Doomed & Stoned’s resident sludge-monger continues his quest to interview the filthiest doom and southern sludge bands on the planet! This week, a one-on-one with guitarist Ritchie Randall from long standing Jopllin, Missouri act GRAVEHUFFER, right on the heels of their just third album ‘NecroEclosion’ (2021 - Black Doomba Records) – an explosion of crusty grindcore and doom. (Editor)

Ritchie, tell us about your role in Gravehuffer.

I play guitar and do a little bit of the vocals. I write the riffs and Mike, the bass player, and I collaborate on all that. This time was kind of cool, because our drummer – our new drummer Jay Willis – he even wrote some riffs for this record. He wrote probably four or five. There were a couple of songs. That was his stuff. It has been really cool, with a collaborative effort this time.

Who else is in the band and what do they do?

Travis McKenzie is our brand new vocalist. He actually started when we were recording this record, which is kind of crazy. I think he joined us in February, possibly. He started hitting the ground running! We literally threw him in the fire. Our drummer, Jay Williis, has been with us for a year-and-a-half, I think. Previous to that, Larry Deerdorf was our drummer and he had been with us since 2008. Mike Jilge is our bass player. It has been Mike and myself since '08.

Can you explain about how the vocals are written and recorded? Sometimes they sound layered a bit. Do you have effects on the vocals?

There are very little effects on the vocals, maybe a little delay or reverb. Yeah, there is some layering. Yeah, it’s cool. Jay, our drummer, he actually sang a good bit of vocals and Travis sang I would say 50/50. We didn’t want to get Travis in the band while we were in the middle of recording and say, “Do all the vocals, dude!” (laughs) It was more of a collaboration with Jay and Travis.

Jay had been a singer in other bands prior to coming to Gravehuffer. The drummer thing I guess he did out of necessity. That’s what he told us. He has this really cool voice. He has a kind of hardcore-meets-black metal vibe going on. Travis has more kind of the spastic, crusty style of vocals. The stuff I do is more shouting, yelling in key, and some of the guttural stuff too. My contribution vocally is a lot less, but we are all in there singing at some point. Sometimes all three of us on a song.

I pick up some hardcore hints from Gravehuffer. There are sick ass riffs on track three, “Sights To The Sky.”

Thanks, man. I appreciate that because all those riffs were riffs I had on my phone. We all pulled our riffs together and just dumped them in our bass player Mike’s computer at his home studio. That was an amalgamation of two or three riff ideas. We put the riff ideas in his computer and it came out really cool. “We need to use the first half of that riff and then end with this riff.” I remember I wanted to use those parts for this song. Particular riffs I was adamant on using, for sure. I appreciate you noticing that.

I checked out your previous albums on Bandcamp, bought both Gravehuffer posters. Andre the Giant and the other one are pretty badass.

We have a song on the new album NecroEclosion and thought that would be cool, to have artwork to match.

“Death Before Disco” is badass! Reminds me of S.O.D. or M.O.D. with having the humor and acting some parts out.

We covered like a minute of the Bee Gees’ “You Should Be Dancing.” We had a friend play horns on this one. It was a lot of fun! Yeah, S.O.D.! Dude, we are in our mid-40s.

I am 44.

Right on, yeah. That is like totally our thing. We like to mix in the humor. Way back, they had these shirts that Mike had, or he wanted one, that said “Death before Disco.” Ever since we were in a band in the '90s, we were in a crust punk band called Initial Detonation. We released a couple 7-inches and toured a bit. Mike had wanted to do this for like 20 years. He was finally like, “I am going to learn a Bee Gees bass line and we are going to do this damn song!” (laughs) We all learned our parts. We had a friend of ours from Metal devastation Radio [and] he is the one who announces us on the song.

The whole skit in the beginning of the song had me rolling!

It was a lot of fun to record. We were worried about putting it on the album. I think that most people who are into us get the whole cheeky punk thing that we do.

Having fun! I’m glad you put the song on there!

We thought why not, you know? We have done it on every album, so why not?

More bands need to take those artistic avenues. I appreciate when bands take the directions they need to later on, after putting an album or several out there. Some fans won’t like it or understand it, and that’s okay.

Yeah, totally valid. We decided, “You know what? We are going to do what we want.” We shouldn’t second guess what people are going to think. We squashed that pretty quick. I will admit I thought, “Should we be doing this?” (laughs) Mike and I pretty much don’t care what people think. It’s not that we don’t care, it’s just that we don’t let it affect what we write. Jay, our new drummer, wasn’t sure about it at first. He is new coming into this thing and wasn’t sure what our fans thought at all. He has played a few shows, but this is his first album. I don’t blame him for that.

The song “Smaller Than Death,” is about Andre the Giant.

That one is about Andre, yes.

I love it! It’s nice and sludgy. Real thick and chunky. So what does Andre the Giant mean to you and Gravehuffer?

Mike had brought up the idea for writing a song about Andre. He just watched this documentary on HBO about Andre the Giant. He was really inspired by it and that’s basically where that came from. I always loved Andre when I watched wrestling in the '80s.

Oh yeah, me too!

