Viva Voce: "Analog Woodland Song"

Kevin and Anita Robinson comprise Portland, Oregon-based rock-n-roll band Viva Voce. The married couple has released six full-length albums since the late '90s, the latest of which is called The Future Will Destroy You. With Kevin hammering the drums with machine-like precision and Anita producing catchy hooks and riffs with classic-rock cool, it's a surprisingly lighthearted sound for such a foreboding title. The band's sticking by its claim, though, and recently compiled this apocalyptic playlist for ALARM.

1. The Stooges: "Search & Destroy"

I'm a streetwalking cheetah with a heart full of napalm. 'Nuff said.

2. Bob Dylan: "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall"

The pebble that started the avalanche.

3. Black Sabbath: "Hole In The Sky"

"We're all gonna die" is the message of this song, I believe. It's a kids' song, really.

4. The Rolling Stones: "Paint It Black"

Johnny Cash thought so too.

5. The Byrds: "One Hundred Years From Now"

Electro-cowpoke singing, "Nobody knows the kind of trouble we're in."

6. Queen: "Another One Bites The Dust"

Another one gone, and another one gone…

7. Grandaddy: "Broken Household Appliance National Forest"

The conduit is the hollow log.

8. Kris Kristofferson: "Kiss The World Goodbye"

Grandma-approved apocalyptic message.

9. Pink Floyd: "Goodbye Blue Sky"

See: "Paint it Black."

10. Sly & The Family Stone: There's a Riot Going On

As well there should be.

Neurosis: "To Crawl Under One's Skin"

Earlier this year, pioneering sludge-metal band Neurosis reissued its third studio album, Souls at Zero, on its own label, Neurot. Though it sounds just as fresh today, it has been nearly 20 years since that influential mixture of heavy grooves, diverse folk instrumentation, and mammoth metal riffs first cropped up. We asked frontman Steve Von Till to compile a playlist for us, and he came up with 11 bands that were instrumental in Neurosis' formation and development.

Bands Integral to the Origin of Neurosis
by Steve Von Till of Neurosis

This playlist may contain the secrets to the origin of thousands of bands who became inspired to give it all.

1. Joy Division: "New Dawn Fades"

The driving bass. The melodic yet primitive guitar. The empty and bleak space as large as the riff. The words, “Me, seeing me this time, hoping for something else.” The emotions left behind.

2. Black Flag: My War (side B)

"Nothing Left Inside," "Three Nights," and "Scream." Slow dirge and discordant angst…perfection.

3. Amebix: "Last Will and Testament"

No Gods, No Masters, and yet a spiritual thread runs through its music. Punks informed by Crass and Killing Joke but armed with mysticism and huge metal guitars. We owe a lot to these men.

4. Pink Floyd: "Careful With That Axe Eugene" (Live at Pompeii version)

Man…that scream…I swear Roger Waters looks like he is about to transform into some beast during that performance. Heavy psych at its best.

5. Die Kreuzen: "All White"

Dissonant guitars, insane, augmented chords, melodic bass, and that voice! “Let me out!!!!!!!!”

6. Voivod: "Tribal Convictions"

Along with Die Kreuzen, Piggy (Denis D'Amour) from Voivod blew our minds with the insane, dissonant chord shapes. Psychedelic metal from space. Truly one of a kind. We miss you, Piggy.

7. Rudimentary Peni: Cacophony (entire record)

A band considered to be a group of art-damaged anarcho-punks comes out of nowhere with a completely bizarre, hypnotic masterpiece dedicated and inspired by the life of HP Lovecraft. This may be one of the strangest rock records of all time.

8. Killing Joke: "The Wait"

Even though it is overplayed thanks to a cover by an arena-rock band, it cannot detract from the fact that this track from its first record is heavy as hell — a badass new-wave anthem. Killing Joke is still intense and passionate. Huge inspiration.

9. Deep Purple: "Highway Star"

Harmonic distortion. This is what the human ear finds pleasing. I can think of no other sound that personifies those words more than this era of Deep Purple. Before I knew much about music, I thought it was Ritchie Blackmore’s guitar that was responsible for the thick, rich, tough wall of sound, but as I got older, I thought, “No, it must be Jon Lord’s distorted organ that is so heavy.” Finally I had the moment of clarity; it is the magic blend of the Hammond B3’s foldback distortion with the Stratocaster and Rickenbacker through dimed stacks of '60s Marshalls that is so damn good. My quest for my guitar tone has been chasing that ever since.

