Their sound is unmatched. Primal fury and pissed guitar driven ire with vocals that scream WAR! I speak of Vancouver sludgers BISON who have been at it since 206. Guitarist/vocalist Dan And took a few moments to chat with Doomed & Stoned about their upcoming appearance at Electric Highway Festival this weekend!

Tell us your origin story

In the early 2K’s, James was in a band called S.T.R.E.E.T.S., which I had gotten to know from shows in Victoria. When they broke up a mutual friend of ours suggested to James that he and I should play together. James messaged me on MySpace and somehow convinced me to move to Vancouver. We started jamming in August 2006, and that was that.

Bison has been around for almost 20 damn years, what’s changed and what remains a constant in keeping the hard driving energy behind your sound?

We’ve gone through a number of rhythm sections, but James and I have remained constant. I’m the mom, he’s the pop. We’re fuelled by absolute disdain and despair, which are pretty easy to come by these days.

What is it about the Electric Highway Festival that’s got you pumped?

Being back in Calgary with all our old pals is always a great time. Calgary has been our second home since the very beginning. The current stage and sound setup at Dickens also rules.

For newbies to Bison, what can they expect from a live show?

Ringing ears, and a sore back. We’re just 2 old guys and 2 not-so-old guys trying to give it their all and leave it all up on the stage. Complete emotional catharsis while still trying to enjoy themselves.

You’ve had four impressive full-lengths, three of which were released with Metal Blade Records. Do you have new material in the works?

Yea, we’ve been working on some things sporadically over the past few years. We’re all spread out over BC and the Yukon, so it’s tough to get together. We managed to actually get some stuff recorded last summer so we’ll see what happens with that. Stay tuned!

For the devoted metalheads out there, what instruments and gear do you perform with?

My setup has remained pretty constant since we started: a 100W Soldano Avenger into two 4x12 (one Emperor + one Marshall that was re-speakered by Emperor to match). My main guitar is a completely stock ESP - LTD Phoenix 1000 (their version of a Firebird, except 25.5” scale instead of the 24.75” that Gibson usually uses). I also occasionally use a Squire Partscaster Tele or a late 90s cream SG. I had to retire my custom First Act Delgado due to back problems, but it’s still around. Pedals rotate a lot, but for the past few years, I’ve been using an EHX Hot Wax for boost and cut, an EHX Pitchfork, and an MXR Sub Octave Bass Fuzz for a couple of noisy parts here and there. Been through a few different chorus and delays over the years, too, anything from Donner or Joyo to Boss or JHS.

James used a Mesa Mark 4 Long Head (I think?) for years but has been using a Peavey 5150 for a while now. He’s got a Marshall flat 4x12 and a Mesa flat oversized 4x12. He usually uses a First Act custom Lola or a Hamer double-cut (Special?), but also sometimes a Tele or an SG. His pedal setup changes constantly, but usually just a boost for leads and a spacey delay for noise.

Evan has an old Peavey T40 bass that weighs a million pounds in a full Ampeg SVT fridge. He’s got a couple of old, weird dirt pedals, too. And finally Eugene has some drums that sound fucking great. Probably Ludwigs? I can never remember but he bets the hell out of them!

The Electric Highway Festival takes place on April 4 & 5 at Dickens (1000 9 Ave SW) in Calgary, Alberta. Here’s the full line-up:

Friday, April 4, 2025

• Castle (San Francisco/Vancouver)
• Buffalo Bud Buster (Calgary)
• Blacksmith and Brewer (Vancouver)
• CHÛNK (Vancouver)
• Hydracat (Edmonton)
• The Astral Prophets (Calgary)
• BUNS (Calgary)
• Doors 5pm – Show 6pm

Saturday, April 5, 2025

• Bison (Vancouver)
• La Chinga (Vancouver)
• Fever Dog (Southern California)
• The Getmines (Vancouver)
• 88 Mile Trip (Vancouver)
• Lover (Calgary)
• GEOFF (Calgary)

Doors 5pm – Show 6pm.

Advance 2-day passes are available for $75. Advance single-day tickets are $40 for Friday and $45 for Saturday.

Festival passes and single-day tickets are available at www.theelectrichighway.ca/festivalstore/.

This music fondly reminds me of those naive and joyful early days of discovering metal. Thankfully, for me, my time came during the height of the heavy metal craze in the 1980s, beginning with Van Halen, Ratt, and Cinderella, and culminating with Metallica and Guns N’ Roses. Dangerous music for dangerous times.

