Riff Hit: ATTALLA - "GLACIAL RULE"

In June of 2014 Attalla released their self-titled first album which quickly garnered acclaim from consumer and critic alike. It was the type of album that, by the time you'd taken in all it's ragged riff glory you began craving the next release. It's taken nearly three years for them to issue a sophomore production, time, one must presume, they took in creating and mastering the contents of the doomrunner-up. It was time well and perfectly spent as "Glacial Rule" fairly detonates in controlled eruption on each track, delivering dense fuzz in dark doom licks, a more controlled assault, more measured in pace, than on the first album, deeper, thicker, but still melodic and hookish. It's perhaps evidence of growth that this foursome didn't rest on the laurels garnered by their initial release, but instead put in the time and work to craft something more, something still of themselves but delving into the gloom, down uncharted tunnels of thick atmosphere and impenetrable doom.

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Band Submission: 20 Watt Tombstone-Death Blues From Wisconsin

Band Name: 20 Watt Tombstone
Genre: Death Blues
Location: Wisconsin
Brief Bio/Description: If The White Stripes, The Black Keys, and Left Lane Cruiser had an illegitimate love child with Lemmy while Hunter S. Thompson documented the whole torrid thing…you might get 20 Watt Tombstone (formerly known as The Goddamns).
Band Members:
Tom Jordan - Guitar and Vocals
Mitch Ostrowski - Drums and Vocals
Links:  Website | Facebook

Song of the Day-Moon Curse-"Vicious Sky"

"Vicious Sky" is taken off of the upcoming release "Spirit Remains" due out November 30, 2015 on Kozmik Artifactz Records. Foot-stomping fuzzed-out riff obsessed dudes paying homage to the likes of Black Sabbath amongst others. This song is meant to be played at a loud volume and nothing more, albeit in a psychedelic haze of billowing smoke. For more information, please check out the following links: Facebook | Bandcamp

Sunday Sludge: Northless - "World Keeps Sinking"

I woke up enjoying a bowl o' crow this morning. Actually, this foot in my mouth has its origins around August 1st, when I had trouble deciding which of four Chicago shows I'd be attending. After spending months complaining that the scene in the Midwest was pale and elusive compared to other corners of the country, here were four of my favorite bands playing the same fucking city on the same fucking night. Three weeks later and here we are in the second of consecutive features on Milwaukee's finest sludge thickness.

Milwaukee's abrasive but well-centered Northless released World Keeps Sinking on Friday, meaning we've already wasted two days and countless opportunities to adopt a soiled perspective. Containing seven substantial strokes of sludgy disenchantment, this release is more about stern observation than violent assurances. Northless exercise plenty of down-tuned and downtrodden calculation, but they never insult our intelligence by merely clubbing our skulls. There's a thinking man inside you, young automaton.

Any of these fifty-nine minutes could attest we're watching a world deteriorate. From the slow lumber of Last of Your Kind to the title track's abrupt chaos, we're dragged through reality by a heaving beast riddled with arrows. Rhythm shifts and jarring blasts are just one facet. Tolerance is long forgotten and intensity permeates even the album's restrained passages. Slow crunches of doom direct us, but the destination isn't likely one we'll want to discover.

Kuru is a lurk of grinding static that gasps between riffs and sways like a drunken giant. Imagine driving iron fists into thick earth on a reach for hell, only to discover something even darker. The EYEHATEGOD abrasion is packaged in sandpaper and tied together by John Gleisner's dizzying drumwork. We've already begun unraveling, but Northless here begin to deconstruct, spitting and shitting on a stumble of absolutely gargantuan volume. In fact, not a note on the disc reaches justice when you plan to respect your neighbors. Listen loud, please.

