Browsing Tag

heavy

Watch Me: “Florian Saucer Attack” by Black Mountain

While this video for "Florian Saucer Attack" is not totally bat shit crazy, like Black Mountain's previous video for "Mothers of the Sun," it would also benefit from drugs.
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Watch Me: “Mothers of the Sun” by Black Mountain

Sure, this video is all kinds of hammy, like every metal cliche on a whiteboard made it into the final cut of the video: Occult rituals. Two-headed guitar. Creepy people doing creepy things. Bleak landscapes and horror film landscapes. Lava lamp visuals laid on top of the video footage. Lead guitarist/vocalist Stephen McBean in a Sunn 0))) robe. Shit, there may have been some demons and devils in there, too, and maybe a young lass lost in the woods, but I stopped watching. Still, I'm gonna give Black Mountain some slack because when I'm not watching "Summer of the Sun," I'm hearing the epic acid metal of their more epic than epic 2008 album, In the Future.
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9 Score

The Rockometer: Fuzz II by Fuzz

    Fuzz Fuzz II In the Red Records Did I miss the warning label? This new record by Ty Segall's Fuzz should have a ...
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9 Score

The Rockometer: New Bermuda by Deafheaven

Black metal doesn't like California black metal band, Deafheaven, that much has been established since the band's rapid ascent. But did you know, Deafheaven, in addition to being influenced by black metal, but not being a black metal band, is fond of Brit-Pop icons, Oasis? In a lengthy profile in Pitchfork that is well worth the read (dude's didn't have it easy, dude's had to hustle and grind), lead guitarist Kerry McCoy was proud of the fact that Deafheaven's third album, New Bermuda, was scheduled to be released on the 20th anniversary of Oasis' (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
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Play Me: “Come Back” by Deafheaven

Fuckin' brilliant, in the way bands like Mogwai and Godspeed! You Black Emperor can be fuckin' brilliant over 10 minutes, taking the listener on a ride though hills, valleys, peaks, and right off the cliff. And just when you think you know where Deafheaven are going with "Come Back," more (More horror show screams! More crescendo!) they drift off into this delicately pastoral movement, one more common to feel good folk rockers than Rock 'N' Roll behemoths. Fuckin' brilliant.
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Play Me: “Chlorine and WIne” by Baroness

"Chlorine and Wine" is epic without being tedious. None of the individual movements overstay their welcome. The ambient into, blends into a folksy passage, which in turn leads to evenly paced power chords. "Chlorine and Wine" is heavy without being obvious. Dave Fridmann's mix rightly focuses on the guitar chug (and later the Thin Lizzy style, double-tracked solo), but remains spacious. The Flaming Lips' go to man left plenty of room for brilliantly colored swooshes of electric sounds, like one would hear on a Lips album.
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New Jam City: Hear New Jams by Deafheaven, Destruction Unit, My Disco, Blank Realm, and Deerhunter

Deafheaven's "Brought to the Water," isn't a total reinvention of modern heavy into some overwrought philosophical work, like that of that other heavy-as-holy-hell, but totally not a black metal band, Liturgy. Rather, it's a refinement of the visceral thrills which made Deafheaven's debut so compelling.
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Play Me: “Two Urns (Radio Edit)” by Windhand

How in hell's infernal blazes to they get all that heft to fit on those blasted bits? It's a fair question to ask when pondering Virginia heavies, Windhand. Sunn O))) rivals Windhand in heavy, but Sunn O))) are slow and heavy, working with overwhelmingly black canvases, getting the most out of small variations in black, from total black to blackest ever black. Windhand actually, move, slowly, with measured, purposeful steps. And, not only do they move, vocalist Dorthia Cottrell does wonders with her voice that is one part enchantress (think psychedelic folk artist, Jesse Sykes), and one part cursed (here, your comparison would be long-passed grunge icon Layne Stayley). Time and again, I ask myself how do Windhand do it? You hear echoes of their work in grunge, metal and modern doom, but no one is quite like Windhind. So instead of contemplating physics and the bounds of modern electronics, I just sit and listen and take it all in. What a beautiful heavy!
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