MORNING STAR CONFEDERACY Presents:
THE DOPETHRONE
WITH YOUR HOST: LA SERPIENTE
*Reppin' tha THIRD WORLD HESHERCORE, 2K3!!! We all hail the new heavy-ness, for this is THE DOPE THRONE and you know that you are diggin' it like whoa! the reviews are helluv dated but it still owns your ass! Welcome to action!*
"sum dope-ass shiznit yo! Fo Shizzle My Nizzle!Communication would be awesomenesstown! la_serpiente666@yahoo.com
Send letters and "goods" to:
Fletcher Vargas
33 Narra St. Unit 4E
Project 3, QC Philippines 1102
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GOATSNAKE "Flower of Disease" cd
Rise Above Records / Man's Ruin, 2000
The deal: premium doom stoner rock goodness
What's it like: BLACK SABBATH starts a buggy-ridin' desert cult
I said, "Gather 'round the bong, resin children, for we shall bear witness to the greatness that is Goatsnake." You shall find me surrounded by sweet-smelling stonerchicks, all pretty and warm and lava-licious! Them angels long to savor the good ol' lovin' of The Serpent. Ha! Welcome to love! Shall we all rise?, like we dwell in high-rise structures all modern and hedonistic. Right in our heads we will grow wings like cherubs that we are. Body-less and flying, real angelwings we use like it's everyday life. Stopping just to say "wow!". Now where am I?
Marvel the power of the *high* and all-mighty doomriders collectively known as Goatsnake. They have come from sunny California to take over the entire Earth with their mixture of desert stoner harmonies and VITUS-style doom sound, and they do it so perfectly. Experience the wicked awesome, now! So beautiful like SABBATH. Goatsnake have laid the benchmark to which doom and stoner bands are now measured. The follow-up to their 1999 debut full length "I", the "Dog Days" 7-inch, and the split cd with sludgelords BURNING WITCH, "Flower of Disease" is the second full-length and the latest effort to date by these Los Angelinos.
The 'Snake boasts such pedigree, that we could call it an all-star line-up basically. Singer Pete Stahl did singin' chores for DC punk luminaries SCREAM, before moving west to form WOOL. But this time around, he sings such mad beauty! Drummer Greg Rogers used to pound skins for Wino's biker doom outfit, THE OBSESSED. Guitarist Greg Anderson, mighty lord of the Sunn sound, graced such bands as doomsters THORR'S HAMMER, and rocknroll emo-core kids ENGINE KID with his super-thick, and all-warm Sunn guitars! They have since recruited G.Stuart Dahlquist, the person that gives BURNING WITCH it's gargantuan-dense sludge bass parts, from this recording and for the years to come. Now I say, I dare ya top that resume!
They will show you the perfect merging of the stoner plus the doom sound. Guitar sounds just fucking soar like mad crazy. It's not just your ordinary guitars, for it is the Sunn guitar sound courtesy of Sunn-child Greg Anderson, and it will make us travel. Travelling across the desert, to distant lands, like an astral ostrich from unusual planets, man.
From the opening fuzz of the first, title track, it does tell you to welcome the doom into our lives. "Welcome desert doom!" True-ly one of the groovy-est and rockin'-est riffs I've ever heard in 23 years of my entire life. Powers of doom just plain reverberates in full glow, add on some harmonica parts to that, and what do we have? Blues-based madness reigning! It goes all through the second track, "Prayer for the Dying". Mad beautiful, you could really sing, Mr. Stahl! Kimmi says "SABBATH!",I stopped to stare at her. Then I agreed, "yup".
