That’s it. You’ve convinced me, Brooklyn. You are now thee number one spot in the world for heavy, weird, fuzzy, psychedelic music. Okay? Hull, Elks, Bad Dream, Weird Owl, Children…and now Bezoar. I’m sure there’s plenty more rats crawling around in the sewers there that I’m not even aware of, but as far as I’m concerned right now, none of ‘em are bigger — or carry more diseases — than Bezoar. I mean, even their name invokes images of a mythical beast from children’s fables, and this three-headed varmint more than lives up to the hairy, red eye scares it promises. Expounding doom-infused wyt noize, Bezoar’s debut full-length, Wyt Deth, is a lumbering mess of feedback and mildewy riffs, a witchy, warbling deth-psych album that’s definitely hard to listen to, but surely impossible to turn off. Whether it’s the short and sweet allure of songs like “Burn Everything” and “Nikola” or the long and devastating hold of songs like “We Are Not Alone” and “Knight,” the whole damn thing is nauseously enchanting, and you might think it sounds like a dungeon full of hungry, dying prisoners moaning for sunlight, water, and mercy, but that’s just Sara Palmquist (bass/vocals), Tyler Villard (guitar), and Justin Sherrell (drums) laying down the most mystical stoner metal you’re likely to hear all year. Awesome stuff.
And here’s the second of the ‘beard’ bands I promised, Sweden’s Beardfish, a 10-year prog rock institute with five previous albums under their thumb, each of ‘em wild n’ weird monuments to certain grand masters like King Crimson, Yes, and Gentle Giant. Mammoth doesn’t really offer any wholesale changes to Beardfish’s hippy-jazz blueprint, but what it does offer is a deft heaviness not heard on previous albums. In fact, songs like “The Platform” and “Green Waves” — the former complete with metal vocal growls — certainly deliver on the album’s name by delving into Porcupine Tree territory. Hell, even “Akakabotu” has some balls, despite the fact that it’s six minutes of sax-driven muzak. I know not everyone’s into prog, but if you are, you’ll get all you can handle on “And the Stone Said, ‘If I Could Speak’” and “Without Saying Anything (feat. Ventriloquist),” both of which will put a little extra beard onto your fish. Or fish into your beard. Whatever, man, it’s the end of the year.
Baby Woodrose Mindblowing Seeds and Disconnected Flowers
Bad Afro
Lorenzo Woodrose celebrates 10 years of acid rock and his love affair with the Hawaiian baby woodrose seed with Mindblowing Seeds and Disconnected Flowers, a 15-song collection of original four-track demos, two songs that were released on 7″ under the alias Disconnected Flowers, and two other previously unreleased tunes. The swirling psychedelia of Baby Woodrose’s early garage fuzz is on full display here, and despite the fact he’s been pushing this weird beard Danish delicacy over six full-length albums, it feels as much like a brand new trip as it does sitting down and getting high with on old, talented friend. In fact, the eleven demos here that eventually made it on to the Baby Woodrose debut Blows Your Mind! come off sounding better on this spin, like being fed an extra spoonful of druggy distortion. Mindblowing Seeds and Disconnected Flowers is a real freaky treat for Woodrose fans and an excellent way to relive (and perhaps try to remember) the last 10 years through the amp of The Man.
Listen to “Baby Blows” from Mindblowing Seeds and Disconnected Flowers!
Bezoar
Beardfish
Baby Woodrose