Vancouver, B.C. stoner rock ‘n’ heavy metal trio LA CHINGA keeps the spirit alive with 'Primal Forces’ (2023), the band’s first album since 2018’s Beyond The Sky, a Small Stone Records issue. Now the band finds release on the Ripple Music label, with 10 rip-roaring new tracks.

Bass and drums thunder excitedly for opener “Light It Up.” This was a smart one to open with, its revving rhythm giving me the feeling of being in motion, adrenaline pumping with anticipation of what’s going to greet us at the end of this dark street. The guitar play is vibrant, the verses are short and accessible, and the chorus is inviting (I was humming it to myself while putting away dishes yesterday, so it’s definitely catchy).

Get used to rousing choruses and power-laden refrains, because “Ride The Dragon” dishes out more the band’s trademark sound, plus hard AC/DC vibes to the vox. I live to rock and I rock to live! It’s not just any voice that can handle raspy and throaty at the same time, then switch to clean and soaring, but singer/bassist Carl Spackler impressively gets it done.

“Bolt of Lightning” and “Backs To The Wall” make for great car-singing karaoke. These are the kinds of songs with that Motorheadesque rhythm that get you pumped to curl the dumbbells a couple times. I’ll bet you could get into killer shape by working out to this album a couple times a week. Or it could also get you through a rough day at work. The album presents many possibilities.

Things cool down a tad with “Witch’s Heart,” a swampy strolling ballad with a GNR/Arosmith-like sweetness to its chorus. Ben Yardley finds room to give us an extended solo full of soul and high feelings. Spackler’s crooning gets a touch manic later in the song, and it makes me wonder if he would ever venture into Brandon Kistler (Rainbows Are Free) territory.

“The Call” drips with Soundgardenesque guitar and bass tone, its marching stride and grunge guitar tone makes me wistful for the '90s Seattle scene. The backing vocals and chorus are effective at conjuring a QOTSA/The White Stripes kind of vibe.

“Stars Fall From The Sky” is a feel-good rocker, with southern-hued guitar riffs and one of my favorite choruses of the record. Even with its stern marching rhythm and Halloweenish vibe, “Electric Eliminator” manages to grab you with an awesome chorus. La Chinga simply have the Midas touch.

“Rings of Power” approaches doom territory with a stout Sabbathesque rhythm, fevered guitar picking, and menacing vocals that had me thinking of another effective growler, Tom Keifer of Cinderella. I need love, love, love, love / woman I’m higher than the sun tonight – now that’s a good lyric. The ending is nice, too, with its swirling guitar effects.

Then to close this hog, we’ve got “Motor Boogie.” The track begins with spooky atmosphere that turns into a full-band attack, with both verse and swaying chorus sung to grand effect. Hey! They’ll never find us where we fly. I imagine this could be the show closer if you see La Chinga live, and it will leave you feeling good. The guitar solo has several bluesy moments that got me, and it gels well with the brash character of the song. This’ll be a great one for the drive home after a concert at about one in the morning.

La Chinga’s Primal Forces receives its wide release on Friday, October 6th, coming out on Ripple Music in vinyl, compact disc, and vinyl formats (get here). Stick it on a playlist with Borracho, Captain Caravan, Formula 400, Old Man’s Will, and Seedy Jeezus.

Give ear…

SOME BUZZ

LA CHINGA is a hard rock power trio with psychedelic powers sitting on the world’s edge in Vancouver, Canada. Drawing from Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, MC5, and their own superbad habits, the band has established a beachhead with two albums on Detroit’s cult label Small Stone Records and a penetrating buzz across Canada.

The band was conceived in Vancouver, BC in 2011 when bassist/vocalist Carl Spackler was surfing in SoCal and his Chicano beach buddies kept hailing each other with the mysterious phrase: “La chingaaaaa!”. Drummer/vocalist Jay Solyom and guitarist/vocalist Ben Yardley — also a noted professor of theremin — were conscripted shortly after, both veterans of Vancouver’s notoriously dead-end music scene, both beautifully obscene in their own right. La Chinga’s self-titled debut record was rushed out of a makeshift studio in 2013 on nothing but fumes and the liberating force of not giving a shit, landing like a hairball crossed with a stink bomb inside a world of yoga pant commerce, condo developments, and Macbook “musicians.” This was a revolutionary act—or maybe a devolutionary one, at least.