The molasses underlayment finds its truest form of filth-based sludge metal on Communion, an eleven-minute slab of shifts that stays low and dirty as it pulls off its blinders and cuts away fake smiles. The gorgeously erratic atmospheres arrive and depart in every direction before breaking into a somber lakeside reflection that fades like the sun. This highlight bridges into Passage, an even longer epic of echoed memories and slow-drawn post-metal elements. Fifteen-plus minutes of surges and pullbacks threaded with Jerry Hauppa's loose low-end is completely exhausting and completely fucking awesome. If World Keeps Sinking still had a working heart, this would be it.

The disc's back end provides some straight-forward sludge dejection on Wither and Escape, a quick roll through steaming bogs. Erik Stenglein's vocal here is a tad more accessible than on the previous tracks, but that's hardly a comfort. This guy's pipes are to-the-point and wait until the song's final bark to flatten your chest. Leading directly into the shaky Returnless, this collection closes on blackened doom and collapsing villages. Rising and falling rhythms marry Stenglein's encircling throat-cloak to assure us there's no looking back. Warbled and murky, the chug-fade at the album's end is less death rattle and more slow snuff. Shudder.

You may not like the message, but you needed to hear this. I'm sorry, son. Your future is broken. Northless stamp our minds with the realization that we fucked up. World Keeps Sinking is an expansive, itchy shuffle that'll leave you scratching at your skin, twitching on yesterday's promises that never emerged. The muddled, nebulous rhythms perfectly ensnare the falling hope, while ambitious guitars are perfectly snatched mid-air and snapped on complacency's knee. It all paints a pretty bleak landscape. And it all sounds heavier than hell-on-earth.

For fans of: Crowbar, Soilent Green, Rwake

Pair with: St. Peter's Cream Stout, St. Peter's Brewery

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Sunday Sludge: Maidens - "Eve of Absolution"

In an age of pressed flesh and force-fed singles, it's a comfort to find there are still bands and sub-genres dedicated to crafting entire expansive albums. Once you stop looking for that hook or a gimmicky harmony that'll sell your soul for shock 'n roll, you're left with bare-bones musicianship and songwriting. Sink or swim, eh? Turning a single idea into thirty minutes of relevant material is no small task, so you'd better have your chops honed and your focus clear.

The problem with blanket moods and atmospheres that thread through an entire LP is that I can enjoy the first half and then have to break back into reality for fifteen fucking seconds to flip the damn record. Small price to pay, sure. So Milwaukee's post-metal/sludge quartet Maidens are victims of their own prowess. The seven tracks on Eve of Absolution, their first full-length effort, may as well be presented as one. Luckily a pair of headphones and a streaming format via bandcamp are all any listener's gonna need to experience this tome from cover to cover, uninterrupted.

There's a tight grip on the back of our heads, sternly whispering in our ear that we need to face forward and remain silent. Promising doom, drone, post-metal, and the crunch of sludge could sound a tad ambitious for one single track; but on Beginnings: Rebirth, Maidens forge a whirr that soothes and saturates, while the abrasive dirge of sludge rhythms keeps things from getting too cozy. Teeming and flickering, this opener's atmospheric passages are contemplative and rueful, countering the intense, jarring vocal. Jettisoning into the choppy stutter of Our Splendor, Our Antiquity, Maidens showcase arachnid drum-chaos and burning guitar screeches, weaving together the two into a complex tapestry of post-metal emotional doubt. Instruments are mastered here, but the layers peeled back uncover some harsh family secrets. Oh, there's more to come.

You could expect the drone and doom to carry tracks to indulgent lengths, but Maidens only stretch things on the instrumental Discord: Storm on the Horizon. Fluttering with the static of approaching woe, a slow dawn can't break these dark clouds. The midpoint in the album is patient, pensive, and peppered with cosmic surprises. Terrain is littered with ash and slow-motion sickness crunching on bleached bones. Fanning upward into an opaque menace, the track brilliantly melds into the title track that follows. The mold is given time to set here; a delicious crunch meeting the focused and precise tandem of skin slaps and condensing riffs. Doom is prevalent in the form of shifted rhythms and archaic pendulum swings. Those dark realizations are setting in.

