Fatso Jetson's "Archaic Volumes" slip into the glove...

Fatso Jetson

"Archaic Volumes"

2010

Cobraside

No doubt it’s with a characteristic tongue in his cheek that Fatso Jetsonguitarist/vocalist Mario Lalli sings “These archaic volumes won’t ever really be heard” on the title track of the band’s sixth full-length, Archaic Volumes(Cobraside Distribution), but there’s something about the use of the word “really” that sets the line up for multiple levels of interpretation. The “volume” pun is one thing, but the line also seems to be saying those of us hearing the album aren’t really hearing it. There’s more behind the music and words than a surface listen can reveal. This is, as repeat visits to Archaic Volumesreveal, the complete and utter truth.

Fatso Jetson’s first studio album in eight years’ time since the release ofCruel & Delicious — there was the vinyl-only Fatso Jetson Live in 2007 – is rife with complexity, whether it comes in the tight, careful riffing of the infectiously catchy, harmonica-laden opener “Jet Black Boogie” or the casual surf influence topped off by Vince Meghrouni’s saxophone on “Back Road Tar.” Fatso Jetson has always been a complex band, meshing the members’ love of early ‘80s SoCal hardcore punk (read: Black Flag) with the more open tones consistent with the desert they call home, but the maturity on display with Archaic Volumes goes beyond genre meshing into individual expression, as the lyric-heavy near-psychedelia the band manages to fit into closer “Monoxide Dreams” would confirm.

And then there’s a completely different level on which to experience the album. The alliterative rhythm section of drummer Tony Tornay and bassistLarry Lalli are flat out astounding on “Golden Age of Cell Block Slang,” working the kind of swing into the song that Chris Goss’ Masters of Realitywas reaching for on Pine/Cross Dover and fell comparatively short of. They work equally well in the straight desert push of second track “Play Dead” and the cover of The Cramps’ “Garbage Man,” which Mario’s vocals turn into an anthem and mission statement for the band at this stage in their career. While I’m pointing out highlight tracks, the pulsating crunch of instrumental “Here Lies Boomer’s Panic” finds all of Fatso Jetson firing on all cylinders,Meghrouni belting out jabbing sax notes in line with both Lallis and Tornayand still managing somehow to stand out in the mix.

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Check it HERE

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If you hate the new layout...SAY SOMETHING! Cheers!

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Blood or Love. The almighty soul of DAX RIGGS...

DAX RIGGS

"We Sing of Only Blood or Love"

Fat Possum

2007

We Sing of Only Blood or Love, is Dax Riggs' first album under his given name, sounds much like his work with his previous project Deadboy and The Elephant Men and with has a rad Misfits/Samhain vibe going at times.  Sonically this record is pretty tame. From punk rock anthems such as "Wall of Death" to, in my honest opinion the best track on the LP, the almost dance worthy song entitled "Ghost Movement".  The man just has too much soul.  Period.  Not that Acid Bath wasn't an amazing metal/sludge band.  Dax Riggs has an incredibly unique way of getting the blues across and does he ever.  He's seen his fair share.  Welcome to Dax Riggs' nightmare party!

Here's a taste....of "Ghost Movement"  

Enjoy HERE

if you like it...BUY IT!!

Brightons finest Doomsters, DOPEFIGHT Invades the Glove

Brighton's Finest Doomsters, Dopefight FINALLY Brings the Ruckus to the Bloody Glove!!

The guys have it down to a science!  They give you EVERYTHING we listen to Heavy Metal for. Just look at how deadly that record cover is! Holy Satan is right.  The riffage on this record is the size of freaking RUSSIA!!  HUGE SOUND with the heaviest of Sludgy, Pantera/Sepultura-esque breakdowns.  Yes... You get the BEST of all things METAL with this band from England!  Now go get this record!  Give it a listen...Here's a lil sample...

The Abominable Iron Sloth

The Abominable Iron Sloth

"The Abominable Iron Sloth"

Black Market Records

2006

For fans of sludge, down-tuned guitars with heavy distortion and thick riffs accompanied by a layer of guitar effects, slow grooving drums that compliment the riffs, and high pitched screaming, check this beauty of an album out. I would say even for fans of Will Haven, give this album a shot, you might be surprised. Standout tracks include "Hats Made of Veal And That New Car Scent," A Hot Pink Shell of My Former Self," "A Distant Pond From the Rivers of Human Limelight," and "The Family That Slays Together Stays Together." -Camelo Colca Grab LP HERE

Creature With The Atom Brain | "Transylvania" now playing the bloody glove

Creature With The Atom Brain

"Transylvania"

The End Records

2009

The pedigree of Belgian group Creature with the Atom Brain is phenomenal. Creature With The Atom Brain members have toured and been part of some real heavyweight outfits such as QOTSA and the underrated Millionaire. The album's guest stars, such as Mark Lanegan and Tim Vanhamel, are notable catches. The varied influences on the band's MySpace page are spot on. But for all the talent, experience and attempts at musical variety here, Transylvania is just missing that certain ‘something’ that "...Golden Gate Bridge" encompassed and feels like rock-by-numbers, which can possibly be attributed to a recent jaunt touring with Dead Weather sucking their very souls dry whilst they slept. For the record, I am a HUGE fan of The Dead Weather.

