If you were one of those people championing Graveyard’s brilliant Hisingen Blues last year — and I know you were because there wasn’t a person on the heavy music planet who wasn’t — I’m here to tell you that the horse on which to let it all ride this year is Horisont. Full of 70s-style gallop n’ groove, Second Assault is an aptly named fuzz bucket follow-up to 2009′s Tva Sidor Av Horisonten, and ought to finally earn Horisont as much attention as fellow new old school Swedes Witchcraft and the aforementioned Graveyard. Urged on by advanced riff demonology, soaring vocals, and thumping bass, Second Assault is proto-metal for pot heads, hard rock for leaf hounds, and there isn’t a funky scorcher in the bunch that won’t have you pining to grow one of those weepy ‘staches. Hell, even the witchy ballads, with their boss spook and grainy melody, will inflame your throwback spirit. No doubt about it, this is a glorious windfall of retro riches, my friends.
Check out the video for “Second Assault” from Second Assault!
Thunderfist are a buncha Salt Lake City chuckleheads whose songs about rockin’, partyin’, and pussy are the base form of love and worship that mold many a gutter-scraping record. This, their third, is a wham bam affair, some rubber-meets-road bad biker fun, amped-up and blasted out like all your favourite speed dealers, namely Zeke, High Watt Crucifixers, Nashville Pussy, Cocked and Loaded, and Ironboss (but you could go ahead and name a bunch more if you like). The fact that Thunderfist rips through covers of Street Walkin’ Cheetahs’ “None of Your Business” and Blag Dahlia’s lyrically update version of Eric Carmen’s “That’s Rock and Roll” ought to also shine a light on the dirty hole out of which this one crawled, but if you’re gonna listen to Thunderfist for any reason at all, it has to be for “The Wizard’s Lament,” a thick-riffed beard pleaser that’d make Bible of the Devil and Red Fang take notice. Or for any one of the juicy solos, specifically the one that drips off of “As Good As It Gets (Mick Mayo Party Pt. 2)”. This one’s got action, Jack, and just like any good time, you’ll come for the thunder but stay for the fist.
The first thing that hits you when you start absorbing Stoned Jesus’ second full-length, Seven Thunders Roar, is that despite the three-quarter of an hour running time, it’s not going to yield an over-abundance of monolithic doom. Somewhat unsettling given that 2010′s First Communion, and even 2011′s Stormy Monday EP to some extent, were pure Sabbathian freak, all slow and brooding, but Seven Thunders Roar finds the Ukrainian band embracing certain dynamics that transform their standard bearing doom into more of a fiendish dope-psych. Take the spacey opener “Bright Like the Morning,” for instance, or the two that follow it, “Electric Mistress” and “Indian,” both of which ride high and mighty atop a stoner rock horse before eventually galloping into the familiar mire (the latter doing so after a funky mid-song breakdown). Then there’s the way the sixteen minute “I’m The Mountain” mixes neo-folk and colossal fuzz before the album closes with the third recorded version of “Stormy Monday,” this one slightly shorter than the extended version found on the EP but just as deft at taking you on a heavy trip. I guess Stoned Jesus are out to prove there’s more than one way to swear fealty to the almighty riff.
Horisont
Thunderfist
Stoned Jesus