10. The Subhumans: "From the Cradle to the Grave"

The title says it all. An absolute epic of musicianship and depth of lyrics that stands leagues beyond the shallow and naive sociopolitical punk of the era. Timeless.

11. Black Sabbath: "Black Sabbath"

They say both good and bad things come in threes. This is all about three notes, which bring forth both good and bad in the mind of the listener. The triad. The ultimate, heavy, slow doom riff. I cannot count the number of times I have “written” a riff, only to realize “Damn it, I ripped off Sabbath…again.”

Dälek: "No Question"

“A mix of Eric B. and Rakim and Black Sabbath” is how MC Dälek describes Gutter Tactics, the latest release from his eponymously named hip-hop duo (pronounced dial-ect) — but only if you press him to do so. The New Jersey-based pair, which also includes producer Oktopus, isn’t necessarily eager to place labels on its brand of moody, dissonant hip hop that recalls the heaviness of rock acts like Melvins and Torche.

But since the duo’s 1998 debut release, Negro Necro Nekros, critics and fans alike have attempted to fit Dälek into a genre — any genre that isn’t hip hop. It’s little surprise: decades of mainstream-music conditioning have diluted the definition of “true” hip hop to bling, bravado, and track loops. Any contemporary US hip-hop artist that dares to draw from anything but the musical well of mainstream pop and R&B has an uphill fight in proving his or her authenticity. Dälek takes things a step further than what most fans even come to expect from experimental hip hop, with a sinister sound that has more in common with grindcore than crunk, and lyrics that dwell on issues of social and political inequality.

But for MC Dälek, the duo’s musical affiliation to hip hop is clear — he’s not interested in creating a new category of hip hop or to distance the group from the genre. “[Critics] always attempt to put certain parameters around different types of music,” he says. “We started 11 years ago, and from the start, people have attempted to put us into these sub-genres — glitch hop, experimental hop, doom hop — and come up with all of these ridiculous names. That’s not what we really are, though these fads come and go. You can call us whatever you want, but after 11 years, we’re still making records. Our sound evolves, but to me it’s just hip hop. Hip hop is my culture, what I grew up with.”

Arguably one of the more anticipated underground releases of 2009, Gutter Tactics is unrelentingly abrasive, immersing the listener into a sea of jagged, atonal sound and lyrical bleakness. It’s both hypnotic and frustrating — and meant to be. But unlike the gloomy, apathetic drone of 2006 album Abandoned Language, the tracks of Gutter Tactics resonate with a sense of passion, hope, and action.
 

"I’m proud to be American; I love this country, but I also have no problem pointing out its faults."

“A lot of people listen to our records and think that it’s just noise, and we understand that,” MC Dälek says. “Our music’s not for everyone. But it’s not just about the anger; it’s not just about showing the ills of the world. The idea is to highlight things that people don’t talk about, things that are going on in communities that don’t have a voice. To me, that’s what hip hop always was. It’s always been the voice of the community, the voice of the lower class. That’s what I’ve always embraced and loved about it, and regardless of what elements we use in our work, that’s what we try to put across.”

And in this, Gutter Tactics succeeds, pairing the duo’s signature ambience with sludgy, lo-fi-rock influences and some of Dälek’s most pointedly political messages yet. The lead track, “Blessed Are They Who Bash Your Children’s Heads Against A Rock,” starts with the now-infamous speech of President Barack Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright, a damning rebuke of US foreign policy. MC Dälek says that it wasn’t included on the album for shock value, but it was intended to be provocative, or at the very least, intended to challenge listeners to hear the words in their full context, beyond how the mainstream media chose to frame Wright’s persona.

“We’re usually not that topical of a band,” MC Dälek says, “and that’s not really the reason that we included the speech.” He pauses to collect his thoughts, continuing, “It’s funny how the media works. Everyone was in an uproar over what [Wright] said, but most places would only play one or two sentences from his speech. When I finally heard the entire speech [on YouTube], I couldn’t find one line that was offensive to me, or one line that was a lie. I’m proud to be American; I love this country, but I also have no problem pointing out its faults. I just want people to hear the speech in its in entirety, not just the snippets that Fox News will show you.”

Even so, Dälek doesn’t expect much backlash from its choice to include the speech. “If anyone’s gonna be pissed about it, they should at least listen to the whole thing,” MC Dälek says.

