EXCLUSIVE ALBUM STREAM & REVIEW: Weed Demon - "Astrological Passages"

By: Ernesto Aguilar

Album Type: Full-length

Date Released: 18/08/2017

Label: Dissonant Society

Weed Demon is quite willing to show they can do a diverse attack that goes beyond a Melvins-ish crunch. It can definitely throttle you with heavy, sludged out guitars and drums. Yet, as you find on "Primordial Genocide" and elsewhere, Weed Demon can go from blasting to burrowing with its arrangements, zipping from fast to slow, metal to a variation on math rock, smoothly.

"Astrological Passages “CS//CD//DD "track listing

1. Astrological Passages

2. Primordial Genocide

3. Sigil of The Black Moon

4. Dominion of Oblivion

5. Jettisoned

The Review:

A band who call themselves Weed Demon and does five songs that clock out at 50 minutes pretty much says all you need to know about it being a stoner metal clique, doesn't it? Not completely. The Columbus, Ohio troupe has, in truth, a lot more in store for you.

Stoner metal has and has previously had many great acts as part of its history. Though the mainstream probably could not tell the difference between stoner and several other variations of doom, discriminating listeners know it when they hear it. Weed Demon flies the flag in its name and other venues. It certainly has other influences at its base.

On their debut full-length, a follow up to their 2015 EP, Weed Demonis quite willing to show they can do a diverse attack that goes beyond a Melvins-ish crunch. It can definitely throttle you with heavy, sludged out guitars and drums. Yet, as you find on "Primordial Genocide" and elsewhere, Weed Demoncan go from blasting to burrowing with its arrangements, zipping from fast to slow, metal to a variation on math rock, smoothly. "Sigil of the Black Moon" kicks off as if it is your standard issue doom cut, but evolves into capacious blues rock, then plunges you into deep sludge. Where their first recording felt straightforward and perhaps not as adventurous, Weed Demon seems more confident in their own skin, with members gutsy in their willingness to take songs out to the farther reaches of your expectations.

The vocal style is just as varied, wherein a song like "Dominion of Oblivion" conveys almost a kind of funeral doom in its chanting verbalization. Rarely do you find stoner and funeral cross paths, so this bridge of the song is fresh. The music grows more insistent as it goes on, as does the vocal. That song is followed by "Jettisoned," a sprawling 12-minute-plus track to wrap up the recording. With its harmonica accents, rockabilly sort of segueway and long instrumental stretches, the cut seems aimed at, as the group says, to smoke and just jam. However, the overall effort here is far superior to background music. And Weed Demon, regardless of its name, is hardly your average stoner metal group.

"Astrological Passages" is available to preorder/buy on CS here and CD//digital here.  The album is official out on the 18/8/2017, but you can stream it exclusively in full below.

Band info: bandcamp || facebook

“And the earth will be destroyed with undulations of fuzz part II:” An Interview with Dreich & Album Stream

 

Dreich hail from different corners of the globe and were united in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2015.  Dreich is an expression of the suffering of the human condition on this mortal coil. The oath was sworn and the allegiance is kept by four wretched souls brought together by forces unknown to summon, the bleak, the heavy, the horrid, the animalistic, the energy and beauty within darkness.  In sonic ritual Dreichconjure hypnotic rhythms and entrance their fiendish victims and recent committed their first aural rituals to wax in the form of a split release with Irish fuzz merchants Mares of Diomedes .

On September 16th 2016, Heavy Earth Recordswas the vessel for which this release was bestowed upon the unsuspecting world, a release of bone rattling doom that is on par with the best in the genre.   Following on from the recent premiere of the Mares of Diomende tune “Earth Destroyer”, today we present the second part of our doubled headed interview, with the formal introduction of Dreich and a full stream of this gargantuan release.  So let the ritual begin.  Purchase the album on cassette, vinyl or digital formats here

SL: Can you give us an insight into how you started playing music, leading up to the formation of Dreich?

 

Dreich was the marriage of two different concepts/projects. The former project had been a slightly different line up and the latter was to be a project between our vocalist and guitarist, by forging the two together Dreich was sprung as we found our mutual gravitation towards the darker sonic realms.

SL:For folks unfamiliar with your band, are there any bands on the scene past and present that you would use as a reference point band to describe your band, and is there any bands that continue to inspire you and push you to try new things?

Dreich:As a band we’re shaped by our life experiences in a forsaken world, our different cultural backgrounds and our former projects. We have roots in many different scenes from death metal to D.I.Y. punk and listen to a vast variety of music definitely not limited to sludge and doom.

We don’t really like to frame our sound around that of other musicians. We’re a melting pot of influences, genres and are directing ourselves around what we feel, not what we know of other bands. Surely there are influences or other musician’s people may feel we share themes/sounds with, however Dreich never explicitly set out with such intentions, musically

 

SL: What can you tell us about your upcoming record and where do you feel it sits within the context current music scene.

Dreich:If we must frame our music we would describe Dreich as a band mostly rooted in Doom Metal with nods to death metal and black metal. We describe ourselves and our concept as Bleak Metal. We are always experimenting, progressing and evolving as a band and we are currently amidst writing our first full length release, but with these tracks from the split we have found our musical approach as a band.

SL: How was the mood in the camp going into the recording of the record?

Dreich: Although it was the dark days of Scandinavian winter, as a band we went into the studio feeling hungry to sink our teeth into our first recording. We play dark and heavy music; however, we still find much enjoyment within that, as a family who share that. We collaborated with Ballade Studios and we’re really happy with what was achieved there.

