Monster Truck

The Brown EP is Monster Truck’s second four-song output in as many years, and despite the fact that they roll through an EP’s worth of mean, 70s-fried rock in the same amount of time bands from that era devoted to one song, it’s still well worth the two beer it takes to get through it. A product of Steel Town, Canada (that’s Hamilton for you non-Canucks), Monster Truck is all hairy chests ‘neath leather vests and The Brown EP boasts a bad-ass, big-wheeled boogie that’ll blow your mud flaps way back. Nationally speaking, I’d put ‘em somewhere between the laid back roots n’ groove of The Sheepdogs and the million man spark of White Cowbell Oklahoma, but the way “I Am Freedom,” “Love Attack,” “Seven Seas Blues,” and “Righteous Smoke” crank the crotch mojo into the red, ride the organ like it was Gravedigger, and preach about souls on fire make ‘em sound like KISS, Grand Funk Railroad, and Mountain mud wrestling at a biker rally. Best part is, you can get this EP, and their self-titled one, for free right here. Boss, right? You bet, just like the tunes.

Listen to “I Am Freedom” from The Brown EP!

3 Inches of Blood

When 3 Inches of Blood released Here Waits Thy Doom in in 2009, their first album without growler Jamie Hooper, I was excited to hear what the band could do with falsetto master — and beard champion — Cam Pipes alone at the helm. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with the effort, and the album became a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. Whatever soul (if you can have such a thing in heavy metal) the band had left with Hooper, apparently, which wasn’t what the Vancouver headbangers needed after guitarists Sunny Dhak and Bob Froese took their amazing riff-wielding power with them to Pride Tiger after 3IoB put out what stands as one of my favourite metal albums of all time, 2004′s Advance and Vanquish. However, I’m still a huge fan, and when I caught them live a few months back it was the inclusion of this EP’s two songs, “Lords of Change” and “Strength of the Grave,” into their set list that roused me from my drunken stupor. It sounded to me, at that time, that 3IoB had re-captured that battle cry of yore, that snappy, traditional thrash, that blood-spilling, leather n’ spikes mayhem that made me fall in love with ‘em in the first place. Now, listening to this EP, there’s no doubt that 3IoB have mounted the red-eyed steed once again as they gallop through both songs at a furiously purposeful pace, slaying thine enemies where they stand before soaring through the sing-along choruses with swords held high. But the victory is short-lived, the anthems spoiled by a hollow, St. Anger-like production, which, given the apparent return to form, doesn’t make much sense at all. That being said, I’m excited about the next full-length, especially if these songs are any indication about where the band is going next. Hell, it’s even nice to see a sweet cover again, one that hearkens back to Edward Repka’s Advance and Vanquish genius.

Listen to “Strength of the Grave” from Anthems for the Victorious!

C’mon

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!

Black Wizard

It’s not enough anymore to say that Black Wizard are emerging as one of my favourite Canadian bands because that’s an unfair limitation for such a colossal stink of a stoner rock band. The patterns of abject abhorrence displayed by these dirty pastors of pot make ‘em young leaders of wrong morals; the fervor of their foggy franchise gets its momentum from wonderfully sketchy influences, and the wheel is really starting to roll. A hefty sum of hyperbole, sure, but Black Wizard is, flat out, the million dollar beast you want to keep secret lest everyone get hip to its bankable savagery. Truth be told, though, I’m not sure how long the chains would hold. If I was smart, I’d start a label right now and put everything I had into ‘em. Last year’s self-released, self-titled debut was full of raw, thick-necked goodness, and really got me excited about what was to come. Well, as good as their debut was, this here seven inch is better. Its two songs, “Mountain Bitch” and its backside “Jesus,” are huge statements; heavy, high-flyin’ slabs of mature (gasp!)  psych-doom that prove the band have found a retro-fuzz sound worth exploring and elevating. Now all that’s left for these dudes to do is ruin the freedom and reap the benefits that come with breaking out. Shouldn’t be long now.

Listen to “Mountain Bitch” from the Mountain Bitch 7″!

Canada is home to some of the best fucking bands in the world. Sorry, that outburst wasn’t very politely Canadian of me, but it’s fucking true. I’ve got the proof right here, ten times over. I’d crank any one of these albums while I’m watching the hockey game. I can’t bring myself to rank ‘em because, well, I’m just so goddamn proud of all of ‘em, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take the time get to know ‘em right now. Here then, in alphabetical order, is this year’s cream of the Canadian crop. Oh, and that crop also includes a case of Pil and some weed.

Barn Burner – Bangers

“[Barn Burner] takes the exotic flare of Tricky Woo, the frantic energy of Valient Thorr, the street machismo of The Bronx, the dusty swagger of Fu Manchu, and the slick harmonies of Thin Lizzy, and turns it into a greasy mess of heavy, blessed, bad-ass rock…”

Barn Burner destroyed me with this one. Bangers is just one of those ‘holy fuck’ albums that fills you with instant recklessness. It makes me wish I was 19 again.

