Metal – Page 14 – 7th Level Music

Clutch releases new studio version of their hit single “Electric Worry.”

Clutch announce the release of “Electric Worry.” The single is the third in a series of new studio recordings that comprise the newly launched Weathermaker Vault Series and the first new official music Clutch is making available since the release of their critically acclaimed album, Book Of Bad Decisions.

The new live video uses footage from various 2019 European Summer festivals and can be seen at https://youtu.be/mtuVGOnX868

When “Electric Worry” was released in 2007 on the album From Beale Street to Oblivion nobody knew that this track would turn into one of Clutch’s most recognizable songs. It is a fan favorite and a staple at live shows. Over the course of time, the song went through changes. What you are listening to here is a brand new studio recording of the 2019 live version of the song without the keyboards and harmonica that are on the 2007 rendition. This is “Electric Worry” in its purest form.

“Electric Worry” was mixed by 6X Grammy Award winner and Clutch collaborator, Vance Powell (Wolfmother, The Raconteurs, Arctic Monkeys).

“All in all it’s just a leaner, meaner song” states vocalist Neil Fallon. “We wanted to put something out there that was representative of what we do these days since it happens to be one of our most popular songs.”

Clutch has curated their own Spotify playlist “Clutch’s Heavy Rotation”: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3NlZsjNNOoCvwjCv58mcNR

On Friday, September 20th, Clutch will embark on a Fall tour of the US with Dropkick Murphys along with metalcore veterans Hatebreed as direct support.

Clutch Fall Tour with Dropkick Murphys: Tickets available here. (headline** and festival* dates) = no Dropkick Murphys Fri/Sep-20 Springfield, MA MassMutual @ Center Arena Sat/Sep-21 Erie, PA Erie @ Insurance Arena **Sun/Sep-22 Wilmington, DE @ The Queen (support: Lionize, Kingsnake) Tue/Sep-24 Raleigh, NC @ Red Hat Amphitheatre Wed/Sep-25 Charlotte, NC Charlotte @ Metro Credit Union Amphitheatre Thu/Sep-26 Birmingham, AL @ Avondale Brewery **Fri/Sep-27 Clarksville, TN O’Connors Outdoor Stage (support: Hatebreed, Cane Hill) Sun/Sep-29 Detroit, MI @ Masonic Temple Theatre Mon/Sep-30 Chicago, IL @ Aragon Tue/Oct-01 Minneapolis, MN @ The Myth Thu/Oct-03 Moorhead, MN @ Bluestem Center For The Arts Fri/Oct-04 Council Bluffs, IA @ Westfair Amphitheatre Sat/Oct-05 Broomfield, CO @ FirstBank Center Sun/Oct-06 Salt Lake City, UT @ The Union Tue/Oct-08 Los Angeles, CA @ The Palladium Wed/Oct-09 San Diego, CA @ Park at the Park *Fri/Oct-11 Sacramento, CA @ Aftershock Festival **Sat/Oct-12 Bend, OR @ Midtown Theater (support: Red Fang, Mos Generator) **Sun/Oct-13 Eugene, OR @ McDonald Theater (support: Red Fang, Mos Generator) Mon/Oct-14 Boise, ID @ Outlaw Field at Idaho Botanic Gardens Tue/Oct-15 Seattle, WA @ WAMU Theatre ** = HEADLINE SHOW * = FESTIVAL

Clutch online: www.pro-rock.com

www.facebook.com/clutchband Instagram: www.instagram.com/clutchofficial Twitter: www.twitter.com/clutchofficial YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/officialclutch

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Review: Warish – Down in Flames

Warish‘s first full-length album, Down in Flames, is as fiery as its namesake. Their self-titled debut EP hit so hard that it was like going four rounds with a professional boxer. The image of a supersonic jet pilot on the cover of Down in Flames is not happenstance. It’s a reflection of how this album makes you feel – strap in and hold on.

The opening track, “Healter Skelter,” with its wild guitar licks and break-down-the-walls drumming is not unlike the angry Beatles track of the almost same name. “You’ll Abide” brings in thrash punk elements as Riley Hawk sings, “I don’t wanna be like them. I’ve got an evil mind. It was made for sin.” The drums somehow get bigger on “Big Time Spender” with Hawk dropping his vocal register and the bass dropping even more to turn the song into a Black Sabbath-like dirge.

