LP Review: "1,000 Miles of Mud" by Night Vapor

1,000 Miles of Mud

Have you ever read a manifesto? Or better yet, are you one of those advanced humans who has actually written a manifesto.

That's one of my personal ambitions to write a manifesto so precise, so comprehensible that it becomes a treatise. My Manifesto/Treatise will be on the subject of time travel.

Certainly we have achieved it....right?

Out of America's Steel City, Pittsburgh, PA comes the Noise Rock manifesto makers, Night Vapor.

This album isn't an album. It's someone telling the rest of the world how the rest of this is about to go down.

For the record, it is wholly insane. Do not look for sanity here. If a band is going to record a musical manifesto, there's something that's required even moreso than a singer with a manageable case of Lead Singer's Disease, and that's an overly competent bass player who's been waiting for their turn.

1,000 Miles of Mud's backbone is that bass guitar. It's full and melodic. In fact, this is the kind of album that a young Geddy Lee would've heard and thought, damn, these crazy people might be on to something.

In the purest of all ironies, this abject insanity only outdone by its perfect structure.

RELEASE 12/14/18 BANDCAMP FACEBOOK

Beer Thirty with Dead Register's Avril Che

Dead Register's Avril Che

Atlanta, GA's Dead Register is on the cusp of releasing their follow up EP to 2016's Fiber with Captive.

Much like its predecessor it's got a small number of tracks while gobbling up goodly numbers of minutes, but hopefully you've already heard all about how I feel about their music.

In the meantime, Avril Che took some time to discuss her beer habits with me.

Let's find out together!

1. My personal favorite beer style is the might Double India Pale Ale. The best DIPA in the world is STLIPA by Urban Chestnut. Tell me about your favorite style. 

These days I bounce between IPAs and Saisons. I live in sweltering, humid, mostly disgustingly hot Atlanta, GA, where we keep the dehumidifier blasting even in the joke of our “winter” months.

Hometown Tales with Hammer King

Hammer King

Over somewhere in on the other side of the world, there's this place apparently called Saint-Tropez

Thy have a slightly strange way of seeing the world and perhaps come from a land that time forgot in some respects.

In others, they're funny.

I'll let you be the judge of Hammer King below.

Check it out below.

1. St. Louis City is my hometown. I've lived here for most of my life in and around the city. Where are you from?

 Titan: Well, the legend says, I am from the Kingdom of Saint-Tropez. The best place to be, so of course I have always been here and ever I will be.

EP Review: "Unstructured Dissemination" by Onset

Unstructured Dissemination

The hardest kind of music to write about is atmospheric doo..well anything. Atmospheric Anything.

Singapore's Onset makes nothing easier for me. If anything, they make it much harder. Atmospheric Doom Metal, like this, is a personal favorite.

So, when writing it up, it's all about finding the thread. The first track, or side one, sounds like someone (perhaps myself) standing up in front of the class to give a speech on a topic they know well, but without any notes. (Perhaps like the speech I gave on Phoebus Apollo in 8th Grade.)

The difference, Onset does much better than I did. 

Track two...it's the protest. Someone (like me maybe) is now protesting that there was nothing extemporaneous about the speech, it was certainly put together ahead of time, but as it was committed to memory, perhaps it didn't flow as well as it could have.

Just listen to me...that's all they're asking.

Onset's Unstructured Dissemination isn't the longest album you'll read about today, but it's just the right length. It's wide open and the expanses are filled by your imagination. Check it out.

RELEASE 11/28/18 BANDCAMP FACEBOOK

Interview with Crawling For Carrion

Crawling For Carrion

On November 9th, Crawling For Carrion released their debut 7" EP, Rake and Roads with features a track by Portishead and a track by Townes Van Sandt.

This particular interplay of styles was something very strange to this writer and still it tasks me so.

he mastermind behind Crawling for Carrion, and other bands as well, was good enough to give us some of his time.

Check it out!

Glacially Musical: Thank you for taking some time for me today. 

Crawling For Carrion: My pleasure, thanks for having me.