He was like the first wrestling superstar. We thought it would be cool to write about wrestling but also his life, as well. He grew up in France then came over to America to be a wrestler. He wasn’t really interested in being famous. Everyday life was a challenge for him being a giant outside the ring. We wanted to make sure that we put that in there! We needed to make it more than just wrestling. He could have been viewed as a sideshow freak. That was a thing back then. He used his size to his advantage to become an amazing wrestler. He was a character, as well. He had a charisma about him that we related to a lot.

Have you ever seen any of the “Andre the Giant has a posse” stickers?

No, I haven’t seen those.

They are big where I am at, because the guy who created it is from here.

Oh really? Cool!

I’ll send you some stickers. I think you’ll like them. This guy Shepard Fairey is from Charleston S.C. and created them and “Obey.” He also did the iconic Hope picture for Obama years ago.

Really? Interesting.

He has traveled all over the world doing graffiti, posters, and sticking up these Andre stickers.

That is definitely something that we would love to be a part of, I think. (laughs)

I loved Andre the Giant from wrestling and especially from The Princess Bride. He was a gentle giant.

Exactly! Yes! I think the lyrics have “gentle giant” in there.

Gravehuffer is signed to Black Doomba Records?

Correct.

You guys have merch available through Seasons Of Mist as well, right?

Yeah. Shirts, tank tops, and hoodies.

Grave huffer also has masks right? You’re one of the first bands I saw making masks. More bands have that now.

Yeah, they have sold pretty well. We have marked them down to $6.66.

Sweet!

So what makes Gravehuffer laugh?

That is an interesting question. I don’t think I have ever been asked that. We find humor in off the wall fucked-up stuff. (laughs) I can’t think of anything in particular off the top of my head. S.O.D. and M.O.D. Stuff like that. Probably a typical humor. Mike, our bass player is like 6’ 5" probably weighs about 300 lbs but he’s like a big kid. We used to work together in the same office. I did printing, he did mail. I would be at my desk and he would fart. It would be very loud and like 10 seconds long! I would be like, “Oh, my god, what was that?” We would die laughing! He is just a big kid. Honestly, he cracks me up more than anything. The other day I came to the band room and he was watching Sanford and Son. We just sat and watched it for about an hour. We tend to like old comedies, poop and fart jokes.

Sounds like what makes me laugh.

Yeah! We are ridiculous! (laughs) I sent Mike a YouTube video where a guy in Walmart took an intercom phone and farted in it. (laughs)

I’ve seen that. It echoes and reverberates through the whole building.

I wish they would have filmed him for about 3 more seconds because the reverb just keeps going! (laughs) That is stuff that makes us laugh. We are just like little kids. We’re 8 years old! (laughs)

Tell me about writing the song “Ghost Dance” and what it means to you and the band.

As far as the music is concerned, that main riff Mike and I came up with. Actually, Mike came up with the first half of it and then I came up with the second half of it. Most times that’s what happens where someone will start a riff or lyrics and someone else will hear something a little different and add on to it or finish it. The chorus section was a collaboration between all of us. I remember coming up with that part and having Mike and Jay were telling me, “Hey, why don’t you just write the top string during that section?” It is cool how that whole song came together. When the song changes and becomes more intense we don’t tell each other what to play, but we tell each other what we are hearing. It goes through our filter and then we play it, “Yeah that’s perfect!” It is a pretty cool way of writing. The last part is kind of melodic and Mike said to pick a melody to play over it, so I did and that’s how that came about.

As far as the subject matter, I always thought it would be appropriate to write about Wounded Knee. That is something I feel strongly about. Travis, our new singer, that was the second set of lyrics he wrote. The first was “Death Before Disco” and “Ghost Dance” was the second. We were like, “Travis this is really good!” We haven’t ever seen his lyrics prior to Gravehuffer and he knocked it out of the park. We thought it would be a good idea to create a lyric video especially considering the subject matter. That is pretty much how “Ghostdance” came together, ya know?

Awesome! What has been an awkward moment for Gravehuffer as a band?

An awkward moment? Let me think.

like trying to get across the Canadian border and you got grass on you.

(laughs) Right, right. We’ve never played outside the US yet. We don’t have any crazy things like that. I don’t know. We haven’t had many awkward moments as a band. Nothing like really crazy. I do remember one time we were playing at a place called The Bottleneck in Kansas. We’d played there a couple times prior, but for whatever reason we were outside the back door and knocking and no one was coming. This is where the bands load in and out. I guess no one was back there at the time, so I text the promoter and he gets ready to come out.

While we are waiting to get inside and load in, there is someone coming down the alley the wrong way and he is wanting us to move. Hey, no, we are not going to move! So the guy just starts yelling at us and starts cussing at us. So the promoter finally comes out and starts laying into the guy who is telling us to move. “You need to move, you’re going the wrong way down a one way street!” The guy was getting really mouthy and Mike stood up and you have to worry! (laughs) I saw him shove someone and that was the end of it! He is a big guy and I wouldn’t want to ever make him mad. That was definitely an awkward moment.

