Ancestors return to the realm of heavy with their newest offering, In Dreams and Time, after a brief sojourn into the idyllic psychedelia of last year’s Invisible White EP, and the album displays the full breadth of the there-and-back-again entitlement they’ve earned over the course of their musical wanderings (which also includes 2008′s Neptune With Fire and 2009′s Of Sound Mind). Now, Ancestors had always flirted with exploring the cosmic stratosphere in their stoner doom (take “Mother Animal” for instance), but they fully explore that territory here by offering a bold dose of moog/synth and guitar effects that give the album a proggy, sci-fi slant, specifically on the post-rock fuzz of songs like “Corryvreckan,” “On the Wind,” and “Running in Circles”. Of course, it’s the tremendous tremor of “Whispers,” the lush piano, deep reverb, and solemn female vocals of “The Last Return,” and the way “First Light” goes from melodic colossus to mind-altering tour of the galaxy and back to melodic colossus again during its twenty minute span that benchmarks the imaginative, spiritual achievement that is In Dreams and Time. This album stands as a truly awesome pantheon of 70s weirdness and theatrical aplomb punctuated by the perfect amount of devastation.
Owl Owl EP
Magick Hermit Records/Tombs in the Valley Productions
Oakland’s Owl, featuring a trio of brothers (the youngest of which is 17) and a female bass-ess who’s of no relation, wallow in that witchy downer rock of the 70s, and their new self-titled two-song EP is some shabby and vintage proto-metal fuzz. So shabby and vintage, in fact, that I’m convinced these guys just found this 7″ in their cool uncle’s attic in a dusty old box between some Night Sun and Iron Claw LPs and have decided to pass it off as their own, assuming we’d all be none the wiser because no one in their right mind these days would dare record something so sonically regressive. Both sides of this one, A’s “Stone Loner” and B’s “Feaster From the Stars” are an untamed mix of early Iron Maiden and Pentagram, the NWOBHM riff attack wrestling with the back end doom vibe for dungeon supremacy. You know, I kind of like it when a band trades in the pro tools for some tin cans, used mattresses, and bad fun.
Listen to the Owl EP and then go get it yourself for free!
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.
Ancestors
Owl
Stubb