CHICKENHAWK - "S/T"
Self Released
Enjoyable demo from UK riff-merchants.
Splendidly noisy 3-tracker from these Leeds based, petroleum huffin', riff-rockers –three
mongoloid, user-friendly, Shellac / Unsane, stoner spazz grooves that are guaranteed to spill
more than yer Tetley's. Much to recommend here, while Chickenhawk deliver a scant amount of
tunage, they don't skimp on the pep, so one gets much youthful G-tar exuberance and woozy
time-signature tomfoolery...
Ryan, Princess Fuckhead and Stick sound like they are havin' a blast here and this gloriously
silly, skronkified, riff mangle might be enigmatic enough to get to get all the
Relapse / Ipecac chin strokers, er... stroking!!! 'Dr. Fellatio' veers dangerously close
to 'Chicken Stock' rather than Chicken rock, but all is redeemed with their vigorous Stoner boogie
manifesto.
'Kerosene' fuelled by a lumbering, half-dead, bell-bottomed riff that has just enough
gusto to get both you and 'Kerosene' down to Oddbins for that requisite flagon of Old
English. What could possibly be more metal that a be-masked chicken sporting sky blue
Y-fronts?... Everything, possibly, but I enjoyed this racket and so might thee.
jason
THE DEVILTONES – "RIDING THE HIGH HORSE"
Scarey Records
Fucked up, raunchy biker boogie -with genuine
balls 'n' sass.
The Deviltones look like lecherous, rowdy inebriates, and fortuitously this gleeful abuse of booze
and pharmaceuticals is made manifest on "Riding The High Horse." Dissipated deadbeats who uniformly drink
from the same tainted well that makes rock and roll such a corruptive joy.
The Deviltone's sleazoid, balls-to-the-wall, 'Bury me an Angel' biker boogie is liberally peppered
with the adrenalinized buffoonery of Nashville Pussy, murderous alcoholic road rage
and cemented with the lurid rock thrust of prime Circus of Power...
Each of these petroleum soaked, zesty odes to the road, boast hell and fist raising taunts, fire
an' brimstone Les Paul and wasted, booze-to-loose vocals, none more eloquent than the
bracing, '13.69.'
The mix is adequately gritty, raw and pissed off, but does suffer from a dearth of low end
ballast, otherwise this disc is a hootenanny. If Steppenwolf had OD'd in 71', their
desiccated, cocaine polluted corpses might now generate a similarly electric, zombiefied
hell-chug.
"Riding The High Horse" exudes late-night bar room chaos that's bound to make any boozy
soiree go with a swing even if said swing is a nasty roundhouse to the jaw. Granted this album
has all the originality of a bacon sandwich but sometimes that's all that
will genuinely satisfy.
jason
DREAM MACHINE – "TRILOGIA"
Rubbish Records
Former Ozrics, Damidge and Thunderdogs
alumni back with a promising debut.
Dream Machine coalesced last year with a line-up oddly familiar to anyone
who has followed the Ozric Tentacles over the years. John 'Champignon'
Egan, ex-frontman for the Ozrics now lends his flute [and other woodwind]
skills to this debut album along with another Ozric escapee, Seaweed on
synths. Starting the band off and filling out the line-up are Alex on
guitars [ex-Damidge], Gabriele, Julian and Maurizio, all alumni from
various psych outfits including Damidge and the Thunderdogs.
The album is basically a set of jams recorded in a short space of time with
a bit more jamming dubbed over the top. There are three tracks on the album,
the last being a colossal 30 minutes in length.
Sound-wise, it's a lot like the Ozrics circa 1985 with lots of
Hillage-influenced guitar textures [the delay-drenched 'dots' of the opening
track 'Invisible Maze' and lots of delayed-blues solos], whooshing and
burbling analogue synths providing mind-bending soundscapes and John's
inimitable woodwindery [thankfully present again after being woefully
ignored in the Ozrics sound for about the last 10 years]. The rhythm section
are also incredibly tight, harkening back to early Ozrics and "Radio Gnome"
era Gong. Musically, the band are 'that' good.
Since the songs are more improvised than overall composed [I think it's
fair to say!], there is a slight tendency towards repetition, especially in
some of the guitar solo parts, but that actually helps the album focus
a little and gives you a few hooks to listen out for.
It's difficult to pick out a good track, per se, because the album just tends
to flow as a whole, however, 'Invisible Maze' is possibly the most clearly
structured.
Since the release of the album, Joie Hinton [ex-Ozrics and Eat Static] has
started lending his considerable synth noodling skills to the project.