Bison B.C. – Dark Ages

“Dark Ages…binds our hands and feet with snakes and drags us down into the ash and brimstone of Hell’s half acre so we can do Satan’s evil bidding….it’s a bit of a dark departure for Bison B.C. this time around, but that just means they now sound like High on Fire with twin guitars, and that’s pretty fucking awesome.”

Bison B.C. is a stoner metal band with a sense of humor and are best served with alcohol. Lots of it. If you can’t get into that, there’s no hope for you.

Black Mountain – Wilderness Heart

“Amped, hairy, and unpredictable, a reclusive gang armed with a mind-fuck manifesto to take you further….there’s not one song on Wilderness Heart that’s not far-out and really fucking good.”

You know, if I was ranking these albums, this one would be number one. Hell, it’s easily in my top five favourite albums this year. I’ve listened to the album’s opener and closer, “The Hair Song” and “Sadie” respectively, relentlessly since this one came out. And everything in between the two is perfect as well.

Black Wizard – Black Wizard

“..their party hard street metal show belies the thick beard of righteousness that bears the brunt of their majestic doom n’ roll….The seven songs here are all fulla boss downer rock vibes and classic riffs that tumble and roll like a herd of buffalo down the side of a mountain…”

Technically, this one came out late in ’09, but since the vinyl dropped this year, I’m still counting it. Besides, it’s just too damn good not to. These fuckers are the real deal, they live it, breathe it, drink it, and smoke it. With bands like Black Wizard and Barn Burner climbing the ranks, the future of rock n’ roll in this country is solid.

Burning Love – Songs for Burning Lovers

“…Burning Love comes at you like a mental patient off its meds, all red eyes, twitchy limbs, and drool, and the abrasive, fuzzy, hardcore punk n’ roll on Songs for Burning Lovers…offers up all the subtle charm of chewing glass and sparring with a chain link fence.”

Sometimes you lose a band like Cursed but gain a band like Burning Love. What that means is somewhere along the way you committed some kind of epic sin and earned the favour of the rock n’ roll gods; this is your karmic kickback.

C’mon – Beyond the Pale Horse

“Beyond the Pale Horse, then, is like a shot of adrenaline right into your balls, like most C’mon albums are, naturally, and like previous albums, its beauty lies in its beastly nature, its ability to shift and deviate while still remaining furiously savage.”

It pretty much begins and ends with this band. Blurton’s a goddamn genius. The energy, the denim, the beard, the riffs, the fuzz…on and on and on…C’mon are it. Period.

Danko Jones – Below the Belt

“Danko Jones comes screaming out of the corner in this particular fight with – if you can believe it – more attitude than ever before, spittin’ and snarlin’ about what has become his rock n’ roll raison d’être: broads, break-ups, bad thoughts, and bullish bravado.”

If Black Wizard and Barn Burner are the future, C’mon and Danko Jones are the torch bearers, although neither appear ready to pass theirs on just yet. From this one’s cover to its videos, it’s clear that Danko is a superstar ego, but he more than backs it up with a superstar sound.

Quest for Fire – Lights from Paradise

“…a dose of dazed and confused feedback frenzy…The Toronto band injects enough garage rock into their psychedelic vibes for a little extra hip-shake at the black light party, which is to say it manages to make stoner rock sound a bit sexy and somewhat dangerous.”

You can thank Cursed for this band, too. You can thank The Deadly Snakes as well. But ultimately, thank Quest for Fire for takin’ what their old bands gave ‘em and turnin’ it on its head.

Trigger Effect – Versitis Maximus

“Trigger Effect is a cyclone of punk n’ roll danger, all spit and teeth and shirtless fury…Versitis Maximus finds the band flying high through desperate skies on wings of barbed wire once more.”

You kind of have to see Trigger Effect to properly experience them because it’s a fear-based rock n’ roll they spew at you, and while this album comes terribly close to causing you serious harm, it’s just not the same as being front row at a show. It is, however, the next best thing.

Uncle Bad Touch – Uncle Bad Touch

“Much like the band’s maligned name, the songs on Uncle Bad Touch’s self-titled debut scratch away at your mind like a repressed memory and blink like a wired third eye thanks to all the lo-fi riffing, vocal squealing, freaky grooves, and meandering flute.”

Mikey Heppner of Priestess decided to get together with some friends and throw this disastrously awesome album together. Probably quite literally, or that’s how it sounds, anyway. And you know what? I really, really hope they do it again.

The Best Canadian Album Cover of the Year

It’s tough to top a lion and a lovely lady, but I gotta give this one to Uncle Bad Touch’s self-titled album because of its simple yet rude, Rick Trembles-esque je ne sais quoi.

