Griever
Inferior
Vitriol

Four-song EP from San Diego’s Griever (once Lewd Acts), who double down on the two-song single they released earlier this year. There’s actually more than one Griever out there, but this is the only one that deserves your attention, believe me, and even if you don’t think so, they’ll go ahead and take it from you anyway. Griever comes to the race with a hardcore gait but their strength actually lay in their ability to pace themselves with a sludgy, down-tuned melody, which means they’ll remind you more of Torche than they will Trap Them, but they could flank either of ‘em on the podium at the end of the day. “The Forgetter” and “Black Vinyl Clouds” are the two aggressively incessant songs here, loaded with groovy, volatile riffs, while “Stag Hymn” and “Home Again, Alone Again” showcase a gloomier Griever with a post-rock vibe. While heavy and loud, Griever keep you guessing, and that makes Inferior somewhat superior.

Listen to Inferior at Griever’s bandcamp page!

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!

Red Fang
Murder the Mountains
Relapse

When the calender turns over, I like to look ahead at what albums are coming out, and one of ‘em, above all others, usually ends up in my sights. This year’s most anticipated release for me was Red Fang’s Murder the Mountains, simply because their 2009 self-titled full-length debut was a real rager and, two years later, its scuzz still won’t wash off. Well, Murder the Mountains is finally here, which means it’s time to peel the crust off the ol’ denim vest, unearth your favourite beer cozy, and lock in for a blazin’ good time, right? Well, unfortunately, this one’s not quite the same party Red Fang was, and it seems that the Portland, Oregon band, once capable of delivering killing blows with homemade warhammers and toasting victory with pints of mead, are now doing all they can just to hold their torn and tattered banner high as they march wearily on home. The crux of Murder the Mountains is its thicker density, the majority of the songs taking on a much sludgier vein (“Malverde,” “Throw Up,” “Number Thirteen,” “Into the Eye,” “The Undertow”), making the Melvins and Big Business obvious influences this time around. Because of that, however, the album kind of lumbers lazily along, and stoner metal stand-outs like “Hank is Dead,” “Dirt Wizard,” “Painted Parade,” and “Human Herd” can’t seem to gather any kind of epic momentum. And “Wires,” the album’s single and hook, an interesting mix of desert-pop, encapsulates the production work done by Chris Funk of The Decemberists and has a “Prehistoric Dog” vibe to it, but “Prehistoric Dog” it ain’t. Listen, Murder the Mountains isn’t bad, it’s just not amazing. I still believe mightily in Red Fang and their place alongside their metal contemporaries like Baroness, Torche, The Sword, Priestess, etc., but this one just didn’t live up to my own hype.

Listen to “Dirt Wizard” from Murder the Mountains!