Though Gutter Tactics is an admitted departure from the duo’s more abstract direction in Abandoned Language, MC Dälek says that it’s by design and a logical progression from earlier work. “We have a good idea of what we want to do from album to album,” he says, explaining that he and Oktopus had started to conceptualize the sound of Gutter Tactics while working on Absence in 2004. “In comparison to Absence, we knew that we needed to take a different approach with Gutter Tactics. We always knew that it would be in some ways heavier than Absence. [Gutter Tactics] has the melodies of Abandoned Language with the brutality of Absence; we think that it’s a nice mix of the two.”

Dälek acknowledges that its approach to writing is unusual. “We work in really bizarre ways,” MC Dälek says. “We have blueprints for the next two albums. I always said that I’d be making music regardless of whether it’s my job or not, so I just make beats, and Oktopus and I just start grouping things together for potential albums. There’s no set formula. There’s some tracks that Oktopus just puts together himself, but we have that trust in each other to put together the best possible songs, the best possible albums.

"We have ideas of where we’d like to go next,” he laughs, “though we don’t always like to say!”

A Storm Of Light: As the Valley of Death Becomes Us, Our Silver Memories Fade (Profound Lore, 5/17/11)

A Storm Of Light: "Destroyer"

Since its inception, Josh Graham’s A Storm Of Light has adopted a model that's based squarely on collective evolution, be it in something as complex as its musical aspirations or something as simple as its personnel. With its fourth release, As the Valley of Death Becomes Us, Our Silver Memories Fade, the group seemingly moves a little further from its loose "project" designation yet seemingly keeps the "band" label at arm’s length.

With its sound rooted firmly in no-frills rock, Valley’s style could best be described as “talk metal” or, barring that, "verbal doom." Graham’s vocals tend to avoid conventional melody, or at least anything too advanced, instead coming off more as pitched declarations of ideology over the anvil attack of bassist Dominic Seita and newcomer drummer B.J. Graves. Though the obvious comparisons to contemporaries Neurosis or Unsane will make sense, Valley really borrows more heavily from mid-1990s hard rock — the half-spoken, hard-truth heaviness of Rollins Band, or the sludgy Sabbath nods of Soundgarden (fittingly, guitarist Kim Thayil pops in for a pair of guest spots: “Missing” and “Black Wolves”). The chugging “Collapse” evokes a less tom-reliant form of Tool, and the environmentalist-turned-existentialist "Destroyer" finally explains what a Queensrÿche / Alice in Chains / Rage Against the Machine collaboration might have sounded like.

None of this, however, should suggest that A Storm Of Light has become some kind of throwback or revivalist group; if anything, the group’s embrace of sounds past and present allows it to go a third way, at once familiar and new. The buzzsaw-jam opening “Missing” and molasses sweep of “Death’s Head” complement the near-operatic, eleven-minute, sludge-prog closer “Wasteland” in a way that shows knowledge rather than emulation, and the death march of “Silver” creates a nice sense of continuity as it resurrects the early-album doom of “Black Wolves.”

Ultimately, though Valley’s tracks hit all of the right notes, the album as a whole still maintains the workmanlike feel of A Storm Of Light’s earlier works. Few would say that’s a bad thing in and of itself, but many had hoped that Valley would be the album where the band didn’t just hit its stride but reached new heights as well.

Wino: "Release Me"

Seventeen years after his first show with Saint Vitus, singer and guitarist Scott “Wino" Weinrich stands on stage performing the songs that help launched a generational flotilla of doom. It's July 1, 2003 at the Double Door in Chicago. The crowd for the only American Saint Vitus reunion show is packed near the stage, but there's standing room at the edges.

Weinrich recalls, "It was cool but also a little bit sad. It took however many years, and we couldn't even sell out the show." Five hundred devoted friends and fans — it's a respectable but modest turnout. After decades of playing to crowds ranging from handfuls to thousands, he still can't fill a medium-size venue.

This shouldn't be a surprise; in fact, it's expected. Weinrich has always been just under the radar, a musician's musician. Over the years, he's collaborated with a gamut of rock legends, including members of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and Death. His fans include Henry Rollins, who says, "Scott is one of the heaviest people known to mankind. Just listen to the music; the man matches it well."

Dave Grohl recruited him, along with other celebrated heavy-metal icons, for his Probot project, where Wino contributed vocals for "The Emerald Law" and played guitar in a live version of the band along with Grohl and Motorhead's Lemmy Kilmister. Greg Anderson, who, as a member of Sunn O))) and co-founder of Southern Lord Records, is one of the parties most responsible for the current influx of doom bands, cites Weinrich as an "immeasurable influence. The intensity and passion of his playing are unprecedented. He is not in a class of his own. He is the class and the owner."

