Mega-fuzzy mind fuck from the awesomely named Haunted Leather, a trio of robed heatwave hallucinations floating amongst some sandy dunes, spewing these seven desert spells at you like a flood of rubber lava. This vibration worship comes straight out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, of all places, no doubt culled from some wood-paneled, suburban den, its thick shag floor littered with empty cough syrup bottles. I’d cite Om, Naam, Orange Sunshine, Dead Meadow, and Hawkwind as obvious influences on Haunted Leather’s heavy psych, but I think they’ve also spent a lot of time chasing the midnight sun and memorizing kaleidoscope designs. However they get their freak on, there’s a few things I know for sure: the music pulses and oozes like a fat wave of strange, the vocals are a numbing wail of some long lost ancient language, and the whole thing will knock you into a half-conscious state of dopey bliss.
Grails Black Tar Prophecies Vol. 4
Important Records
Apparently not satisfied with there being only three Black Tar volumes, Grails returns with everyone’s preferred volume of choice, number four. An avant-garde instrumental band practicing a hybrid form of psychedelic indie zen, Grails (featuring, most notably, Emil Amos of Om and Holy Sons) occupy a lyric-less expanse that exists somewhere between Steven Wilson’s Tarquin’s Seaweed Farm days and a side stage at Bonnaroo. The five songs on Vol. 4 take you on a quick but impressionable ride through the subconscious via electronic post-rock drone (“I Want a New Drug” and “New Drug II)” and dark, dreamy holistic jazz rock (“Self-Hypnosis,” “A Mansion Has Many Rooms,” and “Up All Night”), and while 22 minutes might not seem like a sufficient amount of time to get your full meditation on, it appears that Vol. 5 isn’t be far behind. So, as is always the case with Grails, there’s plenty in which to take solace.
Like an ancient call from deep within the foggy halls of some floating, forgotten, and fervent cosmic temple of metallurgy, the songs on Zoroaster’s third full-length, Matador, swim between sludge-drenched doom, nerve-rattling drone, and psych-metal mayhem, creating one bastard of a heavy, hypnotic ride. This isn’t just music you hear, buddy, this is music you see. It pulses and surges like a snake swallowing a beehive, it moves in nocturnal, amphibious rhythms, it explodes and flows like an active volcano. On previous efforts, Dog Magic and Voice of Saturn, Zoroaster stayed the low-end course of doom, rarely varying from the path of heaviest resistance, but Matador sees the Atlanta trio free-forming their way through meditative expanses of earth-swallowing sound and noise. Dig the title track, “D.N.R.,” “Odyssey” and “Old World” for the freakiest, Om meets Kyuss examples, while the songs “Ancient Ones,” “Trident,” and “Black Hole” spit out those classic Zoroaster riffs, which sound like High on Fire wallowing in a tub of fuzz. This is a potent, mesmerizing, and audacious heavy metal album, my friends, and tailor-made for anyone with a beard.
Haunted Leather
Grails
Zoroaster