Windhand - S/T

(Forcefield Records, 2011)

If you’re here then there’s a pretty good chance that you are (at the very least) familiar with a little-known band called Black Sabbath. Some of you may even own a few of their records. Others of you may have even been inspired enough by them to start a band of your own (and rewrite their songs under different names). So let’s just face it, Black Sabbath are fucking awesome and they are probably one of your favourite band’s favourite bands. But very few bands have been as shamelessly, repeatedly and, for the most part, poorly emulated as those Brum doom lords. Which is why Windhand are such a breath of fresh air.

At first glance you might be confused because Windhand are clearly unashamedly Sabbathian in the same way that many other heavy bands are. The difference is that Windhand do Sabbath with such unadulterated and unapologetic rock swagger that they somehow manage to make the sound their own. They also make you want to jump out of your chair and start stomping around the workplace punching co-workers as you go by in a mindless haze. Or maybe I just hate my workmates. Regardless, the Richmond, Virginia band, who first piqued the interest of the stoner and doom community last year when they released their excellent two-track “Practice Space Demo”, have now released their self-titled debut which sees them continue in much the same fashion.

In fact the album is book-ended by the same two tracks from last year’s demo, albeit in their re-recorded and fuller-sounding forms. And the new songs don’t deviate too far from the formula of those first tracks: Big Muff-enhanced riffs forging singular paths into the next Big Muff-enhanced riffs with the occasional guitar solo to create an opportunity for listeners to swing their heads round and round and get lost in the psychedelic landscapes the band forge. Structurally the songs are simple and uncluttered; the pace is pleasantly slow, Ryan Wolfe drumming lazily (in a good way), waiting for the right moments to throw in the occasional fill.

But what really makes Windhand stand out is singer Dorthia’s vocals which float omnipresently over the primal, molten riffing below her like a toxic vapour. On first listen I thought the singer was a man with a Perry Farrrell/Ozzy Osbourne-by-way-of-Mike Scheidt style delivery but further spins revealed the inherent and unique femininity in Dorthia’s warm voice. Even more impressive are her vocal melodies which are memorable and instantly familiar, particularly on “Heap Wolves” where the vocals weave in and out of the riffs in the way that Layne Staley worked his way around Alice in Chains’ twisted melodies.

Featuring former members of Facedowninshit and Alabama Thunderpussy, Windhand always stood a pretty good chance of being a good band and the “Practice Space Demo” certainly fulfilled that early potential. With this full-length they’ve carried along the same path and expanded their repertoire. What the band needs to do now is offer more in the way of variation to prevent them from becoming yet another in a long list of Sabbath clones. For now though, Windhand are an awesome all-conquering beast who you should seriously consider investigating.

[Originally published on The Sleeping Shaman, 01/10/11]
http://www.thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/album-reviews/w/windhand-st-cd-2011/

Noothgrush - Live for Nothing

(Southern Lord Recordings, 2011)

San Jose’s lovable sludge slackers Noothgrush are a difficult band to follow – in their seventeen year career they’ve released a handful of demos and split 7 inches, a rarities collection and one album, all of which are pretty hard to get hold of due to their limited runs. For a band that came from the same Bay Area scene as Neurosis and Sleep and who shared the stage with the likes of High on Fire, Grief and Burning Witch they ought to be far more-well known. But because Noothgrush very rarely toured and broke up a bunch of times due to a combination of conflicting interests and their own apathy they’ve become that rarer of beast; they’ve become a cult band.

Live for Nothing is Noothgrush’s first, widely-distributed release – a collection of two radio broadcasts the band did in 1996 and 1999 respectively. In the grand scheme of things this means that the recordings capture the band during their heyday and as such the tracklisting contains very few surprises for fans of the band. Like their previous compilation Failing Early, Failing Often, Live for Nothing encompasses the majority of Noothgrush’s early material, sharing eight of the same songs. Die-hard fans of the band may wish that their cover of “The Imperial March” was represented in all it’s live fury here but for newcomers (and they are presumably who this record is aimed at) it serves as a concise introduction to a band whose material has rarely been collected in one place.

