Review: Admiral Browning - Magic Elixir

Label: Dancing Sasquatch Records

Released: April 2009

So much stoner and doom rock tends to be an exercise in heaviness alone. While that certainly has its place, few people can take the steady bludgeoning that it offers even as it fills that need in all who really love heavy metal for the mind-numbing weight of slow, trudging riffs that take Tony Iommi to the extreme. Sometimes, however, a band offers such crushing power in a more dynamic form that respects the song as well as pushing the limits of the heavy in metal.

Like Kyuss and Clutch before them, Maryland's Admiral Browning is just such band. The five tunes that make up Magic Elixir are quite a ride. Sure, there's the standard downtuned sludgy riffs, but, unlike most of their peers, that's only a small part of what Admiral Browning has in their heavy bad of tricks. Instead of going on ad infinitum, songs will suddenly take off with wild, frenetic energy or slip into spacey, psychedelic ramblings. They even through in some brighter, more colorful progressive hard rock, à la Rush, and it fits with strange perfection in the same song with hard rock freakouts.

The whole album really builds up to "Speaking in Tones," the 13 minute opus that closes the album proper. All the parts, stoner rock, psychedelia, prog, come together into Admiral Browning's unique vision of what heavy metal can and should be when its limits evaporate in the ground zero where they split musical atoms.

The untitled coda is a less structured jam that lets Magic Elixir down easy after an exhilarating ride into what can be. Its vaguely incomplete nature just begs the question, "What's next?"

Ratings
Satriani: 8/10
Zappa: 8/10
Dylan: 8/10
Aretha: 8/10
Overall: 8/10

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If you're curious about my rating categories, read the description.

Review: Clutch - Full Fathom Five (Audio Field Recordings 2007-2008)

Label: Weathermaker Music (distributed by MVD)

Released: September 15, 2008

As a studio band, Clutch has released several of my all-time favorite albums, but those came out a decade or more ago. As a live band, Clutch has never satisfied me. Their dynamic heavy groove that sets them apart from the field of Sabbath and space rock devotees that have popped up over the last 20 years has never been there when I see them in person and that, coupled with how much I've loved some of their albums, has been a tremendous letdown. But Clutch is a weird, wild band that builds on the craziest parts of heavy music, conspiracy theory, history and mysticism, so anything is possible at any time.

The opener, "The Dragonfly," led me to believe the worst about the album. It's hard to imagine that they could turn such a song flat and dull. The rhythms are plodding, the riffs quiet and the vocals out-of-sync. This is just what my live experience had been with the band and I was disappointed that I wasn't wrong. However, things pick up as the album moves along. By the time they get to "Cypress Grove," they've loosened up and the sense that Clutch is just a little bit off their rockers starts to come out in the song's maniacal groove. A few songs later, they tear through a version of "The Yeti" that makes a case to stand beside the studio version of perhaps the best song they ever wrote. The three final tracks, "Mr Shiny Cadillackness," "Electric Worry" and "One Eye Dollar," finish the album in a whirlwind that is one part Baptist minister, one part old blues musician on the street corner al with a heavy presence of their own unique psychedelic monster.

The albums tracks are gathered from four separate shows and the fades between tracks sadly emphasize this. However, it does gather steam as the band loosens up over the course of the album and, unlike just about any other live album compiled from multiple shows, has a real sense of what a show is like, rather than just a bunch of songs played live.

Ratings
Satriani: 7/10
Zappa: 8/10
Dylan: 10/10
Aretha: 7/10
Overall: 8/10

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If you're curious about my rating categories, read the description.

Review: Hackman - The New Normal

Label: Small Stone Records

Released: May 29, 2007

The heavy sludge that is the principle ingredient in Hackman's sound isn't necessarily a hot commodity these days. In order to stand out, bands have to incorporate more than just a love for Black Sabbath and Hackman does just that. The album starts off slow and heavy, but doesn't stay that way. It really opens up with "You Can't Ever Get What You Want," keeping the heaviness, but with a quicker, upbeat rhythm. From there, they dabble a bit in Helmet's post-hardcore rhythms and even touch on the slow end of 80s thrash. The vocals are sparse, but they tend toward a hardcore growl that might be overbearing if they were as dominant as they are on everyone else's albums. Hackman has the good sense to not let the vocals drive their sound, making what might be a weakness into a strength. On top of all this is a space rock freakiness that, though common in the stoner scene, adds yet another dimension. Hackman doesn't cross their genre line, but they at least make it interesting.