There have been a couple instances like that. There was another instance where we were playing in Iola, Kansas and a guy came out and he was really drunk. He was saying how much he really liked us. He started talking about being in prison and it got weird quick and getting a little too personal. So Mike again stood up and I was like, “Oh no!” I am looking at Mike going, “No no no!” That’s about it, where stuff could have gotten out of hand. People are just acting weird.

Where do we find Gravehuffer’s music? Bandcamp, Spotify?

Yes, we are on both. I usually send people to Bandcamp.

I love Bandcamp!

Bandcamp is terrific! It is so artist friendly and having merch on sale there. Dude, we have like 15 or 20 items up there.

I got the Gravehuffer patch a while back and recently got those posters. Is there anything else you want to promote or plug before we end this?

As far as the new album is concerned, it’s at Black Doomba Records. It’s on three-color vinyl, with yellow, red, and black splatter.

Nice!

It’s on a180 gm vinyl. It also comes with two signed posters for the first 50 editions. The next 50 after that have the same posters, just not signed. Each vinyl is hand numbered by Tommy Stewart. One more thing. We were talking about “Ghostdance,” off the album NecroEclosion. The next one is “Causes.” It was the last song to be recorded for lyrics. The reason why is our drummer Jay and our singer Travis were supposed to collaborate on lyrics and just never happened. It was the last week in the studio and we needed to turn the record into the label and crunched for time. Our old singer James had suggested that we used a friend for this song. This particular friend had passed away a few years ago. We got the blessing from the family to use a poem of his for the lyrics for the song. The poem fits the song perfectly. We didn’t edit or add anything. In the song where the horns come in is where the poem actually ends. It couldn’t have fit anymore perfectly! It is dedicated to our friend Ryan Smith.

Very amazing!

It turned out very cool. It might not stick out, but it definitely has a different vibe from the rest of the record.

It sounded like an older song. A bit hardcore.

Our bass player wrote that entire song on bass. It was a pretty unique way of going about it. Our drummer Jay when he recorded the drums he did it in one take. (laughs)

Holy shit!

I know, right?

I know studio time can be expensive.

Yeah, it’s a unique song. We have artwork for that song that fits it really well. It fell together so well.

Ten years! For ten years, Missouri’s Fister have been polluting our ear canals with their sludgy doom metal. Even for the most dispiriting bands, that’s worth a party. Bands often celebrate such an anniversary with a special record, like a Best Of record, a live record, or a covers album. Fister went for the last option, unleashing ‘Decade of Depression’ (2019 - Listenable Records) on our innocent ears. Still in rehab from their previous effort, I decided to dive right into this celebratory horror show.

It’s immediately clear that Fister didn’t take the easy road for this release (not that they ever do that). The band could have just covered a bunch of cool sludge and doom songs, like tracks from the plethora of bands they’ve released splits with, but that’s not for Fister. Instead the record opens with “City of the Living Dead,” a grimy reworking of the main theme from Lucio Fulchi’s 1980 splatterfest of the same name. One shouldn’t be surprised that this version fits the horror flick well. The song sounds dirtier than ever, but the melodic – especially for Fister standards – guitar work builds a nice tension.

From horror movies we dive into different, but just as unexpected, territory, for the band sinks their teeth into a couple of thrash metal classics. Up first is Metallica’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls.” Just like the original it’s a real headbanger, but slower and, of course, grittier. The sound is full and dark and really adds something to the fold with the chugging guitars and pounding rhythm section. Finally, someone brought out the full potential of this classic!

When your album title is a play on 'Decade of Aggression’ (1991), you can’t afford not to have a Slayer song on it. With “Mandatory Suicide,” Fister chose for a relatively slow jam. The original has some sludge potential and Fister took full benefit of that. This is the proof that Slayer’s chainsaw guitarwork also works as a full blown steamroller. The only comment one can have is that Fister didn’t go all-out with the noisy solo at the end of the original. Then again, you want to cry out “Slayer!” only to correct yourself to “Fister!” just in time.

Before you forget that it’s not all slow and dark, Fister go fast and black with Darkthrone’s “Too Old Too Cold.” It’s certainly closer to home than the previous songs, but the band still manages to give it their own twist. It’s a bit of a drop in excitement here, but the execution would still make the average serial killer jealous.

The excitement goes straight back up with my personal highlight of the record. With the amount of split releases Fister have on their name (counting 6 within 5 years), it’s not surprising they asked some friendly assistance for this record. The band brought in CHRCH’s Eva Rose to perform Danzig’s “How the Gods Kill.” The song starts surprisingly quiet and peaceful with clean guitars and Eva’s haunting clean vocals, but gradually unfolds into pure madness. It shows some of the lesser known aspects of Fister’s grimey pallette and therefore gives them some more depth.

After that we return to the more extreme side of the band with a chugging yet punk induced cover of Hellhammer’s “Reaper,” followed by a particularly nasty rendition of “And Only Hunger Remains,” originally by Pungent Stench. The album closes with a re-recorded version of “The Failure,” originally from Fister’s split with fellow dirty doomers Dopethrone. All three these songs are nice additions to Fister’s catalog, but miss the special vibe of the first half of Decade of Depression. To be fair, I think I would feel different about the songs if they were elsewhere on the record, mixed with the less obvious tributes. I call them tributes, because the word “covers” doesn’t do these songs justice. It’s clear there’s a certain love for these songs and it truly shows. It’s just that Fister played their trump cards too soon and in the end, that hurts the the second half of the record.

