Gideon Smith and The Dixie Damned
30 Weight
Small Stone

With one of the most recognizable voices in all of heavy music, the swamp wizard himself, Gideon Smith, returns to howl at the moon with 30 Weight, another album of psychedelic motorcycle blues that has me (and no doubt others of my ilk who have also previously written about The Dixie Damned’s Southern boogie doom) tripping over myself trying to come up with a fresh way to sell the North Carolina band’s super-charmed snake oil. Just like previous full-lengths, 2004′s Southern Gentlemen and 2008′s South Side of the Moon, 30 Weight mixes the spiritual fire-eating of The Cult and the steely-eyed machismo of Circus of Power (see, I’m doing it already) for a deadly concoction of outlaw riffs and acid groove where songs like “Feel Alive” and “Shining Star” are this album’s “Whiskey Devil” and “Shimmering Rain,” respectively. That would also make the song “South” quite self-explanatory, as well. However, Gideon manages to add a few new ingredients to his brew this time around, like a female back-up singer on “Ride With Me” and a couple of covers, including a slow cooked version of Saint Vitus’ “I Bleed Black” and G.G. Allin’s “When I Die,” a poignantly raw country and western song in which Gideon strips it all down, even his voice. While GS&TDD fans will find a familiar comfort in 30 Weight‘s cattle skull savagery, the inexperienced can start here and work their way back down the dusty highway the band has forged without feeling like they’ve arrived late to the midnight ritual dance.

Listen to “Black Fire” from 30 Weight!

Weedeater
Jason…The Dragon
Southern Lord

It’s been four years since their last album, but Weedeater’s Jason…The Dragon finally sees its release, no doubt a welcome relief to vocalist/bassist “Dixie” Dave Collins whose shotgun-cleaning accident in January of 2010 left him without a big toe and delayed the album’s recording. Now, I never heard word whether the toe was successfully reattached or whether he blew it to smithereens and is altogether toe-less (or how this incident affected his relationship with his “favourite shotgun”), but it seems Collins’ sacrifice was not in vain because the North Carolina trio (completed by Dave “Shep” Shepherd on guitar and Keith “Keko” Kirkum on drums) has come out the other side of the whole mess with a real nasty bite to ‘em. That’s not to say that Weedeater weren’t as viscous as a frothing rottweiler before with all that feedback n’ fuzz, but Jason seems to find the band one step closer to oblivion; they’ve taken the Southern-fried sludge of earlier albums, dipped it into a big ol’ bucket of doom, and are spit-roasting it over Hell’s hot fires for maximum evil flavour. I mean, the quad shot of “Hammerhandle,” “Mancoon,” “Turkey Warlock,” and “Jason…The Dragon” all sound like Satan mowing over eternally damned souls atop a John Deere while a Motörhead record melts off a turntable into a hot, thick corrosive mess. For tradition’s sake, though, they manage to slip some back porch numbers in there, like the rubbery “Palm and Opium” and the album’s instrumental closer “Whiskey Creek” (complete with the sounds of crickets and rain), and the album title’s play on words (in line with …And Justice for Y’all and God Luck and Good Speed) shows that even without a full slew of digits, the band has kept that (now forked) tongue planted firmly in their tobacco-stained cheek.

Listen to “Mancoon” from Jason…The Dragon!

Birds of Avalon
Birds of Avalon
Bladen County Records

New horizons for Raleigh, North Carolina’s Birds of Avalon, who have parted ways with their old label, Volcom, and their old vocalist, Craig Tilley. But the Birds were always a band about the future anyway, so slight changes to their course shouldn’t really alter their ultimate destination, and they don’t, as this latest self-titled release proves (an album they’ve been sitting on for about two years). Combining experimental-era Beatles, 70s prog rock, and current hipster hullabaloo, Birds of Avalon finds the band on a freer, further plane, expressing a shift from the classic rock intensity found on earlier albums like Bazaar Bazaar toward an exotic, analog psych-pop sound full of accessibly translucent melodies, deep and heavy grooves, and fluent nerd-speak. Meaning it’s just weird enough to work, and works wonders where wanderlust and stardust are concerned.

Listen to “Invasion” from Birds of Avalon!