The Best Canadian Album of the Year That I Never Reviewed

Once again, I’ve got something for you that went by undetected, but better late than never, right? Hailing from Ottawa of all places, The White Wires are a twitchy-legged trio with a girl drummer that play a retro brand of blissed-out garage pop, and their second album, the appropriately titled WWII (out on Dirtnap Records), is full of  a whole bunch of fuzzy two-minute ditties, a non-stop electroshock treatment that’ll leave you worn out and disturbingly happy. Trendy and catchy…a lethal combination!

Listen to “Did You Forget My Name” from WWII!

The Best Canadian Album By Friends of Mine

This entire portion of The Ten is based on a certain amount of pride I have for what this country is contributing to the rock n’ roll community at large. The fact that some friends of mine had a tremendous year and offered their own contribution makes me, to put it in the proper terms, extra stoked. I never reviewed Baptized in Blood’s self-titled Roadrunner debut when it came out because I felt too close to it, as weird as that sounds, and I didn’t want to have to worry about “critiquing” it. I just wanted to enjoy it. So, to Josh, Shags, Johl, and Nick…congratulations, dudes. Thanks for keeping the party alive. Your shredding makes my dick hard.

The Best Canadian Beard of the Year

It’s a tie! Black Mountain’s Stephen McBean and C’mon’s Ian Blurton are undeniably beard!

The Best Canadian Video of the Year

Well, it’s got to be Black Mountain’s “The Hair Song,” doesn’t it? The song is incredible and the video was shot in and around my hometown of London, Ontario and features the best bar in the country, Call the Office. That’s good enough for me!

Okay, we’re almost there…best song and best album are right around the corner!

Quest for Fire
Lights From Paradise

Quest for Fire teased us earlier this year by releasing a split with Nebula, but have returned with a proper full-length, Lights From Paradise, a dose of dazed and confused feedback frenzy, each one of the songs out on their feet, sleepwalkers of red light drone and fuzz n’ roll. The best thing about Quest for Fire is that their electric haze, which includes the use of strings and acoustic guitars this time around, exudes a real mess of cool. The Toronto band injects enough garage rock into their psychedelic vibes for a little extra hip-shake at the black light party, which is to say it manages to make stoner rock sound a bit sexy and somewhat dangerous. Musically speaking, this album puts ‘em somewhere between country contemporaries Black Mountain and Burning Love, making them equally freaky and hectic, but they can at any moment also remind you of The Kills, The Black Angels, The Stooges, Witch, and Pink Floyd. Stepping into the void has never been this bad-ass, man.

Listen to “Hinterland Who’s Who” from Lights From Paradise!

Black Mountain
Wilderness Heart

Emerging from the deep woods of Canada’s rocky west coast is Black Mountain, and not unlike the California day-glo pranksters of decades ago, they’re amped, hairy, and unpredictable, a reclusive gang armed with a mind-fuck manifesto to take you further. Black Mountain’s power and glory psych-rock is usually a strange and wonderful trip down various avenues of electric mayhem, but Wilderness Heart, their third full-length, showcases the band at their most diverse. While songs like the title track, “Old Fangs,” and  “Roller Coaster” bring the Iron Butterfly-meets-Bigelf heavy organ and nightmare doom heard on 2008′s In the Future, it’s the acid-fried acoustic songs “Radiant Hearts,” “Buried By the Blues,” “The Way to Gone,” “The Space of Your Mind,” and “Sadie” that shine brightest, each one of ‘em full of stardust and soul. If that ain’t enough for ya, opener “The Hair Song” is a beautifully-crafted, Zeppelin-inspired slide shaker, while “Let Spirits Ride” is built like a hot rod, running fast on MC5 fuzz and NWOBHM riffs. There’s not one song on Wilderness Hearts that doesn’t benefit from the killer chemistry of vocal duo Stephen McBean and Amber Webber, and there’s not one song on Wilderness Heart that’s not far-out and really fucking good.

Check out two videos — “Old Fangs” and “The Hair Song” — from Wilderness Heart! Cool fact: The video for “The Hair Song” contains footage shot in and around my hometown, and my old stomping ground, Call the Office. Dig it!

First though, the rundown. Stefaniuk plays Joey, the self-absorbed leader of The Winners, and he and his band have just been dumped by their manager Jeff (Dave Foley). Despite being at their lowest, they stick to their plans to make it from Montreal to Toronto and down the Eastern US seaboard in order to play a showcase gig attended by industry insiders, movers and shakers. However, before leaving Montreal, the band’s bass player, Jennifer (Jessica Paré), leaves a gig with a powder-faced dandy named Queeny (played by Burning Brides singer/guitarist Dimitri Coats), goes to a party, and gets turned into a blood-sucker. When she arrives at the next city, there’s something noticeably different about her, and suddenly, people start taking a bit of an interest in the band, particularly its sexy bass player. Jennifer tries to hide her new affliction, but when she starts feeding on people along the way, the band’s funny French roadie, Hugo, discovers her secret and, as a good roadie is wont to do, helps her take care of it.