Recently, I’ve been rewatching Wes Craven’s Scream franchise, and Decade of Depression feels kind of similar. You know what’s going to happen, because it has all been done before, but still it grabs you. It has that familiar feel and it knows it’s not innovative or anything, but it still manages to surprise and grab you. It’s clearly a labour of love. It’s not just copying a concept, but enhancing it. Or in this case, covering it in a thick layer of dirt.

Seriously cannot stop listening to the new album by MERLIN! In a word, ‘The Mortal’ (2019) is fantastic. Now that’s what I call Merlin! Seriously, it melts face…hard. I dare say a New Age Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon with a heavy American Werewolf in London feel.

The Mortal is a polished, yet still raw diamond coming in at 666 carats of pure electromotive force coming at you at 88 mph. Blasts you Back to the Future, encompassing many time periods. It is genre- bending. Definitely not your standard Iommic doom. The overall record, from a general listening standpoint, is seamless, even flawless. Everything sits in the mix well. The emotion is pure and stirs the soul.

The “Prologue” is that of an alien spacecraft taking off from visiting an Earth-like world. The smattering of acoustic guitar brings the tone to the core, segwaying into a Kill Bill spaghetti western/art house riff that leaves perfect room for the sax to intertwine this entity that has become known as The Mortal, though I have my doubts as to who or what this creature is.

Furthermore, the ability for these cats to be able to mirror riffs on guitar, bass, and sax while maintaining counter melody, as well, brings forth the poopie stank face. This talent is astonishing. Mesmerizing and awe-inspiring, all the more. Once a song fades out, a new one comes in, getting better and better as the minutes tick by. Other than the prologue, the shortest work is under four-minutes-and-ten-seconds. So many layers to this piece. It has taken many full listens just to pick up everything. This record passes all of my audio tests: over the ear, in headphones, my home stereo, and my shitbox car with 22 year old speakers.

“Ashen Lake” sets the soul afloat only to set the soul ablaze with its fan voted on title alone. Pre-release “Mindflayer” melts face and consumes the listener’s brain, only to be hit with the schtank at the four-minute-thirty mark. If Rings of Saturn were to attempt a doom-stoner-sludge album, they would strive to reach Merlin’s schtankiness.

Then the record takes a turn for the funk with “Basilisk.” Reaching into the Primus depths, while still keeping the saxy goodness flowing through it, only to pick up the salsa vibe at around four-fifteen and change, taking the listener to an Intergalactic Cuban Space Station then ending the song on some of the blackest of black metal blasting double bass tandem riffage.

Alas, we have reached “Metamorphosis.” It comes full circle to where we began. The earthen ethnic world folk is that of a Gypsy visiting Metropolis era France, accordion and all. It takes a turn for ominous only to be thrown directly into the abyss of “The Mortal Suite,” where it is greeted by the final boss and challenged to a knife fight in a sewer with Merlin providing the glorious fight riff. All the instruments intertwine with every stab, causing sheer anxiety as the listener becomes ouroboros incarnate, meeting a sudden death.

Editor’s Note:

I’ve always had an internal tug of war about rushing to review new albums. As it turns out, most of our writers feel the same way. Thus, we continue our series called “Second Spin” to give consideration to records that we think deserve a trip around your turntable and a place in your collection. Over to you, Tom!   (Billy Goate)

          An age of violence and magic.
                            A world of uncertainty.
                                        A soundtrack to a time forgotten by man.

Over the last few years, a band called HYBORIAN has been kicking up a real dust storm out of Kansas City. Last year, they self-released ‘Hyborian, Vol. 1’ (2017) digitally, which was subsequently picked up by Season of Mist and reissued on vinyl and compact disc in February.

Vol. 1 is six tracks of straight-up metal in the vein of Leviathan-era Mastodon – only way better, in my opinion. This spring, Hyborian hit the road with Weedeater and Bask and I was in attendance to cover their March 22nd show for the Fuzz Heavy Podcast. I want to thank Hyborian for setting me up with my admission and for hanging out to chat with me. You guys rule on and off stage, too!

“We’re pretty big into old-school Metallica and stuff like that, but everybody in this band worships Matt Pike,” says the band’s frontman and guitarist, Martin Bush. “While we don’t really sound like Sleep, and we’re a lot more progressive than High on Fire is, that stark, straightforward raw aesthetic is really what we’re going for.” In my opinion, they definitely hit that straight forward mark head on.

What’s more, the concept of the new record is very cool, but I’ll let them explain: “Lyrics, artwork, and everything tie into their concept of an interstellar, extra-dimensional being called the Traveler – that cloaked figure on the cover of the record. Hyborian is the Traveler’s chosen mouthpiece for this time in existence. He touched history, and at this place and time, so the band tells his legends from the time before written language.”