Everyone related to heavy music has a Wino story or two, the best of which are off the record. There's a duality about the man — he's well liked, always regarded as a generous, friendly guy, but also known as a fiend, perpetually recovering from one addiction or another. He's the most famous guy in heavy metal of whom you've never heard.

As a teenager, Weinrich helped synthesize the burgeoning DC doom-metal scene of the late 1970s, playing guitar in Warhorse, the band that became The Obsessed. Neither interested in mainstream glam metal nor the counter-culture thrash movement, The Obsessed and other local groups like Pentagram purveyed a slow, bluesy take on psychedelic hard rock.

Despite scant recordings — one eight-and-a-half-minute EP and a single — the band had a tremendous influence across the music underground. Fugazi's Joe Lally briefly lived with the band and remembers, "After Wino became the singer, that's when [the] intention behind his writing became clear to me. When Wino started singing, you really felt, 'Hey, this shit is serious.'" Though his range wasn't as wide as some of his contemporaries, Weinrich was nearly unmatched in his intensity and warm soulfulness. As he honed his musicianship and songwriting skills, he also crystallized an interest in motorcycles, booze, and crack cocaine.

The next several years saw Weinrich play in a number of bands. He moved to LA in 1986 to front rising band Saint Vitus, but after three years decided that he needed to write music on guitar again. He left to reform The Obsessed with new rhythm players, including the Melvins' Dale Crover and Kyuss' Scott Reeder back in Maryland. Paradoxically, his lust for chemicals rarely affected his musical prowess. "Back in the day, people used to ask how I could play so smooth when I was that wired, but you get used to it," Weinrich says. And despite more than the occasional binge, he's kept his friends closer than most.

"Fugazi was touring Germany in the [early] '90s, and I don't remember what city we were in, but between songs I heard someone yell, 'Joe!'" Lally recalls. "It was clearly Wino. After the show, he asked us for a band photo because Hellhound was going to release the first Obsessed record from 1985, and he wanted to include photos of friends. He didn't seem to be too together at the time, and I wasn't sure I'd ever see him again. Still, he carried that photo in the pocket of his leather jacket for the rest of the Saint Vitus tour, and it got on the record sleeve. I was pretty shocked when I saw it there." After The Obsessed parted ways, the mid-'90s ushered in the era of his stoner-doom project, Spirit Caravan.

"I got kind of tired playing in bands full time. It was really starting to become unproductive. At the end of the day, I asked myself, 'Do I really want to do this full time?' I didn't."

In 2002, Weinrich joined The Hidden Hand, his most experimental endeavor to date. Like every Wino trio, this one toured relentlessly, devoted to the ideal of DIY live music. While many players burned and dropped out, Weinrich kept at it, finding fresh musical allies. "When [we were] able to tour with The Hidden Hand, it was one of the high points of playing music for me, period," reflects Mike Scheidt, YOB guitarist/vocalist. "Wino has that killer balance of great songwriting, true heaviness, and honest emotional depth borne from living a hard life and surviving long enough to tell the tale."

Over the years, Weinrich's playing evolved, assimilating more progressive, psychedelic nuances. Politics also infiltrated his lyrics, which previously tended towards philosophical and metaphysical themes. The Hidden Hand disbanded in 2007 after some nasty in-fighting on a European tour, and Weinrich attempted to take a break from music.

"I got kind of tired playing in bands full time," Weinrich admits. "It was really starting to become unproductive. At the end of the day, I asked myself, 'Do I really want to do this full time?' I didn't." These are the kind of thoughts that lead one to record a swan song, but instead, Weinrich started a new project and booked six months of gigs. Jean Paul Gester, an old friend and longtime drummer of Southern rock band Clutch, had other plans. Weinrich says, "We're good friends and had always talked about recording a record someday. Jean Paul was so enthusiastic that it was contagious. It was all the push that I needed [to continue making music]."

The other piece of the puzzle was bassist Jon Blank of DC's Rezin. "I knew that he was good, but I didn't know how good," Weinrich says. "He learned all of the songs so fast, and there was really good chemistry." Given Clutch's tireless touring schedule and Rezin's waxing profile, the real challenge was getting everyone into the jam room and studio. "There wasn't a lot of putting stuff off," Weinrich says. "We knew that we had a time frame, and we did it."

The resultant album, billed simply as Wino and titled Punctuated Equilibrium, was recorded in two sessions, half of the songs at a time. Multi-session records are usually a hodgepodge of sounds or muted by digital normalizing, but that's not the case with this record. The album sounds as if it was recorded live in a practice space. Weinrich says, "This is the best-sounding record yet."