Rating: 7/10

Myspace

Review: Tia Carrera - You Are the War 7"

Label: Arclight Records

Released: 2007

Over the course of rock history, "Louie Louie" has been covered countless times. Its simplicity and infectious hook make it an easy task for even the most pedestrian bands. On the other hand, to my knowledge, only one band has covered Lungfish's "You Are the War." There's a few reasons: Lungfish is fairly far outside of the mainstream, "You Are the War" is far from a pop song, and most importantly, how would one go about it? The song is a great example of Lungfish's seething, yet oddly subdued psychedelic art punk. Where to go with a song that already pushes the edges of sanity?

Enter Tia Carrera, a band who's captured the trippy energy of Hendrix and the musical insanity of instrumental Black Flag on other outings. Even for them, "You Are the War" had to be such a challenge. Where could they take it? Well, first, they take the three minute original and expand it to a twelve minute epic (splitting the song over both sides of the 7 inch). Then they take the psychedelic power that churns under the surface to the forefront, rounding off its angular punk edges with waves of fuzzed out guitar and organ. The extended interplay between these two over the thunder of the rhythm section is one of the best excuses not to do drugs. Who needs anything else with a freak-out like this? This is what true psychedelic music should be. This is the trip. And it just keeps going...and going...and going. Even having to flip the record won't break the spell they cast.

If I had any doubts remaining after hearing November Sessions and Heaven/Hell that Tia Carrera was the best heavy psyche act going, this EP, this one song, a cover even, dispels them. Tia Carrera take an almost uncoverable song, shake it free of its moorings and fly off on a new trip.

Rating: 10/10

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Review: Greenleaf - Agents of Ahriman

Label: Small Stone Records

Released: June 11. 2007

Despite all of its tackiness, the 70s seem to have provided quite a well to which bands seem to return again and again, some for a small drink before moving on and others for their very sustenance. Sweden's Greenleaf is among the latter group.

Stoner bands and their 70s hard rock influence may seem to be coming out of the woodwork these days, but while Greenleaf is among them, they stand just enough taller to be worth noting over many of the others. They do tap into the rich riff-laden grooves of early Wishbone Ash and fill out their sound with some heavy organ in the Deep Purple mold. Often the basic but catchy riffs are reminiscent of Ace Frehley. They even have that Zeppelin-like ability to push rather than punch. All of this would only add up to so much though if they were just a mix of the best 70s hard rock had to offer, but Greenleaf offers more. They have filtered the 70s through their own eyes, giving it their younger, hungrier excitement. Unlike their influences, they haven't become big and bloated and they offer a glimpse into perhaps what some of the great rock acts of the 70s were like before they signed their big contracts.

Greenleaf do not go down the road of extensive digital effects that plagues so many bands today. Instead they rely on the rich, full sounds of the old analog equipment. Not only does this tie into their retro leanings, it also helps beef up their sound. Their vintage sound with a youthful energy moves smoothly from bold to subtle and their quieter sections never feel like they're taking a break so much as laying plans for the passages to come. A superficial listen might assume that Greenleaf is merely a revival, but they're actually very much a modern band with an appreciation not for the past as a whole, but for the best the past has to offer.

Rating: 8/10

Myspace

Review: Blue Cheer - What Doesn't Kill You...

Label: Rainman Records

Released: August 21, 2007

Most people probably fall into one of two camps regarding their expectations for Blue Cheer's latest album, What Doesn't Kill You: One group expects this album, featuring 2/3 of the Vincebus Eruptum lineup, to be an amazing return to past form, proving that Blue Cheer is as vital today amongst their stoner rock devotees as they were in 1968. The other group expects this, their first album since 1991 (first in the US since 1984), to be just another in a sporadic run of attempts to relive past glory. The truth is that neither is correct.