This album is full of bludgeoning guitar riffs, thunderous drumming, and killer singing. The vibe that runs through it all is full of frantic energy and never lets up from the first track (“As Above, So Below”) to the last (“Dross”). Riff after riff, the massive dogpile of awesome just crushes you with its intensity. Martin Bush has a phenomenal vocal approach, sounding as for all the world as if he’s crawled out from the very depths of hell. I like that he and Ryan Bates trade off on the vox here, as it adds another standout element to Hyborian as a band. The two come across expertly on stage, as well.

I mentioned earlier that Hyborian’s music has an early-Mastodon feel about it and this comes in the form of some of the more progressively tinted leads. I know a lot of people that would really enjoy this aspect of their sound. Turns out, the guys dig Metallica, too, and in “Dross” you can hear that influence, with its thrashy rhythm work and guitar tone. It has a rawness that I find to be highly enjoyable.

I urge you all to check out this extremely talented band, because I have a feeling that they will be around for a while. Ryan even alluded to that while we talked, stating that they plan to come back through my neck of the woods in the Syracuse area as many as possible times. Vol. 1 is an example of everything that is right with metal and it deserves to be heard by as many people as possible. As per my usual, there will be links below to help you get started on a fascinating journey of your own with Hyborian. Enjoy!

One of the things I take delight in doing is introducing you to the doom-stoner sound in the context of local scenes. This year, especially, I’ve especially become interested in bands trafficking in ‘The Sabbath Sound’ in locations we’re less apt to think of as “heavy” like Mississippi, Kentucky, Idaho, Wyoming, and Kansas. After all, you never know where the next big explosion in doom metal will come from. Who would have thought Little Rock, Arkansas would give birth to the world famous Pallbearer or that Fargo, North Dakota would bring us our beloved Egypt?

Big things have small beginnings, or so the saying goes. Take Columbia, Missouri, for example. Last week was my first exposure to a band coming from this modest city in the heart of Boone County. Meet SKOOMA, just “three nerdy dudes who like drinking beer and making loud sounds.”

Last year, they dropped a four-song demo (which included a psychedelic-sludge take on Elder’s “Gemini”), followed this past spring by Skooma: Live at Rose Music Hall (from the looks of it, they’re shows get quite rowdy). Then, just last week, the band contacted me to share their new EP, 'Seven Foot Death’ (2018) and I was sufficiently impressed to offer them a premiere.

“Our goal was to create honest, down to earth loud riffs”

In the seven songs before us, Chris McEuen (guitar, vox), Joe “Sherpa” Hodges (bass), and Drake Deems (drums) toggle between the realms of doom metal and stoner rock as effortlessly as a racer shifts gears on the speedway. Skooma also do an admirable job of marrying the two styles in cohesive song structures so that it’s nigh impossible to untangle them. The vocal style is earthy and gritty, which won’t be for every stoner rock fan, but will suit listeners tempered to southern sludge just fine. From my interview with the band (below), it’s clear they were aiming for a rawer feel, something that wouldn’t sound overly produced. In other words, true to the live experience. Now I’m itching to attend one of their shows!

Skooma have a lot going for them right now: a solid set, strong local support, and the will to keep creating. Fix your eyes upon these lads; I’ve a feeling they’ll be going places.

Seven Foot Death will be streaming most everywhere on Saturday, August 4th and will soon be available on CD, vinyl, and cassette here. If you’re in the Columbia area, check out Skooma’s album release party at Rose Music Hall this weekend, with support from Degrave and Devourist. In early October, they’ll be opening for The Sword at the same venue.

Right now, Doomed & Stoned is pleased to bring you the world premiere of Seven Foot Death. Fair warning: like the fabled drink for which the band is named, I’ve found that Skooma to be quite addictive the more you listen.

Give ear…

A Shot of Skooma

Interview by Billy Goate

Films by Asylum Recording Studios

Tell us about the band. How long have you been doing your thing?

We describe ourselves as a “Psychedelic Doom Experience.” We first started jamming together in October of 2016, in Joe’s garage just outside of Columbia, Missouri. Joe and Chris were in the doom band “The Dead Roots” for the year prior, but the dissolution of that group resulted in the formation of Skooma, with Drake Deems on drums. Our only goal as a band was to create honest, down to earth loud riffs. Chris wound up on vocals by default (laughs), and we hit the ground running writing a few tracks that would become our self-titled EP, which was recorded in early 2017 with Asylum Recording Studios.

Having fun with what we’ve been doing has always been the focus, never trying to really force any of the creative process. We’ve created a successful following in our hometown and have met some incredible people along the way. We released a live record captured by Grindstopher Productions in May of 2018, featuring new songs that we felt really captured the creative direction that we were going in as well as getting a good feel for what a Skooma show is like.

I’ve enjoyed chasing down a few references, not only in the band’s name, but also in your songs. Chris, can you speak to this?

Really, when it comes right down to it, we’re just a bunch of nerds (laughs). Our band name being a narcotic in the Elder Scrolls universe should make that evident, so you’ll find all kinds of sci-fi/video game/anime references in our music. I am the main lyricist in the band and the lyrics for this record are based on experiences in my life, wrapped in metaphors from various fantasy-based universes.

