Orange Goblin A Eulogy for the Damned
Candlelight Records
If you’ve got a beard, own a bong, or ride a bike, chances are this year’s most anticipated release for you is Orange Goblin’s A Eulogy for the Damned. And why not? The band released its first six albums in ten years, and its now been damn near five years since 2007′s Healing Through Fire, so chances are you’ve got one hell of an itch to take to the starry highway to hit up OG’s cosmic dope show once again. But where the UK quartet was once raw and bloozy it is now cooked and mean, and the smoky caravan kitsch it once proudly boasted in its space-brewed riffs has given way to a prouder, louder form. In fact, aside from vocalist Ben Ward’s chain-link preaching, the Southern boogie doom of “Save Me From Myself” or the bold groove of “Return to Mars,” there’s very little left in the way of OG’s former scuzzy self, and what stands before you today is a tyrant fifteen stories tall, an angry world-eater with a heavy metal law to lay the fuck down. And this is a metal album in many ways thanks to songs like “Red Tide Rising,” “Acid Trial,” “The Fog,” “Death of Aquarius,” and “Bishop’s Wolf,” which is not something you could have really said about any past OG album. It is also very much a statement album, the aforementioned songs leaving the deepest cut, but even OG’s familiar stoner rock fare, like the melodic “Stand For Something” and “The Filthy and the Few” contain a demented edge to ‘em, and the acoustic-psych intro on closer “A Eulogy To The Damned” points to OG’s dark, force-fueled approach to making this record. If you’ve ever hoped that Orange Goblin would one day step up and make a power move, that they’d drop all that whiskey-soaked astro-noodling and put some steel and muscle into their tunes, A Eulogy for the Damned is your hope come true.
Well, it turns out that Peace, and Other Horrors, the four-song EP Dwellers put out last year, was an experimental little project because there’s not much folksy, acoustic Americana Gothic to be found on their debut full-length, Good Morning Harakiri. Although, to be fair, Good Morning Harakiri does contain a good deal of slide guitar, but it’s used as a vehicle for delivering some grungy psych-blues instead. I suppose the idea behind this one is that the six songs included here are the musical equivalent of splitting yourself open and spilling your guts all over the place, and if that’s the case, this Salt Lake City trio (comprised of Iota and Subrosa members) has made one fine mess. While it is atmospheric, exotic, and trippy at times, Good Morning Harakiri is, ultimately, blessedly doomed, absolutely heavy, and full of Southern-fried muscle, and if Gideon Smith was to ever rip through a set of songs from Soundgarden’s Ultramega OK in Earth’s jam room, this is what it would sound like. Forget what it does to your insides — this ritual rock rattles your goddamn bones.
Ancient VVisdom A Godlike Inferno
Shinebox Recordings
Yes, that’s VVisdom, with two V’s instead of a W, perhaps to denote some sort of kvlt affinity, and why not when you’re a band whose first recorded offering is a split with Charles Manson and your dark, acoustic doom is black metal played out as the Devil’s blues? Driven by a forbidden force of steel-stringed conviction and Antichrist alchemy, the Austin band’s debut, A Godlike Inferno, is more than a poor cover, fancy spelling, and men in costumed ceremony — it’s eight tracks of pagan chamber music, a melodic and catchy gush of neo-folk played by dudes in dirty denim vests. And nevermind that Ancient VVisdom contains members of the louder groups Iron Age and Integrity because this is simple, stripped down, fire-licking rock n’ soul, like Agalloch at a biker camp-out or Days of the New in corpse paint, which is actually way better than it sounds.
Check out two videos for “The Opposition” and “VVorld of Flesh” from A Godlike Inferno!
Orange Goblin
Dwellers
Ancient VVisdom