The music is all over the place, spanning the gamut of styles that Weinrich has refined over the years, including doom, blues, hard rock, and psychedelia. Weinrich's relaxed but limber guitar playing makes it sound easy. Punctuated Equilibrium is a twisted mass of tree limbs, each song reaching in one direction only to bend in another. "I think [the album] is vaulting Scott into a new arena," says Bobby Liebling of Pentagram. "There is some incredible ear candy, and he's branching out towards much more diversified material than ever in the past…not to mention the guitar playing, [which is] murderous."

The most ethereal (read: "trippy") song on the record is "Wild Blue Yonder," a six-and-a-half-minute ride on a spaceship. "We went into the studio with just the framework and guitar melody — that's all we had," Weinrich says. The result is an acid-rock freak-out on guitar that's anchored by a relentless bass line and drum work that wrap time signatures around multiple phrases. It's seamless; you'd think these guys had been playing together for years.

Other songs on Punctuated Equilibrium bare the distinct stamp of the accompanists. "One thing about Jean Paul is that he loves crazy timing," Weinrich says."It's fun for me too, especially on songs like 'Eyes of the Flesh' and 'The Gift.'" The latter of these is a bonus track from the extra 10" record. Weinrich says, "I've only ever played it with one other drummer who understood it. Jean Paul and I hammered it out in two or three nights, and Jon learned it in one fucking night." "Eyes of the Flesh," along with other tracks like "Secret Realm Devotion" and "Gods, Frauds, Neo-Cons And Demagogues," showcases Weinrich's uncanny ability to wail out sustained notes and slow bends. Tracks such as "Silver Lining" exemplify his ability to scream melodic leads that don't soil his warm, monolithic guitar tones.

Punctuated Equilibrium is an ambitious and varied record, showcasing musicians at the top of their games, and other musicians have continued to take notice. In April of 2009, Weinrich headlined the 14^th annual Roadburn Festival in Tilberg, Netherlands with a once-again-reunited Saint Vitus.

Meanwhile, an acoustic version of his solo band played South by Southwest in the States. Last January, Weinrich announced yet another new band, Shrinebuilder, an underground-metal supergroup of sorts, featuring Scott Kelly of Neurosis, Al Cisneros of Sleep and Om, and Crover. The group will release an album in September of 2009 and is planning a brief tour. Kelly has commented in interviews that "Wino has been the keystone of this idea from its inception. It wouldn't have been worth doing, and it wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been part of it. Lightning." That's to say nothing of Weinrich's rumored electronic project as well as the acoustic affair, Peckerwood. No one can accuse him of being a slouch.

When asked about the last time he had a drink, Weinrich cracks a joke: "Ten minutes ago [writer's note: it's 9 a.m.]…nah, just kidding. I gave up drinking and hard drugs a long time ago." Not that he doesn't knock back a cold one every now and then. As for the cocaine, he's remarkably candid. "It was fucking great — that's why I did it," he says. "It just becomes a lifestyle choice. You have to stay on it, tear apart your house every day, or you live a normal life. There came a point when I just had to live a normal life."

That life includes three kids — Nick (who wants a Moog keyboard), Maxwell (who wants his papa's gold chopper), and Alexandra — as well as an estranged wife, Diana. "I was a stay-at-home dad," Weinrich says. "I raised them from the cradle. Once Diana and I stopped seeing eye to eye, things changed rapidly." When he's not spending time with his kids, hunting down vintage guitar gear, or watching The History Channel, he's struggling to figure out new technology. "I traded a friend of mine for a G4 laptop. I need to figure out that phone thing to talk with the kids while I'm in Europe…Skop?"

Punctuated Equilibrium has had a positive reception with both critics and fans. "It's about timing," Weinrich asserts. "It's always been about timing, and it's never been right for me before. For some strange reason, things are coming together now." He relates his touring schedule — wall-to-wall shows with the Wino project on the road with Clutch, more Saint Vitus reunion shows, Shrinebuilder, and miscellaneous engagements through June 2009. At age 48, 30 years into his career, it's an odd time for a foray as a solo artist, but it's just what Weinrich needs.

"To be honest, this sort of gave me a shot in the arm. I felt like this record made me feel better about things; it made me want to keep playing."

V/A: Those Shocking, Shaking Days: Indonesian Hard, Psychedelic, Progressive Rock and Funk, 1970-1978 (Now-Again, 3/8/11)

Shark Move: "Evil War"

Giving service to the music and the musicophiles who go in search for it, Now-Again Records has released a stunning overview of 1970s Indonesian funk, rock, and psychedelia recordings in an anthology titled Those Shocking, Shaking Days.  The title is a perfect summation of the sounds coming from the compilation; deep funk gems and gritty rock riffs are captured in the lowest of lo-fi senses, driven to the head by relentless fuzz guitars, psychedelic howls, and all kinds of general weirdness.

