The Mountain, the new four-song 10″ from C’mon, Canada’s premiere bleary-eyed bastards of fuzz, kicks off with the longest, most ambitious song the band has ever laid down. Until now, the seven-minute track “Fortress of the Night” from 2010′s Beyond the Pale Horse held that distinction, but this here title track, which commands all of side A, clocks in just shy of 12 minutes, and reaches an epic and dangerous precipice the band had only previously admired from afar. C’mon has built an outstanding reputation as a band that can move a mountain by sheer rawk force alone, but this time they do us one better and scale the entire fucking thing in a burnt-out van, blowing dirty exhaust the entire way, planting their tattered flag at the top when they land. What they unleash on the world below is a spacey rumble of arena bravado and prog-crunch, a steady build-up of monolithic metal like a giant analog amp rising up from behind the fires of the sun. Musically, “The Mountain” is more dense and layered than anything C’mon has done in the past* and that kind of studio presence/trickery continues as the band bounds on down the back side in its usual muddy-riffed fashion, turning thrusters on high and heavy with “It’s Alright,” the wonky instrumental “The Grunge,” and a cover of The Osmonds’ “Crazy Horses,” a pretty weird beard song to begin with that is given a special kind of supercharged Blurtonian treatment here. Okay, I know you’re waiting for me to say it, so here it is: C’mon does it again.
*Singer/guitarist Ian Blurton has said in an interview that at one point in the song there are two versions of the band playing against each other, so two drum kits, two basses, and about 25 guitars, which he called a tribute to Voivod’s Piggy and Thin Lizzy’s Gary Moore.
From The Heart Attacks to Poison Arrows to Biters, the long road of rock n’ roll glory for singer/guitarist Tuk has been littered with trashy riffs, drug problems, and dead ends. The usual suicide story that sticks to every tight-pant Thunders junkie like a safety pin on a worn out leather jacket lands a lot closer to sad than success, but if the stigma doesn’t kill ya, it can only make you stronger, right? Probably, which is why Tuk hopes his latest bubblegum machine, Biters, will break through the bastard cliches and avoid the inevitable burst that comes when you sink your teeth into the cheap, sticky solution of reckless days and wasted nights. Whether that happens remains to be seen, but for now our springboard is this self-titled EP, and goddamn it if it’s not screamin’ at me like a gaggle of teenage groupies. With the five deliciously catchy glam punk ditties on board here, I don’t know how the Biters are ever going to avoid burnin’ out in the gutter like a bunch of high school dropouts. This is some magic marker mayhem, man, part Cheap Trick power pop, part New York Dolls lipstick rock, and all jukebox jive. If the Biters aren’t the biggest band in the world real soon, we’re all doomed.
Torche/Boris Chapter Ahead Being Fake split 10″
Hydra Head
All right, so this one was really released late last year on CD in Japan by Daymare Records, but Hydra Head has just re-released it on these shores on 10″ vinyl (it comes in black, clear light pink, opaque hot pink with purple splatter, opaque light orange, and opaque purple with orange splatter), so it’s worth mentioning. Besides, it’s Torche and Boris, and I don’t really need a reason to talk about either of them, do I? Whether you snagged it last year or are just getting into it now, you’re probably doing so because new material from both of these bands is still forthcoming. Actually, it’s not gonna be too much longer now; Torche’s Songs for Singles will be out in September while Boris’ collaboration with Ian Astbury, called BXI, will be out in August. Anyway, Torche’s “King Beef” occupies side A, and frankly, it’s not one of their better songs. They’ve replaced their usual, awesome brand of sludgy melody with a post-apocalyptic clamour, and the whole thing just sounds like storm clouds gathering. You’ll be waiting for the lightning but it never comes. Side B contains Boris’ “Luna,” a 12 minute long showcase of the band’s schizophrenic approach to genre bending. The song moves from black metal trickery to ambient shoe-gazing to stoner fuzz riffola while the vocals breeze right along over top the whole thing. It’s a strange mess, but as always, Boris seem to have it all figured out.
(The Japanese cover)
Check out the video for Torche’s “King Beef” from Chapter Ahead Being Fake!
C’mon
Biters
Torche/Boris
(The Japanese cover)