Could not help but smile at the song title of "Easy Greasy". Smile like sweet elves, stonerchicks! As this song starts off with a mouth harp! Yes, it is a Jew's harp if you want to put it. Like indigenous rituals of the Philippine North so wonderful. It progresses to sludgey VITUS doom at the end. It's all fuzzy dry. Like a dry desert soakin' up rain... soakin' up sun. Not a weak song in this here album, everything is mad excellent and top-notch. But here comes my personal fave, "El Coyote"! Listen to it and you will know why. Starts off with slow-ass harmonica blues so swampy it takes us to Cajun county. It will be your fave too, cause it all goes onward to heavy-ass KYUSS boogie groovin'. 7th track, "Live to Die" continues the swamp-boogie onslaught of "El Coyote" because it has the harmonica parts we all love, and the guitar riffage of such mad KYUSS-like groovy-ness. Shall we ride our buggy to the dunes? Under the desert skies? Ride my buggy for the love is rampant, yeah!
Do you crave for the slow and massive? Hold on tight to your elephant bells, 'cause "The Dealer" bludgeons you with sludge, plus real singing, that SLOW HORSE comes to mind. The Sunn sound rattles our brains, and reverberates mad in our dry throats. Now listen to this and you will finally understand what the Sunn sounds like, warm and dry but most of all unusually heavy, before it goes to full-on VITUS dementia as the song ends.
"A Truckload of Mamma's Muffins" starts groovin' a little, but it's all onward to full-on sludge freakdom, complete with feedbacks. You could say that the last track called "The River" is a prelude to the sludge-madness of their split cd w/ BURNING WITCH. Sunn fuzz overload so mad thick. Feel the danger in this trip-out doom epic! Violinist Petra Haden of L.A. indierockers THAT DOG guests in this song, but we are left to wonder our tripped-out minds if she's wailin' or playin' violin! Scary!
Too much heavy-ness abound, some lurking in the dark recesses of the mind. Plus the downright groovy-ness all throughout sure brings another awesome band ELECTRIC WIZARD to mind. I say everyone into real rock n' roll should own this release. This album was released last 2000, but this is already a fucking classic! For real.
After your fifth hit of that sticky-ass Baguio Gold, you could just stare and wonder like a resin beast you are, how could anyone be so inhuman-ly heavy, yet groovin' at the same time? Wickedness absolute!
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GOATSNAKE/ BURNING WITCH split cd
Hydrahead Recordings, 2000
The deal: GOATSNAKE - doing their sludge trip with creepy doom singin'.
BURNING WITCH - ultra-slow mind-altering sludge structured to test your patience,
unlike anything on Earth or beyond!
What's it like: like one long-ass album with ST. VITUS on morphine + Middle Earth doomride + a molasses tsunami
+ witch inquisitions = this remarkable split cd!
Part 1
"A secret turning in us makes the universe turn.
Head unaware of feet, and feet head.
Neither cares. They keep turning."
- Rumi
Inside your head whispers to you, "Oh no!", as every body bows down and pays homage to the soil. Intense astral journey beneath the core of planets, purely atomic sub-terranean worlds. Oh, welcome the new heavy-ness of such planets! Please do not try this at home, kids. For convenience is far-flung, I'm tellin' ya.
If you are a novice to the glory that is Goatsnake, please do not start with this here split, as they come down on a full sludge trip. Startin' off with "Raw Curtains", their harmonies make you savor the sadness in your life. Memories of mainline morphine, starvation, anguish and tears running dry. As blood replaces it in your eyes. The VITUS masterpiece, "Burial at Sea" is the total coven doom trip-out. Mr. Stahl sings here like he's tryin' to be a scary NWOBHM dude, it's mad fun! He goes singin' again then it's high time for the mid-tempo doomride parts, wardrums drippin' all over. This is the soundtrack to a Middle Earth doomride, as the blackmetal doomriders from Mount Doom are maraudin' towns searchin' for Hobbits to hunt! Run, Frodo, run!
The 'Snake hymns may sound way different from their "real" sound, but reality seems a non-existent concept in this album's entirety.
Hold your horses n' hoez, my dear friend. We have come to the real gem in this split. Along comes the monolith known to humankind as Burning Witch, for the grand finals. First-prize methods of powerthrill! Let us take a short lapse for a little while, and welcome a mystic dance ritual!
Sometime in the 13th century BCE, somewhere in Turkey, a great philosopher named Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi founded the Sufi sect of Mevlevi, along with it the dance ritual known as the Sema, or the Whirling Dervish Dance. The Sema is the ultimate ancient ritual trip, man. Dervish dancers rotate in a presice rhythm. These dudes go round and round until they trip!
