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Category: Rock
Canadian surf punks Bonnie Doon release new single – “Now or Neverish.”
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Northumbria – Markland
My wife and I were staying on the eighteenth floor of a downtown Toronto hotel while on vacation, and one night I could hear dark, heavy drone rock coming from…somewhere. It seemed to be coming out of the sky like the hum of UFO engines and up from the darkest parts of the city’s sewer system at the same time.
“Do you hear that?” I asked my wife. “I think someone’s playing some drone rock over at the plaza.”
“Is that what that is?” She asked.
It was Northumbria. To be specific, it was Dorian Williamson and Jim Feld playing a guitar and bass loud enough for us to hear it one block away and eighteen stories above the street. Furthermore, it wasn’t just noise. It was ambient, haunting waves of sound that immediately changed the feel of everything around you. Their new album, Markland, is an impressive journey through shadows and starlight.
Take the opening track, “Torngat,” for instance. They somehow manage to create guitars that sound like baritone saxophones. “Sunstone” is appropriate for druidic rituals and flying through a rainy street while hunting replicants. “The Night Wolves / Black Moon” is sure to freak out your dog (as it did mine) with its creepy sonics.
Thunder hails “Ostara’s Return,” which seems like the right way to start such a heavy and creepy track. “Still Clearing” does bring to mind an early morning on a beautiful glen, but there’s a hint of menace underneath it – as if the glen is haunted by a dark tragedy. I think the sun referred to in the title of “Low Sun I” is the setting sun, because it has a creepy dread to it.
That dread is amplified to near-horror movie soundtrack levels in “The Shoes of the Suffering Wind.” It evokes images of rocky shores, ship graveyards, and glistening fish-men rising from black depths in search of prey. “Low Sun II” is the soundtrack ofa tired army marching across a swamp for dry land before the sun sets on them. The beautiful “Wonderstrands” gets me thinking about string theory, and with “The Stars As My Guide” to end the album, I suppose that thought process shouldn’t surprise me. The final track is full of cosmic guitars that eventually whittle down to a lonely hiss not unlike an open communications link between a dead astronaut and mission control.
Another amazing aspect of this album is that there is no percussion in it. It’s all guitar and bass effects (as far as I know) and it’s never boring. Markland changes your perception of everything around you whether you’re across the room or eighteen stories above the street.
Keep your mind open.
[Don’t forget to subscribe before you go.]
Clutch to release limited picture discs for vinyl collectors and fans.
CLUTCH TO RELEASE LIMITED EDITION VINYL COLLECTOR PICTURE DISCS
THE FIRST IN THE SERIES “LIVE AT THE GOOGOLPLEX” OUT TODAY
October 6th, 2017 – Clutch and Weathermaker Music have prepared three very special Clutch limited edition vinyl collector picture discs. The first in the series, “Live At The Googolplex” will be available tomorrow.
Recorded in 2002 in Chicago, Montreal, Kansas City, and Columbus, OH. “Live At The Googolplex”, like all three releases in the series will be the first time these releases will be available as a picture disc vinyl.
The next two releases in the series will be “Jam Room” (scheduled for release October 27th, 2017) and “Pitchfork & Lost Needles” (scheduled for release November 24th, 2017).
“Weathermaker Music is releasing 3 limited edition picture discs” states frontman Neil Fallon. “The first will be Live at the Googolplex. That will be followed up by Jam Room and thenPitchfork and Lost Needles. All feature art from the original releases. For what it’s worth, I drew Medusa’s head for the Jam Room release. With a pen. And paper. This is your chance to own a bit of art history”.
All 3 in the series will be available at all major vinyl outlets and is available to pre-order now at https://www.
Clutch is set to embark on another leg of the Psychic Warfare World Tour 2017starting November 29th, 2017 and running through December 31st, 2017. All tour and ticket info can be found at:https://www.pro-rock.com.
Clutch is currently in the throes of working on new material for a 2018 release.
CLUTCH:
Neil Fallon – Vocals/Guitar
Tim Sult – Guitar
Dan Maines – Bass
Jean-Paul Gaster – Drums/Percussion
For more information, check out the band’s website:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/
Twitter: www.twitter.com/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/
Live: Brian Wilson – South Bend, IN – October 03, 2017
My wife and I had missed Brian Wilson at Levitation Austin last year when the entire festival (and thus his performance) was cancelled due to bad weather. I learned he and his band were touring the world and performing many Beach Boys tracks as well as all of their masterpiece, Pet Sounds. I was determined to catch this tour and to hear such an important record played by the man who wrote it. Luckily for me, Mr. Wilson brought his show to a theatre less than an hour’s drive from my house.
He had a killer backing band that included one of the founding Beach Boys – Al Jardine – and another Beach Boys guitarist – Blondie Chapman, and they opened with the the classic “California Girls.”