“Bleed Me Free” pushes the speed back up to F-14 levels and has Hawk wailing like Kurt Cobain on rare Bleach-era cuts. “In a Hole” blasts by so quick that it seems like it clocks in at under a minute instead of just over twice that length.

The next four tracks, “Bones,” “Voices,” “Fight,” and “Shivers” are the four tracks from their self-titled debut EP and are each full of burning jet fuel power. They follow it with “Runnin’ Scared,” a fierce, wild track that layers distortion over Hawk’s vocals as well as the guitar and bass (which remind me of Motorhead arrangements). The album ends with the almost-peppy “Their Disguise,” in which I can’t determine which instrument is leading and who is trying to keep up with whom. I mean this in the best possible sense. Each of the band members burns up the last of their fuel reserves on it.

Down in Flames is heavy, fuzzy, angry, fast, and one of the hottest metal records so far this year. Their self-titled EP was just a warm-up. This is a full-on brawl.

Keep your mind open.

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Live: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, ORB, and Stonefield – Aragon Ballroom – Chicago, IL – August 24, 2019

I’d read that the King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard / ORB / Stonefield show at Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom was on the verge of selling out. I’m pretty sure it did, judging by the line to get into the venue.

The line was so long that the Aragon had to put an employee (guy in white shirt behind car) in a parking lot two blocks away to manage it.

People were laughing in disbelief when they reached this corner and saw the line went on for another block and a half.

The top photo there is from the back of the line, which was over two blocks from the Aragon’s front door. The second photo shows the line along the Red Line El track wall on the west side of the Aragon. I’ve never seen a line this long to get into the Aragon. As one guy put it as he walked past me to get to the end of the line, “Take that all of you who say ‘Who?’ whenever I mention this band!”

The line was so long that, unfortunately, I missed Stonefield’s set. They were so loud, however, that you could hear them outside the venue when a Red Line train wasn’t passing by. I might get to see Stonefield at this year’s Levitation Austin festival, so it could still work out okay for me.

ORB, who have added a guitarist since I last saw them, put on a solid set of stoner-psych that included a lot of fuzz, metal riffs, and avalanche drumming.

I knew King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s set was going to be nuts when people were already chanting, clapping, and cheering during the soundcheck. Plus, KGATLW’s new album, Infest the Rat’s Nest, is a thrash metal record, and I was sure songs from it were going to cause a frenzied mosh pit.

Sure enough, they opened with “Self Immolate” and “Mars for the Rich” off the new record and the crowd immediately compressed by about thirty percent as two pits broke out – one on each side of the stage. I figured they wouldn’t play too much off the new record, as thrash metal is hard to play and they had an entire show to do that would probably cover everything from psychedelic hippie music to blues.

They proved me right by following the metal with the swing of “Plastic Boogie” off the first album they released this year, Fishing for Fishies, which is a blues record. Three cuts off Polygondwanaland followed – “Inner Cell,” “Loyalty,” and “Horology.”

“We’re gonna play an old one,” lead singer Stu Mackenzie said. “How old?” said the guy behind me. “Old for them is like an album from last year.” True, considering KGATLW put out five albums in 2018. The “oldies” turned out to be “I’m in Your Mind” and “I’m Not in Your Mind” from 2014’s I’m in Your Mind Fuzz. “The Balrog” from Murder of the Universe got everyone jumping again, and I was in the pit by the time they got to “Evil Death Roll” from Nonagon Infinity. The whole crowd was jumping during “Rattlesnake,” which lead to other cuts from Flying Microtonal Banana including “Sleep Drifter” and “Billabong Valley.”

Nonagon Infinity opens the door for infinite lizards.

They swung back into a boogie set with more cuts off Fishing for Fishies and even threw in their synth-single “Cyboogie” before ending the night with a wall of death-inducing “Planet B” and “Hell” from Infest the Rat’s Nest. They began the night with metal and ended the night with metal, leaving everyone sweaty and giddy.

“Thanks for coming. Thanks for getting crazy. You guys are fucking crazy. It’s great,” Mackenzie said at one point. It was a crazy crowd, probably the craziest I’ve been in since I saw Thee Oh Sees in Austin last year. The mosh pit was friendly, too. Twice the pit I was in stopped so people could turn on cell phone lights to look for, find, and hold up dropped stuff like someone’s glasses and a wallet. A woman walked by me wearing a shirt that read, “They only walls be build are walls of death.” on the back.

