If anyone ever says nothing good ever comes out of Saskatchewan, you just tell ‘em about The Sheepdogs. You see, these prairie hippies, with their Southern 70s roots rock, just won a competition to be on the cover of Rolling Stone. With an abundance of beard, The Sheepdogs will be bringing some nostalgic honour to the cover of the infamous rock mag, which is really nice to see. Normally I wouldn’t care about this sort of thing, but I’ve been a fan of this hard workin’, travelin’ band for about four years now, ever since I obtained a copy of their 2007 debut album, Trying to Grow, which they independently released. In fact, they’ve also independently released two other albums as well, 2009′s The Sheepdogs’ Big Stand and 2010′s Learn & Burn, so the fact that they also won a record deal with Atlantic with this contest is a nice feather in their beaded headband. So, congratulations to The Sheepdogs, who are probably going to get a lot of love outside of Canada now. Much deserved. Now check out the video for their song “I Don’t Know”!
3 Inches of Blood Anthems for the Victorious EP
Century Media
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.
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.
If anyone ever says nothing good ever comes out of Saskatchewan, you just tell ‘em about The Sheepdogs. You see, these prairie hippies, with their Southern 70s roots rock, just won a competition to be on the cover of Rolling Stone. With an abundance of beard, The Sheepdogs will be bringing some nostalgic honour to the cover of the infamous rock mag, which is really nice to see. Normally I wouldn’t care about this sort of thing, but I’ve been a fan of this hard workin’, travelin’ band for about four years now, ever since I obtained a copy of their 2007 debut album, Trying to Grow, which they independently released. In fact, they’ve also independently released two other albums as well, 2009′s The Sheepdogs’ Big Stand and 2010′s Learn & Burn, so the fact that they also won a record deal with Atlantic with this contest is a nice feather in their beaded headband. So, congratulations to The Sheepdogs, who are probably going to get a lot of love outside of Canada now. Much deserved. Now check out the video for their song “I Don’t Know”!
3 Inches of Blood
C’mon