Category: Reviews – Audio
Glorious metal in all its earthly forms, compressed onto shiny plastic discs or into digital files. Which ones will become the soundtrack to your life?
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Wo Fat – The Conjuring
I think I mighta missed the last album from this Texas trio, but it’s good to hear that nothing much has changed. Wo Fat still play long, slow, drawn-out stoner jams, no more than five or six a pop, always ending on an epic note—in this case, the 17-minute “Dreamwalker.” But first we begin with…
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Agalloch – The Serpent and the Sphere
From beginning to end this album is a wonder, combining moments of crushing heaviness with overwhelming beauty, and I found it a tall order to find the words to describe this feat. Produced by Billy Anderson and featuring three acoustic interludes, and using elements like a waterphone and a 100 year old zither, Agalloch’s The Serpent…
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Bachman Turner Overdrive – Not Fragile (1974)
Fuck you, I like Bachman Turner Overdrive. At least, just as much as the next guy, anyways. Although I still can’t stand it when “Takin’ Care of Business” blasts outta every junior-hockey rink across the country, these guys actually wrote a few decent tunes in their time, aside from the overplayed hits. Besides, I figured that if anyone…
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Valley of the Sun – Electric Talons of the Thunderhawk
Now, you wouldn’t expect a band named Valley of the Sun, the nickname of Phoenix, Arizona, to hail from Cincinnati—a city known colloquially as Dirty Cincy. And yet, it’s an apt moniker for this outfit, a desert-rock trio that captured the attention of Swedish stoner greats Truckfighters, who subsequently signed them to their label. And…
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Primitive Man/Hexis – split 10”
Here is something to ruin your day. The new split 10” from Denver’s Primitive Man and Copenhagen’s Hexis available from Halo of Flies. If this slice of wax was playing while you found out you won the lottery while having sex with a supermodel, you’d still want to hang a noose around your neck and…
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The Cutthroats 9 – Dissent
This Bay Area trio, The Cutthroats 9, features howling madman frontman Chris Spencer of Unsane fame and released its debut on Man’s Ruin, waaaaay back in the day. Based on that information, I think you can take a guess as to what Dissent, their comeback EP, might sound like. And you’d be pretty much right.…
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Beastwars – Beastwars
Being that this was an independently-issued release outta New Zealand, of all places, I must admit I missed Beastwars’ debut the first time around. But the band has generated a bit of buzz, seeing as they’re the heaviest thing to hit Godzone since the Big Sheep Shearer, and as such, we’re getting a vinyl reissue…
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Corrosion of Conformity – IX
Since the original/core members of Corrosion of Conformity decided to carry on sans Pepper Keenan they’ve been on a tear. 2012 saw their “comeback” self-titled album. Then came the Eye for an Eye reissue and Megalodon EP. Now just in time for Summer, Reed Mullin, Woody Weatherman and Mike Dean deliver unto us a new…
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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…