Meanwhile, Spackler was busy pouring all of his demented ‘70s obsessions into wild three-minute homemade music videos, finding the visual language of fuzz itself inside shitty horror films as he furnished the great infernal drive-in of his mind. Somehow, miraculously, this charming brew conspired to make La Chinga the hottest bunch of stoned ape groovers to hot wheel out of the Pacific Northwest since forever.

'Freewheelin’’ followed in 2016 on Detroit’s Small Stone Records, and so did unhinged tours of Europe, more year-end accolades, festival slots (420 Fest, Sasquatch), and Spackler’s continuing evolution as the Orson Welles of retard-o-tronic found footage scuzz. And then things got serious: in late 2017, La Chinga entered Vancouver’s fabled Warehouse studio with no-less-fabled producer Jamey Koch (DOA, Copyright, Tragically Hip). The result? 'Beyond the Sky’ is 45 minutes of sublimely confident freedom rock, sometimes meaty and beaty, sometimes glam-handed, and occasionally even dirtbag pretty, where the listener gets rolled, boogied, and otherwise supernaturally conveyed well beyond the sky, maybe even beyond ridiculous. This is how it feels to get chinga’d, amigos. Now the fiery trio is gearing up to release their new offering 'Primal Forces,’ to be unleashed in the fall of 2023 via Ripple Music.

One of the heavy underground hotspots our scientists have been monitoring for tremors is Vancouver, British Columbia. In recent years, we’ve detected an eruption of musical activity with bands like ANCIIENTS, Astrakhan, Baptists, Black Mountain, Black Wizard, BORT, Dead Quiet, Empress, Heron, Heavy Trip, La Chinga, Mendozza, Olde Worlde Nudists, Seer, Satan’s Children, We Hunt Buffalo – shall I stop now? You get the point. Today, we add another entry into our taxonomy of Vancouver wildlife: HIGHLAND EYEWAY.

While hardly a new phenomenon, the band will no doubt be a fresh name to a number of readers, so let me give you some notes on their background. According to Doomologists, Highland Eyeway was born in 2014, nestled in the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tseil-Waututh First Peoples.

It’s no wonder, then, that their musical output to date has been strongly influenced by what founding members Houston Matson-Moore (guitar, vox), Massimo Andolfatto (bass), and Teagan Ramage (drums) describe as “mystical forest canyons with pulsing moss-covered trees that hold secrets for its dwellers.”

Some of you have seen places like Lynn Canyon Park featured in many a film or television series, such as The MacGyver, The X-Files, Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG-1, The Flash, The 100, and Legends of Tomorrow.

Growing up in and around ancient trees steeped in history and filled with woodland creatures, it’s no wonder that the spirit of this fantastic world has seeped into Highland Eyeway’s music.

On their latest release, ‘Spirit Wrangler’ (2021), the band pays homage to the influence of nature, as well as great bands that have been instrumental in the development of their musical palette – Dead Meadow, Dinosaur Jr., The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Stereolab, and the experimental electronic duo Boards of Canada.

To call these five songs evocative or picturesque would be too easy, perhaps even trite. The band refer to them as “lucid, psychedelic dreamscapes” intended to “draw the listener into other-wordly dimensions.” I can get down with that.

Highland Eyeway’s new EP features six tracks recorded by Jordan Koop at The Noise Floor Studios on Gabriola Island. A short introduction, “(transmission),” acclimatizes the listener to the three longer tracks that follow, each of which bleed seamlessly into the other. “Picture meeting a foreign spirit on an alternate planet travelled to in a dream,” the band recommends per your state of mind.

After this brief zap to the psyche, “Crystal Spine” greets us with a gassy belly full of slow, sludgy bass, growing in intensity as the band’s full nervous system is ignited. A guitar lead sings over distorted noise and fevered drumming, a signature that will return often as the record spins on. The band told me this song represents “blue-purple light/energy travelling with the breath through the spine,” as one might envision in an altered state of consciousness.

Next is a succession of three lively tracks, each incrementally longer than the one before it. They dance between progressive, psychedelic, and shoegaze styles without any neat boundaries between them. “Phese” (which I believe means “Face” in Hindi) has clean post-punk singing, though the lyrics are rather obscure – the kind of disjointed thoughts I’m liable to have when blasted out of my mind. Let’s just say it all has something to do with the self in relation to time and fate.

“Yost” appears to be the manifestation of an otherworldly creature inspired by Dinosaur Jr.’s record 'Farm’ (2009), but these sorts of insights are more trivial asides than an interpretative demand on the listener.

