Beastwars - IV

After over a year off for various reasons, we have returned solely because we wanted to review the new Beastwars album. I really wanted to review this as I was at this band's debut album release show in their hometown back in what now seems like many years ago.

If you're unfamiliar with the band common reference points are early Soundgarden (by that, forget Superunknown and anything afterwards),early Mastodon (pre-Crack the Skye) and High on Fire but as far as this listener can tell Beastwars have for the most part put their own spin on sludge. This is a reunion album of sorts which means it could easily be forgettable like the final Soundgarden album, what was it called again?

On this album, Beastwars initial call for attention is entitled "Raise the Sword", and they sound like a band ready for battle, which is fitting since frontman Matt Hyde was battling lymph node cancer before this album. The song is slow with an early Soundgarden dueling the Jesus Lizard sound and you have to give a New Zealand band huge props for using a very fitting Bruno Lawrence sample from the New Zealand dystopian movie, The Quiet Earth. "Wolves and Prey" is one of those songs that the word sludge was invented to describe. It sounds like the musical equivalent of a concrete mixer's end result before drying and it's the kind of heaviness you get stuck in and have difficulty escaping in a hurry. "Storms on Mars" shows that Matt Hyde can do much more than just roar although he also does that here, this song sees getting tuneful and able to carry a melody (although if you're familiar with their song, Iron Wolf you would have known that he possessed this ability). Beastwars really build an oppressing atmosphere and the entire band changes tempo a few times in this song using a quiet/loud soft/heavy dynamic combined with the sheer emotion conveyed vocally make it one of the highlights of the album.

The early Soundgarden worship is incredibly strong in "Omens". It runs a little too close to the original for my liking and detracts from Beastwars' own musical stamp on sludge. Hyde's vocals on "Sound of the Grave" evoke a haunting feel as he takes a much more melodic approach yet manages to sound like he has risen from the grave. A lot of death metal vocalists are going to go green with envy. At the beginning of "The Traveller", Matt howls over a guitar are reminiscent of blues players like Howlin' Wolf. The song is shortly pulled back into the modern world of music and the slow building tempo changes lend the tune motion.





The piano in "Like Dried Blood" will take a number of listeners by surprise as it takes nothing away from the musical heaviness and aids in weighing down the sheer heaviness of the subject matter of the song. Relax though, Beastwars haven't turned into Ben Folds Five as the heaviness is turned up more than a notch around the mid-point of the song where the guitars just about drown out the sound of the piano.

"IV" is not only a strong comeback album but a strong album overall. "Storms on Mars" is the song most likely to hook new listeners in and it is baffling that it wasn't released as a single rather than the early Soundgarden alike, "Omens". IV is definitely designed to be listened to as an album with three slower somber songs concluding the album you just know that thought went into putting the songs in order. I'm crossing my fingers that I get to see the band live the next time I'm in New Zealand.

3.5/5

Edit: A little over 12 hours of writing this and the band released this video for "Storms of Mars".


Release date: 28 June 2019


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Faces of the Bog - Ego Death

Record Label: DHU Records


Chicago band Faces of the Bog released their "Ego Death" album late last year. However, we didn't hear it back then and DHU records is releasing the album on a limited vinyl release run this September so you can stare at a bigger version of the trippy artwork on the album cover while you listen to the album.

In this case judging an album by the cover isn't a bad thing at all, the music on Ëgo Death"is just as trippy and heavy as the cover suggests. Faces of the Bog mix psychedelic rock with sludge and a touch of early grunge ala early Soundgarden. The vocals go from clean to a dirty yelling caveman who has dropped a huge boulder that refuses to move on his toes and often the music goes from tripped out psychedelic rock to grunge to the filthiest sludge within a single track. Drawing comparisons for Faces of the Bog to other bands isn't an easy task but there are elements of post-metal Neurosis, the more psychedelic side of Pink Floyd, a fair amount of the sludge of Eyehategod and more than a touch of the heavy grunge of early Soundgarden.