GM: Rake and Roads is a 7" featuring covers by Townes Van Zandt and Portishead. Why did you choose each tune? 

Video: "The Reasoning" by Coercion

Is there anybody else out there who's just ready to rock out? It's November 27, 2018. The election cycle is over.

Thanksgiving is over.  Now party party party season is coming up. Your December party season may vary a little bit from mine, as I've got two extra party days in the month.

So, if you're ready to party to some angry tunes, check out that least single from COERCION.

They've got a new record coming out on December 7th that you're gonna wanna check out, but until then, enjoy this one.

Beer Thirty with Ambassador

Ambassador

There's a band from Baton Rouge, Louisiana called Ambassador.

On September 28th, they released their debut album, Belly of the Whale. (Vinyl review upcoming soon.)

They're a band that's all about different soundscapes and personal expression. They've been compared to both Pink Floyd and A Perfect Circle.

They self describe as a dark post-punk band. Seems to me that could be a little bit of everything. Check them out on BANDCAMP and say hi on FACEBOOK.

While you're getting that stream on, check out the beers they enjoy below!

EP Review: "Toad King" by Goblinsmoker

Toad King

What is it about the old music that many music fans who've chosen to get out of the pool love so much?

Is it that deliciously fat fuzz tone?

Well, it's your lucky day if you're that kind of music fan. The one, that I probably just made up. The basis of the Goblinsmoker sound is that thick, creamy fuzz made ever so famous by countless bands.

The vocals are pained.

The guitars are unrelenting.

There's the ever lovin' swirl that I just can't stop loving.

It's amazing how much of a psychedelic feel Goblinsmoker has created on Toad King without any real hints of a psychedelic sound.

The stoner metal convention of stepping on the wah wah pedals for the duration of the record was deemed superfluous in this case.

It's heavy. It's slow. It's supremely laden in groove. It's hard to take the kind of songs they're writing and get the listener to bounce along, but there's a exaggerated swagger that makes everything happening doubly important.

RELEASE 12/14/18 BANDCAMP FACEBOOK

Vinyloscopy with Lords of the Trident

Who's ready to check back in with our super hero friends, Lords of the Trident?

Honestly, who else is getting concerned that we're going to be poked in the midsection with their powerful weapons and then we're going to have to ask the questions about our lives that we never really wanted to and then get the answers?!

Just me?

OK, moving on, Lords of the Trident are big fans of the spinning circles that send up those delicious analog sound waves that move straight into our ear holes.

Check it out!

1. Listening to Black Sabbath's eponymous debut the night I got it blew me away. What's the album that sounds the best on vinyl compared to digital sources?

LP Review: "7 Cremation Ground/Meditation" by Rifflord

7 Cremation/Meditation

When a band by the name of Rifflord crosses the desk, it's safe to assume that this is going to be a bad ass guitar band. They'll be a band so thick, half-dried plaster of paris is going to tell them to thin it out a little bit.

Well, it's probably unnecessary to say, but Rifflord isn't that band. Certainly, they're showing their Black Sabbath influence using many different riffs and even a bit of personal fave, Rat Salad.

The record starts off with a change up. There's a bit of country music. It sounds sort of like Rifflord ripping off ripping off of Johnny Cash. It's one of the strangest passages of music I've ever heard.

After spinning 7 Cremation/Meditation several times, it's hard to put a finger on what they are doing. The easiest tag would be Stoner Metal or Desert Rock, but I think it's wrong to say that. They're curating a trove of music.

This album is like heading to a museum. They're going to show you many different paintings. The big difference though, most of these paintings are heavy.

RELEASE 12/1/18 BANDCAMP FACEBOOK

Hometown Tales with Striker

Striker

Remember our good friends Striker?

You may or may not recall that they're from the snowy city of Edmonton, Alberta up there in the Fabled Canadas.

There's somewhere I've never been personally. So it's nice that we're getting some insight into Western Canada from the views of these metal bands up t here.

Let's find out more about Edmonton!