Other treats included Wilson having a fun time singing “I Get Around,” a lovely rendition of “In My Room,” and Al Jardine’s son doing a great job on the vocals for “Don’t Worry, Baby.”
The highlight of the night, of course, was hearing Pet Sounds played from beginning to end. I’d been humming “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?” all day leading up to the show and the band nailed it right out of the gate to open the second half. “Sloop John B” was a crowd favorite, and I forgot about the two fine instrumentals on the record.
Wilson got a standing ovation for “God Only Knows,” and “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times” seems rather relevant today. The encore started with “Good Vibrations.” When Wilson asked, “Did you come here for bad vibrations?” I briefly hoped the Black Angels would come on stage, but it was fun to hear the best psych-surf ever written live.
Other hits like “Help Me, Rhonda,” “Fun, Fun, Fun,” and “Surfin’ USA” followed, but Wilson ended the show, which he dedicated to his wife (It was her birthday that day.), the victims of the Las Vegas Mandalay Bay shooting, and Tom Petty, with the heartfelt “Love and Mercy.”
It was a lovely, fun show. Wilson’s songs are so ingrained into American culture that you can sometimes forget how good and fun they are. See this tour if you get the chance. Wilson is getting up there in age, and sometimes needed a steadying hand to walk him to his piano. He’s claimed this is the final time he’ll perform Pet Sounds, so don’t wait.
Keep your mind open.
Slowdive – self-titled
2017 has been a good year for shoegaze music because two legendary British shoegaze bands returned this year with excellent new material. One of these bands is RIDE, and the other is Slowdive (Nick Chaplin – bass, Rachel Goswell – guitar and vocals, Neil Halstead – guitar and vocals, Christian Savill – guitar, Simon Scott – drums).
Slowdive’s self-titled album is perhaps the lushest, loveliest record of the year. The opener, “Slomo,” immediately seems to lift you off the ground and send you into an idyllic sky with its floating guitars and ghostly vocals about “curious love.” The band has lost nothing in the last twenty years. They only seem to have improved on everything. The title of “Star Roving” (a song about sharing love even when it seems daunting) couldn’t be more appropriate. It’s a sonic blast that burns as bright as a comet.
Goswell’s vocals on “Don’t Know Why” start subtle but then the entire song opens like a flower and becomes a stunning piece about trying to escape the memories of a lover who has moved on to someone else. “Sugar for the Pill” was the first Slowdive had released in two decades, and it immediately set the music world on fire. It’s no surprise, because the song is stunning. Slightly goth bass, echoing guitars, lush synths, and smoky vocals about not being able to live up to a lover’s expectations all mix together to produce one of the prettiest songs of 2017.
“Everyone Knows” bursts with energy, whereas the follow-up “No Longer Making Time” is like a lovely walk through a morning fog that is lifted by the sunrise. Slowdive has mastered the art of making guitars both loud and soothing. “Go Get It” is a master course on how to put together a shoegaze song: shifting levels of distortion and reverb, solid drumming, and mysterious vocals.
The album ends with “Falling Ashes” – which is little more than a rain-like piano riff, subdued guitars, and quiet vocals (often repeating the album’s theme, “Thinking about love.”), but that’s all Slowdive needs to hold you in the moment.
I know most of this review is merely I saying, “This record is gorgeous,” but that’s the best way I can put it. Parts of it sound like Slowdive stepped out of a time machine from the 1990’s, but other parts of it are rich with new energy that’s hard to describe.
“Gorgeous” is the best word that comes to mind.
Keep your mind open.
[You’d be sweet as sugar to me if you subscribed.]
Flat Worms’ new single, “Pearl,” sure to melt your face.
FLAT WORMS ANNOUNCE SELF-TITLED DEBUT ALBUM,
OUT OCTOBER 20TH VIA CASTLE FACE
WATCH VIDEO FOR DEBUT SINGLE, “PEARL”
https://youtu.be/HA7AU95C_zU
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King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Murder of the Universe
In this day and age, I’m fairly certain that few bands could make a good concept album. Fewer still could make one about a cyborg who wants to be fully human while interacting with a wizard attempting to stop a monster from destroying all of creation. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have done just that, however, with Murder of the Universe.
In case you’re unaware, this is KGATLW’s second album of the year, and they plan to release three more before the end of 2017. The first was the excellent Flying Microtonal Banana and the third, a collaboration with Mild High Club called Sketches of Brunswick East is already available for pre-order.
Lyrically and sonically, Murder of the Universe links up well with Flying Microtonal Banana and the outstanding Nonagon Infinity. It’s like they’re a complete trilogy, and some people have suggested the robot in Nonagon Infinity‘s lead track, “Robot Stomp,” is the cyborg caught up in the Murder of the Universe. You can also hear the beginning of Nonagon Infinity‘s “People Vultures” on this new record (on “Some Context”).
