Helms Alee
Weatherhead
Hydra Head

Bands like Baroness, Harvey Milk, Big Business and Torche (and Floor before them) are probably the ones you immediately think of when someone mentions the term ‘melodic sludge.’ But another band, often found on the same bill in smaller letters, that deserves every bit the attention thanks to their 2008 debut full-length, Night Terror, is Helms Alee. But it’s been three years since we’ve heard from Helms Alee, who’ve kept a much lower profile than their contemporaries, which means it falls on the shoulders of their sophomore release, Weatherhead, to legitimize the band’s sound as a forceful one and further expose the Seattle trio for the capital letter weird metal titans they really are. What Weatherhead does is succeed at extrapolating and exploring territories far beyond the melodic sludge they reveled in on Night Terror, and we hear them drawing dirty, noisy, no wave, late 80s to early 90s influences from the likes of the Melvins and Sonic Youth. Weatherhead, then, is awash in slower, pastoral moments (“Music Box,” “Mad Mouth,” and “Epic Adventure Through the Woods (Sucker Punch)”) and instances of over-the-top scuzzy pop (“8/16,” “Revel!,” and “Born in Fiberglass”), but it’s still held together by the usual torrent of core-shaking heaviness and male/female vocal harmonies in which the band specializes. Night Terror junkies should find familiar friends in “Pretty As Pie” and “Speed Sk8r,” but it’s the wide-reaching, muscle and brains dichotomy that makes this album such a wonderfully strange bedfellow.

Listen to “Pretty As Pie” from Weatherhead!

Violent Soho
Violent Soho
Ecstatic Peace! Records

Aussie flannel junkies Violent Soho are all the rage right now, a term that’s somewhat appropriate given their penchant for the turbulent teen climate of 90s alternative revelry. They’re being heralded by everyone as grunge rock’s very own Lazarus, rising from the tombs and shaking the dust off of an angst-ridden sound once left for dead, but I’m not falling for the ‘Cobain is back’ propaganda. No, what we’ve got here, if you want to know the truth of it, isn’t a grunge revival, but a whole lotta raw power, a real cock n’ roll record filled with flash and ass, even if it is hidden under all those greasy clothes. While this really isn’t the band’s full-length debut (most of the songs already appeared on their 2008 album We Don’t Belong Here), it is the one with Thurston Moore’s fingerprints all over it, so look for it to be the album that makes ‘em famous with the kids in your town.

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Dege Legg is a ghost.

His bones rattle like tin cans tied to the tail of an alley cat and he haunts all the darkest parts of your mind, the parts that moan and wail in the middle of the night when the moon bleeds. As a ghost, he’s one of America’s best kept songwriting (and writing) secrets. He’s lived a few lifetimes in the spooky, isolated backwoods of Louisiana where he cultivates his genius on words and music under endless starry skies as the distant static of radio transmitters buzz like mosquitoes skimming the surface of the swamp.

He’s also an inspiration for endless rock n’ roll rhetoric, and the gonzo nonsense I spin here takes on a dignified, romantic air when I’m talking about Dege (pronounced “Deej” in case you’re having trouble). I’ve always admired Dege’s accomplishments as a writer (he’s a prolific blogger, author of the novel, Battle Hymn of the Good Ole Hillbilly Zatan Boys, and writer/music and calendar editor for The Independent Weekly) and as the main man behind psyouthern rock bands Santeria and Black Bayou Construktion, he’s created some incredible, moving, and magical rock n’ blues records. In fact, Santeria’s 2003 record, House of the Dying Sun, is a masterpiece and shines like a beautiful, rare gem in America’s rock n’ roll history. I truly believe that.

And now the tradition continues as Dege Legg, as Brother Dege, sheds his skin to let his soul shine on his latest solo album, Folk Songs of the American Longhair. This album has been burning a hole in my blog as I’ve been waiting to write about it, but the only way I was going to do it was if it was accompanied by a conversation with the man himself. But first, the album. Folk Songs is an iconic, bare bones Delta blues record, just Dege and a Dobro, and the steel on every song echoes like falling tears in a mausoleum. It’s a chilling portrait of death and redemption, an ode to the long road, and each and every slide draws you down into the earth’s waiting dirt.

Now it’s time to get to know the ghost, to run with the journeyman. Dege and I riff about his new record, hurricane Katrina, Art Bell, bathroom reading, how he almost got shot in the head, and, of course, beards. It’s good, deep stuff.

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