1. St. Louis City is my hometown. I've lived here for most of my life in and around the city. Where are you from?

We are from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Actually we were mostly all born and raised here! Our vocalist Dan was born outside the city but came here very young. 

LP Review: "Lost Empyrean" by Dirge

Lost Empyrean

It's late November and The United States is headed towards Thanksgiving 2018 on a brighter path.

Late Autumn though, it's a good time to be alive. The world has turned grey. Mother Earth cannot decide whether or not she wants to be snowy, rainy, cold, or sunny.

November is when we all must make our choices. This year, we have more of the cold than the warm. I'm thanking all of the gods in all of the pantheons for that.

Veteran Parsian post-metal-sub-doom-with a side of death rockers, Dirge, have created the perfect soundtrack for the coming winter and the previous year.

It's been four years since they've graced the world with an album, and this one is worth the wait. It's slow, plodding, and swirling. Too many bands try so hard to be fast, heavy, and thick that the music takes a backseat to the heavy.

Lost Empyrean starts slow and thin, but builds to a crescendo. It's never overly heavy, never too mellow. It's standing pat in the upside down. Dirge has created a record to get lost in.

Take your time with it. My paltry description will never give you the sense of having heard this masterpiece of a record. Get it. Listen to it. Pay attention.

RELEASE 12/14/18 BANDCAMP FACEBOOK

Beer Thirty with Owl Maker's Jessie May

Jessie May pictured with bearded friend.

Let's  head out to New England. Owl Maker was kind enough to allow us to bask in the beery glow of their bassist, one Jessie May.

Like anyone who's looking forward to these columns, she enjoys a tasty beer. 

Though she and  I have some different tastes about beer, she's clearly passionate about the topic. I'd also take the time to point out that she's shown her work for you.

There are a goodly number of links I'd urge you to check out. If there aren't too many already, check out our previous run ins with Owl Maker HERE.

1. My personal favorite beer style is the might Double India Pale Ale. The best DIPA in the world is STLIPA by Urban Chestnut. Tell me about your favorite style.

I'll drink pretty much any beer except a sour, but my favorite style by far is Imperial Stout.  I think the first one I tried was Weyerbacher's Old Heathen, which I found all the way at the back of the liquor store and bought because it had a badass label.  The rest is history. Some of my go-to imperial stouts are North Coast Brewing's Old Rasputin and Thimble Island Brewing Company's Mutually Assured Destruction.  The most recent one I've tried is Brooklyn's Black Chocolate Stout -- so rich that I couldn't even finish my second one!

Stream: "Protest" by Pterodactyl Problems

Recently my daughter and I watched the entire run of Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger (恐竜戦隊ジュウレンジャー) which is the Japanese show adapted to make Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. In both of the shows, the Pink Ranger is the pterodactyl ranger.

This really made me relate to the name of this band. Both of these rangers, one in Tokyo and one in California, had loads of problems related to being a pterodactyl.

I'm not quite certain  how all of this relates to Toronto's Pterodactyl Problems, but it's nice to have that international flair.

Two years ago, the band reunited after being broken up for five and in 2019, they're prepared to release a brand new LP via their own damned selves.

Now's a good time to say I LIKE YOU on FACEBOOK and SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY on BANDCAMP.

If you don't believe me yet, here...stream the crap out of Protest just below this...

Vinyl Review: "Smalltown, Midwest, USA" by The New Old Fashioned

Smallltown, Midwest, USA

So, it's been a minute hasn't it? Newer readers used to my daily double posting may have been a bit miffed to see that it's been a week since my last big piece of righteous music journalism.

For that, I'm sorry. To my readers, to my contacts, and to the bands who've so wonderfully sent me interviews to work up to pass along to you.

It's been a helluva couple weeks and because of that, no fingers on keys has happened and that sucks.

But, back today with another vinyl review. This is the first time that I've posted back to back vinyl reviews which isn't exactly a good thing...see above.

Today I'm sharing the latest record by Dayton, OH's, The New Old Fashioned. They're an Americana band from just a couple states over. On a personal note, though my travels have taken me to Ohio more times than I can count, never once have I been to Dayton. No star on my map.