Tag Archives: Mark Lanegan

All Them Witches – Dying Surfer Meets His Maker

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All THem Witches surfer album cover

So much of working in the music industry thrives on chaos, it’s hard to breathe sometimes. I’m not lamenting the job of the music journalist, but just part and parcel of the this business seems to be powered by anxiety. Labels push bands, PR firms push albums and events, bands promote themselves (if you are lucky) and we the writers push reviews: in hopes that some eager ears find some enjoyment among the dross. Sometimes in all the chaos what you need is the vibe of a band that makes you reevaluate what you have listened to and why. All Them Witches, I’m glad you showed up when you did!

Not he most technical, brutal, fast or screamy music to come across my desk in 2015 and my trusty AKG studio cans this year, Dying Surfer Meets His Maker (New West) just jams. All Them Witches, mashes up the meticulous songcraft of a Jazzier Pink Floyd and Camel with the doomy cadence of Ufomammut. ‘Call Me Star’ eases into things with a laid back guitar swell. Things get weighty with ‘El Centro’, which is hypnotic riffer complete with B3 organ vamps and a dedication the proto-metal a la Sabbath. ‘Dirt Preachers’ steps up tempo wise and is a garage feeling little ditty. This is where the vocals of Chris Michael Parks Jr. come into play. At times channeling J. Macias, Frank Black, Josh Homme and best of all a smoked out sounding Mark Lanegan; so you need to stop what you are doing and listen Chris sing. The album follows a similar ebb and flow the rest of the way, mellow moments, slow simmering blues joints immaculate musicianship, and versatile singing. Sometimes they will remind you of Baroness with their ability to focus on a motif such as on ‘Open Passageways’.

Toward the end of the album ‘Instrumental 2 (Welcome To The Caveman Future)’ sounds like the ending credits of a 70s movie. ‘Talisman’ is a fuzzy out joy full of wailing solos. The final track, the mysteriously named ‘Blood and Sand – Milk and Endless Waters’ will have you thinking of the more space rock Floyd moments again. Do not sleep on this band and spend some time with this album for unexpected rewards.

8.0/10

KEITH CHACHKES


Year Of The Goat – The Unspeakable

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In this album reviewing game, and it is a game, most new releases tend to fall into two distinct camps. Camp One is the camp of the major releases from established artists that everyone falls over themselves to get to hear and review first. Camp Two: everything else. The way one views the latter camp can depend on one’s penchant for the new, the unexpected and the downright unusual. As you might expect, Camp Two is sometimes filled with dross and unspeakably bad records from bands who really are quite awful people. Just kidding.

Now and again though, Camp Two throws up records that are so unexpected and so charming, that the artists in question are likely to be promoted, forthwith, to Camp One; Year of The Goat’s second album, The Unspeakable (Napalm) is one such case in point.

This second record from the industrious Swedes is a rich and diverse batch of songs that are both single-minded yet inclusive and progressive. From its studied and passionate opening epic song ‘All He Has Read’ through to the equally fastidious coda ‘Riders of Vultures’, The Unspeakable reveals itself to be a record of quiet confidence, inventive idiosyncrasies and knowing musicality.

Musically, the album takes its lead from those twin towers of doom and occult but The Unspeakable is imbued with plenty of progressive (and I don’t simply mean they write long songs, either) flourishes, the occasional drop of Gothic and a deep knowledge of NWOBHM song structures.

One can only stand back and admire the sheer chutzpah of a band that start a record with a thirteen minute epic but given the strength of ‘All He Has Read’, it is a gamble that pays off handsomely. ‘Pillars of the South’ has many of the tropes and aural colours you would expect from the increasingly crowded scene of occult rock: to these ears it sounds Mercyful Fate met Magnum on a storyteller’s night ( I am more than aware that you saw what I did there).

‘The Emma’s sense of drama is evocative and gripping, whilst the band’s admiration for the rock’s aesthetic is taken to its logical conclusion with the inclusion, quite literally, of more cowbell on ‘The Vermin’. A large slug of gothic wine pervades ‘The Wind’ with its eerie sense of time and place, whilst ‘Black Sunlight’ suggests an admiration for Mark Lanegan and his passion for the desolate, urban troubadour.

There are a lot of NWOBHM influences swirling about the musical cauldron but forget the heritage and consider the final product: here we have a veritable aural feast of musicality, clever influences, familiar tropes and lovely collective execution. It’s the sort of album that you unexpectedly find yourself spending a lot  of time with and thinking a lot about: these, of course, are very good things indeed.