More importantly this record captures the band at their live best. These recordings were made soon after many of the songs were recorded and released so these hateful, slow, bilious performances feel like they are being freshly spewed onto the tape reels. Kicking off the collection in brutal fashion is “Sith” and immediately newcomers should be able to identify Noothgrush’s extremely subtle ear for a sludgey guitar melody, a facet that distinguishes them from many of their contemporaries and aspects of which you can hear in the bands that were subsequently inspired by them (Cough and Unearthly Trance for example). It probably won’t take too long for you to pick up on their Star Wars obsession too.

To Noothgrush’s credit they managed to keep these two set-lists fresh and varied. On paper, an eighteen song sludge compilation could be an arduous thing to sit through, particularly if you are not familiar with the band in question or the genre, but although Noothgrush’s songs are slow, for the most part they are relatively short and songs like “Derrell’s Porno Song” fall more into the category of stoner rock giving listeners a moment to groove along before returning to a Neanderthal head nod. Another point of interest is the band’s awesome cover of Celtic Frost’s “Procreation (Of the Wicked)”, giving Sepultura a run for their money in the cover-version stakes. “Hatred for the Species” is simply a badass tune that should be playing in the collective subconscious of doom and sludge fans across the globe.

In this live setting the band also gets to demonstrate their sense of humour; after playing their 11-second song “Evazan” which consists of the lyrics “He doesn’t like you/ Sorry/ I don’t like you either”, Gary Niederhoff introduces their “other short song” before launching into the longest song here, the nine-minute behemoth “Erode the Person.” The song creeps along so slowly that you have time to make a cup of tea and research who “Evazan” is (yep, another minor Star Wars character) before the vocals kick in.

As is to be expected from recordings from college radio stations in the mid to late nineties, the sound quality isn’t as great as they would be if they were studio recordings – for example, Chiyo Nukaga’s drums are sadly low in the mix for the first session for KZSU in 1996 whereas in the latter session for KFJC the drums are more audible but at the expense of the guitar level. But nonetheless both sessions archive a legendary sludge group in all their live glory and ultimately this compilation may prove to be the closest many of us will ever get to hearing the band in a live capacity. For that reason alone this is an excellent collection that should be cherished.

It’s a shame that other commitments got in the way of Noothgrush’s progression because these recordings suggest a band that could have been as beloved and well-known as contemporaries like Eyehategod, Buzzov*en and Sleep had they kept ploughing on. But their up-and-down history just adds to the band’s wonky, sludgey charm. Thankfully the band seem to be active again with some festival slots already under their belts and a handful rumoured for the near future so it seems that, for now, the Noothgrush Saga continues…

(Originally published on The Sleeping Shaman, 26/09/11)
http://www.thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/album-reviews/n/noothgrush-live-for-nothing-cdlp-2011/
(Later reposted on the Roadburn Festival website's Album of the Day, 27/09/11)
http://www.roadburn.com/2011/09/album-of-the-day-noothgrush-live-for-nothing/

Little Fish - 'Wonderful'

(7"/Download)

It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster ride for Little Fish during the past few years. After signing to hit-maker extraordinaire Linda Perry’s Custard Records, the band recorded an album in Los Angeles, toured with the likes of Alice in Chains, Spinerette, Blondie and Hole, and played at Reading Festival and on their own tours across the UK. Now, having parted ways with Custard Records, the band has returned to their Oxford roots to record their next album in Gaz Coombes’ basement.

Some may view this change of circumstances as something of a sophomore slump, but whatever the story behind the separation may be, ‘Wonderful’ shows no signs of a band struggling to carry on. In fact the band seems more comfortable than ever, perhaps bolstered by the addition of Ben Walker on Hammond organ, who gives the band an almost spiritual lift on this song. Musically, ‘Wonderful’ deviates from the garage rock furore of old, in favour of a more mainstream sound, a more relaxed mood and a more personal message.That’s not to say that the band are slouching – the chorus has enough victorious pomp about it to get crowds jumping and singing along, and those who are fans of the band via PJ Harvey will find plenty to like about ‘Wonderful’. Concerning a period in singer Juju’s life when she was told she would never be able to sing again, Juju almost overcompensates here, taking her Patti Smith-isms to new levels, although now she sounds more like the mature Smith on ‘E-Bow the Letter’ than the young one on ‘Gloria’.

