Dwellers

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!

Infernal Overdrive

Discovering that Boston hero* Marc Schleicher has surfaced as the front man for New Jersey rock n’ road warriors Infernal Overdrive is one hell of an early Christmas present, my friends. Hell, I’m not sure I’d be here today if it wasn’t for Schleicher’s brawlin’ brand of East Coast riff n’ roll, so to hear him once again stranglin’ the six-string like a twenty dollar hooker is something special; a sure sign that the wheel of the American rawk machine is back in the grip of one of its most prolific drivers. Last Rays of the Dying Sun, the band’s full-length debut, is, quite simply, arena rock for dive bars, like KISS or Cheap Trick on a chain link tour through Southern wilds, and the way they saturate it with razor-backed hooks, sky high solos, nasty drum fills, and blacktop lingo (“I-95,” “Electric Street Cred,” “Rip It Out,” “Motor”) will lead a man to submit himself to a life of drinkin’, cheatin’, lyin’, and dyin’. Or, if you prefer, a life of glory. You know, I don’t think this one actually comes out until 2012, but either way, Small Stone has finished this year off — or started the next — on a definite high note.

*I’m not from Boston, but I have spent many years there vicariously through people much cooler than me, and I would be utterly shocked to find out that anyone who played in Cracktorch, Antler, and Quintain Americana isn’t a hero in that town.

Listen to “Rip It Out” from Last Rays of the Dying Sun!

Dixie Witch

This album, Dixie Witch’s fourth, with its gold chrome letters on crushed black leather, is the simplest, most uncomplicated, and appropriately textured statement the band could make concerning their return after a five year absence. As if anticipating the inevitable question, ‘Well, what are you going to do now?’ they’ve just gone and shrugged and said, ‘Let it roll, motherfucker!’ With all due respect to the Small Stone bands who’ve already released albums this year, and many condolences to the ones yet to come, this here is the Olympic pinnacle, and the trio of long-toothed Texan troublemakers have stormed Zeus’ Godly realm and confiscated his throne. Armed with an arsenal of lightning bolts and cloaked in the kind of invincibility you can only get from a mountain high, Trinidad Leal, Curt “CC” Christenson, and new guitarist Josh “JT” Todd Smith now seem to hold dominion over all things ROCK; their Southern stoner sound, once drenched in the earthly confines of mud and fuzz, has found a magical, heavenly edge. It’s still every bit the beast Smoke & Mirrors is, but they’ve elevated the power and melody to rocket-fueled levels (and left out the ballads), making Let It Roll as much a supreme n’ sizzling cock rock record as it is a boogie n’ blues truck stop tango drenched in AC/DC, Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, and Alabama Thunderpussy influences. I suppose Let It Roll has the potential to piss off anyone not enamored with a polished production, but if deliciously dirty dynamics and majestic riffs are your bag, you’re in for one hell of a treat.

Listen to “Let It Roll” from Let It Roll!

Freedom Hawk

You know, I thought sHEAVY’s Steve Hennessey had the Ozzy-sound-a-like market cornered, but Freedom Hawk’s T.R. Morton has every bit the bat head-biting chords Hennessey does. But where sHEAVY is cosmically monolithic, Freedom Hawk is demonically earthy, blazing a path of accelerated doom-groove on dirty wheels of steel, thus drawing a more staunch comparison to Black Sabbath and solo-era Ozzy. I mean, it’s nothing new for a stoner rock band to sound like Sabbath, but Holding On, the Virginia band’s second full-length album, takes it one step beyond, greasing the riffs up with just enough metal melody to give ‘em a commercially viable hard rock sound. That’s not to say it doesn’t deserve your particular attention, because it does; what it means is that Freedom Hawk is better and heavier than, say, a Fireball Ministry or Big Rig, and flexes every single musical muscle they have on songs like “Thunderfoot,” “Living for Days,” “North Swell,” and “Indian Summer,” which command your attention, like an iron grip ’round your throat, with that aforementioned Sabbath power, and some Fu Manchu gusto and Generous Maria electricism, too. When they’re not sounding like Cluth (“Bandito”) or Candlemass (“Faded”), that is. Pure POWER is what is, man, plain and simple.

Listen to “Indian Summer” from Holding On!

Gideon Smith and The Dixie Damned

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!

Backwoods Payback

If there’s any immediate difference to be noted between Backwoods Payback’s 2007 self-titled debut and their 2011 Small Stone debut, Momantha, it’s the production (cheers, Mr. Grotto). That 2007 album was an ugly affair, a quagmire of lumbering stoner rock for hairy-backed troglodytes with revenge-ridden manifestos in one hand and a rusty hatchet in the other. Of course, that’s what made it so great; there’s never been any doubt about who Backwoods Payback is or what they sound like — kind of like Kyuss, kind of like The Obsessed, kind of like Devil to Pay, kind of like Acid King, and kind of like Scissorfight, but most definitely a lot like a boulder being dropped into a puddle of mud. Momantha, however, adds melody into the mix, and flexes a bit more muscle as well, but before you think that means the maniacs are city-bound to chuck curses and get library cards, be assured that this album is drenched in BP’s groggy-riffed pestilence. In fact, the album’s first half, from “You Know How This Works” to “Parting Words,” is a beast and is probably as road-ready and raunchy as BP will ever play it, but the second-half variety courtesy of the Urge Overkill alt-vibe of “Poncho,” the sludgy doom of “Velcro,” and the hardcore-tinged animosity of “Timegrinder,”  will keep you on your toes, guessing when, where, and under what modus operandi the band will strike next. BP aren’t reinventing the kill here, but I just can’t seem to definitively peg ‘em, which is an awfully high compliment to give. But there is something familiar here, isn’t there? Sometimes I think it’s that vocalist/guitarist Mike Cummings’ throaty howl reminds me of Pete Stahl — and, to that end, that BP remind me in some way of a woollier Wool — and sometimes I think that they’re out there all alone in the Pennsylvania thick, just them and the shallow graves they’ve dug.