Dawn’s golden blade is chopping into my brain
Scrambling my sight
Stirring inside me

Remember, it’s your ride, too. The music interfaces with your mind and emotions and each encounter with it will likely yield new revelations, words or no. If nothing else, it’s certainly the most danceable of the lot – though Highland Eyeway has a tendency to make a complexity out of simplicity, adding layers of dissonance and rhythmic intensity to what begins in straight forward Joy Division fashion.

Then we meet the record’s namesake, “Spirit Wrangler,” and this one’s a live wire, I tell you! The opening riffs remind me of something I’d hear from J Mascis & company, though it quickly morphs into another animal entirely with frenetic bass and drum work versus a wilding psychedelic guitar jigging over a swirl of many-tentacled Cthulian noise. “Spirit Wrangler” concludes in lavish cymbal fanfare and cycles out in a reverberating fade of riffage.

Gabriel Ostapchuk’s accompanying music video is a fun (and weird) shroom-fueled adventure through rainy city streets and snow covered mountains, clad in gasmask and shot on what appears to be some kind of Super 8ish film.

Thematically, the band likens a spirit wrangler to “a person who brings people into a devotion to religion, path of enlightenment.” The idea first came to mind when Highland Eyeway came to terms with their ability to entrance an audience with their music by projecting a vision that can influence their lives. “This power and attention from a collective can go good or bad,” the band observes.

In the past many religions and cults have seen this pattern and too many times have we witnessed this power used for personal gain and power. I guess the name “Spirit Wrangler” is somewhat of a self reflection for our band: what kind of seeds do we wish to plant with the music we write?

Our magic carpet ride touches down with “Moss Landing.” There’s a story connected with this one, which frontman Houston was kind enough to share:

We toured from Vancouver to San Diego in May of 2019 and we passed through a small county south of Santa Cruz called Moss Landing. I think the name stuck with us, because we’ve spent a lot of creative time in and around the forests of North Vancouver, which have moss covered trees and forest floors. I realize while writing this that “Spaceship Landing” by Kyuss had something to do with my interest in our song’s naming.

The most melodic of the lot, “Moss Landing” is redolent with wistful melancholy, a musical interpolation of the ancient grandeur of old growth redwoods, a world within a world that offers moments of sanctuary, sublimity, and wonder. This song, in particular, had me daydreaming about an international bill with Highland Eyeway from Vancouver, Solar Sons from Scotland, Clouds Taste Satanic from New York, Psyrup from Oregon, joining the almighty Elder (oh, hell, let’s throw Earthless in there as a co-headliner, too) in one incredible live event.

Highland Eyeway’s Spirit Wrangler EP is slated for release on April 20th, and will be available on vinyl (released by the band), cassette (Cypress Kit Tapes), and compact disc (Divine Bovine Records). All available for pre-order here.

Give ear…

Along shore of an all powerful river, thousands of years of heavy water flow crushed gargantuan bedrock into fine un earth like sands. Three men found this estranged riverside and endured an almighty…Heavy Trip.

I’m not sure about the rest of the world, but here in the Netherlands, the weather is getting better and it’s slowly starting to feel like spring, after some weeks of cold and rainy weather. Normally when the sun starts to shine and the temperatures start to rise, I start looking forward to the festival season. Normally, for me, the season starts during the Easter weekend, but due to obvious reasons, there’s not much to look forward to this summer.

Luckily, there’s still a lot of good music out there to help me get that festival feeling. Case in point, the Canadian power trio HEAVY TRIP, who managed to take me to the magical land of sunny meadows, lukewarm beer and loud music in no time flat. While their self-titled debut was released on Bandcamp last year, the release of the record on CD and vinyl is as good a reason as any to give these guys some well deserved attention.

Heavy psych, acid rock, space rock. Call it what you want, Heavy Trip’s debut is filled to the brim with it. We’re served 36 minutes of instrumental blues-based goodness, divided over four tracks. While all instruments get their time to shine, there’s a clear leading role for the guitar. While the drums and bass of Ben Frith and Cole Vibert create a solid base, it’s the heavy riffing and over the top soloing of the Cole Jandrisch that makes this record shine. There’s a good balance between fuzzed out riffing and effect heavy solos to keep the record interesting.

Generally, Heavy Trip doesn’t do build-ups on this record and dives right into the interstellar madness, but on the final track, “Treespinner,” the band really takes the time to unravel their jam. Doing that makes that the listener is slowly but surely dragged into the maelstrom of fuzzed out guitars, heavy bass and frantic drumming of the song’s (and record’s) climax.

