Archive for the ‘Album of the Day’ Category

Album of the day: U.S. Christmas – Run Thick In The Night

Posted on Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Lovingly pinched from Stonerrock.com: U.S. Christmas are one of those rare bands who can meld seemingly disparate elements together to form their own cohesive and distinct sound. Think Neil Young jamming with Hawkwind, Spacemen 3 and Pink Floyd, and you’re in the right direction, but comparisons like those don’t even give them their due credit. Bands like USX (as they’re commonly referred to…) are more than the sum of their parts. Although the influences are distinct, they’ve got their own thing going on, and its fully righteous.

Their last album, Eat The Low Dogs, was hailed as a masterpiece, and Run Thick In The Night doesn’t depart drastically on the sound they’ve already established. It begins with the moody, brooding 13 minute track ‘In The Night’, with its heavily textured, wall of sound “outlaw country gone shoegaze” guitars and spacey keyboard sweeps, and morphs quickly into the Hawkwind inspired rager ‘Wolf On Anareta.’

‘Fire Is Sleeping’ is a tender ballad, really upping the ante on the Southern and Skynyrd influences without resorting to the usual cliches, and adds some weepy violin and mournful slide guitar to the mix. The next few songs continue in this style, country-tinged, acid drenched, and melancholy, until the bass and drum driven track ‘The Quena’ breaks the spell and gives a much needed change of pace.

Continue reading: StonerRock.com – U.S. Christmas – Run Thick In The Night.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in 2010, Album of the Day, Roadburn Recommended | 2 Comments »

Album of the day: Place of Skulls – As a Dog Returns

Posted on Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Lovingly pinched from The Obelisk: Four years have passed since Place of Skulls released The Black is Never Far, their third album, which was in many ways the culmination of a tumult that brought the band many changes, highs and lows. Guitarist / vocalist Victor Griffin — best known for ...read more

Album of the day: Knut – Wonder

Posted on Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Praise for Knut‘s Wonder (Hydra Head) from San Francisco’s aQuarius Records:  It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Swiss heavies Knut, who we’ve always loved, their sound a head caving hybrid of mathy crush and epic post metal majesty, they were exploring Neurosis / Isis slow burn big blowout ...read more

Album of the day: Bitchin Bajas – Tones / Zones (LP)

Posted on Monday, August 30th, 2010

Praise for Bitchin Bajas‘ Tones / Zones (Important)  from San Francisco’s aQuarius Records: With a name like Bitchin Bajas you would expect some bratty lo-fi garage pop or ironic washed out rock, but sometimes the name and the sound can exist in two entirely different worlds, and with Bitchin Bajas ...read more

Album of the day: Hammers of Misfortune – The Metal Blade Reissues

Posted on Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Lovingly pinched from Hellbound: San Francisco’s Hammers of Misfortune have recently signed to Metal Blade, and as a result, the label has reissued their entire back catalogue in hopes that it will get the due recognition it missed the first time around. With no expectation and no foreknowledge of the ...read more

Album of the day: Hypnos 69 – Legacy

Posted on Monday, August 23rd, 2010

Loving pinched from HellrideMusic.com: As of lately I’ve been returning to grooving and jamming all day to the awesome prog sounds of: Eloy, Sixty Nine, Van Der Graaf Generator, and some classic badass rock like Captain Beyond and when I got this sweet thing in the mail I was pleasantly ...read more

Album of the day: Detritivore – Pakt

Posted on Sunday, August 22nd, 2010

Praise for Detritivore‘s Pakt (Lyderhorn) from San Francisco’s aQuarius Records: Pakt is a harrowing, abject experiment in doom-ed blackness, the debut from this Norwegian duo, who weave a suffocating expanse of dense layered blackness, a dizzying hybrid of blacknoize, dark hypnotic dronemusic, and funereal doom. But even as a strange ...read more

Album of the day: A Forest Of Stars – Opportunistic Thieves of Spring

Posted on Saturday, August 21st, 2010

Lovingly pinched from Stonerrock.com: Originally, back in the 90′s, black metal bands often described their approach to chords and melodies as such: they picked the voicings which they thought sounded the most unsettling and claustrophobic. Now, in 2010, well into the much celebrated “3rd Wave of Black Metal”, it seems ...read more

Album of the day: Godflesh – Streetcleaner (Reissue)

Posted on Friday, August 20th, 2010

Praise for Godflesh‘ Streetcleaner (Earache) from San Francisco’s aQuarius Records: It really doesn’t take much for us to find an excuse to gush about this, one of our favorite metal records EVER, the industrial metal juggernaut that is Streetcleaner. A crushing sonic milestone by which all other heaviness must be ...read more

Album of the day: The Kings of Frog Island – III

Posted on Thursday, August 19th, 2010

Lovingly pinched from The Obelisk: I was surprised to learn The Kings of Frog Island were releasing the third installment of their purported trilogy, not because two years after II was so soon, but just because I haven’t yet finished listening to that album. Nonetheless comes III, released like 2005’s ...read more

« Older Entries