Matterhorn Vol. 1. The World Began Without Man...
Thinker Thought Records
On Vol. 1. The World Began Without Man…, Matterhorn takes the familiar destruction-of-human-civilization post-rock theme, splits it up into five stages/songs, and parlays it into a thick-riffed, heavy metal aural story. However, the Colorado trio (all ex-members of The Great Redneck Hope) forgo the more ambient, spacey, and experimental sound most instrumental post-rock bands employ, choosing instead to cash in on their namesake and deliver our demise through mountainous, fuzzy, sludge-leaning chaos that’s as much Karma to Burn as it is Russian Circles, but both will get you where you want to go when it comes down to it. It all plays out in about thirty minutes and covers mankind’s legitimately scientific impending doom, including volcanic unrest (“Stage One: Long Valley Caldera, 8:32 a.m.”), cyclones/typhoons (“Stage Two: Armada Storm”), whatever “The Currents” is about (“Stage Three: The Currents”), radiation (“Stage Four: The South Atlantic Anomaly”), and asteroids (“Stage Five: 99942 Apophis”), all of it a crushing and (at times) melodic attack no doubt laying the groundwork for whatever Vol. 2 is going to delve into. Probably an apocalyptic afterlife or something, who knows. You gotta get through this hopeless bastard first.
Listen to “Stage One: Long Valley Caldera, 8:32 a.m.” from Vol. 1. The World Began Without Man…!
The Jim Jones Revue Burning Your House Down
Punk Rock Blues
The congregation is sweatin’ and moanin’, children, for Jim Jones, the white man, has come to claim the bastard blues. Oh Lord, yes! One for the money, two for the show, like Jerry Lee and Elvis before him, Mr. Jones rattles every single one of your bones. His midnight Revue, leather-faced retinue, a real pack of cool, shakes shacks with the best of ‘em, and only the loudest, fuzziest, hip socket rock will do. The former Thee Hypnotics and Black Moses front man is on a mission and completely out of his mind, his greasy-haired head down, and three albums in three years (including 2008′s self-titled album and 2009′s Here to Save Your Soul) is a real heavy load, but not even a great ball of fire is gonna stop his screamin’ train from rollin’ on. Garage funk, Motown soul — it’s all kinds of righteous rock n’ roll, doused in gasoline, with a sonic swagger that would make Scott Morgan proud. Goodness gracious!
Check out the video for “High Horse” from Burning Your House Down!
Even though they hail from the City of Angels, Night Horse carry themselves with that Americana swagger befitting East Coast brawlers, chucking big, dopey, boogie-fried riffs at you like ham-sized fists that leave deep, lasting bruises. Picking up where their 2008 debut, The Dark Won’t Hide You, left off, Perdition Hymns lays the Southern stoner rock on nice n’ thick, incorporating plenty of organ, slide, and 70s-infused boxcar blues to send you on a weed-eating nostalgia trip to Altamont and back. Sure, it’s got all the dusty charm of Skynyrd or the Allmans, and sounds like a nasty mix of Cracktorch and the ‘Crowes, but ultimately (and maybe it’s because of the way singer Sam James Velde howls at the blood red moon) the songs on Perdition Hymns come off as bastard inventions from an alternate universe where Danzig grows up a wayward cowboy and not Lucifer’s brawny spawn.
Matterhorn
Night Horse