So I have a good news/bad news story involving Krallice. The good news is that they have released a new EP Orphan of Sickness and it’s free. The bad news it’s a result of them loosing a friend – Brendan Majewski of Brooklyn’s Orphan.
As a tribute to Brendan, Krallice has recorded covers of three Orphan songs and bundled them up as this free EP. Have a listen to “Boat Driver” below or just get to the goods and download the whole EP.
Post a CommentKrallice “Boat Driver” (MP3 4:50)
I’m usually pretty good at discovering new music. But every once and a while something really great will fly under the radar. Eventually I wise up and regret taking so long to get on board. But sometimes my late arrival can be a blessing in disguise. Specifically when the band I just discovered has an extensive back catalogue waiting for me to devour.
This is exactly what happened to me this past spring with Ontario’s Woods of Ypres. After reading a review of Woods IV: The Green Album, I got myself a copy and have been obsessed with the album ever since. Seriously – I can`t stop listening to it. Obviously I was pretty stoked to find out the band had an EP and two other full lengths waiting for me to get my mitts on.
I listen to plenty of black metal and doom, both of which you will clearly hear in Woods of Ypres’ songs. Yet they somehow manage to pull from these and other genres in ways that feel familiar and foreign all at once. You may recognize the sombreness of Type of Negative by times, or even a little Acid Bath infused sludge surfacing on a track like “Suicide Cargo Load (Drag That Weight)”. Both of which are pluses in my book. However, they also draw from other styles of music that are far from heavy rotation in my house and turn them into songs that I can`t stop playing. Consider my horizons expanded.
Just when I thought I had tracked down everything the band had released to date, I was pleasantly surprised to find out the well was not dry. Two tracks – “Falling Apart” and “You Were the Light” were released as a 7” titled Home last year.
Both are available to download on Woods of Ypres’ Bandcamp page for a dollar each and there are still copies of the actual 7” available – which is green and beer colored clear vinyl and limited to 500. The artwork for the 7” was done by Fursy Teyssier, whose work you will be familiar with if you saw my top 10 album covers of 2010. Specifically he did the art for Écailles De Lune by Alcest and .neon by Lantlôs.
Want your own copy? Info on how to order the Home 7”, along with some more details on the making of it can be found here.
The new Akimbo shirt is pretty much the best thing I have ever seen. Buy one for your mom at ShirtKiller.com now.
Post a CommentSo here we are, halfway into 2011 and Kylesa‘s Spiral Shadow is still in heavy rotation in my house, car, iPod or pretty much any device capable of playing audio. What doesn’t seem like such a complex listen at first, just keeps growing on me and revealing new layers yet to be discovered.
The band didn’t completely reinvent themselves or suddenly come into their own. They just improved on what they already did well and added some subtle new flourishes. Nothing more, nothing less. Sometimes that’s all it takes.
If you haven’t checked out Spiral Shadow yet, you would be hard pressed to make better use of your time and money. Support good music.
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I’ve always dug those photos showing the tip of an iceberg along with it’s huge base submerged under water. So it’s not surprising that I was really impressed when I saw the cover for Hisingen Blues by Swedish time travelers Graveyard.
Drummer Axel Sjöberg had this to say about the design of the cover in a recent interview:
“It’s a friend of ours who plays bass in a band from Gothenburg too called Bombus, but he also works as a graphic designer. It was when we were doing press pictures for promotion and we were after something different. We had seen the work he had done for his own band which was amazing stuff. So we took some photos in front of a green screen as he had a loose idea and then he went to work. Then when we saw the first draft, we were like “this has to be the cover”. He is a great guy, with a great imagination and he gets what we are about so he is able to display Graveyard in a good way.”
I guess the green screen explains how they got on the log. But where exactly they are going has yet to be determined. My assumption is the 1970′s.
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To be honest, I was impressed enough that Graf Orlock titled their latest EP Doombox. But then they had to go all arts and crafts on us put the damn thing out in an actual boombox. Well, a cardboard boombox. But who the hell cares? It’s still in a boombox. Check out the photo above to see the packaging fully folded out/assembled, then scrolls down to see the pre-assembly version:
No idea how complicated the instructions are. But with parental supervision, it should be a pretty easy build.
Also, in addition to looking handsome, Doombox comes with 6 new songs on 10″ and CD, along with a separate CD containing all three of their previous releases. You left five minutes ago to go buy this, right?
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Edit: I originally posted Black Breath’s video for “Unholy Virgin”. However I decided that I didn’t really like looking at their unholy virgin that much. So if you want to see that, go here.
Anyway, back to what I was originally talking about, which is they finished recording a new album. Something that is certainly worth posting about. So good news for us, bad news for anyone else putting out an album in 2011. Here’s what they had to say:
“We just finished tracking a new LP that will be released later this year on Southern Lord Records and are playing some more U.S. dates this month. Come July we will be heading overseas to do a European tour, dates of which will be announced soon. Bang on..” – BlackBreath.com
Contender for top album of the year? Yes. Most anticipated album of the year? Definitely.
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I don’t know much about Venetian Snares so there’s no history lesson here. But the long and the short of it, is a 10″ titled Sabbath Dubs was released by VS under the alias Snares. Sabbath Dubs consists of dub remixes of “Electric Funeral” and “Black Sabbath” by Tony Iommi and company. Enough reading. You need to hear this now.
Post a CommentSnares – “Electric Funeral” (MP3 – 5:01)
Just in case you weren’t there, Kylesa was amazing when they played in Halifax this fall. One of the best live shows I’ve seen in years.
Their latest, Spiral Shadow was number three on my top 20 list of 2010 and is still getting serious airplay around these parts. Highly recommended stuff. Go gets some now.
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I saw Queens of the Stone Age once. It was a great show, however it paled in comparison to what I saw just a mere two hours later that same evening. A local band called the Broken Ohms played a full set of Kyuss covers. Yeah, that’s right. Covers. And it blew my mind. As far as I was concerned, I was seeing Kyuss. The switch in my brain flicked off and all that mattered was these dudes in front of me were playing “Supa Scoopa & Mighty Scoop” and I was there. Pure magic, plain and simple.
So what could possibly trump that? How about three quarters of the original Kyuss line-up reforming?
John Garcia, Brant Bjork and Nick Oliveri, along with newcomer Bruno Fevery have resurrected Kyuss under the moniker Kyuss Lives. The band has a string of tour dates already lined up and have even hinted at the possibility of new music. Obviously the one missing piece of the puzzle would be Kyuss/QOTSA guitarist Josh Homme, which would be the reason for not rolling things out under the official Kyuss name. John Garcia has stated that without Josh, there will never be a Kyuss reunion.
Naturally I kind of wish it was all four original members, but if you read the first paragraph of this post, it’s safe to assume I’m not hard to please when it comes to getting a dose of Kyuss.
So far there aren’t any North American dates. But I’ll warn my wife now, if that changes, I will be going to one of those shows.
Also, check out the homemade Kyuss shirts my friend James and I made for the above mentioned QOTSA show. I am very confident we were the only two in attendance rocking these styles.