Summing up, this is a recommended, solid debut record and further releases
have the potential of being mind-bogglingly good. Fans of virtually any
space rock should pick this up.
a.
Dream Machine's Alex Pym: "The recording was not intended to be for public release but we
were so pleased with the results that Champignon and Seaweed added overdubs and 'Trilogia' was born. The
initial recording session was completed in 4 hours. 'Trilogia' is a unique recording. Originally
intended as a blueprint for a further studio recording we
decided that there were improvised moments on the album that could not be repeated in a recording
studio environment." Read Alex'studio report.
ELECTRIC MAGMA – "SNAIL THE WAH"
Around Ahead Music
Electric Magma return with a glowing, instrumental
testament to both the heavy 70's and contemporary stoner skronk.
Electric Magma have completed the follow-up to 'Karaoke Bitchslap', a stirring manifesto to the
orgiastic pleasures of vintage ampflication, and their google-eyed worship of sumptuous Kyussoid
groove remains undiminished.
These retrograde, analogue-obsessed, psyche merchants purvey a meritorious yet
derivative instrumental mash-up that owes as much to the supa-wah-afterburn of Fu Manchu as to
the righteously spliffed-out guitar burn of Randy Holden, and bovine boogatron of
Mountain... whose 'Climbing' album has become THE default 'Riff Rock for Dummies' for many stoner
rock wannabes. And its Electric Magma’s steadfast adherence to genre stereotype
which ultimately makes them rather endearing.
'Snail The Wah' oozes 13 meandering tracks of broiling, hemp gumbo replete with madman
fuzztone so wild and woolly Ted Nugent should harvest it's bloody hide and nail it next to his
rotting Amboy Dukes carcass. That 'Snail the Wah' is virtually indistinguishable from the mayhemic
scuzz battery of Randy Holden's 'Population II' or JPT Scare Band's 'Sleeping Sickness' albums is
a glowing testament to the band's prowess as musicians but lacks the diversity that would allow
them to usurp the many cloying limitations of Stoner rock.
That said, I don't think these Cannuck flange fiends give a flying tit what anyone thinks, giving
them an edge methinks. While instrumental rock can be an ignominious fare, this is nonetheless a
nostalgic, faithful recreation, guided by the ubiquitous, liquid glare of the wah-wah, and it's their
dogmatic use of said effects pedal that acts as a fine eulogy to a bygone era but I very
much hope Electric Magma return with a greater consideration of both brevity and song craft.
'Snail the Wah' is either an amorphous morass of turgid fuzz skronk for narcoleptic pot-heads or a bracing
clutch of effervescent, head-fuck boogadelia analogous to the tie-died excesses of
Monster Magnet's galactic psychosis, 'Tab...25', and to my mind it veers inexorably
betwixt both.
jason
JACK ENDINO - "PERMANENT FATAL ERROR"
Wondertaker Records
Endino's sophomore album brings you right back to the summer of '92
Most readers will be familiar with Jack Endino's production work. I'm not even going to attempt a list, check
the discography section of his website, but
chances are if you're a Roadburn regular you have at least one or two [or a dozen] records which were recorded
with Endino behind the boards. A few more might recognize Endino from his work with
seminal Seattle band Skin Yard, or more recently, from his contributions to John McBain's Wellwater
Conspiracy project.
"Permanent Fatal Error", is his second solo release and first under his own name. On this disc he's joined
by former Skin Yard band mate and ex-Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin, along with former members
of Seattle splatterpunks The Acccused, and former members of underappreciated metalheads Coffin Break.
Just reading those band names: Screaming Trees, The Accused, Coffin Break, brings me right
back to the summer of '92, as does much of the music on this disc. This isn't necessarily
a bad thing as Endino was right there when the Seattle Sound coalesced in the late
80's and it only makes sense that his music, a mixture of punk, metal, psych, and
classic rock would sounds a little, uh, grungy.
The best tracks on the disc are the ones that swing furthest towards into psych territory: The vaguely
Masters of Reality sounding 'Reach' with it's topsy-turvy riffs and sweet guitar hooks, the roiling 'Swallow
the Acid', and closer 'Bringing Me Down.'
The heavier tracks are ok, but tend to suffer from a sameness. That, along with the number of
songs [16 tracks], makes the albums 54-odd minute running length drag. Had Endino trimmed
four or five track it would have made the album more focused and made for a more compelling
listen. As it stands, the disc will be of most interest to completists, and those who miss the
music that came out of the American Pacific Northwest in the mid-to-late 80's and early 90's.
neddal
GREATDAYFORUP – "FLORES DE SANGRE"
Small Stone Records
Stoner meets southern rock i.e. gibsonite bong-boogie!