Helmed by Now-Again’s head honcho Egon, with research and crate digging from producer Jason “Moss” Connoy (and the not-to-be overlooked assistance from Indonesian rock legend Benny Soebardja, who secured all the necessary rights), the compilation is what happens when the record-collector gods align everything just right. Add in a thick booklet with groovy album art, eccentric band photos that could only belong to the '70s, and extensive track-by-track notes from Holland-based Indonesian ex-pat Chandra Drews, Those Shocking, Shaking Days does an incredible job of giving listeners the whole package.

The story of the underground music scene in 1970s Indonesia is quite complicated, given a country of 200 million people comprised of 300 ethnic groups, speaking more than 250 languages and inhabiting 6,000 of the 17,500 islands that make up one of the world’s largest archipelagos.  Though Southeast Asia, particularly the Indochina peninsula, has recently been a hot bed for this retrospective discovery of the psych-funk sound, the music found on this record is the first to survey the rebellious music that stood as a response to the brutal and corrupt regime of Indonesian dictator Suharto.

The caution against an alleged communist threat became the hallmark of Suharto’s three-decade long “New Order” presidency that began in 1967, played out by paranoia-driven political conservatism and censorship of any songs that expressed distaste for his government.

So the music presented here is as much hard psychedelic as it is politically charged in every sense of cultural liberation.  Though artists such as The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, and Black Sabbath came to dominate Indonesia’s radio airwaves in the early '70s, that was the West – and for an Indonesian band to play anything overtly styled like Western rock music, it would be harassed or put in jail.

The Panbers opens up the compilation in defining fashion with its 1972 track “Haai,” a far-out mix of prog-rock and trippy oriental flute and sitar breakdowns, sung with a hook that professes love for The Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin.  If there was a clear musical thesis of the anthology, listeners get it from this opening track with its wild agglomeration of styles in music and lyric.

Other tracks show the willpower of the Western sound to travel thousands of miles: The Rollies’ “Bad News” is a rough riff off the James Brown deep-funk sound, more notably from the guitar and rhythm structure of “Mother Popcorn.”  One of the more stand-out tracks is the funky ode “Pemain Bola” from Rasela, in part from the memorable call-and-response intro that has the band screaming “No!” to drugs and “Yes!” to sex, followed by one of the smoothest funk guitar riffs on the compilation.

One of the more politically courageous, Shark Move’s “Evil War,” includes the guitar and vocals of a young Soebardja, filled with leftist political lyrics that are almost over the top, yet it was able to slip by the censors because it was sung in English.   “Don’t Talk About Freedom” by The Gang of Harry Roesli is perhaps a bit more poignant due to it being largely instrumental; ultimately, it's a track that demonstrates disdain for Suharto’s government.

And as expected from a Now-Again compilation, there are some real gems to be heard.  The obscure Ivo’s Group owns the compilation’s title track “That Shocking, Shaking Day,” a mellow folk-rock tune where its payoff is at the end, as the band locks into a funky folk-mélange harmony and sings the lyrics immortalized on the inside booklet cover.  Other notable tracks include Soebardja and Lizard’s “Candle Light,” for its chill-out deep bass groove and Golden Wing’s “Hear Me” for its heady organ line and rebellious dub-like spirit.

Taking one listen to Those Shocking, Shaking Days explains why this music is a well that's been explored by some of hip hop’s esteemed crate diggers.  From a straight musical standpoint, the anthology is a spectacularly curated project that will strike a chord with funk, psychedelic, garage, and break-beat fans.  The anthology is best at uncovering rare perspectives from a culture known for its coffee more than its music — and known for its large Muslim population more than its wild past in the psychedelic underground scene.  A necessary requirement for all global groove fans, Those Shocking, Shaking Days is yet another impressive offering from Now-Again.

Weedeater: "Mancoon"

North Carolina-based Weedeater has always balanced its stoner- and sludge-metal aspirations with a wide-open embrace of not just Southern rock but Southern culture as well. Songs about Dale Earnhardt sit alongside Lynyrd Skynyrd covers; odes to mystical demons were right at home alongside ballads praising the band’s titular indulgence.