So, an interesting new step in Little Fish’s career then, but by no means a revolutionary one. Juju’s voice has always invited comparisons to Patti Smith and PJ Harvey, so it would be nice to see her flourish into a more idiosyncratic singer on future releases, to give fans and critics something more unique to love about the band. But as far as Oxford bands go, Little Fish have the potential to go far indeed. Don’t be surprised if you hear ‘Wonderful’ a lot in the coming months.

[Originally published on Musicinoxford.co.uk, 29/08/11]

http://www.musicinoxford.co.uk/2011/08/29/little-fish-wonderful-7download/

A Death Cinematic - Your Fate Twisting, Epic in its Crushing Moments

(self-released/Simple Box Constructions, 2011)

Your Fate Twisting, Epic in its Crushing Moments, the latest release from mysterious one-man-band A Death Cinematic comes in some of the most impressive packaging we've seen in some time. Completely hand-made by the man himself through his own Simple Box Construction company, the care that has gone into the packaging is charming and interesting – extras include some water slide decal skulls and a unique piece of Japanese kozo paper with a poem to accompany one of the tracks. Limited to 50 copies one can't fault the effort but it's a shame that not quite as much attention was given to the music on the CD.

Title track “Your Fate Twisting, Epic in its Crushing Moments” is twenty-two minutes of guitar improvisation based around the same progression of notes with very little in the way of variation. Unlike the title of the song there are no twists, except at the eight minute mark when I thought the song had changed gear completely with some strummed guitars. But false alarm! It was the music player on the Simple Box Construction website - another song had started playing automatically. Back to the song at hand, and not much has changed and although the crushing repetition does evoke a pleasant and familiar sense of melancholic inertia, it doesn't really need to drag on for quite so long.

“In the Tumbling Dawn Light, Their Eyes Fall Frozen Through the Mist and Rain” is brief, comparatively, at only nine and a half minutes long, and is altogether more measured than the title track and fares far better for it. There is still a loose feel to the whole affair but there seems to be less improvisation going on as layers of clean guitar wash atop one another before disappearing. One must assume that A Death Cinematic name their songs after the moods that they create because the song is evocative of mist and rain. The accompanying poem also lends the song poignancy as it contains the line “a man at the gallows/ a man at the gates of the abyss.” It’s refreshing to see a musician indulging in a spot of multimedia artwork but at times it seems like A Death Cinematic are more interested in producing a soundtrack for the packaging that they’ve created than they are in the music itself.

It would be easy to label this release as post-rock because it does share many characteristics with the genre: sprawling, ambient instrumental music; use of digital effects and loops; melancholy moods; long, cumbersome track titles. But the music also strikes us as having a close affiliation with jazz, perhaps in the spirit of improvisation and impressionism that the songs clearly embrace. There are also hints of wilful, trying artists like Vincent Gallo, a link that is made by A Death Cinematic being as brilliant as they are frustrating. Unfortunately, on this release the impressive packaging overshadows the music that it holds. You would have to be in the right mood – or stoned – to listen to it for the entirety of its thirty-minute or so duration without getting bored or hoping for some diversion like the one I accidentally encountered during the title track. The music here is enigmatic like the artist that created it but like the artist that created it the music is also anonymous, and lacks personality. Still, bloody nice packaging…

[Originally published on The Sleeping Shaman, 25/08/11]
http://www.thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/album-reviews/a/a-death-cinematic-your-fate-twisting-epic-in-its-crushing-moments-cd-2011/

Cultura Tres - El Mal Del Bien

(Self-released, 2011)

First of all, Cultura Tres deserve to be huge. Although I have to admit that they weren’t really on my radar before a copy of ‘El Mal Del Bien’ landed in my hands, now they stand out as one of the most promising new bands in the sludge and doom genres. They’re not even that new; this is their second album (following their 2008 debut La Cura) and they have already toured around the world, been heralded as a “Global Metal Discovery” by Metal Hammer magazine and earned sponsorship from Tama and Ibanez. Not bad for a strictly D.I.Y. band; all artwork, songwriting, promotion, managing, production and touring is handled by the band members themselves. Now they have unleashed their most direct and coherent artistic statement yet – ‘El Mal Del Bien’.

