C’mon
The Mountain
Yeah Right! Records

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!

Premonition 13
13
Volcom Entertainment

And here we are with Scott “Wino” Weinrich’s latest band, Premonition 13. The last couple of years saw the DOOM LEGEND without a band as he collaborated with friends (and legends in their own right) Al Cisneros, Scott Kelly, and Dale Crover in Shrinebuilder and released a couple of solo albums, including the acoustic effort Adrift. But now the man who’s left a trail of awesome bands behind him like no other is back in front of a stack once again with long-time friend Jim “Sparky” Karow, with whom he’s been jamming in the California desert since his days in The Obsessed. Well, the two have taken the fruits of those labors, and a mutual interest in magnetism, Mesoamerican history, and ancient cultures, and poured it into 13, a psych-doom tapestry of simple, heavy riffs and acid-fried grooves. It is, obviously, distinctly Wino, meaning songs like “Hard to Say,” “Clay Pigeons,” and “La Hechicera de la Jeringa” contain the captivating menace of fireside stories told by the most respected, feared, and battle-scarred elder/warrior of the tribe, but there are times when Wino finds himself treading some weird n’ wild territory, like on the nine minute opener “B.E.A.U.T.Y.,” “Senses,” and “Peyote Road,” each of ‘em altered states of a proud, monolithic craft. Also of note is the way Premonition 13 dips their long grey hair into Motörhead’s dirty pool on the bloozy, tongue-in-cheek tune “Deranged Rock N’ Roller,” the daringly melodic “Modern Man,” in which Wino’s vocal prowess shimmers with the slightest pop sensibilities, and the fact that, with the exception of Shrinebuilder, this is the first time Wino hasn’t completely owned guitar duties in a band, and the consequence of freedom is evident. For some, Premonition 13 might be just another Wino band, but it sounds to me like the cult hero who left blood-drawn paintings on cavern walls all those years ago has returned to reveal their true meanings.

Listen to “La Hechicera de la Jeringa” from 13!

Ufomammut
Eve
Supernatural Cat

Ufomammut’s fifth album, Eve, is one chilling 45 minute possession separated into five movements, and its affection is wholly and shamelessly UNGODLY. When the music isn’t whispering to you in forked tongues and taunting you with an unnerving drone, it’s driving the heavy, black riff of DOOM right through your frayed soul. It’s a hellish soundscape of caverns and creatures in cloaks, punctuated by crimson spasms of cosmic catastrophe. What I’m getting at here is that this album is the aural equivalent of what would be going through your mind if you sliced open your inner thigh and watched the blood slowly drain out of your body until the darkness enveloped you, and should finally earn these evil Italians their own spot in the amp-worshiping cabal alongside monolithic motherfuckers like OM, Sunn O))), Earth, Boris, and the rest. Unkind stuff, man.

Listen to “Eve Pt. IV” from Eve!