The Dervish dancer silently perform the Sema, making small, controlled movements of hands, head and arms as he whirls. He represents Earth, revolving on its axis while orbiting the Sunn 0))). The ritual is accompanied by music, often dominated by the haunting sound of the reed pipe or "Ney", as well as drums and chanting as the ritual gradually transforms itself into rapid, spinning ecstasy. They do believe that when they go on a trance they stand between the Earth and other astral planets. During the whirling, their souls are released from all Earth-ly ties, and are able to commune with the divine. Now how trippy could that be! And it is quite possible that prior to the whirling, another ritual is performed. A sacred Charas ritual!
Then all of a sudden your life halts and you're left wondering, "You are one whacked-out bastard, Fletcher. What's this lecture about whirling dervish stuff? What has this got to do with the music of Burning Witch?"
Am partly annoyed from your persistent queries, 'cause you have just interrupted me from my own sacred Charas ritual. Thank you very much, Mister Roboto!!! But hell, I sure decided to keep my cool, dropped the bowl, and said "Relax, gringo. It has something to do with Burning Witch."
Part 2
My mind leaves Earth after a couple hits. Purple color blots slowly appear in the background. Yes, the gift of the lava lamp godz. Onward to Ottoman hashish paradise, I sub-consciously cry out, "Entheogenic!". Whoa, big word alert! Indeed, the music of Burning Witch is such. Like the Whirling Dervish ritual, it is transcendental at best. To call Burning Witch slow and heavy is such an understatement. It's trans-dimensional sludge so slow, it sure goes against the elements, and the confines of what is real. Total negligence of the space/ time continuum. So hypnotic, it will make you experience the divine. Your life will never be the same again! Sludge as fuck!
You heard that right, my friends. Entheogenic. Drug-induced transcendence! Let us look further deep into sound sculptures of the Witch. Notice that I used the word sculptures, because it is appropriate. You could touch the sounds like obelisk! Density is reigning mad thick-ness!
This is the first recording of Burning Witch that I've heard all my life. I think they have made the slowest, heaviest riffs ever known to humankind. Close contenders are EARTH (from America, with ultra-sludge albums like Extra-Capsular Extractions), and Japan's BORIS. I have yet to hear SUNN 0))), an all-star ambient/ drone/ sludge project from them boys of the 'Snake and the 'Witch. (Southern Lord, wink wink!)
Now, where were we? Yeah, the 'Witch manages to lay down their sound sculptures in sub-sonic frequency. And sub-sonic sounds are powerful enough to put you in a trance. Science-fiction hypnosis! They bring to you riffs heavier beyond mortal comprehension. It will punish your very being by repetition. It repeats, and goes around and around like a Dervish. It then progresses into a droning, hypnotic, ambient entity. As this wall of drone was joined by Edgy59's anguished screams.
He shrieks in a true kult blackmetal voice, like a real burning witch, spewing curses as he smolders at the stake.
Marvel the battle drums, the the gargantuan bass, and the aural textures of Sunn, all in odd-time signatures! Plus random screams and cries of lost hope and unfulfilled desires. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to sound architecture!
Could you still take it? The Witch is comin' down fast and merciless. It subjects the listener to a series of tortures, as well as pleasures. This is beyond the duality of good vs. evil. This is beyond comprehension. This is beyond tolerance! This drains the listener. Everyone's grasp of the senses is at risk. Sense deprivation that brings forth altered states and realities. Like the Whirling Dervish!
What is the motive for their punishment? I say maybe this esoteric ritual of Burning Witch is their reaction and critique of the present society. A modern consumerist society with ultra-short attention spans. A society unable to endure sludge! Ha!
If you're lucky enough to have survived listening to the entire album, you will ask, "What have we gained?". I laugh straight and say, "Nothing". It's all about the process, man. Ahoy, ahoy, the soil is calling your name! Ha!