 

7.0/10

 

MAT DAVIES


Brett Netson & Snakes Streaming “Play On”

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Brett Netson & Snakes, the rock quartet founded and fronted by Built To Spill and Caustic Resin guitarist/vocalist, Brett Netson, is preparing to release their Scavenger Cult EP in the U.S. March 24, 2015 via distributor and BandCamp. Europe, Australia and New Zealand through TYM Records on sale now. and is streaming “Play On” here.

The Scavenger Cult EP features three glorious, sprawling anthems created with drummer Steve Gere (Uzala, Built To Spill), stereo bass contributions from Ian Waters (Kid Cordiroy, Boise Cover Band) and Josh Galloway (Cerberus Rex), with additional bass, synth contributions and all guitar and vocals courtesy of Netson. Recorded on 2″ 16-track tape with Jason Ringelstetter at Tonic Room in Boise, Idaho, mixed to 1/2″ tape by Steve Lobdell at Audible Alchemy in Portland, Oregon with analog mastering at Salt Mastering in Brooklyn, New York.

The Scavenger Cult EP; it’s not good-time rock and roll, although it speaks the same language. The roots are there… ’70s rock, metal and punk, psychedelics and garage rock, space rock, drone and thud, blues… But, whatever you hear, the work is unmistakably that of Brett Netson. Much thought went into the making of this record. Scavenged analog tape machines, used tape and various hand built circuits. A steep learning curve; an effort to make the sound as expansive as possible. Many miles traveled to gather the implements. A carbon footprint balanced out by bringing machines made long ago to live another day. These are not inanimate objects. This two inch tape, these tube amplifiers, transformers… they are extensions of the artists, who feel they owe it to them to rise to the standards of their excellence since these machines will never be made that way again. The point of all this is not self-aggrandization, the point is to make something that lasts; something that is worth the labor and natural resources used to produce it. They put it out there. The rest is up to you.

Spawned in Idaho’s Great Basin/Snake River Plain, Brett Netson specializes in heavy, psychedelic, lowdown rock and roll guitar, well-known for his roles in ultra popular indie rock act, Built to Spill, and cult rock outfit, Caustic Resin. After Caustic Resin was put on indefinite hold in 2003, Netson joined Mark Lanegan’s touring band through 2005, hitting Europe and the US West Coast once or twice a year. Netson has also appeared on a few of Lanegan’s albums and EPs, as well as albums from Mike Johnson and the Evildoers, Helvetia, the Delusions and others. More recently, Netson appeared as a second guitarist on Earth’s critically acclaimed new album, Primitive and Deadly, and Nate Hall’s (USX) solo release, Electric Vacuum Roar.

 


Earth – Primitive And Deadly

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Monolithic drone pioneers Earth have never stood still. Robustly experimental even incorporating tuba into their eerie webs of distortion Dylan Carlson and co-conspirator Adrienne Davies have another trick up their sleeves on this tenth album Primitive and Deadly (Southern Lord): vocals!

“Allowing themselves to be a rock band” as Carlson put it, the album features the gravel tones of Mark Lanegan and Rabia Shaheen Qazi of Seattle psyche act Rose Windows who both augment the cacophonous yet warm droning guitars and unwavering rhythms, fitting in perfectly with Carlson’s vision.

Probably their most consistent release since the genre defining Pentastar: In The Style Of Demons, Primitive And Deadly is a hypnotic and enthralling experience easily digested during a single sitting. The fact that these are the first guest vocalists’ since that 1996 release is fitting considering they provide the only light amongst the all-consuming darkness of this captivating platter.

Lanegan adds a rich, smoky timbre to the cavernous ‘There Is A Serpent Coming’ while Qazi’s contribution to ‘From The Zodiacal Light’ is an equally compelling journey through the recesses of the unconscious mind. “It’s all over now, the devils guide you” Rabia sings while the waves of distortion consume you in a passionate embrace for over eleven minutes of psyche-drone mastery.

The cinematic sensibilities remain very much a part of Carlson’s modus operandi, yet the country and western influences and additional instrumentation has been stripped back to reveal the band’s beating heart; primal slabs of distorted psyche rock which make for an immersive and intense ride which will withstand many repeat listens.

Sprawling epics are Earth’s stock in trade, yet the atmospherics of the five cuts here are so wonderfully all-consuming. Concluding with the sorrowful lament of ‘Rooks Across The Gates’ where Lanegan intones “I dropped her in the east wood stream”. Adopting a more song based approach as benefitted Carlson and Davies immensely. Surely one of the heaviest and most engrossing works of their career Earth have delivered the goods in style. Primitive And Deadly is one record which lives up to its brash moniker.

 

9/10

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ROSS BAKER