The album’s intro, “A New World,” has a haunting poem spoken by a young woman describing the aftermath of a nuclear war and how even more horrible things are to come afterwards. The first is an “Altered Beast (Part 1).” The band comes out like an angry, roaring bear from of its den. Parts 2, 3, and 4 of the song alternate with the three-part “Altered Me.” The war’s survivor realizes he must adapt to the new environment and new beastly overlord to survive (or did the beast alter him for a dark purpose?). Each song flows seamlessly into the next and KGATLW slays each part. Guitars assault you from every direction but can still stop on a dime. The double drumming is insane, and the synths bring a wild, weird 1980’s horror film vibe to the whole thing.
The survivor has become an altered beast by the end of “Altered Beast IV,” feeling nothing but still remembering his humanity and the idea of freedom. He has lost the concepts of “Life / Death,” but still clings to the idea of revenge. He finds a possible ally in “The Lord of Lightning” (in which lead singer Stu Mackenzie yells “Nonagon infinity!” a few times). It’s a wicked song that would leave anyone who’d never heard a KGATLW song before dumbfounded. It tells the story of an epic mystical battle yet the song blasts by you like something shot from a catapult.
“The Balrog” could be the altered beast, but he is certainly the Lord of Lightning’s enemy. The song is a sonic fiery claw in your brain with crazy percussion and even wilder guitars. “The Floating Fire” is all that’s left after the war between the Balrog and the Lord of Lightning. The Balrog becomes “The Acrid Corpse” by the end of it, but only eternal darkness remains after the Lord of Lightning leaves.
The future is left to the few survivors who have become cyborgs in order to live in the new world. It’s all “Digital Black” in this new time. People have willingly given up their humanity (“We’ve turned our bodies into computers…”) in a quest for what they thought was perfection. The bass riff in this is great, as is the hard-hitting beat throughout it.
One such cyborg is “Han-Tyumi the Confused Cyborg,” the survivor of the original meeting with the altered beast. All he wants is to vomit and die. He wants pain, stench, and some sort of end instead of his endless digitized illusion of life and pleasure. His “Vomit Coffin,” a machine of his own design, might help him do it. It’s another weird rocker mixed with digitized vocals and synth grooves as Han-Tyumi gives himself over to full digitization in order to free himself (and perhaps the world) from his living death.
The title track has Han-Tyumi expanding far beyond his physical form until he’s traveling at the speed of light and infiltrating every living cell and atom. The only way for him to find death is to destroy everything, and he does it.
So, yeah, it’s not a happy-go-lucky record. It’s a crazy concept record about a giant monster attack nearly destroying the world and changing the few survivors left into cyborgs who are left with an even bleaker world after a lightning god battles a giant fire monster, which drives one of the few cyborgs with any shred of humanity left to destroy the entire universe in order to free himself from an eternal life of cold, digital monotony.
Why haven’t you bought it by now?
Keep your mind open.
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“Welcome to an Altered Future,” has the cyborg, Han-Tyumi, describing how the digital age led to the death of the world thanks to artificial intelligence. “We turned our bodies into computers,” the band’s lead vocalist, Stu, sings on
Comacozer – Kalos Eidos Skopeo
Australian psych / stoner rock powerhouse Comacozer have returned with another instrumental freakout – Kalos Eidos Skopeo. The name of the album, of course, is a play on the words “kaleidoscope” or “kaleidoscopic,” suggesting that the music can be viewed / interpreted many different ways at once.
Take the opener, “Axis Mundi” (the cosmic / world axis), for example. It begins with squawking guitars that sound like something from a slasher film soundtrack, but the track becomes almost a meditative piece by the time it reaches the five-minute mark thanks to skillful use of guitar reverb and subtle yet precise drumming.
“Nystagmus” might bring on its namesake (involuntary twitching of the eyes) with its cosmic jam guitars, slightly creepy bass, and doom metal drumming. I love how “Hylonomus” (the name of the earliest known reptile) starts off sounding like it’s a spaghetti western song and then morphs into a Middle Eastern-flavored dream that might be happening in the mind of an ancient lizard dozing in the stump of a massive, dead tree. It then morphs a second time into a great groove that belongs in a car chase sequence in a big budget film. It’s great to hear Comacozer cut loose like this.
Need to knock out a wall in your house to expand your kitchen? Don’t bother with sledgehammers. Just play the closer, “Enuma Elish,” and aim your speakers in the right direction. The song is about the Babylonian creation myth which involves – among other things – the god Marduk defeating the goddess of the oceans and creating the earth and sky out of her body. Comacozer somehow manages to put all this epic stuff into one song (that last nearly 12 minutes).
You might have noticed that this album only contains four songs. Don’t let that worry you, because all of them are around thirteen minutes in length. It’s a full album of instrumental cosmic psychedelia and worth every penny.
Keep your mind open.
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Shame release a sharp new post-punk single – “Concrete.”
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