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!

Motörhead
The Wörld is Yours
Future PLC/Motörhead Music

If you’re an avid reader of Classic Rock magazine, you might consider Motörhead’s twentieth studio album, The Wörld is Yours, a December 2010 release, but for anyone waiting on the standard CD, it’s a January 2011 release, which really just means that no matter how you shake it, the transition from last year to this one was book-ended by a couple of nic-stained, heavy-ringed fists striking you hard and purposeful on either side of your mouth. A review at this stage of the game is ultimately pointless because, well, it’s Motörhead, which means it’s reliably metal and enviably Lemmy, through and through. But if you must know, it ceremoniously boasts predictable words in its song titles, like die, devils, rock n’ roll, snake, outlaw, and bitch, and rocks like a formulaic motherfucker. That’s what you get because that’s what you need. It’s as simple as that. I mean, you could not bother with it because you’ve heard it all before, but that would probably be pretty stupid because Motörhead is, as Lemmy says of rock n’ roll music (in the song of the same name), a true religion and will never let you down.

Check out the video for “Get Back in Line” from The Wörld is Yours!

Various Artists
F.T.W. – A Tribute to Gideon Smith
Scorpius Triangle Records

F.T.W. is an improbable, yet not unworthy, tribute album for underground Southern rock icon (I guess I can use that term now, right?) Gideon Smith. It seems as though Gid’s inspirational sage and hustle has influenced a whole bunch of Dixie Damned disciples and they’ve gathered to growl and howl their way through some of Gid’s finest songs, paying homage to a man whose bearded prowess is as potent as the music he makes. Now, I haven’t the foggiest clue who any of the bands on this compilation are or what swamps and caves they crawled out of — we’re dealing with some serious subterranean subjugation here — but judging by the 16 interpretations on display, Gid’s cosmic biker boogie lends itself to all sorts of twisted variations, like death metal, doom, rockabilly, and even some reggae. It’s all about the deep and dark for me, though, because Gid’s music has always pushed the heavy, ghostly, psych-rock boundaries, so the contributions from Ossastorium (“Ghost Rider”), Tremble Saith Thy Master (“My Darling Black Rose”), Dear Druid (“Lay Me Down in Ecstasy”), Trocarion Fate (“The Witch’s House”), Witch Bone Ash (“Blood and Fire”), and Dannros Systems of Romance (“Dionysus Child”) are the obvious stand-outs. Biggest disappointments, however, go to Red All Over and Bill Carroll for mistreating two of my favourite Gideon Smith songs, “Draggin’ the River” and “Outerspace Girl,” respectively, and the fact that no one covered “Shimmering Rain” and “Blacklight Wizard Poster” is a real bummer. Anyway, good on Gideon for this benchmark and, as always, in keeping with his outlaw spirit, Fuck The World, Forever Two Wheels, and Fight To Win.

Listen to “Dionysus Child” by Dannros Systems of Romance from F.T.W.!