That’s metal, all right, as was this show.

Keep your mind open.

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If you’re already putting together a Halloween playlist, Firebreather’s “Closed Gate” awaits you.

“Firebreather veer towards roaring, High On Fire-esque sludge, and they’ve got the chops and the grit to pull this kind of thing off.” — Brooklyn Vegan

Swedish trio Firebreather share a new track from their forthcoming debut on RidingEasy Records, Under a Blood Moon. Hear and share “Closed Gate” via YouTube.

Brooklyn Vegan previously hosted the lead single “Dancing Flames” HERE.

Fire is what happens when a carbon based object is consumed by oxygen. That chemical reaction is fitting to the sound of Firebreather: The riffs are suffocating, the rhythms fast moving and all-consuming. It’s so blindingly and deafeningly monolithic, don’t be surprised to find yourself gasping for air while listening. The Gothenburg, Sweden trio has a streamlined focus on driving, symphonic riffs in the vein of High on Fire, Inter Arma and their tour- and label-mates Monolord. The guitar and bass tones are, quite simply, entrancing. Like watching flames engulf a forest, the billowing guitar tones are simultaneously beautiful and destructive, while the rhythms sway and lunge with vicious precision.

“It’s riff based, heavy as fuck, but with a groove to it,” explains vocalist/guitarist Mattias Nööjd, formerly of popular Swedish doom merchants Galvano. “We had gotten off a tour with Monolord in February of 2018 and by that time we had the song ‘Firebreather’ done,” but soon thereafter new drummer Axel Wittbeck joined the fold. “Once Axel had joined, it was like the flood gates opened,” says bassist Kyle Pitcher. “The rest of the album just came together.”

Under a Blood Moon was recorded at Elementstudion in Gothenburg with engineer Oskar Karlsson, who also recorded the band’s lauded 2017 self-titled debut on Suicide Records.

Album opener “Dancing Flames” sets the stage for the onslaught to come with a slinking, serpentine riff over slow churning rhythms. Nööjd’s hushed, gravelly vocals sink into the mix, more like a baritone guitar than a human voice. “Our Souls, They Burn” nicely exemplifies the band’s furious grind that makes even faster tempo songs sound impossibly heavy, like a slow motion stampede. Elsewhere, “We Bleed” perfectly sums up the band’s focus on the riff and groove, honing in on the power of hypnotic attrition. Closing epic, “The Siren” opens with lugubrious, slightly swinging drums and rumbling bass building tension over delay- and phaser-soaked guitar harmonics, until a massive, sliding riff crashes headlong into the proceedings. The song seems to cleverly shape shift across several harmonic and rhythmic parts, without losing the core groove underneath. A short pause for breath, then it’s off to the races with a galloping crescendo for succinct closure.

Under a Blood Moon will be available on LP, CD and download September 27th, 2019 via RidingEasy Records. Preorders are available HERE.

FIREBREATHER LIVE 2019: Sep 20 Gothenburg, SE @ Musikens Hus w/ Halshug Oct 01 Utrecht, NL @ De Helling * Oct 02 Brussels, BE @ Magasin 4 * Oct 03 Pratteln, CH @ Up In Smoke Festival * Oct 04 Reims, FR @ La Cartonnerie * Oct 05 Paris, FR @ Saturday Mud Fever Festival * Oct 07 Dortmund, DE @ Junkyard * Oct 08 Nuremberg, DE @ Z-Bau * Oct 09 Cologne, DE @ Helios 37 * Oct 10 Mainz, DE @ Schon Schon * Oct 11 Hamburg, DE @ Molotow * Oct 16 Oslo, NO @ John Dee * Oct 17 Gothenburg, SE @ Sticky Fingers * Oct 18 Malmo, SE @ Babel * Oct 23 Linkoping, SE @ The Crypt * Oct 24 Stockholm, SE @ Close Up Baten * Oct 25 Tampere, FI @ Olympia * Oct 26 Helsinki, FI @ Nosturi * * w/ Monolord

Keep your mind open.

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“You’ll Abide” by listening to Warish’s new single from “Down in Flames” due out September 13th.

Southern California trio Warish share a new track from their forthcoming full length debut Down In Flames on RidingEasy Records. Hear and share “You’ll Abide” via YouTube and Bandcamp.

