It’s hard to imagine that the Tokyo Dragons, in their brief, two-album career, could have influenced anybody, but here come fellow UK’ers Black Spiders, swingin’ their hot nuts and givin’ me the fear like the Dragons used to do. Of course, it might make more sense to compare the Spiders’ explosive, hi-top arena rock to bands like KISS, AC/DC, and Motörhead (all of whom the band have referenced in their music by way of lyrics or cover songs), and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out there’s a Soundgarden, Circus of Power, and Four Horsemen freak in their ranks too, but you know what I’m getting at here: this is music for keg parties, biker rallies, or any event where a hot tub and cocaine are present. Sons of the North is the band’s first full-length after a steady diet of EPs for the last two plus years (The St. Peter EP, Cinco Hombres [Diez Cojones], and No Goats in the Omen) and thumps its chest so loud and proud it bruises the heart deep inside. Old fans of the band will notice some familiar bite in the previously released songs “Stay Down,” “Just Like a Woman,” and “St. Peter”, but the way the album seamlessly weaves eye-lined sleaze rock excitement (“KISS Tried to Kill Me,” “Easy Peasy,” “What Good’s a Rock Without a Roll?”) with bearded stoner rock bullying (“Blood of the Kings,” “Man’s Ruin,” “Si, El Diablo”) is a mouthful of deliciously bloody meat you’ll want to feast on for a long time to come. Pull this one out at the next hot tub biker keg party rally you attend and you’ll find yourself fighting and fucking the night away, guaranteed.
Check out the video for “Just Like a Woman” from Sons of the North (even though this video was shot when they released the song on No Goats in the Omen)!
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.
The Dangerous Aces …Deny All Responsibility
Self-Released
I’ve got a gonzo rock journo friend over in Merry ‘Ol who I wrote with for many years when we were both stalwarts of Sleazegrinder’s legendary jive cotillion. We spent a lot of time in the trenches together doing our part for the Super Rock Revolution. His name is “Medicine” Stu Gibson and he’s the finest, marbled-mouthed, mutton-chopped, pub crawling, rabble rousing psycho cowboy you’ll ever have the fortune of reading. His lust for loose-lipped loquaciousness knows no limits and is matched only by his love for late-night libations, which no doubt leaks into the lackadaisical lyrics of his lordly lamentations. You have to read him to get him, and even then you still might not get him, but that’s okay because Medicine Stu can play a git’ just as well as he can stroke a pen. He’s not afraid to put his pounds where his pucker is, and as such is best known as the soused singer and axe slinger for country punk heroes The Medicine Bow. But when the Bow breaks, the cradle must continue to rock, so Medicine Stu is gutter-bound with his guitar to find stardom among the sewer rats with a rag-tag racket of Manchester mayhem, The Dangerous Aces.
Black Spiders
Night Horse
The Dangerous Aces