Whereas La Cura had its foot more firmly in the nu- and progressive metal genres, ‘El Mal Del Bien’ is an altogether heavier, slower, sludgier affair. Case in point is opening song “Propiedad De Dios” which is one of the best sludge/doom songs we’ve heard in some time, thanks largely to the band’s ability to throw in enough twists and turns to keep us guessing how the riffs will attack us next. Add to that the twisted, eerie Alice in Chains-like vocal melodies and the album is off to a great start. Likewise “Purified” works around a huge chaotic riff, building it up and then breaking it down, demonstrating the band’s understanding of song dynamics, a knowledge that the band puts to good use throughout the album. “Purified” combines elements of various bands – the anger of Sepultura, the subtle, accessible song-writing of Soundgarden and the driving groove of Queens of the Stone Age – but Cultura Tres manage to create their own unique sound from this heady concoction.

Elsewhere they take heed of their diverse set of influences which often takes their music into unexpected places. “Los Muertos De Mi Color” is an atmospheric instrumental number full of aching, distant guitar squeals that sound like whales bellowing while Latin rhythms pulsate in the foreground; one can imagine it fitting neatly into a Mars Volta song-suite. “El Sur De La Fe” and “No Es Mi Verdad” are full of wily lead guitars and sickening, discordant harmonies that create woozy, hallucinatory soundscapes that alternately erupt into violent outbursts and crumble to a low rumble.

In fact, the songs are so full of ideas that they could sound messy in less skilled hands but Cultura Tres manage to weave their ideas together, allowing one section to work off the next, each finding their own groove and momentum thus creating a cohesion that would confound many other bands. They also avoid playing straight sludge or doom, preferring to mix things up from time to time. For example, “The Grace” is the song that most resembles the band’s first album – it’s thrashy, punky and full of unadulterated fury. Title track “El Mal Del Bien” and following song “Voices” bleed into one another and combine the band’s new and old sound, like the Deftones end of the nu-metal spectrum colliding with Pantera. Many of the songs also feature guitar solos that would do Carlos Santana and Jimmy Page proud. Like the Mars Volta, Cultura Tres are capable of manipulating your expectations – a huge momentous riff will suddenly vanish to a whisper, a slow section will erupt into a flurry of changing time signatures and off-kilter guitar leads, a song will suddenly switch gear and sound like a classic Led Zeppelin wig-out.

You may have also noticed that there have been few references to other sludge or doom bands in the review thus far. That’s because Cultura Tres make their own racket by honing in on certain elements of their favourite bands, none of whom happen to be sludge or doom bands. Instead they fit into the genre through the moods they create and the bleak, sometimes angry lyrical content that permeates their songs. Sure, there are moments that recall Pantera, Down, QOTSA, the Mars Volta and Sepultura but you couldn’t say that Cultura Tres are merely imitating those bands; it’s more like they build upon their foundations. One of the most striking and refreshing things about the band is their understanding of good song writing. They never allow the riff to become a song as some sludge and doom bands can be prone to do, but instead strategically use riffs to carry their songs and their message along. If there was a criticism to be lumped at ‘El Mal Del Bien’ it would probably be that to a certain extent some of the songs are similar and can blur into one another but that is to be expected from a concept album immersed in the themes of anger, evil, corruption and spiritual betrayal. The band has stated that they conceived of the album with a clear goal and it shows in how well the album flows.

As if the album itself wasn’t enough, we also get two bonus tracks. First up is “Holy Graveyard,” a cover of singer Alejandro’s former band Epitafio from the early 1990s whom the press pack suggests may have been among the earliest South American exponents of doom. The song features vocals from Epitafio’s singer Rodnie Perret-Gentil and is more trashy than anything else on ‘El Mal Del Bien’. Cultura Tres then decide to end the album on one hell of a ballsy note: by covering Black Sabbath’s “Black Sabbath.”

