First ever concept album from Texan metal monsters The Sword, which, as you might guess from the cover, draws its cosmic inspiration from old bargain bin sci-fi novels and creased issues of Heavy Metal magazine. Warp Riders, then, is a conscious thematic shift for the band, which has set its lyrical sights this time on the great beyond, tackling planetary forces of good and evil instead of the more earthly doom and gloom of battle axes and black magic. The narrative, in brief, is about Ereth, an archer who has been banished from his tribe on the planet Acheron, which is stuck in a tidal lock, meaning that half of it is shrouded in darkness while the other half is burnt by the heat of three different suns. Got it? Good. Warp Riders is also a bit of a musical departure for The Sword as well, who have surround their space-world narrative with some freak-fried, 70s-infused boogie doom, and the whole thing kind of sounds like Witchcraft and Year Long Disaster gigging biker bars on Mars. Dig the thick, red rock n’ roll on “Tres Brujas,” “Lawless Lands,” “Night City,” and “(The Night the Sky Cried) Tears of Fire” for the best examples. But listen, the faithful needn’t worry because The Sword haven’t completely abandoned their head-banging aesthetics; they’ve just fused some asteroid-splitting riffs with their old pro stoner thrashing for a massively dope ride through the outermost limits. And it really is some awesome stuff.
BXI, better read as Boris + Ian, is a seemingly odd collaboration between Japanese experimental/stoner/metal/drone/doom giants, Boris, and everyone’s favourite spiritual tambourine shaker (when he’s not wearing a track suit and pretending to be Jim Morrison, that is), Ian Astbury. Personally though, I was stoked when the news first dropped about this hook-up because it seemed to me that throwing a huge stack of noise behind the salty ol’ shaman might actually resurrect his inner love child. I think it’s done just that. The four-song EP kicks off with “Teeth and Claws” and sure enough, Boris’ slow, deep, melodious rhythm goads Astbury’s voice into prophetic incantations about love, illumination, renewal, and salvation. Then Boris drops a brutally heavy, attacking riff on “We Are Witches” as Astbury grows larger at the pulpit, casting an army of one thousand ravens into the night. It ends, quite fittingly, with “Magickal Child,” the all-encompassing comedown, a sweetly distorted lysergic ballad full of atmospheric soul, but not before the procession is interrupted for Boris’ Astbury-less cover of The Cult’s “Rain,” which is a stand-out here thanks to its truly remarkable psychedelic pop vibe and guitarist Wata’s ghostly, porcelain voice. The power of BXI is mighty, brothers and sisters. Let it compel you.
Even though they hail from the City of Angels, Night Horse carry themselves with that Americana swagger befitting East Coast brawlers, chucking big, dopey, boogie-fried riffs at you like ham-sized fists that leave deep, lasting bruises. Picking up where their 2008 debut, The Dark Won’t Hide You, left off, Perdition Hymns lays the Southern stoner rock on nice n’ thick, incorporating plenty of organ, slide, and 70s-infused boxcar blues to send you on a weed-eating nostalgia trip to Altamont and back. Sure, it’s got all the dusty charm of Skynyrd or the Allmans, and sounds like a nasty mix of Cracktorch and the ‘Crowes, but ultimately (and maybe it’s because of the way singer Sam James Velde howls at the blood red moon) the songs on Perdition Hymns come off as bastard inventions from an alternate universe where Danzig grows up a wayward cowboy and not Lucifer’s brawny spawn.
The Sword
BXI
Night Horse