Yes, Rising’s To Solemn Ash was released last year overseas, but since this here is its North American release, I don’t feel tardy in telling you all about its sludgy goodness, dig? Following a four-song EP in 2009 and a 7″ single in 2010, To Solemn Ash finds the Danish trio finally putting a massive effort into a full-length, and oh what a monumental design it be. As though guardians of some Copenhagen castle, gargoyles perched high in the blackest of skies, Rising preside over the kingdom of heavy with a stony, melodic glare. The swirling storm that is To Solemn Ash swells with opener “Mausoleum,” its dark, corpse-painted intro-riffing eerily akin to Behemoth’s “Ov Fire and the Void,” but as the album thunders on, it comes to pass that Rising were not born of the extreme black, but that they are, in fact, doomed descendants of the Baroness bloodline. So they carry themselves accordingly throughout, beset by beasts both basilisk and sharp-toothed hound, themselves grotesque creatures commanding a thick rush of temper-metal weather and spreading brutally fancy dread.
Elder tap that critical vein, the one where the blood runs slow and thick, and they must know how good their stuff tastes, how addictive it really is, because like any pusher worth their salt, they hook us five songs at a time every two to three years. Thank Satan’s graces that those five songs hold enough crushing doom to keep us down and out until the next batch roll around. ‘Twas the way with their self-titled debut and just when you thought they’d been pinched and were gone forever, lost to the land of the tattooed sodomites, they show up like a greasy cousin to ruin your life once more. And with news that Black Pyramid has crumbled, now is the perfect time for Elder to indoctrinate the proud and confused with their spaced-out Sleep worship. On Dead Roots Stirring, the Massachusetts trio take the fuzz-punch of their debut and trick it out with a heavy dose of harmonics and melodic riffs, creating a more energized psych-doom that treads other genre waters as well, like stoner rock and post-rock. The end result is 52 minutes of boundary-baiting boldness; part Wizard, part Sasquatch, part Jupiter, all Awesome.
Listening to Brooklyn trio Bad Dream is like being picked up on the side of the road by a bunch of bleary-eyed strangers in a black van who just stare at you the whole hazy ride, numb to their new friend, while you’re gripping your jeans, mistaking the flash of passing headlights for the glint of a hunting knife. It’s a heavy kind of nervous energy, a fuzzy psych-doom that spins thick webs in your head, and each of the songs on this 7″ drip with sacrificial wax. Side A’s “Black Blizzard” is a carry over from their Demonstration EP, but it sounds considerably more evil this time around, while side B’s “1134″ tortures you with its medieval riffs. Bad Dream might be a tad more psychedelic than Electric Wizard but they come from the same soul-frying school, that’s for sure, and will no doubt please all the dope fiends and (bad) dreamers out there.
Note: That’s not exactly the proper cover; there’s all sorts of different coloured covers, which you can see here. I got myself the purple swirl cover on white vinyl, number 129/300. Oh, one more thing about Bad Dream…they have the best prices for merch. I got this 7″, a poster, a t-shirt, and some patches all for like $15. And that included shipping. You’d be crazy not to send ‘em some money.
Listen to “Black Blizzard”! This is actually the version from the Demonstration EP because it was all I could find, but you get the idea.
Rising
Elder
Bad Dream