Alright, maybe guide us through the new EP, 'Seven Foot Death’?

“Transmutations” and “Vermin” the first two tracks off the record are about my best friend passing in early 2017. “Transmutation,” meaning “the action of changing or the state of being changed into another form,” was written from a place of grief, whereas “Vermin” was written from a place of anger, and I feel that both songs really demonstrate those emotions. “VVitchburner” is about the video game series The Witcher and tells the tale of a knight going to assist a village plagued by a Witch.

“Blind Wizard” is about addiction and all of the misfortunes that it brings to a person. “Spider Queen” is based on the first three books from the Dark Elf Series by R.A. Salvatore, which tells the story of sacrificing everything for an evil deity.

“Tree of Might” is a take on the anime Dragon Ball Z, the lyrics being from the point of view of a normal human bystander watching this world being torn apart by these god-like people fighting in the sky. “Priestess of the Moon” is a good ol’ love song, set in a post-apocalyptic world where a man falls in love with a priestess of a New Age religion and they destroy the world and leave it all behind. Writing in this style with this content really freed things up lyrically and I was able to really let my imagination take off and create a story.

What was it like to create these songs together and then enter the studio to record them?

As far as the instrumentation of the record, this has always been a joint effort of the band. We’ll usually write individual riffs and weave them together until they start to become cohesive. We returned to Asylum Recording Studios in early 2018 to record with Robert Wiggin over the course of 5 or 6 days. Robert is just the chillest guy to work with and was totally open to whatever we wanted to do, so we had a lot of fun blending various sounds and laying down some monster mamma jamma riffs!

The one thing that was important to us was that we wanted the record to sound the same as Skooma does live. We wanted everything to be raw, and not feel over processed to where we could not achieve the same thing on stage. We’re very happy to say that we were able to accomplish this. We set out to make something “riff centric”, with a strong bass presence and guitar tones that could cleave mountains. Lots of spacey leads and rippin’ solos on top of everything, you know? Tempos vary throughout the record, going from the slow and heavies in “Tree of Might” to more fast-paced, high octane shit in “Priestess of the Moon.”

We’re very proud of how unique each track sounds and how organically everything came together. In the end, we’re just three nerdy dudes who like drinking beer and making loud noises. We wouldn’t have it any other way!

There are those people who you always run into at your friends parties, even though you don’t really know them yourself. You know who I’m talking about. You’ve been introduced to them, even talked to them a bit, and even though you don’t know much about them, they seem like a cool person. You’re acquainted, but you’ve never tried to become friends. To me, FISTER is one of those people.

Since 2014, Fister have released six split records, most of which are in my collection, because I dig their collaborators. I mean, I had to have their splits with Primitive Man, Dopethrone and Chrch and I got their split with Teeth for review when it first came out. And yet, I had never listened to a full-length by Fister before. That changed with their latest record, ‘No Spirit Within’ (2018 - Listenable Records).

Frozen Scythe

Opener “Frozen Scythe” might fool listeners who aren’t familiar with these boys from St. Louis, Missouri. It sounds like the soundtrack for some spaghetti western, but with some light horror undertones thrown into the mix. It slowly builds up to the bulldozer entrance of “Disgraced Possession,” a filthy display of the blackened doom I’ve learned to expect from the band.

Disgraced Possession

Slow, chugging riffs pound your eardrums with a focused kind of aggression. The kind that slowly, but forcefully bashes its message in your skull. The message in this case being misery, desperation and death. If you are looking for even the slightest hint of light, this song isn’t for you. Just listen to that guitar solo, supported by the pounding snare drum. It’s like a dentist’s drill is lodged into your ear canal while a nail is being driven into your head.

Cazador

“Cazador” screws down the tempo to the point where it can barely be perceived as music. Then, completely unexpected, the band speeds up to a punk tempo – relatively speaking, that is. Before you know it, the tempo is dropped again, each note accompanied a grunted syllable. The song ends with a sweet guitar solo backed by some more pounding. If you’re not into this kind of sonic torture, this song will probably end up giving you brain damage. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I Am Kuru

Finally there’s some room to breathe again. “I Am Kuru” starts off with some more traditional doom, but it wouldn’t be a Fister song if there wasn’t something to make it uncomfortable. In this case, it is a backing tape of voices, looped to an indistinguishable mash. This is probably the most accessible song on this record.

No Spirit Within

The title track continues the more traditional streak. This 12-minute mammoth of a song stands out in how varied it is. One moment you’re dwelling in a funeral doom mist, the next you’re being trampled by a stampede of pure heaviness. The sludgy feel of it all makes me wonder if this is what being sucked into the swamps of Missouri feels like. “No Spirit Within” is an accurate title, since this song sucks the life right out of you.

Heat Death & Star Swallower

Clocking at less than 4 minutes, “Heat Death” is a short intermezzo of chords and feedback, only to prepare you for the highlight of the album: “Star Swallower.” This song has some sweet, feedback-drenched riffs and fiendish howls, supported by a growling bass and pounding drum patterns. There’s nothing new in this song, but everything just comes together perfectly. Halfway through, Kirk Gatterer starts giving away some pounding drum rolls, supported by some very effective guitar riffs. I wouldn’t have minded if they had kept that going for a little longer. This is mostly because this is the last song of No Spirit Within and I’m not ready leave the state of bliss this record has put me in.