But despite some commendable efforts (especially the group's previous disc, God Luck And Good Speed in 2007), these two directions never fully reconciled, and the band’s masterpiece always seemed just out of its reach. Jason…The Dragon, the group's fourth full-length (and second for Southern Lord), doesn’t quite put the group over the top of the mountain, but it’s never for lack of trying.

At its best, the trio’s pursuit of perfect Southern metal becomes almost compelling. The monster-in-a-hallway score underlying the cackling monologue of “The Great Unfurling” sets the disc up as more of a metal outing, and the down-tuned sludge riffing of “Hammerhandle” does nothing to dispel this. Yet the Macon County boogie of “Mancoon” and the molasses-thick riff of “Turkey Warlock” set that idea aside, painting both album and band alike as blatantly self-aware of the line they walk: one foot in the swamp, the other in the grave.

Yet the two styles never fully merge, leaving each element (no matter how well executed) to exist squarely in a vacuum. The warbled slide and gravel vocals of “Palms Of Opium” set up the Sabbath-esque “Long Gone,” while “Homecoming” conjures images of Black Label Society, minus the pick harmonics. “Whiskey Creek” tries to close with a banjo-on-swamp soundscape that would otherwise be the quiet, down-home end of the disc until a hidden straight-up Dixie piano jam takes Jason around the bend one last time.

While Collins, Stephens, and Kirkum move fairly fluidly between executions and genres, Collins’ vocals are arranged to be the most forward component of Weedeater's sound. Painting a composite of Black Breath, Wolves In The Throne Room, and Bon Scott-era AC/DC, his vocals don't necessarily prevent the disc from meandering, but still help it stay in the right general direction. It makes sense: when hanging out in the strange, smoky world where Weedeater lives, it's probably okay to take your time getting to wherever you're going — assuming that getting there is even the point.

Rival Sons: s/t EP (Earache, 1/11/11)

Rival Sons: "Get What's Coming"

Morrow: Rival Sons is a California quartet of classic-rock enthusiasts.  Its fiery, bluesy pysch rock (can something be both fiery and bluesy?) already has led to high-profile national tours, and now the band has released its debut EP for Earache in advance of a full-length album, Pressure and Time, that's coming in May.

On the EP, there's plenty of Led Zeppelin mimicry — the main riff and beat on "Radio" practically are straight-up lifted — but there are enough rock-out riffs, raging solos, and powerful vocal moments to sustain interest.   It's like if Wolfmother weren't terribly boring, or if the White Stripes had a real drummer.

Hajduch: Stuff can be fiery and bluesy.  Think about bunsen burners — blue fire, dog.  It burns hotter. Similarly, these tunes are pretty hot.  I think of stompier, more galloping Black Sabbath (e.g. "Faeries Wear Boots") when I hear this.

I think that Meg White proved, basically since like 2002, that she got really good at drums (Icky Thump in particular features some excellent drumming), but that is besides the point.  Your comparisons are dead on — Rival Sons play blues-inspired, uptempo classic rock.  They don't focus too hard on being particularly heavy or deep, and instead zone in on providing pentatonic riffs that a person can groove to (and the obligatory acoustic ballad that I just automatically assume is about dragons or hobbits or something).

Outside of some up-to-date production (the drums are too loud and deep for '70s FM rock — it's particularly [and ironically] noticeable on "Radio"), you could hear this on the radio and it wouldn't sound super objectionable.  I am definitely on board to hear more of this when the LP is released.

Morrow: Definitely.  It's one of those rare bands that (to this point) doesn't do anything new but gives you plenty of reason to crank it.  That acoustic number, "Sacred Tongue," is a nice breather, so I'd like to hear a varied take on that when the LP comes out.  The same goes for "Soul," the slow jam that closes out the EP.  These guys definitely have the potential for some major hits.

Black Mountain: Wilderness Heart (Jagjaguwar, 9/14/2010)

Black Mountain: "Wilderness Heart"

Thanks to endless comparisons to bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath, and tagged as a band obsessed with '70s stoner rock, Vancouver-based rock outfit Black Mountain has a lot to live up to.  But beyond the umbrella terminology and exhaustive retro comparisons, the group doesn't receive enough credit for striking a modern chord with mainstream and underground-minded audiences alike.

Now the band is back with its third release, Wilderness Heart, doing what it does best: putting the signature Black Mountain stamp on the fundamentals of rock and roll.

Composed of drummer Josh Wells, keyboardist Jeremy Schmidt, bassist Matt Camirand, vocalist Amber Webber, and guitarist and lead vocalist Stephen McBean, Black Mountain wears its influences on its sleeve, but it's not as self-indulgent as it sounds. Though the band's more nostalgia-driven tunes have come to define its critical success, the overall sound is tastefully stripped down, forgoing crotch rock for a more intelligent sound.