What Doesn't Kill You does stick largely to what Blue Cheer always did best, slow, heavy, psychedelic grooves. Their mind-altering power doesn't burn quite as brightly as it once did (although the lyrics imply that it is not for lack of drug use) and by and large the new album takes a bluesier turn without abandoning all of their fuzzed out thunder. The opening track is a bit of a shock initially, sounding as though they had spent some part of the last few years listening to Motorhead, but it turns out to be an anomaly. "Young Lions in Paradise," their take on a rock ballad is the album's only misfire, but even there they achieve some degree of heaviness.

For those expecting Vincebus Eruptum, this album won't measure up, but for those fearing a disaster, this will be more than just a pleasant surprise. Blue Cheer does fail to match their past, but in trying they show why they're still imitated almost 40 years later.

Rating: 7/10

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For another opinion on this one, check out the Heavy Metal Time Machine.

Review: Wooly Mammoth - The Temporary Nature

Label: Underdogma Records

Released: November 28, 2006

With a name like Wooly Mammoth, this band has a lot to live up to. They either have to live up to the name literally as the heaviest of the heavy or ironically as light and fluffy pop. Few will be displeased that they opt for the former even if they don't fully live up to that heaviness.

While I was expecting Wooly Mammoth to take on the extremes of the stoner/doom sub-genre with extended drone jams in the mold of Sleep, they're a much more straightforward band. Like most stoner bands, they have a strong affinity for 70s hard rock, Black Sabbath in particular, and they stay truer to that with heavy riffs and songs that actually move along at a decent clip rather than the experimentalism of their more extreme peers. Occasionally, they drift more into the realm of grunge (a la Louder Than Love-era Soundgarden) which shows that they're rooted more in rock than far out theories. The Temporary Nature does stretch out at times and manages to walk that line between cutting loose and coming unglued, showing it to be both wild and disciplined at the same time.

Wooly Mammoth isn't the band that pushes the limits of heavy music, but without bands that are somewhat grounded, it makes pushing a moot point. On The Temporary Nature, they take heed of the challenges from those who do push without forcing those challenges all at once upon unsuspecting listeners.

Rating: 7/10

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Myspace: Mongrels

Mongrels is a Canadian five piece that is in sense a supergroup of lesser-knowns, drawing members from Tricky Woo, Bionic, Blood Sausage and Local Rabbits (I haven't heard of all of them either). They mix a stoner 70s hard rock influence with garage and soul to create heavy, sludgey grooves for singer Amy Turok's wailing voice. Two drummers add heaviness (almost like multi-tracking a guitar, but more natural) rather than the polyrhythmic approach you'd expect.

"Contemplating the..." moves slowly, but steadily with loose rhythms and mindnumbing riffs. Turok's voice is rich and full with the perfect grittiness and gives the song continuity as it gets heavier and lighter. The garagey soul of "City Living" is almost on par with the MC5, but the chorus is just a little too standard, with a common hook only slightly hidden beneath the rawness of the music. "All in My Head" has some searing guitar riffs without getting complicated. It takes advantage of their dual drummer approach and brings it all together with an upbeat, but soulful chorus that's catchy and anything but average.

Mongrels is like a one band embodiment of late 60s Detroit, bringing heavy garage rock and raw soul together into a near perfect mix. Sure, there are other bands doing this, but few are doing it as well as Mongrels.

Myspace

Review: Tia Carrera - Heaven/Hell EP

Label: Arclight Records

Released: June 12, 2007

Most stoner rock bands love Black Sabbath and Tia Carrera is no different in that respect. What sets them apart, aside from sheer technical prowess and experimental intuition, is that Black Sabbath isn't the primary trick in their bag. They meld Sabbath's heaviness with Hendrix's psychedelic grooves and Greg Ginn's free jazz punk. The result is staggering, showing that all these things, some started 40 years ago, still have plenty of fresh ground to be traveled by a band with a spirit of exploration and map in their head.