So if you want to get rid of that winter blues, go outside, pick your poison and play this record loud. You’ll be in for a heavy trip, I’ll guarantee you that much.

The Vancouver, British Columbia heavy music scene is a blazy inferno right now and I think we just might have found its hellbeast. This is WAINGRO, a popular favorite among the locals for damn sure, but hardly a new face to the underground.

Now in their lucky number seven year as a band, Brian Sepanzyk (guitar, vox), Nate Pennel (bass), and Benjie Nesdoly (drums) have been rocking steady for the duration and have one EP and two LPs to prove it – make that soon to be three LPs. Sometimes there’s no better name for an album than to call it what it is. On August 15th, Waingro will unleash ‘III’ (2019) upon the world. Their previous efforts have, impressively, earned them a vinyl release with two labels: Sludgelord Records (out 8/15 in the UK & Europe) and No List Records (out 9/13 for North America).

Their secret sauce? Waingro couples a sweaty hardcore urgency with the raucus riffmaking of stoner rock for a sound like none other. Today, Doomed & Stoned brings you the first single from the new album, the rough 'n’ tumble “Red Death”

Give ear…

Some Buzz

Fueled by a passion for stoner rock and punk, Brian Sepanzyk (guitars/vocals), Benjie Nesdoly (drums) and Nate Pennell (bass/backing vocals) took the heaviness of hardcore, the groove from stoner rock, and then added subtle desert rock highlights to work on what would come to be known as Waingro.

The experienced musicians have honed their craft in several other bands over the years, but it wasn’t until they formed Waingro that Sepanzyk (guitar/vocals), Nesdoly (drums), and Nate Pennell (bass/backing vocals) were truly able to explore their talents in the abrasive desert rock band. While their earlier material can be considered stoner hardcore with releases 'Waingro’ (2014) and 'Mt. Hood’ (2015); Waingro adds a grunge edge with their upcoming album 'III’ (2019) due out August 15, 2019, its UK vinyl and worldwide digital release via Sludgelord Records and is Canadian vinyl release on September 13, 2019, via No List Records.

Not ones to be conventional, Waingro gives a glimpse into their writing process: “It usually starts with Sepanzyk coming up with some riffs, then going out to a cabin and locking ourselves away for 2-3 days while we BBQ and play Bocce.”

Bringing a ton of energy, while still remaining super tight, Waingro’s main lyrical concepts explore the character of the same name from the film Heat. Writing about situations from the character’s potential point of view complemented with visual landscapes for his possibilities, Waingro have played several festivals across Canada and with their latest album around the corner, will be looking to further their reach in the future.

I’d like to introduce you to BORT, a stoner metal band from Vancouver, British Columbia. BORT have an album out that is simply awesome! They describe their sound as “loud, bearded rock ‘n’ roll” with “deep desert grooves drenched in the gloom of the Pacific Northwest.” That’s a very apt description of what BORT does in 'Crossing the Desert’ (2018). The nine songs on this record are teeming with inspiration, blending elements of desert and fuzz rock with doom and stoner metal. The band cites Black Sabbath, Elder, Kyuss, Clutch, Red Fang, Mastodon, Queens of the Stone Age, Uncle Acid and the deadbeats, CKY, Cancer Bats, Them Crooked Vultures, and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club as some of its biggest influences. With all that kind of fuel in the tank, Crossing The Desert is bound to be interesting!

The first track is “White Desert Sun,” an instrumental that serves as a really nice way to open this record. The guitar playing is beautifully done and the various effects draw us right into BORT’s world. Next up: “The Beerfields of Bridgeview” – another really cool number. It has a bluesy, soulful verse section that lets Josh Percy’s vocal leadership shine. “Caledonia’s specter casts its shadow on me” is my favorite line in the song, part of a very memorable chorus.

“Worldbane” is my pick for the best track of the lot. The opening guitars are bouncy as hell and, even though the verse is more subdued, Crouton McGinn’s bass and the drums of Ian Alvarez keep that bouncy feeling going until the guitar picks right back up and doubles the riff – showing off the powers of axemen Andre Pavlov and Brandon Comess. I love the vocals on this one, as well. Josh’s tone is killer and his execution is flawless. I also really dig the lead guitar work, as it takes on an almost keyboard like quality, but just sounds amazing!

The rest of this release is equally as good as the few songs I’ve brought up already. I really think BORT deserve some love from the heavy underground. Their Facebook following is small, which surprises me (a lot), so go give them a shout and enjoy the tasty riffs that Crossing the Desert provides!

