Black Hell - How The Rest Was Lost (Sounds Of Battle And Souvenir Collecting, 2009)

Black Hell - Lycanthropy


My final test of greatness for metal of this variety is whether or not I would like to play it on Guitar Hero. Black Hell passes with flying colors. I would love to slay this beast on Expert and look totally stupid doing it.

Full review on diskant.

Video: All The Saints - Sheffield

My friend turned me on to All The Saints, one of Touch & Go's last great exports. It's hard to believe these guys have received hardly any attention, especially when everyone was talking about how T&G is essentially kaput. They're fucking awesome. Like some sort of wicked psychstonergaze. "Sheffield" is a totally badass song and the video, directed by Woody Stockridge, is all sorts of fuzzy, choppy, and violent. It might be a bit too literal with the fingers aflame but hey. I'm not one to argue.

The Heads - Dead In The Water...

The Heads - prologue / '69 shakes of the tail, mystic healer ("suck my tail pipe") (excerpt)


Sometimes I need super-awesome nonstop psych rock. I don't jones for it too often but when I do, I get really picky about just what can satisfy me. I was hoping that White Hills record I reviewed a while back would be able to keep me happy for a while, but sadly it fell short. Well, I can happily say I've found a record that rocks hard enough and lasts long enough that I probably won't need to go searching for a new one any time soon.

The Heads are some British guys who release a ton of stuff, most of it being limited in some way or another. Only a handful of CDs but plenty of vinyl; 7"s, 10"s, 12"s, they're some pretty prolific guys. And it seems like their CDs are mostly outtakes from jam sessions or compilations from even rarer releases, as is the case with their Dead In The Water... record. According to the liner notes, "This is a selection of one-offs from the archives plus a couple of 4track indulgencies and the odd field recording." That becomes pretty apparent when you take a look at the track titles (ex: "How many are left? (parts2and5),Mako/lake hyena/"Open Water",Sslow descent of the south face. tidal break, EP in A.")

Four tracks and almost all of them are over 20 minutes long, that means Dead In The Water... lasts for about 1 hour and 20 minutes. And for the most part, these songs are just the best parts of stoner rock freak outs. It's constant craziness with fucking killer riffs, lo-fi screeching guitars, and some tribal drums. Nobody actually does any singing (at least nothing that's recognizably human) but there are occasional snippets of field/broadcast recordings.

Because of the "experimental" nature of this album, I can't say all lovers of psych rock are going to be really into this. The song structures are anything but traditional. But don't let that stop you from rocking out. Dead In The Water... will probably outlast even the most ambitious and durable of you. It's relentless and made to break you. It never lets up and if you've made it to the end of the record, you'll probably just hit the play button again and keep on going.

White Hills - Heads On Fire

I'm really torn about White Hills' newest venture, Heads On Fire. On the one hand, it's awesome, heavy, psych rock. But on the other hand, there's this 26 minute track called Don't Be Afraid that just kind of wanders around without really going anywhere that really distracts from the other 5 songs. But here I am, digging this record, which is weird enough for me to begin with because psych rock isn't really my thing, but you know, really getting into it for what it is. It just rocks.

The second track, Ocean Sound, has an awesome riff that just sticks with you. Then a couple of tracks later, there's Visions Of The Past, Present, And Future that just begs for long-haired head banging.

But then here comes Don't Be Afraid, which tips you off that it's going to suck by starting with a fog horn and then someone dialing a rotary phone that just keeps on ringing. Come one guys, this was a kick ass rock record and all of a sudden you decided to experiment with us? The music fades in about the 1 minute mark and you feel like maybe this is the type of jam that's going to climax and make my head explode. And it really starts to get going around 6 or 7 minutes in with some awesome guitar shredding. It fades and slows down, it's very quiet, and you're like, "Yes! This is the explosion I've been waiting for." And you're totally ready for it. But wait. It doesn't come yet. It turns into some druggy, spaced out rambling. 7 minutes later, it comes back to the hypnotic groove that it started out with and some more shredding. But this isn't a climax. They already sounded like this at the beginning of the song. They're just fooling us by keeping quiet for 7 minutes and then bringing it back. That goes for a bit but the final 5 minutes are just more of the spacey wind sounds. What the hell was that all about?

The last track is 4 and a half minutes of being attacked by a crazed, drugged, psych rock band. It detonates as soon as Don't Be Afraid is through meandering and finishes the album off on a high note by letting you know what it feels like having your head on fire. And for 4.5 minutes, you forget that you were just severely disappointed in White Hills for wasting the previous half hour of their record. If Heads On Fire was clipped by 20 or 30 minutes, it would be pure rock goodness. But Don't Be Afraid really ruins it for me. It's easy to say, "Oh, this track could be skipped but the rest of the album is perfect" but you can only say that with a regular 4 or 5 minute song. Not when the song is more than half the length of the entire album. So, the parts where Heads On Fire rocks? Yeah, it really rocks. But it's just hard for me to overlook what I deem it's glaring mistake.