UK power trio Stubb step out of some foggy way-back machine, blown fuzzboxes and torn blotting paper spilling out about them, mere casualties of a road long traveled, and set their phasers to super-stun. Their mission, no doubt decreed by the God of untamed sideburns, paisley blouses, and flaming guitars, is to zap you with psych rays and fry your mind with electric blues, thereby enslaving you to the almighty groove. Resistance to this deliciously heavy tone is futile, so I’d surrender now if I were you, because Stubb’s self-titled debut album boasts enough in-your-face bass and righteous riffs to blast you to smithereens. Of course, that’s speaking only of the atomic shock of songs like “Road,” “Soul Mover,” and “Hard Hearted Woman,” and should your defenses allow you to absorb that 70s-bred hyper-blow, you’ll surely find yourself at the mercy of their alternate modes of attack, like the cosmic chorus melody of “Scale the Mountain,” the pagan folk of “Crosses You Bear,” and the acid rock of “Crying River”. Even though there’s plenty of opportunity for Stubb to let their wah-wah solos and freak jams run amok, they refuse to drag the album out and do a killer job of keeping their retro static short and sweet. Oh, and Stubb called on ally Tony Reed (Mos Generator, Stone Axe, HeavyPink) to mix and and master this one (and provide additional guitar on “Crying River”), so that ought to tell you that they’re taking this whole invasion thing pretty seriously. Yes, mission accomplished, I’d say.
Swallow the Sun Emerald Forest and The Blackbird
Spinefarm/Svart
Swallow the Sun have amassed a solid near 10-year melodic death doom résumé by wrapping an icy black cape around Opeth’s former glory, and their fifth full-length, Emerald Forest and The Blackbird, wanders the same brackish path as its predecessors. As always, crushing harmonies, classical wanderings, folksy dynamics, and progressive power collide as the Finnish band envelopes the snowy landscape around them in epic grandeur. However, Emerald Forest and The Blackbird finds Swallow the Sun dipping its tendrils into romantic waters; where the band’s slower moments were always haunting, they now tremble with cold chamber breaths, and songs like “This Cut is the Deepest,” “Cathedral Walls,” and “Hearts Wide Shut” offer the best examples of how Swallow the Sun have found inspiration from bands like Ulver and Nightwish (“Cathedral Walls” actually features Nightwish singer Anette Olzon). But Swallow the Sun haven’t completely abandoned the haunt, and use plenty of instances of black metal and spoken word to move the album’s atmospheric storytelling along. No doubt about it, Emerald Forest and The Blackbird is a bold experience and meant to be enjoyed — or tormented over — as such, like love’s death and the coming of eternal night.
Check out the video for “Cathedral Walls” from Emerald Forest and The Blackbird!
With their two previous releases, the 2009 EP Razor to Oblivion and the 2010 full-length Heavy Breathing, Seattle’s Black Breath asserted themselves, quite demonstratively, as heavy metal brutalitarians. Choose your violent adjective: crushing, demolishing, relentless. They always applied to Black Breath’s death n’ roll slaughter, and still do, but you can go ahead and put ‘em in italics now because their newest album, Sentenced to Life, is just over thirty minutes of sledgehammer emphasis. Opener “Feast of the Damned” kicks off a run of 10 songs in rotten urgency, propelled by a rush of stadium dynamics as if the whole thing were recorded in front of a swelling crowd of ten thousand undead. That overwhelming feeling persists, and as the attack that is Sentenced to Life gains momentum, the band’s speed, tone, and tempo grow ever deeper and darker, until it becomes a rich and powerful entity all its own. Black Breath even manages to toss some traditional metal flourishes and tasty solos into the mix, and the rolling thunder riffs of “Home of the Grave” and “The Flame,” and the eerie intro to “Endless Corpse,” push Sentenced to Life beyond the wall of vile thrash and into the open, blood-stained field of decrepit glory. These guys are quickly emerging as one of the best, no doubt about it.
Stubb
Swallow the Sun
Black Breath