Tia Carrera rein in some (though by no means all) of their experimentation on this album, but they don't lack creativity, they simply reap the rewards of past trips to the edge of the stoner universe and boil it down into a more manageable package. For its entire 33 minute ride (which once upon a time would make this an LP, not an EP), the heaviness of Heaven/Hell is never in question. But its not the crushing and dull heaviness of their peers that merely take Sabbath's slow, heavy dirges to an extreme. Tia Carrera moves. They groove. They rock. They bring technical skill that allows them to channel Hendrix in the way it was intended, not the distilled, clean, easy version we hear so often today. They rip it up, to the point that it seems the experiment may go awry and then they bring it back down into the groove again. Like Black Flag at their most musically genre-shattering, they never lose control and the music never feels boxed in. At any moment it could take off on some rambling passage, losing itself in darkness or in light. It's downright exciting.

Tia Carrera are the stoner heirs of Hendrix. They bring more than just a clear appreciation for his catalog to the table though. They bring his spirit, the heaviness of Sabbath, the wild abandon of Ginn and themselves, a force in their own right, to a scene that likely has no idea what hit it.

Oh yeah, there's no vocals, but don't worry, you won't miss 'em.

Rating: 9/10

Website

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Review: Lozen - Enemies Against Power

Label: Australian Cattle God

Released: May 15, 2007

Lozen, a two-piece from Tacoma, Washington, take their name from an female Apache warrior and prophet. The name fits, because the music is simple, making a visceral connection more akin to prophecy than science. Enemies Against Power doesn't rely on complex rhythms or highly technical playing. Instead it sticks to simple riffs and pace changes. The result though is anything but dull.

Over the course of seven tracks that stretch to almost 50 minutes, Justine Valdez's plodding drums drive its meandering pace. Hozoji Matheson's guitar work is heavy, overdriven and often phased for great psychedelic effect. At the emotional peaks, her riffs are reminiscent of Greg Ginn's work on Black Flag instrumentals of the mid-80s, only simplified. The rest of the time she chugs along in the basic, yet moving stoner tradition. Her vocals are rich, but disturbing, occasionally straying into Perry Farrell's twisted trippiness.

The overall effect is a dark, tribal album. It isn't the type of thing that becomes a steady diet, but it will definitely find its times for those of us who need a break from the shiny, happy sheen of pop music.

Rating: 7/10

Lozen Myspace

Review: Tia Carrera - The November Session

Label: Australian Cattle God

Released: September 6, 2005

First and foremost, Tia Carrera is a stoner rock band. This is not the long-dreaded release of Sweet covers by the largely forgotten Wayne's World star. It's a bad name, but that's where the bad stops.

The stoner rock field has gotten fairly crowded over the last ten years and it gets harder and harder for these channelers of Black Sabbath to stand out. I mean, how many different ways can you just be heavy? Not too many and most of those avenues have now been well-traveled. But Tia Carrera has found a new path. They play in the major leagues of loud, yet unlike that of so many of their peers, their music often caresses rather than bludgeons.

Tia Carrera raise the stakes immediately with the brief opening track, "Telepathic Confirmation," channeling the unrestrained feedback-heavy mania of Hendrix. They immediately go all in with "Scenic Oversight." Its textured heaviness of loose but deliberate rhythms and countering bass lines plays host to beautiful delicate leads. At five and a half minutes, it acts almost as an overture for the album, setting the lay of the musical landscape that the band describes in detail over the final three (considerably longer) tracks.

"As She Sleeps" is a psychedelic roller coaster that runs from low-key sludge to unrestrained frenzy and back again with several stops for sensory overload along the way. It finally winds down into what seems like studio noodling rather than a traditional ending. It might seem odd, but this is not the kind of song that wants to do things the "right" way. "Doom" is exactly what the title says. It's another long one, but much more straightforward than its predecessor. Still, the playing is so articulate that the fourteen minutes pass in time that defies the clock.

If the radio was still worth listening to, "J Bankston Manor" would become a late-night FM classic. At almost 34 minutes, it would certainly give the DJ time to do more than just use the facilities (as the old joke about "In-A-Gadda_Da-Vida" goes), but the listener would be lost in its waves of ethereal heaviness. While it doesn't have that heavy hook to latch onto like the Iron Butterfly classic, it certainly has that underlying groove that is punctuated by great musicianship across the board.