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CAVITY
"Somewhere Between the Train Station...And the Dumping Grounds"
Rhetoric Records, 1997
The Deal: stoner sludge from Florida
What's it like: EYEHATEGOD jammimg with CREAM in a hashish den!
"Welcome to Miami!", but it's far from what your tropical dreams are made of, fool! The Florida hashcult known as CAVITY lays down their pure love, and pure hate anthems, never losing that stoned-out riffage. Them kids sure do smile from ear to ear, out of the sheer "beauty" this album brings. This here album surely made the Hydra kids sport an ecstatic grin beaming off their young Hydra heads. Never do they cross your arithmetic harmonies to be "true-ly" Hydra, nor do they come off as art school hard/core (?) to be the new foster children of the Gravity family. They will never do that for you, or themselves for that matter. For that I would say "how sweet of you CAVITY boys!". Very sweet indeed.
Right from the concept of the cover art, you're damn well sure that it's all going to be just love-ly. They've got this Ennio Morricone spaghetti-western theme, that takes you far away from yourself to the vastness of a sunbaked desert somewhere
down Arizona, as cacti watch you pass by, vultures wish you pass-out. Marvel at the minimalistic pop-art/ stoner colors of the cover, as you compliment your own self for having it on vinyl you lucky bastard. But don't you trip-out on it 'cause it's just that, minimal. The best is yet to come.
From the opening basslines of "Going Ann Arbor", you know that you're going to be a special witness to one long, slow, devastatingly thick flood of molasses that simply destroys everything in it's path, like a true molasses flood. Like the way sludge is supposed to be. But it is far from plain monotonous brutality because you know that's lame, and CAVITY is not. They are stoner rocker dudes, for crying out loud!
And that means that never will they forget to groove-down their booty, rockin' out 70's-style grooves underneath the thick wall of
sludge sound. Never shall you neglect the groove, I tell ya. Sludge youth of earth take oath to the bong and classic bands. "Oath!"
They know how to rock, and you're sure that they listen to CREAM and JAMES GANG lp's, in a smokey-ass wood-paneled basement somewhere in humid Miami. The said song starts off with the downtuned groovey-ass basslines so low (and so heavy like the soil you stand on), it will surely make you sink, but then the fuzz sets in, and you tell yourself that it's the aural version of heat, humidity and starvation. Add emotional turmoil to that because the dude's trip is misanthropic, he screams his remaining life outta his larynx like the guy from DYSTOPIA! (specially in this song and "One Last Broken" ).
Did I ever mention feedback? I guess not just yet. From the end of the first song up to the entire second and third songs, and it just starts from there, you realize that they control feedback like it's music! Like their mentor is Mr.Piciotto. We are talking about controlling feedback here. "Intro Number 2" is the doomy guitar instro that will drive you shouting "I am Iron Man!!!".
"Open Transom" starts off like your typical sludgecore deal but at the end we all shall marvel the ritual drums, then pause for their foray of blues-based guitar solos like it's a total Nola happening. Boogie down the bayou, boys and girls!
This music undoubtedly brings to mind sludge pioneers EYEHATEGOD, WINTER, and GRIEF, but still manages to sound original, carrying the torch to regions uncharted. Drones and feedbacks abound here and there like that of HEROIN or MOSS ICON, but don't be fooled so easily 'cause there is no denying that they have got the Southern sludge deal going-on in full swing, y'all!
An album of epic proportions, the density is rampant, made to test your patience and perseverance. You just have to sit still for concentration is vital, your mind soaked in hash oil and ruminating love/ hate being taken and given as you experience the full-on SABBATH freakdom. It's all about the process. It gets faster at times, but do you know what faster means in the sludge world? Don't ask. You'll also hear a man crying, maybe from emotional pain, or physical, or both. He screams, "Help me!!!", but from what, we dare ask? True-ly one of the greatest sludge albums ever recorded on earth. Savor the SABBATH-ness of it all!