Wilderness Heart is a big step for the band’s direction and sound.  The album is Black Mountain’s first effort with outside producers on board — David Sardy (Zombieland soundtrack) and Randall Dunn (Secret Chiefs 3) — moving it in an unexplored direction.

The result is a set of cleaner and more polished tunes.  Many of the psych- and progressive-rock arrangements are scaled back, and though the record has a slew of heavy hooks, the band's folk sensibilities are taken to a new level. McBean’s voice is as distinct and versatile as ever, capable of reverberating hope on folk ditties like “The Space of Your Mind,” but also able to capture menacing urgency on rockers like “Let Spirits Ride.”

On album opener "The Hair Song," McBean's bluesy vocals showcase a newfound relationship with Webber.  Though Webber has taken a larger vocal stance since the group's self-titled debut in 2005, this riff-raffing between the two is entirely new, giving the group a new folk-pop dimension.  But the song still hits hard; the acoustic and countrified electric-guitar licks may remind listeners of Led Zeppelin III, but it's the rhythm section that really carries the tune along.

Webber has proven herself a timeless rock vocalist on past records and recently with Wells on their more melodic and softer side project Lightning Dust. She owns the album’s title track, “Wilderness Heart,” and fans may hear a faint resemblance to two beloved Black Mountain tracks, “Stormy High” and “Don’t Run Our Hearts Around.”  Her wailing voice is a confident fit to the track’s deep rock foundation in all of its masterful turns and energetic breaks.

Schmidt's keyboards lend a more lush approach than on past records, rounding out rollicking riffs and more effectively holding together the acoustic intermissions.  Tracks like "Roller Coaster," with all of its archetypal metaphors and heavy guitar lines, work because of Schmidt's blues-inflected keys as well as the relationship between Camarind's chunky bass and Wells' epic drumming.

With Wilderness Heart, Black Mountain has shaken up its stoner-rock image, but it continues making thunderous rock music.  And whether it's for the heaviest to lightest of moods, the band produces consistent results.

Triptykon: Shatter: Eparistera Daimones Accompanied (Prowling Death, licensed to Century Media, 10/25/2010)

Triptykon: "Shatter" Official Video

Tom Warrior's creative output is both extensive and divergent. Since 1983, Warrior has released music as part of Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, and Apollyon Sun, and now his current project is Triptykon. If one takes inventory of the music created by this man over the last two-plus decades, one finds that none of his albums really sound all that much like any of the others. There are common threads and tendencies that tie everything together, but each release stands on an island of its own.

The Shatter EP, which consists of material from the same studio sessions as Triptykon's debut LP Eparistera Daimones, showcases one of the heavier songs from that body of work as well as two of the more industrial-leaning tracks. It was the band's intention to release both an LP and an EP from its initial recording session, so this is not just a collection of outtakes. Rather, in a recent interview, Warrior described "Shatter" as one of the most important songs in Triptykon's library.

Triptykon largely continues on the path laid out by Celtic Frost's 2006 LP Monotheist, which offers a much different creative vision than the extreme-punk and new-wave-of-British-heavy-metal hybrid sound of Hellhammer and earlier Celtic Frost. Although Warrior has always had a penchant for unbearably heavy riffs, they now dominate the songwriting. He has adopted a down-tuned, palm-muting technique that, though not meat-headed like Hatebreed, is consistently punishing. His songs are now built upon a crawling rhythmic framework and are layered with dissonant arpeggios and industrial influences.

This is a new approach to an established doom-metal songwriting tactic. Black Sabbath created atmosphere with fuzzy, slowed-down, corrupted-sounding blues riffs; Triptykon creates atmosphere with pummeling rhythms and eerie subtleties. This allows Warrior's rhythmic intuition to flourish, and the second track, "I am the Twilight," has to be one of the heaviest things to ever come from his mind. Interestingly, live versions of Celtic Frost classics are worthwhile additions to this EP, as these songs take on new meaning when heard with a more deliberate approach.

Though risky talking parts and melodic vocals are present on these songs, they, for the most part, fit seamlessly into the compositions, rather than disfiguring otherwise-worthwhile sonic ideas. The female vocal line on "Shatter" is quite catchy, and it has the capacity to end up floating through the listener's brain for days.

This release is exciting, not just as a nod to Warrior's past compositions, but also as proof that this man still has a vibrant creative energy and a capacity to create meaning that he is sharing with the world once again.