No Spirit Within certainly isn’t meant for everyone. It’s dark and extremely dense, but it grabs you and manages to keep you in its grip from start to finish. To get back to my original analogy, this turns out to be a great guy. Not someone to introduce to your family, but helluva lot of fun to hang out with. It’s the kind of guy who, five minutes after you’ve met him, proudly shows you the blisters on his scrotum and asks if you want to touch it. Brilliant! Disgusting and horrifying, but brilliant!

This weekend, Doomed & Stoned is proud to premiere the new album ‘Electric Children’ (2016) by Kansas City mystics MERLIN, an odd troupe that consists of frontman Jordan Knorr (vocals), Carter Lewis (guitar/backing vocals), Caleb Wyels (percussion), and Joey Hamm (bass). Together, they have put out some of the most absorbing albums - from the evil vibe of their eponymous debut, to the terrifying spaghetti western Christ Killer (2014 - Poisoned Mind Records), to the mad fever dream before us, which formally releases March 11th.

The more I listened to Merlin’s output and exchanged words with founding member and frontman Jordan, the more I began to suspect that Merlin’s sureal and sometimes disturbing vision was influenced by their immediate environment: Kansas City.

Having lived in Topeka for a number of years, I have some familiarity with the strange and fascinating background of the city simply called “KC” by locals. On the surface, it’s the all-American dwelling. You’ve got your Chiefs football, your BBQ and jazz, railyards and big manufacturers. It’s kind of a rough and tumble, industrial, blue collar city that grew out of the Wild, Wild West of the old 'Gunsmoke’ TV series.

Kansas City also seems to be a crossroads for bizarre spiritual and religious movements - not to mention the occasional F5 tornado! ‘The Day After’ (1982), a cautionary film about nuclear war that scared the piss out of me as a grade school child was filmed in Kansas City. So I decided to begin the interview with one of those burning questions…

Is Kansas City a likely place for the apocalypse to begin? Future ground zero for The Four Horsemen & company?

Jordan: Oh most definitely. Some parts of KC already look like a post-apocalyptic wasteland…

Caleb: YES.

Carter: Anybody who has ever traveled from KC to Denver will agree, Kansas is as desolate as can be. It feels less like the Sunflower State and more like Mad Max.

Does any of this history and culture lend inspiration to your songs?

Caleb: You can’t live in the Midwest and not have at least a small desire it to blow up into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Jordan: Kansas is a pretty conservative place. If anything were to inspire us, it’s to have the Westboro Baptist Church to protest one of our shows!

Carter: The film 'Quantrill’s Raiders’ (1958) is my main inspiration behind the song “Lords of the Wasteland.”

The occult figures prominently in your writing. What do you believe about the supernatural?

Jordan: I believe that ominous spirits inhabit the earth and that instead of heaven and hell, it’s just purgatory in the living world forever. But as for the occult, cool imagery aside, the inspiration behind a lot of our writing stems from the really fucked up shit we do to each other. Sacrifices to our “Lord,” serial killings, brainwashing - it’s all such darkly rich material to work with.

Carter: Jim Jones Is Love. Jim Jones is Life.

Soooo….the big #3! You’ve certainly come a long way since the Merlin Rising days. How would you describe the band’s evolution in sound and songcraft as we get ready to listen to ‘Electric Children’ (2016) . Is there a comparison or contrast to be made between it and the sophomore album ‘Christ Killer’ or your ‘Merlin’ debut?

Caleb: I think we are way better musicians, as far as our playing goes. We’ve always somehow been able to write songs we like and others like, but the style and way we go about it is different because we get bored and want to try different things. Electric Children is the most straightforward thing we have done yet. There are still concepts and extended sections and synths and shit - that’s key to our weirdness.

Jordan: To add to Caleb’s thoughts, we always want to keep people guessing, and never want to stay in one genre for too long. There are far too many bands that feel like they are obligated to churn out sameness with every record. I think production quality aside, it all has to do where our head is at when writing. All our albums have an underlying story behind them. Merlin was fantasy-based, Christ Killer was spaghetti western tinged, and with Electric Children we wanted to have an album essentially about the end of the world brought on by a crazy cult.

Carter: We liked the idea of creating an album that was quasi-conceptual and stand alone at the same time. It feels like two sides of a coin. Electric Children represented our progress as songwriters - creating different stories and melodies that we really liked. And it also represents the conceptual ideas we have always wanted to make. “Tales of the Wasteland” took us about seven months to write from beginning to end. It was meticulously crafted in rhapsody form and took many different attempts to puzzle out the melodies. We have come a long way from the days of “Apocalypse Dawning” and “The Fourth Age.” This album feels like we grew up in the middle of it, which I guess we did.

Curious about the production of 'Electric Children.’ Who recorded, mixed, and mastered the album, and where?