Do you know the 1969 movie "Midnight Cowboy"? Where right in the ending scene, Jon Voight takes a long bus ride with a dying Dustin Hoffman down south to Miami? This is the unheard soundtrack to that film, that scene in particular. If you've had seen the film you know what I'm talkin' about, boy.
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(blonde gnome in action!)
KILARA
"The Funeral Fix" cd
Rhetoric Records, 1997
The Deal: Southern-fried sludge metal
What's it like: Bastard sons of SKYNYRD, doing the evil sludge metal trip.
Ladies and gentlemen, we've got ourselves a winner right here! True-ly the bastard sons of the South these boys are, they are coming down fast like all hell, because they are the LYNYRD SKYNYRD of the d.i.y. sludge set! They could not help but rule the land they're standing on, because they were born and raised south of the Mason-Dixon line!!! Richmond Virginia by the grace of "God"! Where bands just rock harder like it's the way things really are, like it's a fucking oath!
Feedback welcomes the mind, like bong hits and whiskey shots. Are you in for the ride, boy? Take a taste of my fix, and it will be your fix. Savor it while it lasts, for this is The Funeral Fix. As this says South all over, you know it's going to be one hell of a ride. A genuine hell ride! As it takes over like an actual spirit possesion, these boys let you enjoy every second of your nod with a blues-based Southern jam,"3rd Eye" complete with "1,2,3,4!". Don't you just love songs with slow counting, it's so anthem-like in its own right! Then, never letting up, they follow it up with "Growin-up", a song akin to that of Down ("Lifer"). From then the transition leads to "Succubus" like it's being done by EYEHATEGOD, SABBATH-riffs abound but, the whole song is going right the whole deathmetal direction, and then little do you expect, it shifts. Evilcore seeps in but not quite.
Heartbeat and soundclips off "Threefold" remind me of DAMAD for some odd reason, before it assaults you once again with blues-based guitar heavy-ness, Southern Badass Trucker choruses alternating with this blackmetal-like hissing screaming!!! I think the dude doing the blackmetal trip is the pale skinny guy with blond hair. I saw a pic of KILARA off Slug and Lettuce showing that dude just fucking going off screaming, blond locks flowing straight, glorious like a Scandinavian hero, like a blond human gnome, so pale and beautiful. Still screaming, the blackmetal happening in full effect, Blond Gnome rocks it out with Badass Trucker in "Travels of a Handgun", the badassery is so rampant, you could smell the sourmash in their breath! You damn well should thank the Horned Lord for they sound far from Victory metalcore bands, for never did I found evilcore, and modern metal hardcore, interesting.
Just when "Test Meat Sick"begins, awareness sets in that it will be the dawn of the Blond Gnome rising fast to superstardom, hissing, screaming blackmetal curses from the Southland, to the whole of the United States, and maybe the world. He puts a curse of pestilence to the stupid-ass nu-metal kornkids, as never will they clue in, ever, what true metal really is. Blond Gnome, put a curse of bleeding eyes to millions of nu-metal kornkids, special delivery curses to the lymp byzkyt Filipino kids, and the slipnuts of Bangkok, for they never clued-in at the first place! oh, welcome to horror!
May the "Lord" have mercy on this here land, for I hear ritual drums against controlled feedback in the song "Dreaming", then enter the evil metal solos, as Badass Trucker shouts "Divine Inspiration!!!". Like a ritual you will hear them say chant-like, "Awaken by the angels!, and Trucker goes "Awaken by the demons", and I go, "How badass can this album get?!" Full-on Dixieland mayhem!
The last song, "Nightingale" comes off real glorious, all scorching and desert-rockin', with it's KYUSS-like fuzz guitar riffage, complete with stoner bass solos. You could just feel the fuzz sound as it fuzzes your baked brain warm, and itches in your cranium,, like what KYUSS always do to me.I got to say this, you know this is the perfect soundtrack to the Sam Raimi film,
"The Gift". The film is shot entirely in the good ol' South, and it's hella disturbing to say the least.
They've got this bonus "song' which is like blues guitar trip-hop, like it was being done in someone's porch. It's this song about crack, with this guy all Ebonic-trippin', shows dem KILARA boyz gotz some sense of humor. Reprazent, yo! Word!
