stoner Sludge: Riff Fist

I don't feel much like writing this morning. The weather fucking sucks, I just blew a few bills on new tires yesterday, and last night's chocolate stouts have painted me ragged. I needed a pick-me-up; something straight to the point that didn't meander and hover and drop hints. Melbourne's Riff Fist offered the most succinct elixir I could find, slapping me silly with... um... riffs. Six tracks off two releases are rotating in my den as I try to figure out how the fuck this meatiness stayed off my radar for so long.

2013's Fistful Of Riffs is just that. Twenty-four minutes of caffeinated stoner-sludge riffage packed tight under white-knuckle truth. Give it a go. Chase it with this year's For A Few Riffs More, uncorking Master of the Grove as a chaser to Riff Stew. There's no pretense here. If you spent any of the 90's enjoying Paw but found them a tad bleak, this has just enough shine and balls to push you west with no doubts. Hit up these links and get dirty. My hangover's gone and I'm jumping in with both feet.

Er... fists.

Facebook | Bandcamp | Twitter

Sunday Cephalopod: Squidlord

There's a strange numbness in some of my extremities. Who knows what that might indicate, but it's just one more shining example of my fleeting youth. I'll do my best to keep typing, but I'll apologize in advance for any abrupt disruption of today's feature. Now that I think of it, perhaps today's sounds are to blame for the loss of senses.

Asheville's Squidlord hardly sound like a band delivering their first album. The eleven instrumental tracks on their self-titled debut may as well be connected as one. Transcending labels like psychedelic, stoner, doom, and sludge is hardly the album's greatest achievement, but it's a hell of a place to start. You're gonna love this.

Using no vocals whatsoever, the band still weaves quite a tale. The riff spikes and shifting tempos chronicle a steady ascent, seemingly insurmountable challenges, climactic passages, and a staggering denouement. Squidlord's narrative buzzes in cyclical fashion, keeping listeners locked in for the better part of a forty-four minute journey at sea.

Discovery's smooth introduction buoys and swells toward an angry stoner sea of epic crashes, while The Whiskey Barrel spills cool breaths and cascading drums. A colossal tapestry of hanging guitars crafts a layered sound that's as gorgeously turbulent as it is ever-progressing. Things get sticky with the sludge of Washed Up, kicking southern licks and lifting tempos into a trot. And doom? Well, Thrown In Jail (Locked Up) is a slow-motion, one-eyed stagger swaying and burning with cosmic strings. Fate is tempted, battles are lost, and the pain of truth is realized.

So all the Heavy Planet essentials are bookmarked, but the album's greatest moments follow on the back end. A meaty southern approach emerges on the confident Vision of the Phoenix and the slow, bass-driven treads of Calling Abraxas. Tide's End warbles and weaves with awesome movement, and Soosah's Tavern chugs, busts bottles, and may be the most fun you'll have all day. Pull after pull, this libation lingers on the tongue.

Squidlord take moments to look back and assess the damage, but more important are their puffed-chest, fist-swinging returns to flattening. Cover to cover, this instrumental trip meets challenges, finds its knees, and emerges for an even more impressive push. Rock-hard stutters somehow complement passages of somber woe. This album gathers moss as it gains momentum. Not many can boast such improbable achievements.

Bandcamp | Facebook