Dwellers
Good Morning Harakiri
Small Stone

Well, it turns out that Peace, and Other Horrors, the four-song EP Dwellers put out last year, was an experimental little project because there’s not much folksy, acoustic Americana Gothic to be found on their debut full-length, Good Morning Harakiri. Although, to be fair, Good Morning Harakiri does contain a good deal of slide guitar, but it’s used as a vehicle for delivering some grungy psych-blues instead. I suppose the idea behind this one is that the six songs included here are the musical equivalent of splitting yourself open and spilling your guts all over the place, and if that’s the case, this Salt Lake City trio (comprised of Iota and Subrosa members) has made one fine mess. While it is atmospheric, exotic, and trippy at times, Good Morning Harakiri is, ultimately, blessedly doomed, absolutely heavy, and full of Southern-fried muscle, and if Gideon Smith was to ever rip through a set of songs from Soundgarden’s Ultramega OK in Earth’s jam room, this is what it would sound like. Forget what it does to your insides — this ritual rock rattles your goddamn bones.

Listen to “Lightening Ritual” from Good Morning Harakiri!

The Heavy Eyes
Heavy Eyes
Self-Released

Full-on Delta doom from these Heavy Eyes, whose debut full-length is dripping with enough Southern cough syrup to make you forget you’re listening to a stoner rock record. Between the tumbleweed riffs of songs like “Wax Apple” and “Where is Wilder” to the Memphis medicine of songs like “Iron Giants” and “It’s Been So long,” Heavy Eyes slides on through the smoke and takes a midnight sail down the winding river of groove. Of course, this is a stoner rock record, a real lid-dropper, and the fuzzy psych-blues of songs like “5%,” “Voytek,” and “Supermoon” play right into your floating hand, man. A real solid album, this one, and The Heavy Eyes do awfully well to treat you like the custodial prize in the landmark case of Cactus V. Clutch, presided over by judge Fu Manchu in the court of Sabbath. Hell, you just have to have an affinity for bands with ‘leaf’ in their name, and The Heavy Eyes will do right by you.

Listen to The Heavy Eyes’  Heavy Eyes right here!

Ape Machine
War to Head
Ape Machine Music

Contrary to the metal scene that’s sprung up around them in Portland, Oregon, Ape Machine prefer to — ahem — ape the psychedelic blues of the 70s when delivering their heavy brand of smoke n’ roll. Their debut, This House Has Been Condemned, was full of slow burning, seven minute jams over top of which vocalist Caleb Heinze howled at the moon, and kind of reminded me of a laid back Zen Guerrilla, man. Well, not ones to rest on their cosmic laurels, Ape Machine have embraced the more metal aspects of the 70s hard rock sound on their latest album, War to Head, which means the riffs are mightier and the dynamics are retro-fried, giving ‘em a tighter, bolder, Deep Purple push with some fuzzy Gothenburg gusto thrown in for good measure. They still manage to find occasion to slip into their former ways however, as evidenced by the quick shot of soul that is “No Sugar in My Coffee,” the groove and noodling of “What’s Up Stanley?” and the electric slide throughout “The Sun,” “Downtrodden,” and “Please Do Not Use Red Ink and Do Not Erase,” but it’s songs like “Hold Your Tongue,” “Can’t Cure Deceit,” “Death of the Captain,” and “Black Night” that flex a wicked Sabbath muscle and propel Ape Machine into the stoner realm on the wings of bell bottoms and dirty blues.

Listen to “Can’t Cure Deceit” from War to Head!