Revalations: The over-all feel "The Funeral Fix" brings forth is that of hope, inspiration, and loving life. Maybe because they're from RVA, but i could not explain why do i feel the same beautiful feeling from Richmond bands, as I myself have never been to Richmond. I feel the same atmosphere of inspiration like when I listen to ANN BERETTA, and AVAIL. This was not pre-meditated as I have no idea first where KILARA comes from. The feeling dawned on me all magic-like, then it turns out
Erik Larson was KILARA's drummer! (Check out an interview with ALABAMA THUNERPUSSY somewhere in this issue!)
The band broke up 1998, and released a discography of singles in a cd precisely titled, "Southern Fried Metal", released through Crimethinc, but they're far from going DeBord on your ass! They've called it a day. Thank you very much, Kilara!
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ACID BATH
"When the Kite String Pops" cd
Rotten Records, 1994
The Deal: superb doom, stoner, but death and various styles make it feel like a comp.
What it's like: early 90's metal comp.
The first effort from Lousiana's ACID BATH. Surprise abounds, as John Wayne Gacy's art-brut painting of his own alter-ego Pogo the clown graces the album cover, like paintings you may find at thrift stores, like that kid back in highschool whom nobody talks to, hunting his next victim. All creepy and horrible and repressed. Like a true clown. Only a band as sick as Acid Bath will use such artwork, fully authorized, by good ol' Johnny Boy.
The fuzz and wah-wah are "go!" in "The Blue" and "Tranquilized", you'll be thinkin' the super righteous sounds comin' down fast outta your stereo. Beat-up pawnshop Gibsons played with such passion, riffs thick and dense coming outta tube amps like it's 1972! Drugged-out sounds of SABBATH takes you to worlds unfamiliar. Onward straight, onward to genuine reefer madness! I hear hints of TROUBLE and VITUS! Wino are you there?
The album disappoints a little as it tends to feel like a compilation album. The other songs don't hold any theme, it tends to veer from the stoner doom sound structure.The third song, "Cheap Vodka" comes off full-on death/ thrash, which without surprise they were pretty good doing. Then all goes back to CATHEDRAL-like doom-ness in the fourth song. This time some guitar sounds are modern, but evil. Listen the evil modern! Dark clouds loom overhead because this is the total coven doom happening!, ritual chants abound you would not believe it's for real. Hella scary sounds to trip to, I tell ya. Smoke a bowl for Satan, y'all!
Please do marvel at the whole "Scream of the Butterfly", for it is already a stoner folk classic. Invoking the ghosts of The Byrds, Mountain, and a thousand Celtic troubadours. It comes down so epic-like and beautiful and mellow. Taste the celtic psychedelic, children.
Some songs come right down to that doom blackmetal trip. Still slow and nice and top-notch, with added gnome sounds to boot. Just you wait for trippy-ass feedback part with poetry and soundclips of humans, and gnome-like human sounds. From there it's all blastbeats and power metal trip. Dare I say, traces of NWOBHM! Or did I just smoked a good kind? Rock n' roll is now! Epic like bands of old. Feel the snow.
Then the album just drags and comes off monotonous with the riffs. Guitars go on a Celtic trip once again in the next acoustic track, like John Blackmore dancing with gnomes and elves and faeries atop towers of various forts and castles. Majestic astral palace. The sweet smile of elves!
If you're not into the fast death/ thrash trip, you should just be taking the stoner doom sounds from this album and "Paegan..." to make a mix tape/cd for better enjoyment. So it will be one long, dark, psychedelic ride for you and your loved ones. Glorious!
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xAcidBathx
ACID BATH
"Paegan Terrorism Tactics" cd
Rotten Records, 1996
The Deal: downer doom rock with brilliant lyrics
What's it like: BLACK SABBATH doing Santeria rituals down the bayou!