SL: What can fans look forward to from you over the next 12 months? How is your schedule shaping up?

Dreich: The next 12 months is  shaping up to be even more intense than those preceding it and we welcome that. We have the split with Mares Of Diomedes being released, some shows we're humbled to be playing, continuing with the writing process and then recording our first full length. We’ve had requests to play in both Europe and beyond so we look forward to embarking on an exciting year.

Cheers // Skål // Sláinte!!!

Band info: facebook|| bandcamp

ALBUM STREAM: Chicago's acid soaked sludgers Faces of the Bog complete their "Ego Death"

By:  Aaron Pickford



(C) GoldilocksCG

Personally speaking, one of the strongest and prominent scenes in metal over the years is Chicago, with many of America’s most prominent bands, hailing from the windy city. Ministry and the Wax Trax scene, Big Black, Shellac, The Jesus Lizard, Trouble,Touch and Go Records are many of the names that have imprinted upon music fans and the history of the Chicagomusic scene over the last 30 years.

Today the vibrancy of the Chicago scene continues with emergence of bands past and present such as, Buried At Sea, Indian, Lord Mantis, Bongripper, The Skull, Yakuza, The Atlas Moth, Scientist the list is endless. Indeed if an album is from the doom scene, if it is heavy and it was recorded in Chicago, then one man, Sanford Parker was likely to have recorded it, which leads us directly onto today’s featured band Faces of the Bog.

A psychedelic tinged, doom influenced, sludge/prog four piece Faces of the Bog, hail from Humboldt Park, home of Emperor Cabinets and continue the tradition of excellent bands rising from Chicago underground and their acid soaked blend of sludge was recently put to tape by Sanford at Electric Audio in the form of their debut album “Ego Death”, which is a fantastic blast to the senses.  “Ego Death” is set for release on 4^thOctober, but today in order to whet your insatiable appetite for crushing music, we are streaming the album in full below.  You can Pre-order “Ego Death” here

Band info: facebook

INTERVIEW & ALBUM STREAM: "Waker" from Copenhagen, Denmark's sludge metal bastards BARRICADE

The Copenhagen, Denmark-based sludge metal bastards Barricade is back with their second full length album ”Waker”, which is a fierce stew of social indignation and a musical pedal to the metal. First and foremost, ”Waker” is the proof of a band with something to say and a sense of renewing its own expression while setting the bar high for the alternative metal scene.

”Waker” will be released September 30th via the band’s own label Black Grain Records on LP/CD/Digital and today you can check out the album in full with our exclusive stream, as well as short interview.  

SL: Can you give us an insight into how you started playing music, leading up to the formation of Barricade

We all started playing music when we were young teens in the early mid 90`s and discovered bands like Nirvana, Metallica and Pantera.  Some of us Tejs, Lars and Jonathan grew up together and have been playing together for a long time in various bands and genres. Barricade was born in 2010 and Patrick joined in as a second guitar later that year.

SL: For folks unfamiliar with your band, is there any bands on the scene past and present that you would use as a reference point band to describe your band, and who or what continues to inspire you and push you to try new things?

Well we have very different influences and bands we like. Our musical background is very different stretching from Grunge through hardcore all the way to death metal – but let’s say that we have listened to a fair share of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Mastodon, High on Fire, Raised Fist and Red Fang.

SL:  What can you tell us about your upcoming record and where do you feel it sits within the context of current doom scene

We don’t see ourselves as a doom band. We prefer sludge metal. We have some short slow parts in some of our songs, that have a little doom inspiration. Don’t know were the Doom definition comes from? :)

Our new record is a kind of “new” start, in that form that we use to have 2 drummers, but we parted ways with our second drummer about a year ago and decided to continue with one - which resulted in a new sound that is more heavy and slow but still with our aggressive hardcore inspired attitude.

SL: Does anything spring to mind when you think about the completion of your upcoming record and how is the mood in the camp at present?

We are happy and proud that we made this record. It has been tough and hard work not least because we did almost everything ourselves. We did the recording in a realy nice big pro studio and Patrick (guitar) did the mix and mastering. Lars (guitar, vocals) did all the artwork and graphics. The video was done by our drummer Tejs. So it’s been a long but exciting process. Now it’s done and out in a few weeks, so the mood is good and positive and we hope people will like our new record.

SL: What stands out as your overarching memory from the recording sessions?

This time we had a more “real” feeling to it than we’ve had before. This time we did two weeks of non-stop recording sessions on vintage gear with Emil Sauer, a very skilled pro recording engineer and producer. Emil gave us a lot of inputs and did a great job on working with the basic sound. We had the real feeling of being in the studio. So a very different process than our previous releases where each of us would have short sessions of recording you know layer on layer etc.

SL: With a solid gold album in the bag, how is your schedule shaping up over the next 12 months?

Thanks J We don’t have a lot of plans for now. It’s hard to get gigs and tour in Denmark at our level and music genre. Hopefully we can get some cool support jobs for bigger acts when they come to Copenhagen. We are planning to do a small EU tour early 2017 and festivals next summer.

SL: Finally, do you have any final comments/word of wisdom you’d like to bestow upon us?

Thanks for doing this interview. Stay true to yourself and work hard for what you believe in. Love your fellow man and animal despite all the differences you may have. Teach your kids that everyone is right. Music for all – hate for none. Cheers

”Waker” will be released September 30th via the band’s own label Black Grain Records here , and the album will be accompanied by a string of live shows in DK and beyond.

  

Band info: facebook || bandcamp