There's an ethereal quality to the music here because Faces of The Bog are psychedelic and progressive sludge. On single songs like Ëgo Death" and the eight minute album ender, "Blue Lotus, a first time listener and even when the familiarity has grown, it's difficult to guess the path the band will choose and there are so many layers when Faces of The Bog turn on the heaviness that strongly shakes an awareness that music captures and transports us through a portal to another dimension.

4/5

Release Date: 22 September 2017


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Faces on the Bog on bandcamp

Sasquatch - Maneuvers

Soundgarden are history as are Kyuss but for those of us who were fans of both banging bands along come Sasquatch(actually they've been bubbling away for a while but they're recently risen to the brim). The opening track to Sasquatch's fifth album, "Rational Woman is pure Kyuss style desert rock fuzz but if that Chris Cornell guy was on vocals. Keith Gibbs vocals are really that close that's an amazing feat. Anyone that says Cornell was unique is proven wrong. Close your eyes and listen to "Destroyer" and there are a number parts where you could swear you were listening to Soundgarden at their peak. There are many moments where the instruments bind together in a similar hypnotic fashion as the first Queens of the Stone Age album.


Bottom line with this album is that you just need to imagine a top notch stoner rock band with Chris Cornell on vocals. This album deserves to be on a lot of end of year lists.

4.5/5

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Check out the opening track "Rational Woman" here.

Sandrider - Sandrider

In Frank Herbert's Dune books, a sandrider is a person who has managed to capture and ride one of the gigantic sandworms that live on the planet Arrakis. The band Sandrider are closer to the worms themselves as they're much much heavier than any mythological beast jockey.

The Seattle band feature three of the city’s most unstoppable forces: drummer Nat Damm and guitarist John Weisnewski of Akimbo, and bassist Jesse Roberts of The Ruby Doe.

There's a slugdy sluggish Sabbath-esque heaviness to "Children" accompanied with husky yet buried vocals that bring High on Fire to mind. The band mine the musical vein of their homecity as there's a Mudhoneyish grunge feel to The Corpse with a Tad sized underbelly. A dirty filthy metallic spinetingling riff stabs through and cuts the grunge overlay in "Crysknife". "Voices" is a godzilla disgustingly heavy gingantic-sized guitar-oriented howler of a song. "Paper" just convinces that these guys love their grunge as much as their metal and is a fine sifting blending of both. "Scatter" should excite most alternative 90's music fans as the opening sounds familiar even if it's difficult to pinpoint exactly whether it's liberal borrowing from Jane's Addiction or the likes of grungesters Mudhoney.

There's a couple of songs like "The Judge" that are a little too long on this album However anyone longing for grunge with a slab of metal or a slab of grunge with a dosage of metal should check out Sandrider.



Listen to some of the album here.

Seaweed 1990 EP

Washington, Tacoma band Seaweed's Weak album was recommended to me a while back. I checked out and while it wasn't a bad album, it wasn't one I was going to rush back and listen to. My analysis was that it was a well titled album. According to Wikipedia (which is often as useful but less truthful than the instructions on a shampoo bottle) the band mix grunge and punk. I just hear Cruz records Big Drill Car type melodic punk on this EP which isn't bad but isn't great either. Maybe your opinion differs. Write a comment and let us know.

Bang!

Coffin Break - Thirteen

Coffin Break were a Seattle band who were signed to c/z records before signing to Epitaph. The band seemed to straddle the line between Seattle's grunge movement and Epitaph's pop-punk (think early 90s pop punk). Here some of the songs would comfortably fit on a number of grunge albums that were released in the early nineties. These are mostly the songs written by Peter Litwin however the other songwriter(Rob Skinner)'s songs sound similar to Cruz record band Big Drill Car. So it does sound like this is more than just one band. On a side note, I used to think Cruz records and c/z records were the same label and that all bands had the melodic punk sound. Various sites on the web suggest this band stayed true to their punk and hardcore roots but looking at the Epitaph records wikipedia and listening to some of this album suggests signing this band may have been their attempt at breaking into the grunge movement of the early nineties while keeping one foot in the pop punk camp that the label would later become renowned for. There is a cover of Black Sabbath's Hole in the Sky which fits in well with the grunge songs. Confused? Get it!