Author: Gruesome Greg
-
AMATEUR CONCERT PHOTOGRAPHY HOUR: Apostle of Solitude/Orodruin/Saints and Winos @ Flour City Station, Rochester, NY, May 1, 2015
I haven’t been heading down to the States for shows very often since our dollar dropped far below par. But I still had a few bucks lying around from my last U.S. trip, and with two of my favourite American doom bands playing within driving distance, I figured it was worth the effort.
-
Demon Eye – Tempora Infernalia
Not to be confused with Demon Lung from Las Vegas, this Carolina quartet takes its name from a track offa Deep Purple’s Fireball record. Suffice to say, they’ve got a throwback, ’70s sound, albeit with a healthy dose of proto-doom mixed in. On their second album, the outfit serves up the tunage with shades of Priestess,…
-
Atavismo – Desintegración
This Hawkwind-influenced Spanish trio features former members of Viaje A 800 and released one of The Obelisk’s Top 10 debuts of 2014… which gives me reason enough to give this one a listen. The songs on here don’t drag on throughout the night—the four tracks range from just under seven to 11-and-a-half minutes long. The…
-
Royal Thunder – Crooked Doors
I actually wasn’t that big a fan of Royal Thunder’s debut, CVI, when I first heard it. I gave it a cursory listen, and quickly determined that they were a buncha Led Zeppelin wannabes playing Reverend Bizzare-length snoozers who threw in a female singer for added media attention. But then I saw them play live, on…
-
Minsk – The Crash and the Draw
Y’know, I’m always a little leery when a 75-minute album comes up in my review queue. It takes a lot to capture my attention for such an extended period, and when you look at past precedent, well… Reign in Blood was 29 minutes long, Vol 4 was 43. Hell, Dopesmoker was 63 minutes, but that’s…
-
AMATEUR CONCERT PHOTOGRAPHY HOUR: Electric Wizard/Blood Ceremony/Satan’s Satyrs @ Lee’s Palace, April 5, 2015
Electric Wizard’s Time to Die tour marked their first extended trek across North American in 13 years, and their first Toronto appearance in…forever!? No wonder it was such a hot ticket.
-
White Hills – Walks for Motorists
This ironically titled outing is album number 13 from uber-prolific NYC psych rockers White Hills, who’ve surely cranked out more albums in the last 10 years than anyone not named Acid Mothers Temple. A melodic mish-mash of garage rock, digi-pop and psych-rock freakouts—no two songs sound the same, but all contain the same footprint. The synth-driven…
-
The Atomic Bitchwax – Gravitron
Haven’t heard from the Atomic Bitchwax in a bit—their last record, one-track, 42-minute instrumental The Local Fuzz dropped in 2011. But they’re coming in hot and fast with this new effort, 10 songs spanning 33 minutes and change. Even though Ed Mundell’s long gone, they’re now more of a Monster Magnet side project than ever;…
-
Warhorse – As Heaven Turns to Ash/I Am Dying reissue
Boston isn’t automatically associated with stoner/doom metal the way that Baltimore or Indianapolis (for those in the know) is, but that’s not to say Beantown hasn’t cranked out a few solid outfits recently—Elder, Black Pyramid and Gozu come to mind. Hell, last year’s edition of the Eye of the Stoned Goat Fest was held in…
-
King Hitter – self-titled
Though it’s not unheard of for me to review a band that’s completely unheard of, this North Carolina outfit comes with a bit of history—namely, frontman Karl Agell sang on Corrosion of Conformity’s breakthrough Blind album. (He was also in Leadfoot, a late 90s stoner-rock outfit, alongside King Hitter guitarist Scott Little.) Do I expect…