A band whose enigmatic moniker shields a gnarly rock simplicity, GDFU’s dynamic bong boogie is an
exhilarating rush. A glutinous, heady dollop of corpulent, Gibsonite grooves and propulsive
songsmithery, making their debut on highly-regarded indie-label, Smallstone Records a welcome addition
to an already burgeoning roster of locomotive Rock 'n Roll...
Greatdayforup forgo any needless pretension and assaults the listener with a protean
ability to rock out, letting loose a heap o'righteously bruising boogie fruggage, with riffs
fatter an' slicker than a sacrificial pig... TASTY! So what dost thou get for your
hard-earned folding...? Barstool-greasy, Sabbathoid, muscle rock that should enliven even the most jaded, biker
blooze fanatic...
The band concoct a fabulously furry, resinous, refried 70’s rawk that injects plenty of elephant
steroid onto it's lithe Foghat / Toad torso, "Flores de sangre' scorches the ear canals with a
debilitating Rebreather / Throttlerod attack, where honeyed, melodic vocals segue into arena-rock
screech an' wail, all the while Greatdayforup’s piston-hard, rhythm section forcibly thrusts the
red-eyed, head swirling, beer sodden listener into exultant riff rock utopia!!!
Production is suitably beefy, dragging out compulsive, mammoth, unctuous guitar
tones with the devastating alacrity of a whalers harpoon... Stoner rock
is dead... long live stoner rock!
jason
HAWKWIND - "TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER"
Hawkwind Records
Veteran space rockers' latest studio-album
proves the seminal Hawks' still got it.
"Take Me To Your Leader" is Hawkwind's first studio album for around eight
years, a long wait for Hawkfans and a rare hiatus for the prolific Hawks.
Hawkwind are possibly one of the most interesting bands to still be
releasing original records since their inception back in the late 60s / early
70s, with each decade introducing subtly different styles and revisioning
of their core space / acid rock sound.
For example, you can tell that, say, "Space Ritual", "Chronicle of the Black Sword" and "Electric
Tepee" [three of their finest albums to this reviewer's ears] are the same band, but "Electric
Tepee's" sparse guitar and lush ambient synths are a world apart from the driving, pulsing frenzy
of "Space Ritual."
During the 90s, Hawkwind moved towards more sequenced and ambient material
which met with mixed reviews. However, back in the new millenium, their sound
has shifted again, moving back towards a more "Electric Tepee" style mixing
guitar-based rock tracks [as opposed to full-on space rock] and ambient
workouts.
The album opens with an updated version of their classic "Spirit of the Age"
and I think it works well, having a slightly busier feel about it than the
original. The second track is a blissful piece of synth work harkening back
to [but not topping] "Going to Hawaii" from "Electric Tepee." Other varied
tracks follow including the hippytastic "Digital Nation" and the rocky
tear-up on "To Love a Machine".
Not all is great on this album with "Angela Android" being virtually
identical to "The War I Survived" [you can actually sing along with the
latter's lyrics perfectly] and the final "track" being a sort of demented
ode to Robert Calvert.
I also found the album a bit difficult to get into on its own merits. A few
tracks do sound a bit familiar if you know the back catalogue and, as such,
it was hard to not initially view the tracks in that light.
However, on balance, this is a very good album and injects fresh life into
Hawkwind's output and comes recomended.
a.
HERMANO - "LIVE AT THE w2"
Suburban Records
First live-album
from US stoner titans -a stop gap until the band's next studio lp.
John Garcia, ex-vocalist of the now-legendary Kyuss, less-legendary
Sloburn and almost cursed Unida, now fronts [stoner] rockers Hermano.
Their second album, "Dare I Say" got much critical acclaim from both the
press and fans alike, and sees Garcia return to form.
"Live at the w2" is a snapshot of the band's highly succesfull European tour in
support of "Dare I Say", but on its own merits, I think it's an average live-album
with the 13 songs being executed tightly -but without any real highs
and lows though.
I find the tracks blurring into one. In comparison to Garcia's
other bands, Hermano sounds similar to Unida but perhaps without
the swagger and groove of the former, Hermano having a a more direct
and pummelling attack. Punkier.
The riffage here hass Kyuss-like touches in places and the vocals
are straight off a Unida record, perhaps played through a little faster.
However, Hermano plough a far more straight-forward [think AC/DC]
and less experimental furrow than Kyuss.
As a stopgap until Hermano's next studio-album, this one's for excisting
fans and kyussholics.
a.
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