C’mon
The Mountain
Yeah Right! Records

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.

Listen to “The Grudge” from The Mountain!

Roadsaw
Roadsaw
Small Stone

I owe a lot to my many years spent as a revolutionary in Sleazegrinder’s army, including my love for all things rock n’ roll in Boston. Early into this millennium I developed an unchecked focus on such bands as Cocked n’ Loaded, Cracktorch, Rock City Crimewave, Milligram, Coke Dealer, and The Humanoids. If only my town had a scene like that, man. And that’s saying nothing of Wild Zero, Noble Rot, and the legendary (in my mind, anyway) Kari Nations. But the king daddy of ‘em all was — and is — Roadsaw (a nod to their off-shoots, Antler and Quitter, as well), the one band who preceded and survived all others. Led by the godfather’s of Boston rock, Ian Ross (guitar), Tim Catz (bass), and Craig Riggs (vocals), Roadsaw have been hammering out Southern-dipped fuzz n’ roll songs for about 18 years now, publishing consistently punishing albums that seem to get a tad slicker and sleazier every time out, to the point now where Roadsaw just can’t help but exude a rock star God confidence larger than the sun. The proof on Roadsaw, their sixth full-length release, is Riggs’ vocal harmonies, which elevate thick-riffed songs like “Dead and Buried,” “Thinking of Me,” “Motel Shoot Out,” and “Song X” into searing arena hits, and any one of Ross’ petulant solos, which attack like a lust-hungry fiend, feverishly and often. Stoner rock rarely contains this kind of excitement, my friends. The band can still play quick and deadly, too, as evidenced by the mean n’ tasty rawk of “Weight in Gold,” “The Getaway” and “Too Much is Not Enough,” and what would a Roadsaw album be without its quintessential ballad, “Electric Heaven,” which stays plugged in but meanders about in a psych-haze of doom-like opulence before delivering the catchiest chorus on the entire album. No doubt about it; the bar has been set…and it’s really fucking high.

Listen to “Dead And Buried” from Roadsaw!

Holy Grail
Crisis in Utopia
Prosthetic Records

Much of the attention leading up to Holy Grail’s debut release, Crisis in Utopia, has been less about their raised-horn, power metal throwback and more about their feud (if you want to call it that) with same-veined retro hair rockers, White Wizzard, whose bass player — and sole original member — Jon Leon has found fault with ex-WW members now in Holy Grail, claiming they’re using their brief time in WW to garner publicity for their new band. I’m just gonna go ahead and check that one off in the who-gives-a-fuck column and rock out with my cock out, because when it comes to militant riffing, bullet belt scaling, and vocal sorcery, Holy Grail are piloting a whole fleet of kamikaze TIE Kai fighters straight into the black and leathery heart of their Creator Kreator with gauntlets held high. Yeah, okay, metal wordplay aside, there’s a whole rash of recycled thrash to sort through nowadays, and sometimes you’re best served to just throw on some Angel Witch and go about your day, but Holy Grail do manage to elevate their slay n’ play at times by incorporating fistfuls of sleazy, shout-along devilry (“Call of Valhalla”) and folksy, Blind Guardian-inspired mysticism (“Nocturne in D Minor” and “Hollow Ground”) into their familiar-sounding arsenal. I really think we should start calling this stuff the NWONWOBHM.

Listen to “Call of Valhalla” from Crisis in Utopia!