October’s Beard of the Month is a familiar one, belonging to Black Tusk bassist Jonathon Athon, who also received some end-of-the-year kudos in 2010 for his fire-branded, foot-and-a-half facial fashion statement. Athon’s beard is grade A ginger greatness, and nearly a year later it still boasts an unbridled barbarianism that’d make Erik the Red jealous if he were alive today. You know that iconic image of Superman standing on top of a skyscraper, his cape blowing in the wind a tell-tale sign of his heroic awesomeness? That’s how I like to think of Athon, only instead of a skyscraper it’s a mountain and instead of a cape it’s his beard.

And a worthy nod to the hairy fellows in The Shrine, seen here posing with an elder beard named Chief. I don’t know who Chief is or what his story might be, but you can bet it’s a good one judging by his beard. And so The Shrine, taking their beard, beer, and cigarette cue from Chief, are well on their way to becoming a proud bunch of drunk Gandalfs too!

Black Tusk
Set the Dial
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Set the Dial is the fourth full length from Savannah metal heads Black Tusk, and if you’ve had the pleasure of hearing either of their latter two, Passage Through Purgatory or Taste the Sin, you know exactly the kind of sludge covered punk you’re about to receive (John Dyer Baizley artwork and all). You see, like its predecessors, Set the Dial rumbles its way through murky swamp and crusty gutter to get to where you feel most safe and comfortable only to heap a hell of a lot of petulance and abrasive screams onto you. That being said though, as crumbling, noise-driven attacks, Black Tusk’s earlier efforts thrived on destruction, where Set the Dial‘s objective seems to be one aimed at rebuilding, at harnessing the rust-stained chaos in order to rise to loftier heights. They do this through the coy use of groove, which lays in wait on table-setter “Brewing the Storm” and then busts through the muck and mire to take over songs like “Mass Devotion,” “Set the Dial to Your Doom,” “Resistor,” and “This Time is Divine,” making Set the Dial‘s riff-driven focus the main, albeit subtle, point of difference. At the end of the day though, it’s another grease-charged album of Georgian origin, and one could spend an entire month getting filthy, high, and in trouble listening to Black Tusk and their mates of state, Zoroaster, Kylesa, Mastodon, and Baroness.

Listen to “Set The Dial To Your Doom” from Set the Dial!

Blacktusk
Taste the Sin
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Beastly Georgian trio, Blacktusk, bring hell’s hammers down heavy on their sophomore effort, Taste the Sin, like they’re taking out a whole bushel of rotten peaches in one abominable swing, splattering black juice and insidious worms all over the goddamn place. Baizley wrapped and disastrously brackish, Taste the Sin picks up where ‘08’s debut, Passage Through Purgatory, left off by heaping a whole mess of redneck rage onto the sludge metal artistry of bands like Baroness and Torche. The angry, pounding riffs burn like fire on the surface of an oily swamp and every one of the album’s 11 songs seethe and foam like acid on an open wound. Imagine the Cancer Bats with longer teeth or Zoroaster with shorter songs and you’ve got the Southern stoner death thrash of Blacktusk.

Note: I’ve seen the band’s name written several different ways, including Black Tusk and BlackTusk, but I have opted for Blacktusk. If any of the fellas in the band would like to offer up the official spelling of the band’s name, please drop me a line. Until then, I will stick with the one word, lower case ‘t’ version. For better or worse.

Listen to “Snake Charmer” from Taste the Sin!