How could anyone go wrong with songtiltles like "Bleed Me An Ocean", "Graveflower", and "Locust Spawning", I now ask you? Acid Bath delivers their downright home-cooked doom goodness, like a double hit of windowpane, like what your lysergic nightmares are made of, scary but beautiful at the same time. This is the second and unfortunately, last release from these Southern voodoo doomsters. These Lousiana outfit sure brings forth thick heavy doom metal with a strong dose of 70's psychedelia shot mainline, right through the veins because "You scream, I scream, Everybody scream for morphine!"
An image ot a goat's skull, or that of an ibex, graces the cd like there will be a bayou cult ritual. Welcome the adventure.
Life is halted, as white rabbits with angel wings enter the scene. White rabbits like those of Joe Preston, but holy mother they do possess wings like those of angels as they radiate total doom, so paint the hallways and porches with whiteout, "for he is raised".
Who is he, we ask? It is Jesus, I tell ya. Never will you fool me. Raise, Jesus, raise out of easter eggs like larvae from larva-lamps! A trippy-ass painting done by none other than Doctor Death himself, Dr. Jack Kevorkian! Cult of death abound! Unholy drug suicide!
The riffage from the starting "Paegan Love Song" reminds you so much of DOWN as you hear the growlin', but then the guy shifts to singin' as he states, "dying felt so goddamned good today", it leads their music down SABBATH/ CATHEDRAL territory. And I see nothing but the cemetary scene right off "Easy Rider" (1969), their sun-bursted heads beaming off in heavy psychedelic glory. Oh, the doom! Like the cold-ness of that New Orleans graveyard, as doomriders trip on mescaline and bad acid, trippin' with hoez like it's nobody's business! And boy, their singer's, when he really sings, is one of the most beautiful voices I've had a chance hearing. All I could say is "Don't you just love the singin'?" It's got its Anselmo parts, but you just have to hear the singin' for that guy could actually sing! You just don't know how much atmosphere this song brings! And just how many times would you come across a song with lines like, "trippin' on real blood in strange sunshine"?
"Bleed Me An Ocean" plain rocks out with the best of them. Total crushing doom! "Can you feel the cold death that rides along your spine?" You witness your hazy memories of THE OBSESSED! Take your hog to deathride, superheavy snakeriders! They do trip on the slow creeping sounds in full stereo. Oh no! Guest appearance blackmetal voice enters, and it's all good and gnome-like!, just when the song progresses to a bayou-boogie you could make sweet lovin' to. Kimmi hears this song and she then, gives me her sweet and warm lovin'! I made love to her like crazy, like it's goin' outta style! For I am totally crazy about this girl. Amazing and warm and astral, this Asian godess is such! Pure ritual!
Test your patience to "Graveflower" for it drags like FLIPPER on Nyquil with Lee Dorrian singin'. Some songs you just catch them doin' their PANTERA trip in full-effect!, with some singin' here and there, blues-based riffs abound so you know it's still a-rockin', keepin' the songs from stagnation. I just could not dig at all, when they go on their deathmetal/ thrash trip.They do it with greatness, but a total disappointment they have to put fast death/ thrash in this here album. I frown . There's even this total fast thrash song with this alternating thrash, blackmetal, and doom vocals! (songs 9 and 10) Nu-metal shit retards never stand a chance to Southern hell children of swamps! Total headfuck!
The very last song is all glorious. Earth organic like acoustic guitars made of cedar! Welcome gloom and grey clouds! Welcome soil and timbers! Transmissions taking you from muddy swamps to the backwoods somewhere in Oregon, or Olympia or Aberdeen, like bong children of the Pacific Northwest! They dubbed it grunge I tell ya, and it used to be special. Stoner youth cult special, the warm Jerry Cantrell guitar mellow-out! Watch out for that thulsa-like poetry after 16 minutes called "Agents of Oblivion", also the name of the band formed out of Acid Bath's ashes. Other members went on their endeavors in GOATWHORE and CROWBAR.
There is only so much grief, tragedy, and agony one can get to handle. This is for real! Drug abuse the Southern tradition! You shall bear witness to so much doom! Savour the cajun satanic!
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commin' up: new reviews for the stoner youth! word.