Loudwire recently premiered the first single “Healter Skelter” HERE.

Warish hit the road this fall in support of the album with San Francisco stoner rock progenitors Acid King, who will also reissue their legendary Busse Woods album on RidingEasy on August 30th. Please see all dates below.

Imagine if early, weird Aberdeen Nirvana were crossed with low budget horror-obsessed garage-punks. You’d have sinister vibes with a visceral, twisted weirdness and bludgeoning riffs. Some might call it nightmarish, we call it Warish.

Warish is a very newly minted SoCal trio formed in early 2018 that has wasted no time making its presence known. The band formed when guitarist/vocalist and pro-skater Riley Hawk (son of skating legend Tony Hawk) and drummer Nick (Broose) McDonnell decided they wanted to try their hand at something more distinct than they’d done previously. “We wanted to do simpler riffs and a fun live show,” Riley explains. “A little more punk, a little bit of grunge… a little evil-ish.” Their sound takes cues from a variety of cool underground sounds and twists it all into an energetic and exciting fist to the face of dark fury. Hawk’s effect-laden vocals hearken to 90s industrial monsters Ministry and David Yow’s tortured caterwaul in Scratch Acid. The guitars are heavy and powerful, though decidedly not straightforward cookie cutter punk; more like Cobain’s and Buzz Osbourne’s wiry contortions. The rhythms bash and pummel right through it all with aggressive force ensuring that nothing gets overly complicated and the horrors keep coming throughout the band’s uh, warlike assault.

Down In Flames will be available on LP, CD and download on September 13th, 2019 via RidingEasy Records. Pre-orders are available HERE.

WARISH LIVE 2019: 08/30 San Diego, CA @ The Casbah 09/20 Portland, OR @ Star Theater – Hesh Fest * 09/21 Seattle, WA @ Highline * 09/23 Denver, CO @ Marquis Theater * 09/24 Omaha, NE @ Slowdown * 09/25 Chicago, IL @ Reggies * 09/26 Indianapolis, IN @ Black Circle * 09/27 Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop * 09/28 Buffalo, NY @ Mohawk Place * 09/29 Boston, MA @ Sonia * 09/30 New York, NY @ Knitting Factory * 10/01 Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s * 10/02 Richmond, VA @ Richmond Music Hall * 10/03 Raleigh, NC @ Kings * 10/04 Asheville, NC @ Mothlight * 10/05 Atlanta, GA @ The 529 * 10/06 New Orleans, LA @ One Eye Jack’s * 10/07 Dallas, TX @ Gas Monkey * 10/09 Albuquerque, NM @ Sister * 10/10 Mesa, AZ @ Club Red * 10/11 Los Angeles, CA @ Satellite * 10/12 San Francisco, CA @ Chapel * 11/09 Austin, TX @ Levitation Fest * w/ Acid King

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: Clutch – Slow Hole to China: Rare and Re-released (2009)

Originally released in 2003, Clutch‘s Slow Hole to China was a collection of obscure singles, unreleased material, and cover tunes. They re-released it in 2009 as Slow Hole to China: Rare and Re-released and included three more previously unreleased tracks.

One of those tracks is the first one on this album – “King of Arizona.” It’s a solid blues rocker with harmonica by guest Eric Oblander and vocalist Neil Fallon making allusions to either an Arizona gold mine, a cemetery in Arizona, James Reavis (a con man who was nearly given ownership of most of Arizona and a good chunk of New Mexico), or, quite likely, all three.

The title track has some of Dan Maines’ heaviest bass lines. “Nickel Dime” almost has a fiery gospel feel to it. “Sea of Destruction” hits as hard, if not harder, than a lot of current metal tracks thanks to Jean-Paul Gaster‘s furious drumming and Tim Sult’s fuzzed-to-the-max guitar. Blues swagger comes in heavy on “Oregon,” “Easy Breeze,” “Hale Bopp Blues” (which is sung from the perspective of dinosaurs fearing the arrival of the Hale Bopp comet and the end of their lives on Earth), and “Four Lords.”