What's ominous and repetant is countered on Lands of the Blind, with a fuzzy cruise wrapped in stoner thickness that peeks into themes later realized on The Calm, The Silence. Cool winds ease us into splintering guitars that ooze ambition and confidence. Post-metal proficiency is on full-display in the track's progressive Pelican-influenced passages. The reflective acceptance on the closer is dulled yet wholly-permeating pain. Vocal pleas form a powerful denouement and an ultimate encapsulation of the existential trinity.

Don't worry too much about how to approach this one. Maidens fit into no single tag, but somehow they manage to smoothly change lanes between genres. What you experience only grows important when it has time to absorb. Eve of Absolution is one contemplation after another, at times littered with turmoil and at others laced with hope. The controlled chaos, the swirls of fret, and the icy breath heaved between sobs all funnel into an incredible journey, heartbreaking as it is.

For fans of: Pelican, Horn of the Rhino, Neurosis

Pair with: Rendezvous, Lakefront Brewery

Facebook | Bandcamp | last.fm | Big Cartel

Speaker Eater-New Band To Burn One To

Heavy Planet presents...today's "New Band To Burn One To" -SPEAKER EATER!

Bio:

Speaker Eater is a 3 piece band based in central Wisconsin. The only word consistent with Speaker Eater's material is "heavy". Attempting not to stick to any genre, or write songs with any particular style, Speaker Eater just plays what they feel, with as much energy as they can. Massive guitar tone, pounding bass, polyrhythmic drumming and intimidating yells, all complementing each other perfectly. Their self titled 5 song EP is the bands first release. In an attempt to keep their packaging unique and eye appealing, it was designed and crafted entirely by the band. Hand stamped on recycled cardboard sleeves, hand written lyric cards and bound by twine.

Matthew - Guitar/ vocals
David - Bass/vocals
Thomas - Drums/vocals



Thoughts:

With short punishing jabs, Speaker Eater from Wausau, WI. intrude your aural cavity with a relentless barrage of hardcore sludge metal. Combining down-tuned riffs, a meaty guitar tone, terrifying vocals, and an obsessive use of polyrhythms, this band teeters on the edge of sanity. By layering in some dreamy vocal harmony, the band gets a bit atmospheric on the tunes "Witches" and EP closer "The Indoctrination" as well. Don't let that fool you though, this band is loud, crude and nothing but rude.

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New Band To Burn One To-Romero

The "New Band To Burn One To" today is Romero.

Romero's Jeffrey Mundt spent most of the 90's behind the drum kit for a variety of bands including Bovine Records' THUG & punk legends, NAKED AGGRESSION. A long-time guitar player & songwriter, he often dabbled in fronting a band, but never pursued it seriously. Enter: a move to northern WI, a random Craigslist ad from bass player Josh Stanchik, a casual 8 month writing and recording session (with Mundt handling vocals, guitar & drums!) & Romero was born! Intent on creating a demo to locate & convince a drummer to work with them, Mundt & Stanchik were about a month from completion when... a drummer found them! Rumors of the project peaked the interest of PONEY drummer & vocalist Ben Brooks and he gleefully volunteered before even hearing a single note. Good thing he eventually liked what he heard!


ROMERO started playing live immediately. Very often. First, locally...then regionally...now, nation-wide! They have already shared the stage with the likes of Jucifer, Weedeater, Clutch, Black Label Society and other dyed-in-the-wool heavyweights.

ROMERO spreads like a weed.

HEAVY - LOUD - VERY, VERY HIGH...

Romero hailing from Wisconsin, sludges through the frozen tundra with a thick bottom heavy stoner groove. Their sound is angry, immense, and heavy as hell. The band has a 7" vinyl single available for purchase through this link. Only 500 copies are available so get yours now! I can not wait to hear a full-length from this band.



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