Notice that nowhere did I mention the vocals. That's because there are none and no one will miss them. Tia Carrera is so subtly dynamic that I had to go back to be sure I wasn't so wrapped up in the music that I missed the vocals.

There's no shortage of bands that are as heavy as Tia Carrera. Some are even heavier, but none can balance that heaviness with such deceptive delicacy for such a trippy, heady ride. The November Session is still a little too far out to transcend its genre, but it certainly sets a standard for the stoner rock trip (whether you're a stoner or not).

Rating: 8/10

Review: Retro Grave EP

Label: Retro Grave Music

Released: June 15, 2007 (stream is available at mp3.com now)

Retro Grave is Trouble drummer Jeff Oly Olsen's side-project. The five song EP, which should be followed by a full-length release sometime next year, is entirely written and performed by Olsen. Working alone may have some benefits, but likely more drawbacks. This isn't a big departure from Trouble, but does seem somewaht limited by the lack of collaborative effort.

The 12 minute "Pyramus & Thisbe" opens the album. Just due to its length, it seems an odd choice for the first track, but while it is inconsistent, it is varied enough to avoid getting bogged down early. There are plenty of heavy, sludgey guitars as well as some more delicate parts that keep it interesting. It has some cumbersome parts, but isn't nearly the burden that a track of its length could be. "Five Sentences" is a pretty straightforward, medium-paced tune. The riff is solid but not all that interesting and the song breaks down a bit in the middle as if Olsen wanted to break things up, but wasn't sure how. "Utopiotomy" is a step back in the right direction with heavy Sabbath riffs. Olsen makes up for his vocal shortcomings by speaking more than singing and adding a creepy flange effect. The song finishes with a manic, noisey crescendo which helps make it the album's strongest track. The simple organ intro of "Birth Death/Retro Grave" slowly mixes with more guitar heaviness and then spoken vocals. Everything but the vocal drops out by the end of the song's first part. It's not great stuff, but passable as an intro into the rest of the song. The song itself makes up for the intro with throbbing riffs over a string part that adds nicely to the doom effect. The EP finishes up with perhaps its most macabre piece, the droning "Stone Head" which finds Olsen repeating the title over and over, oddly reminiscent of "redrum" from the Shining.

All in all, this EP is a bit disappointing considering the expectations raised by Trouble's output over the years. It is clear that Olsen's preference is percussion, because the drums are significantly tighter than everything else. The vocals are often flat and the guitar work, while usually adequate, never really shines. The production is poor which doesn't help bring the album together. Still, Olsen does hit stride often enough to make this a worhwhile listen for doom fans.

Rating: 5/10

Review: Clutch - From Beale Street to Oblivion

Label: DRT Entertainment

Released: March 20, 2007

Admittedly, I haven't spent much time with any Clutch release since Elephant Riders. It's partly due to the disappointment of their live shows after the expectations raised by two albums that ranked #1 and #3 on my best albums of the 90s (Clutch and Elephant Riders respectively) and it's partly due to the fact that nothing since has grabbed me the way those two albums did. However, I still think I understand what makes them a good band and t hasn't really changed in the last 10 years. They're heavy, but not just another Black Sabbath ripoff, they always find a good groove despite their heaviness and they have a great quirky touch of psychedelia. The problem might be simply that they perfected it by their second album, so it eventually wore a bit thin.

From Beale Street to Oblivion is a bit of a departure for them, but instead of getting even further out there, they decide to return to earth in a sense. This has to be their most straightforward album ever. Unfortunately, it's also their dullest. The album has almost no texture. My first impression was that they must've spent a lot of time listening to ZZ Top and Foghat while writing this one. With few exceptions, that impression didn't change as the album played on. Where Clutch was once influenced by a lot of 70s hard rock, they now sound like a 70s hard rock tribute band. They do mix in a little bit of soul on "Devil & Me" which works well, but they don't build on that at all. The album immediately returns to the status quo. Only on the closer, "Mr. Shiny Cadilackness," does anything waver from the dull road this album drives, once again with a nice touch of gospel and soul.

From Beale Street to Oblivion is listenable, but uneventful. It's hard to believe this is the same band from 10 years ago.

Rating: 5/10