“Rising Son” scorches and has one of my favorite lyrics on the album – “Gravity is such a drag, and we will not obey.” I can’t help but wonder if “Guild of Muted Assassins” was inspired by one of Fallon’s old Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, because that title needs to be the name of a D&D game module. “Willie Nelson” is about Fallon’s home being raided by jackbooted figures searching for drugs, secrets, or both. It might be the former when you consider the chorus is, “I don’t know if I’m coming or going, if it’s them or me. But the one thing’s for certain, Willie Nelson only smokes killer weed.”

“Equinox” is an instrumental that has wild Santana-like percussion. “Hoodoo Operator” is a floor-stomper with Maines’ bass taking on angry bee-like quality. “Day of the Jackalope” has Fallon’s vocals distorted as if through a fault megaphone, making him sound like a madman yelling on a street corner. “Ship of Gold (West Virginia)” is an alternate version of the song of the same name that would end up on Clutch’s Elephant Riders album. It’s a bit darker and heavier than that one, and has more extended jams as well.

This is a solid collection and can stand alone as its own album instead of a collection of singles and miscellaneous tracks. It’s worth seeking out if you’re a fan of Clutch, or even if you’re not.

Keep your mind open.

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Warish to unleash first LP, “Down in Flames,” September 13th.

Southern California trio Warish have shared the first track from their forthcoming full length debut Down In Flames on RidingEasy Records. The song, “Healter Skelter” is not a Beatles cover, but rather the title refers to the Manson Family’s misspelled blood scrawl at the site of their second murder in 1969. Loudwire premiered the song earlier HERE, hear and share the song now via YouTube and Bandcamp.

“We wanted to do simpler riffs and a fun live show,” Riley explains. “A little more punk, a little bit of grunge… a little evil-ish.” Their sound takes cues from a variety of cool underground sounds and twists it all into an energetic and exciting fist to the face of dark fury. Hawk’s effect-laden vocals hearken to 90s industrial monsters Ministry and David Yow’s tortured caterwaul in Scratch Acid. The guitars are heavy and powerful, though decidedly not straightforward cookie cutter punk; more like Cobain’s and Buzz Osbourne’s wiry contortions. The rhythms bash and pummel right through it all with aggressive force ensuring that nothing gets overly complicated and the horrors keep coming throughout the band’s uh, warlike assault.

Down In Flames will be available on LP, CD and download on September 13th, 2019 via RidingEasy Records. Pre-orders are available HERE.

Down In Flames track list: 01. Healter Skelter 02. You’ll Abide 03. Big Time Spender 04. Bleed Me Free 05. In a Hole 06. Bones 07. Voices 08. Fight 09. Shivers 10. Run-in’ Scared 11. Their Demise On The

Web: instagram.com/warish.usa

facebook.com/Warishband

ridingeasyrecs.com

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Live: Clutch, Killswitch Engage, and Cro-Mags “JM” – Clyde Theatre – Ft. Wayne, IN – July 16, 2019

The last show I saw at Fort Wayne, Indiana’s Clyde Theatre was the Flaming Lips with Le Bucherettes, which was a communal psychedelic experience and not the type of place in which a mosh pit breaks out while someone screams at you with rage and fury. Now, however, I was seeing three bands who brought plenty of rage and fury – Clutch, Killswitch Engage, and Cro-Mags “JM“.

My friend and I walked in as Cro-Mags “JM” were unleashing their rage with a furious hardcore punk rock set. The “JM,” by the way, stands for “John Mackie” – as in vocalist John Joseph and drummer Mackie Jayson. Joseph and Jayson are two of the longest-serving members in the legendary Cro-Mags band (which has gone through multiple lineup changes). Joseph talked about songs written in 1989, such as “Street Justice,” when there was no such thing as being an online troll (“You said what you needed to say face to face. You didn’t hide behind a keyboard. And if you had to put your fists up, you threw down.”). It was a fast, hard set, yet no mosh pits broke out, which I found baffling.

I’d heard of Cro-Mags from my high school punk rock days, but I’d never heard anything by Killswitch Engage despite the fact they’ve been together for two decades. My metal music collections leans toward stoner and doom, so metalcore is a mostly unexplored genre for me. They put on a heck of a show, bringing relentless energy and a packed house. A lot of people showed up for their set, and a few small mosh pits broke out during it. Crowd surfing was even more popular. A particular highlight was the live debut of their newest single, “I Am Broken, Too.” Lead singer Jessie Leach‘s vocal stylings reminded me of Ronnie James Dio, so I was delighted to hear them close their set with a cover of Dio’s “Holy Diver.”