One night, after devouring Beef Bellows (played by Moby), the lead singer of the band Secretaries of Steak, Joey and the rest of the band get hip to Jennifer’s vamped ways. They all agree that it must be kept a secret and that she can’t turn any of the other band members into vampires. That proves difficult, and soon enough Jennifer ends up biting the guitarist and the drummer. Now Joey’s the only one who’s not a vampire, and repeated visits/visions from some bartender/Lucifer/head vampire dude (played by Alice Cooper) urging him to embrace the vampire ways and fulfill his dreams of becoming famous, is making it hard for him not to sell out, as it were. Speaking on behalf of the other side of the coin is super- producer Victor (played by Iggy Pop), who is urging Joey to not give in to the hype and remain true to himself, etc. Finally, though, Joey opts for selling out, either because he wants to be famous or because he’s totally in love with Jennifer.

The Winners become overnight sensations, an exploding IT band, with a new populist following. However, they can’t control their thirsty ways and even feed on radio DJ Rockin’ Roger (played by Henry Rollins) live on the air. This doesn’t seem to bother anyone except Eddie Van Helsing (Malcolm McDowell), the eye-patched vampire hunter who’s been trailing them all tour, hoping to destroy them and get his hands on the ultimate prize, Queeny, the dude who killed his wife many years ago. The movie winds down with the band opting for the high road once and for all, so they collaborate with Van Helsing who has a plan that will make them human again and help him exact his revenge on Queeny.

So yeah, Suck is a bit boring, but what it lacks in action it makes up for in wit. The roadie, Hugo, is the funniest of the bunch, the bilingual fall guy with some clever one liners, and having noted shock rocker Alice Cooper play the dude urging Joey to embrace the shtick appeal seems wholly apropos. Also, Moby is a well-known vegetarian, so his role in this film is all cow tongue in cheek, and it works, and naming the band The Winners when they are obviously anything but, works as well.

However, what I enjoyed most about this movie was playing the album cover game. It was the one thing that kept my interest all the way through. See, Stefaniuk put scenes in this movie that were near exact shots of famous album covers, and once I got hip to it, I spent the rest of the time searching them out. Here are the covers I discovered, in no particular order: The Beatles’ Abbey Road, T Rex’s Electric Warrior, Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA, The Who’s The Kids Are All Right, and The Rolling Stones’ Beggar’s Banquet. Also, the scene where Joey talks with Alice Copper at the crossroad’s is a Robert Johnson homage, and there was one scene that I thought might have been The Beatles’ Yesterday and Today, but wasn’t quite sure. Anyway, there could’ve been more I didn’t pick up on, so go ahead and get this movie and see what you can find!

*Yup, that’s what she said.

Check out the trailer for Suck!

C’mon
Beyond the Pale Horse

You should see it around here, man. It’s all exploding hearts and raging boners and hot sparks, which kind of sounds like a sweaty Saturday night at the steel mill, but really it’s just me on cloud nine in the rock n’ roll sky that opened up above me the second I dropped the needle on this glorious slab of coke bottle clear wax. A new C’mon record can, without much effort at all, make your entire life worth living, so the fact that it’s been three years since their last full-length, Bottled Lightning of an All Time High, means we’ve been comatose for quite awhile now. But here comes our heroic power trio, Sir Ian Blurton, Katie Lynn Campbell, and Dean Dallas Bentley, riding in on this pale horse to save the fucking day, to shock us back into coherence with their brilliantly boss fuzz n’ roll. Beyond the Pale Horse, then, is like a shot of adrenaline right into your balls, like most C’mon albums are, naturally, and like previous albums, its beauty lies in its beastly nature, its ability to shift and deviate while still remaining furiously savage. The play this time is that the electric noise is saturated in dreamy effects, and C’mon mixes some foggy, psychedelic magic in amongst their usual motor-driven madness. Dig the catchy title track and the majestically groovy – and unusually long – “Fortress of the Night” for the freakiest examples. But for sheer riffola, “Midnite is the Answer,” with its stoner crunch, is the one that pumps my blood. C’mon prove, once again, that they are almighty and untouchable.

*That’s not the record I own, but it looks just like it. Courtesy of whomever took the pic. It might’ve been Tony.

Ok, I don’t have an mp3 from the album to share (I just got it in the mail), so go buy the album from Yeah Right! to hear it for yourself. In the meantime, enjoy an older C’mon video of them washing their van and kicking it live!