Listen to “Lord Chesterfield” from Momantha!

Dwellers

It seems that Dwellers, the Salt Lake City trio featuring former Iota singer/guitarist Joey Toscano, thinks that, even though their debut full-length is set to be released sometime this summer on Small Stone, we ought to hear something right now, and so we get the experimental 4-song digital EP Peace, and Other Horrors, which was made during their current recording sessions. Now, I’m not sure how indicative of the upcoming album this EP is (labelling it experimental makes me think it’s going to differ quite a bit), but hopefully they end up towing a similar line because the folksy, Americana Gothic, with its slide guitar, cymbal bows, and faucet drips, makes for some ominous tones and spooky spaghetti ambiance, and calls to mind Earth’s last handful of albums and Dege Legg’s swampy ghost songs. If the goal of releasing this EP was to get me excited for the forthcoming album, then consider the mission accomplished.

Head over to Dwellers’ Bandcamp page where you can download this EP for free!

Ironweed

“Now Stronger,” the opening track on Ironweed’s sophomore album, Your World of Tomorrow, is a mega-sized mix of spacey ambition and aggressive thrust, and lays the groundwork for an entire album’s worth of all-encompassing cosmic crunch. It might be said, then, that Your World of Tomorrow is a much more loftier effort than 2008′s Indian Ladder, and why not? With its eye-in-the-sky theme, Your World of Tomorrow finds the Albany band reworking their motorcycle metal into a groovier, albeit more paranoiac, ride. And while it still offers up its fair share of sludge n’ fuzz with songs like “The Lucky Ones,” “Enduring Snakes,” “Messenger,” and “Heavy Crowns,” there’s a noticeable move away from the stoner center thanks to the flashy dynamics on songs like “And the New Slaves,” “Awaken,” and “Red Circles”. Make no mistake, though, Ironweed is still really fucking heavy, it’s just that they’ve found occasion to take what they could from The Quill, Soundgarden, sHEAVY, and Solace and incorporate it into their ten ton sound. Best part is, the album ends as it starts, with closer “A Graceful Death” serving as mean, meteoric punctuation.

Check out the video for “Enduring Snakes” from Your World of Tomorrow!

Lo-Pan
Salvador

Hot off last year’s remixed and remastered Sasquanaut, Lo-Pan waste very little time dropping a pulsing crate of new songs right on to the collective heads of the Small Stone/stoner rock faithful. That crate, ever heavy and dangerous, is stamped Salvador (go ahead, smile at the cover’s clever rebus), and as best as I can tell was a wartime leftover that once contained a shitload of trinitrotoluene. But like a bunch of fearless jackals, the Ohio quartet have gone and pilfered all that TNT, wrapped it in the blood and crust of last night’s good times, repacked it in atomic dust, and sealed it with a fist. Its demolishing power is off the charts. Its explosive energy knows no limits. Its massive, mind-fuck aplomb is cerebral, not dumb, and the band practically urges us to embrace Salvador‘s surreal shock. I mean, there’s gotta be a reason “Intro” is the sixth song in, right? Anyway, what Lo-Pan does, quite obviously, is destroy, and I’m impressed with their ability to bring Kyuss’ groundbreaking desert rock vibe into the 21st century via soaring, melodic vocals over top of mean, fuzzy, smoky riffs.

Listen to “Bleeding Out” from Salvador!

Tia Carrera
Cosmic Priestess

If Tia Carrera’s 2009 album, The Quintessential, was a bit of a hazy, sleepy, psychedelic deviation from their norm, then their newest one, Cosmic Priestess, is a return to form. That form, of course, is a rather loose and improvised gush of hot, bubbling cosmic lava, and that old rock n’ roll cliche of melting faces seems to be the guiding principle on which this celestial babe governs her kingdom. Firing up fuzzy freak jams and roughshod riffs from the outset, the album itself, like the music, is a real trip, with opener “Slave Cylinder” delivering earthly, 70s-inspired, knuckle-dusted fury before coasting into the clouds with “Sand, Stone and Pearl.” Where it really takes off, though, is when the meteoric, near 34-minute “Saturn Missile Battery” kicks in and you find yourself on a galactic tour de force that’ll make you think you’re at the Roadburn festival on, well, Saturn. Closer “A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing” grounds you there for good, its moon rock groove forcing Saturn’s rings into a wobbly spin like warped vinyl. Have a nice life on planet high, buddy, because you’re never coming home.

Sorry, folks, but the songs are too big to share here. I can’t even find a youtube video of any of ‘em. Looks like you’ll have wait until this one comes out!