…

…And it’s not bad at all. Although it doesn’t deviate too far from the original it actually ends up sounding like it could have been one of Cultura Tres’ own songs which is high praise indeed for a cover version. It’s a poetic end to the album as it serves as a tribute to the undisputed masters of doom from a band who must surely be one of the genre’s new shining lights. At the start of the review I mentioned that Cultura Tres deserve to be huge – with this album under their belts it will only be a matter of time before Cultura Tres are huge.

[First published on The Sleeping Shaman, 20/08/11]

http://www.thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/album-reviews/c/cultura-tres-el-mal-del-bien-cdlp-2011/

Agness Pike - Mimum Vitae EP

(Rivet Gun Records, 2011)

Agness, oh Agness. In a wave of humourless, testosterone-fuelled punk and metal, Agness Pike blow a huge musical raspberry at the entire scene and simultaneously become one of the best bands in it. Anyone who has caught them live in the past year will have seen this band, who have more than their fair share of experience between them, grow in confidence and improve with every performance. They are without question the most entertaining band to watch in Oxford right now. Their performances are normally enhanced by the looks of confusion on the faces of mean-mugging metal fans in the audience when frontman Martin Spear takes to the stage.

Indeed, the pull of Martin Spear’s onstage persona is comparable to the affect that the crazy old man at the bus stop has on people – you want to avoid his gaze, but you can’t stop looking at him. With a Hula Hoops packet stapled to the lapel of his military jacket, and a handbag round his arm, he espouses etiquette tips from a book that may or may not actually have words written in it. It’s all an act of course, but he gives in so completely to this character that it’s spellbinding, not to mention hilariously funny.

His voice is also an unexpected shock to those expecting a high-pitched caterwaul or some kind of grunt. Instead, Spear goes for a campy vocal delivery that combines Jello Biafra, John Lydon and the ‘Monster Mash’. It’s brilliant. To top it all off, Spear is a wonderful lyricist, playing with double meaning in his deceptively simple lyrics (even referring to this in ‘Taking Control’). As a lyricist, Spear seems to be as obsessed with magic, voodoo and the cosmic as with more earthy problems like delusions of grandeur and distaste for disco music. ‘Ruthless’ is a haunting tale of sacrifice, and we wonder why more songs don’t have choruses like ‘Disco’ and ‘Spellbound’ because they’ve been stuck in our head for sixth months now. We can only speculate what ‘Rubber Love’ is about, but it certainly sounds rather kinky.

That’s not to say that Agness Pike don’t mean business musically. In fact, the humour and theatricality of the vocals is strikingly juxtaposed by the relentless, driving metal that carries it along. And it works beautifully on songs like ‘Rubber Love’ and ‘Now is the Time’ where Spear punctuates his words to the internal rhythm of the riffs. The band is ridiculously tight and handles changing rhythms, time signatures and dropping in and out of half time effortlessly in the highly capable hands of drummer Mike Brown. Pete Marler’s bass sound can only be described as gnarly (particularly when leading the way on ‘Taking Control’ and ‘Disco’) while Chris Brown’s guitar sound is crunchy and menacing throughout.

There are hints of Black Album-era Metallica in the songs and a few brief moments even recall early System of a Down, so you couldn’t call Agness Pike a wholly original band, but the songs are well structured and full of interesting dynamics, elevating them far above the majority of their peers. Their songs play off of one another so the EP rolls along like one long, exhausting nightmare. A freaky, old-school metal/punk romp… if you’re into that kind of thing.