To record this project, we turned to our old keyboardist, Bret Liber, for this one. He has a house studio, Red Roof Productions, which provided the perfect atmosphere for performing and capturing it all.

Doomed & Stoned Premieres:

'Electric Children’ by Merlin

Get it via 4ONE8 Records/PRC Music here

It would be a real treat if you’d walk us through ‘Electric Children’ and tell us a little something – anything you want – about each track.

Jordan: “Bad Trip” was inspired by true events. We wanted a very abrasive song that just keeps hitting you until your brain turns to mush.

On the title track, “Electric Children,” we wanted to make just a really fast-paced, evil track. Something to actually set the tone for the rest of the album. We use the term “Electric” to describe the brainwashed minds of children born into religious cults as mindless androids, forced to perform the leader’s bidding.

“Will ‘o’ the Wisp” was actually conceived a few years ago when we were going to open up for a screening of 'Willow’ at Alamo Drafthouse KC, and wanted to write a song for the occasion. Unfortunately, that never worked out, so we laid it to rest, then unearthed it for this album. Turned out well.

“Night Creep” was written by Carter on the way back from a show we played in Lawton, Oklahoma in the spring of 2014, simply because he wanted to write the most Uncle Acid-inspired song we could do. To our surprise, a year after its October 2014 release, we learned that Uncle Acid was announcing their new album called 'The Night Creeper.’

“War Bringer” was the last song we wrote for the album. It was a very heavy, but western-sounding song to me. I had the most amount of fun singing on this one.

“A Reprisal for Julia” (or “Julia Reprise,” as you prefer) was actually a reprise of an old Merlin Rising song off of our 2012 release, Nactmahr. Between Carter and I, we knew we needed to do it for this album.

“Tales of the Wasteland” is our biggest, longest, and most complex song to date. It’s our baby. There is no singular storyline to it. Think of it as a kind of chronicle. And funny enough, we recorded both “Bad Trip” and “Tales…” in the same session.

Ok, let’s switch gears just a little. I’ve heard tales of big family crime coming out of KC. I think the FBI ranked it the 14th most dangerous city in the US. Filmmaker Robert Altman is from the area and one of his first films ‘The Delinquents’ (1955), so that lineage of crime seems to go back generations. ‘In Cold Blood’ (1967) was shot there, too. You’ve got Robert Berdella: The Butcher of Kansas City. Is it really the case that there is a seedy underbelly to the area, and does any of that seep into the heavy underground music scene? Or is this just a lot of hype? I suppose by telling us, you risk losing a finger, or an eye, or something so…proceed with caution.

Carter: Most people haven’t looked into the darker side of Kansas City. There is a long, yet unnoticed, history of terrible things that have happened here. It can date all the way back to the Kitchener Ironworks explosion of 1908. The blast killed 88 children that were Easter egg hunting. They never could figure out what went wrong. Later on there were many lynchings that took place around the ‘40’s. A local black bar was burned down. A lot of terrible things have happened here. And it has given us an inspiration, nay a responsibility, to bring the light to these horrendous crimes and tragedies. There is pure evil that runs among the underbelly of Kansas City, MO.

Saw recently that Merlin will be playing FreakTulsa this year. Any other fests in your future? How about a good ol’ fashioned road trip across The States?

We are wanting to do a tour soon, maybe in 2017. Who knows? Ask us to come and we will try our best to play and blow your minds.

Alright, you’re on! Come to Portland, Oregon. We’d love to have you there. Oh, been meaning to ask, what instruments and gear are you working with these days?

Caleb: I’ve been playing on a mix matched Ludwig premiere kit for years and just finally bought a Mapex Mars Pro to replace it. I also have Simmons 1000 series E drums at home I use for practice that I really want to use for a recording one day.

Jordan: I use a TC Helicon Voicetone Voice Doubler pedal and a TC Helicon Tap Delay pedal for my vocals, a KAOSSILATOR and a handy Microkorg Synth.

Carter: Fender Mustang V Cab, Acoustic GTH50 Head. Eastwood Stormbird. I only use the finest pedals from Earthquaker Devices, Electro Harmonix (shout out to my POG2) and Boss DD7.

Alright, in closing, tell us about THE WIZARDS LAIR! We were made privy to it in your “Bad Trip” music video. It looks to be a tricked out basement? Maybe some Satanic rituals happen there - hopefully nothing to do with the slaying of goats or I’ll have to wreck ya!

Jordan: Since the creation of the band, The Wizards Lair has been where we write, practice, and drink. It houses all our equipment, old/new/broken, and it’s where all Merlin relics lie, what we bring to shows: light, smoke, and laser wise, are usually on during our practice rituals.

Caleb: It smells like man musk and I’m pretty sure there’s a curve I keep setting up on.

Jordan: At the very least it’s man musk.

Carter: One Halloween, we had a party in the Wizard’s Lair. Now this was no ordinary party. I left the party around 10:45 but when I woke up the next morning, what I heard about was the most crazed, lunatic, occult practices I have ever heard about. Ever since then, there has been a presence that has helped us bring about our music. This lair is no mere basement, but rather a portal. To hell? Heaven? Who knows.

Explore the Merlin discography here and follow the exploits of the band here.