Clutch came out gunning with the always-invigorating “X-Ray Visions” and “Firebirds!” Bassist Dan Maines had some technical issues in the first two tracks that kept him from putting out as much sound as he wanted, but a couple swapped cables and batteries fixed the issue by the time they got to “Gimme the Keys.”

Psychic warfare is real, and Dan Maines’ bass apparently shoots lasers.

The crowd had thinned a bit, which is a shame, because a lot of the metalcore fans who left missed a great groove-rock show by Clutch that included a lot of tunes I’d never heard live before such as their version of the blues classic “Evil,” the rare cut “Willie Nelson,” “Smoke Banshee,” “Hot Bottom Feeder” (which my friend loved for both the groove and the fact that the entire song is a crab cake recipe), and “Rats.”

Clutch lets us know that Willie Nelson only smokes killer weed.

They ended the night with an encore of “H.B. Is in Control” and “How to Shake Hands,” two more songs I hadn’t heard live until now. I’ve always loved how Clutch changes up their setlist every night. They keep a core of a few tunes for each show but mix in whatever else they want to play. I wish more bands did this, but not every band is as confident as them. So, go see them. It will be a unique experience.

Keep your mind open.

Thanks to Doug Weber of New Ocean Media for getting me a press pass to the show.

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Clutch and Killswitch Engage announce summer U.S. tour.

Clutch, Killswitch Engage, and Cro-Mags are heading on the road together this summer across the United States in what will surely be one of the loudest tours of 2019. Tickets to all dates are on sale now. Some of the dates include festivals like Clutch’s Earth Rocker (July 13), Rock Fest (July 19th), and Impact Festival (July 28th).

Clutch never disappoint live, so don’t miss your chance to see them.

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Review: The Well – Death and Consolation

Ian Graham, guitarist and vocalist for Austin, Texas doom rockers The Well, had a bad 2018 – according to a press release for their powerful new album, Death and Consolation: “2018 was a strange, dark year. A lot of change going on in my life, there was a lot of depression and coming out of it over the last year. I wanted to call this Death and Consolation, because in life that’s a constant.”

It’s an appropriate title because the power chords, heavy lyrics, thunderous bass (courtesy of co-vocalist Lisa Alley), and almost heart-stopping drums (courtesy of Jason Sullivan) on the record are both creepy and invigorating. Graham also says, ” “I feel like this album is almost more gothic. We’re big fans of post-punk.”

That goth influence comes out right away on the opener, “Sabbah,” with its growling bass and lyrics of “flowers sliced by assassin’s steel.” Listening to “Raven” is like stomping on the gas pedal of a 1970 Plymouth Roadrunner while Satan is chasing you in a Dodge Coronet Super Bee down a winding mountain road at 12:01am.

“Death Song” isn’t a cover of the tune by the Black Angels (another Austin psychedelic powerhouse), but I’m sure the Black Angels would appreciate its Black Sabbath-meets-Thin Lizzy vibe. “Cup of Peace” could be a Joy Division track if that band upped the fuzz and spent more time in dimly lit libraries full of massive books chained to iron racks.

“Eyes of a God” gets off to a spooky, whispered start and then breaks out a serious rock groove that blends metal with late 1960’s garage rock while Graham sings about touching a land that lies beyond the sun. “Act II” starts with a sample (probably from a horror film I have yet to see) of someone trying to banish a holy man from getting closer and then breaks into a song about ancient evil being unleashed on the world…or is it? The sample at the beginning seems to indicate that The Well knows there are bright things beyond the veil that even Lovecraftian Old Ones fear. Oh yes, and the song is an absolute wall-flattener.

“Freedom Above” is a slow burn under a bubbling cauldron, whereas “This Is How” is a fuzzed-out raging fire that claims, “This is how the world ends, drowning now in flames. This is how the world ends, nightmare of the sane.” You don’t get much more metal than that. The closer is “Endless Night” – a dark tune about dark things dragging Graham (and the rest of us) to even darker places. It’s packed with sludge, menace, and guitar riffs deadly as a battle axe.

I’ve come to love doom and stoner metal over the last few years, and Death and Consolation is one of the best records I’ve heard in that genre. The Well is at the top of their game right now. I need, you need, we all need to see them live, and we all need to hear this record.

Keep your mind open.

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