Author: Gruesome Greg
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Lecherous Gaze – Zeta Reticuli Blues
First heard these guys, Lecherous Gaze, on a split with Danava and Earthless, to which they contributed a rollicking tune entitled “Get You Some.” Apparently, it was the strength of that track that got ‘em signed to Tee Pee, which issued their debut a couple years back, along with this, their second release. Well, it…
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Crowbar – Symmetry in Black
Crowbar’s Sever the Wicked Hand was an awesome album, one of my top albums of 2011. And despite an unfortunate head-kicking incident at MDF, I was still pretty psyched to hear what the band would come up with the next time around. No boycott here—let’s just say I’m hoping this album delivers a solid blow…
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The Lone Crows – Dark Clouds
This Minnesota-based outfit, The Lone Crows, is apparently pretty big in Germany. Big enough, anyways, that the German label World in Sound reissued their debut last year, which landed them on my radar. And hey, if there’s a retro-psych revival going on across the pond, then these guys would really fit right in… Sophomore effort…
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Fu Manchu – Gigantoid
The Gigantoid is a very elusive creature. Out on the band’s own At the Dojo Records, it’s not available in stores, and can only be found at Fu Manchu concerts across the country… such as the one that recently took place in Toronto. And as far as new albums go, it’s the Fu’s first in…
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Dwellers – Pagan Fruit
If we’re judging an album by its cover, the sophomore effort from this Utah-based trio, Dwellers, sure looks like a Baroness album. Hey, as long as we’re talking Red or Blue, and not Yellow & Green, that’s OK with me. Pagan Fruit paints with a similar palette to the Georgian no-longer-sludgesters. An amplified, mellow, country-blues-rock…
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Graves at Sea/Sourvein Split
The split EP is as essential to sludge metal as cough syrup and Southern Comfort. And for these two long-dormant acts—particularly the former—this concoction of an EP goes down like a mixture of those two elixirs. Like the syrup and the whiskey, Graves at Sea and Sourvein leave you raw and nauseous, but ultimately, cure…
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Satyress – Dark Fortunes
A female-fronted doom band from Portland… that’s not Witch Mountain? Do tell! The aforementioned set the bar pretty high pretty high with their comeback effort South of Salem, pushing the vocal stylings of Uta Plotkin to the forefront and putting Rip City on the map as a place whose doom scene had much more to…
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Jeremy Irons & the Ratgang Malibus – Spirit Knife
Not gonna lie, these Swedes sucked me in with their bizarre band name. I’m not sure if there was actually a movie in which The Man in the Iron Mask leads a sedan-driving rat gang…but a quick Google search strictly points to Jeremy Irons & the Ratgang Malibus. I would not be surprised if they were…
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Doomeastvan – ‘Tis We
If you guessed, judging by their name, that Doomeastvan was a Vancouver doom-metal band… well, you’d only be half-right. The artwork on this album screams 90s death metal, while their song titles and stage names (ie. Cazbo Low Rifferson, 333 Thee Half Beast) would make Oderus Urungus proud. I guess you could call opening track “Humans…
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Sadhak – Sadhak
Well, he’s got the first part of the band name right, anyways. Not your typical one-man Norwegian metal band, Sadhak actually plays longing, despondent doom à la Warning or 40 Watt Sun. And no, his last name’s not Walker… This debut EP consists of two songs averaging nine minutes in length. “On the Arrival of…