[Originally published on Musicinoxford.co.uk, 18/08/11]

http://www.musicinoxford.co.uk/2011/08/18/agness-pike-mimum-vitae-ep-rivet-gun-records/

Efrim Manuel Menuck - Plays "High Gospel"

(Constellation Records, 2011)

In his nearly two-decade-long career, Efrim Menuck has distinguished himself as an innovative musician whose work with Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion has, at times, led the post-rock movement and inspired countless imitators. In those bands Menuck always managed to maintain a certain degree of anonymity and mystery, allowing us as listeners to disregard any sense of musical ego or individual personality in favour of enjoying the group effort of Menuck and his band members. On the contrary, Plays “High Gospel”, his first solo album, is perhaps the first chance we’ve had to examine Menuck’s own personal sensibilities completely on his own terms.

And the subject matter on the album indicates that Menuck is welcoming us into his world with open arms as he celebrates his Montreal neighbourhood (“Our Lady of Parc Extension and Her Munificent Sorrows”), remembers his lost friends (“Kaddish for Chesnutt”, an ode to his sometime collaborator Vic Chesnutt) and experiences fatherhood for the first time (“I Am No Longer a Motherless Child”).

Opening song “Our Lady of Parc Extension and Her Munificent Sorrows” features a life-affirming multiple-part harmony floating atop a gorgeous sea of droaning guitar feedback. This constant drone bleeds into “A 12-Pt. Program for Keep on Keepin’ On” but here it takes on a more menacing tone, lying underneath the creeping bassline and the layers of overlapping vocals before ending on a manic note with feedback and frenetic drumbeats.

“August Four, Year-of-Our-Lord Blues” is a gorgeous, instrumental ditty that will be familiar to fans of Menuck’s other projects. Likewise, “Heaven’s Engine is a Dusty Ol’ Bellows” starts the second half of the album in atmospheric fashion with a high gain guitar drenched in tremolo and reverb over the recurring bed of droning guitar. “Chickadees’ Roar, Pt. 2” is a haunting collage of screeching strings and a distant, echoing melody. All songs sound like staples of Menuck’s previous work but in the context of this album the overall effect makes the songs feel more intimate, gives them a meaning that the song titles may never reveal to us listeners.

“Kaddish for Chesnutt” is, as the title suggests, a commemorative prayer for Vic Chesnutt, the partially paralyzed cult singer-songwriter whom Menuck had played with on two of his albums. Perhaps the most emotional song on the album, it’s also the song where Menuck’s uses his less as an instrument and more as an actual tool for delivering his personal message. The results are heartbreaking and beautiful and at times it sounds like Menuck’s voice is ready to break with emotion.

Album closer “I Am No Longer a Motherless Child” starts with a lengthy sole guitar part before tapes loop in and Menuck begins to sing the song’s mantra: “Look at my boy/ Look at his smile/ I am no longer a motherless child.” The layers build up, more harmonies are laid atop one another, an infectious drum beat kicks in, a guitar plays a lilting solo, strings swell and all is well in the world. It’s as beautiful an end to the album as you would have expected from the man.

Plays “Holy Gospel” might not be the kind of album that fans of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Silver Mt. Zion were expecting from Menuck; perhaps they might not have expected him to produce an album that is quite so straight-forward and direct. But the album definitely fits into his body of work and it really is quite an accomplishment as it feels like Menuck is taking us on an emotional journey through a few eventful years in his life, something that many songwriters are unable to do. What’s more he does this without relying on telling the story with lyrics (indeed most of the lyrics on the album are obscured by noise) but instead creates moods and suggests emotions through the album’s soundscapes and musical collages. One can sense the joy in the opening and closing songs, the sadness in the ode to his lost friend and in between it all there are moments of mixed emotion. “Heavy Calls & Hospital Blues” is a sad piano ballad that features the ambiguous lyric “Your pretty daughter’s sleeping/There’s beauty in this world” for example. Likewise, the various sound collages are certain to suggest different things to each listener. This is by no means an easy listen but it will draw you in to a very personal story.

[Originally published on the Sleeping Shaman, 08/08/11]
http://www.thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/album-reviews/e/efrim-manuel-menuck-plays-high-gospel-cdlp-2011/

[Later reposted on the Roadburn Festival website as their "Album of the Day", 08/08/11]
http://www.roadburn.com/2011/08/album-of-the-day-efrim-manuel-menuck-plays-high-gospel/