Plowing deeper into the winter months of the New Year, Doomed & Stoned introduces you to a new face in the heavy underground, Vancouver doom-sludge metal trio EMPRESS. Today, we’re revealing the second track from their first EP, ‘Reminiscence’ (2018), which comes out February 12th, and including an interview with frontman Peter Sacco about this impressive effort. The whole record is a cathartic thrill ride, executed with conviction and bravado – bearing the kind of strenge we’ve come to expect from the likes of High on Fire. Behold, the fury of “Immer.”

Vancouver has a rough and tumble scene and I have mad respect for the sounds emerging from there. Peter, how did the three of you find yourselves in the midst of it all with Empress?

We find ourselves in the middle of a movement in our scene, I feel. There are great bands coming up or have been on a rise in a big way for this type of music recently, as well. But how we found each other in all of it is that we have all been good friends for years. Brenden Gunn (bass) and Chris Doyle (drums) both played in a band called Craters together, beforehand. Chris and I had gone to an Elder show in Seattle. After the show, a light bulb just hit the brain and we knew immediately after experiencing this we had to start the band. Brenden came in, he and Chris named the band, and then a few months later the EP was done.

Photo by Shimon Karmel

You’ve given us a taste of ‘Reminiscence’ already with that vicious first track, “The Offering.” How long has the record been in the works?

The record was actually done about a year-and-a-half ago. Chris had moved to Germany for a year, so we took that time to give it a lot of attention, in terms of where we wanted to go with it, how we wanted it to sound. Chris came back and we were ready to give this thing a shot.

One day, my sister had come to me in high school and said, “Don’t be freaked out, but I have been reading the Satanic Bible.”

Sonically, I have to say, the record couldn’t sound better. I’m not familiar with Bully’s Recording Studio, but excellent job there, and good to see you got Brad Boatright from my neck of the woods with AudioSiege on mastering.

Brad is just the right guy for mastering. His work speaks for itself a lot of the time. Mike Kraushaar, who runs the recording at Bully’s, knew exactly where we were coming from. He is friends with like-minded bands and loves this genre. He killed it.

Loving the album art by Luke Oram. How does it illustrate the vision for these five songs?

With the art, we all talked about a visual concept over a year ago. We had a bunch of artists we liked and pick him over all of them. As for what is has to do for the general concept of what the album is about, they are not actually related. We just wanted this idea out of our heads and it happened to really fit visually.

This week, Doomed & Stoned is debuting the second song, “Immer.” Tell us about it and how it fits in with the scheme of the whole.

“Immer” was named by Chris. It means “always” in German. The title has some significance to us, because Chris had lived there and at the same time I spent a few months learning the language, so it just clicked with us. I believe it was the first song we got together that made us realize, “Okay, we have something special going on here.” Lyrically, it has to do with the concept of underlying the EP, which is self-love and empowerment.

One day, my sister had come to me in high school and said, “Don’t be freaked out, but I have been reading the Satanic Bible.” Initially, I didn’t think much of it. Then we got to talking and I got the whole idea about it from her interpretation. What I took from it was to have love for yourself. I am not a Satanist, but I do agree with the ideal that you need to pursue your interests, show yourself love, and do things that empower you, which will lead you to a path in life you can find satisfaction in. That is what this EP is about.

As I was listening to “Immer” the other day, I swear I heard a flute in the closing minutes of the piece. What am I listening to there?

The closing lead of “Immer” is flooded with high effects. It’s actually just my guitar, a cathedral, and a Strymon TimeLine. I really love Sigur Rós and the whole idea of creating ambient sounds.

You’ve got an album release party coming up here in a few weeks, don’t you? You must be very excited about that.

The show is February 10th and Empress will be playing with Anciients, Astrakhan, and Brass. This is the show Anciients put together before heading to Europe. Astrakhan – very cool guys, very cool music – this is their album release and last show, too. Unfortunately, they’ve decided to hang it up. This is their last banger. Brass are guys we have also known for a very long time. They are a bunch of punk music people, but with a lot of depth lyrically and they are very catchy. We’ll all be playing at the Astoria in Vancouver.

From Vancouver, B.C. it’s BLACK WIZARD with a single that will surely make you want to check out their other recordings.  It’s the vocals, really, that make “Eliminator” stand out from a by-the-numbers classic rock song. A definite win for fans of that timeless doom metal sound!