That’s not to say this is a bad record as such. When it’s good and the band lock themselves into a tight, six-minute psychedelic riffathon then it is wholly decent and worthwhile stuff. Like when, two minutes into the upbeat title track, the bass goes all fuzzy. Or when the opener ‘I Rise the Moon’ saunters into its blissed-out chorus like a stoner exiting a bedsit at 8am on a sunny morn. Or for all of the understated but genre-melding six minutes of ‘Darker than a Dungeon’, one of the few tracks where they vary the pace and time signature throughout the song’s duration.

But is it enough to hark back to bands like Kyuss and Melvins, merely aping them and providing a modern day alternative when other rock bands have moved the genre on in the meantime?

Such is the dilemma with Creature with the Atom Brain. If all you want is a sophomoric record in a largely sophomoric branch of rock’s history, then ‘Transylvania’ will serve you well. For the rest of us, until they develop a sound of their own they’ll merely continue to be the bridesmaid, but never the bride…

-Drowned in Sound

Video for the title track, "Transylvania"

download Transylvania

MINI MANSIONS - Self Titled LP

Mini Mansions

Self-Titled LP

Ipecac Recordings

2010

So here's the deal with the LA based trio, MINI MANSIONS...

....Queens of the Stone Age are on break ( they have families and other lives ya know), anyhow, Queens and Wires On Fire bass player Michael Shuman decided to get back together with some of his old mates.  The "Old Mates" he reunited with were Tyler Parkford and Zach Dawes in a shitty, dusty room somewhere DEEP in the San Fernando Valley where they FUSED their minds together to form the Psych-Pop Trio, MINI MANSIONS. And a GOLD RECORD was born!! (unofficial).  The 3 members are usually confined to piano, bass, and a cocktail drum kit, the LA based trio generates a Technicolor spectrum of sound drawn from the Pop,baroque, gothic, psychedelic, and cinematic realms.

Best way to describe them is The Beatles (Later stuff) and Elliott Smith and you can pretty much get a good idea from that descriptive what they sound like.

Have at it...LP HERE

Blues Funeral - Mark Lanegan Band

Mark Lanegan Band

"Blues Funeral"

4AD

2012

Undoubtedly, the crowning culmination of Mark Lanegan's life's work, the darkly majestic Blues Funeral offers further evidence that, for an addict, there is never any freedom from addiction.

Though apparently now clean of his former heroin habit, Lanegan's songs here positively writhe with the lingering twitch of druggy desire, lyrically reflected in varying degrees of metaphorical imagery, from the relatively direct ("Lost on a violent sea/Gone for endless days") to the more elliptical, but still fairly obvious ("The moon don't smile on Saturday's child lying still in Elysian fields/ I don't know what the doctor he did, now I'm all day long with my body in bed"). It's been a constant theme throughout Lanegan's career, but this time it's found its most appropriate and satisfying setting, in the warm, enveloping arrangements created for the songs by Alain Johannes, with textured layers of synths, Mellotron and guitars swirling miasmically about Lanegan's smoky baritone.

Track after track finds the singer crippled with boredom, contemplating the miserable passage of days. In "Gray Goes Black", the bustling krautrock motorik evokes the inner restlessness as he confronts the stasis of the soul, "so insect I'm in amber". It's a torment likewise haunting "Leviathan", where "the hours crawl by like a spider/ hangman is following me". The wan, disjointed organ solo is like to a cork bobbing on the ocean, unable to control its course, and when the closing coda of "everyday a prayer for what I never know" comes cascading in round-style layers of harmony, it feels like a supportive twelve-step anthem to which he's desperately clinging.

Musically, it's the most accomplished of Lanegan's albums. "The Gravedigger's Song" opens proceedings with a lumbering but limber groove that evokes the galloping menace of apocalyptic horsemen, and Josh Homme helps bring a Gun Club flavour to the predatory fuzz-guitar groove and strident lead line of "Riot in My House". Heavier still is "Quiver Syndrome", with harsh, strident guitar chording over a thunderous caterpillar-track beat. At the other extreme, the classic blues flood motif of "Bleeding Muddy Water" is set to an oozing, sticky blend of shivering guitar and trembling keyboard.

"St Louis Elegy" features a similarly dark, throbbing undertow of low frequencies, with the slow shuffle of drum-machine like manacles on the soul as a fretful, earthbound Lanegan contemplates death from the skies. Comparative light relief comes in the centre of the album, with "Ode to Sad Disco" recalling Joy Division's "Atmosphere" – if that could be considered "light" – and the lovely, fatalistic melody of "Phantasmagoria Blues" floating on an oceanic miasma stippled with prickly percussion, a formula triumphantly reprised with added Mellotron and reversed guitars for the concluding "Tiny Grain of Truth". Taken as a whole, it's a marvellous piece of work, boasting a rare congruence between lyrical themes and musical evocations, and fronted by one of the most broodingly characterful voices in rock music. -The Independent(UK)

A TASTE OF THAT GOOD MEDICINE...

Get the LP HERE