There are at least six bands called Orchid: a hardcore band from Amherst, Massachusetts considered by many to be one of the pioneers of the post hardcore sound and disbanded in 2002; a doom metal band from San Francisco, California; an indie-pop band from Poznan, Poland, a rock band from Halifax, Nova Scotia; a “post-prog” band from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, etc. Theo Mindell – vocals and percussion, Mark Thomas Baker – guitar and moog synthesizer, Nickel – bass guitar and Carter Kennedy – drums are the members of the San Francisco’s based doom metal band and “Capricorn” is their latest release through The Church Within label. And hell yeah, this is Black Sabbather than Black Sabbath. It’s enough to listen songs like “Black Funeral” for instance. A world of witches, spells, dark forces and mystic fires breaks loose. And you believe it or not, this sounds goddamn fresh, still have hypnotizing power and unbelievable strength. Read more Orchid – Capricorn (2011)
Reviews
Anorak – Sick (2011)
And once again, there’s a band named Anorak from Spain, another band called Anoraks from Ireland and at my third shot I founded what I’ve been looking for, Anorak from France. Really guys, get a grip, it’s absolutely no use to kick off from making noise and ending up in the court yard! On the other hand I can understand that playing music it’s much more exciting than talking legal issues with some lawyers, but still…
“Sick” is a noisy, contorted, experimental post-metal material, intense and crushing, cutting edge guitar riffs, raw vocals, balanced and colorful drums, heavy bulldozer like themes and technical shifts, turns, twists are gonna run through to you like a racing car. Still, they have some interesting, psychedelic left-over themes, quieter moments which make their music much more exciting. The eight tracks of “Sick” are an intense, shaking experience. Read more Anorak – Sick (2011)
Camion – A Serenade for Yokels (2011)
From Rome, Italy, here it comes Camion (truck). They are a grinding, noisy, stoner rock band, have cutting edge riffs, raw vocals, pumping bass and smashing drums, it’s that kind of metal what made Soundgarden to be kings in the “Badmotorfinger” era. And some of they themes, riffs, verses may sound familiar form different places. “Here Comes the Harlay” and “Here Comes the Cadillac” had a riff – the same one – which is very “I’m Broken” (Pantera), “Route 666” obviously contains the verse “six, six, six, the number of the beast” ( 😆 😆 😆 ), “Cowbell From Hell” ( fuck me! 😆 😆 😆 ) keeps adrenaline high with the perfect tempo and some wining riffs. “Beers On Wheels” could be a Manowar song played by a punk/hardcore band, well, with your boots on or high on beers and wheels, life it’s just Rock N’ Roll. “Can A Truck Splat A Lollypop” may had a place on any earlier Social Distortion album and in the end, “A Serenade for Yokels” reminds me of Green Jelly. Read more Camion – A Serenade for Yokels (2011)
Eksi Ekso – Brown Shark Red Lion (2011)
Merge some songs left over from David Bowie since the 70s with some experimental indie, dream pop like layers and perhaps the result will sound just like this third album by Eksi Ekso, the band from Boston, Massachusetts, US. For the good of the experiment, eventually try to do this in your living room and bring some neighbors as well. There’s no guarantee at all that you will sound like Tom Korkidis (vox, guitar, bass, keys, samples, woodwinds), Alex Mihm (drums, loops, percussion), Sean Will (keys, samples, trumpet), and their collaborators, but it worth to try. 😀 At their MySpace page at the paragraph “Sounds like” they wrote: “We play instruments in the same room, sometimes in ways that sound like we’re playing together.” Nice. And in their case it worked out absolutely perfectly. “Brown Shark Red Lion” is a strange, sometimes airy, sometimes scattered, waving, rolling album. Million shades and colors sparking around and sometimes you’re not really sure what actually you’re listening at, but still, it’s kind of warm, familiar and friendly. Read more Eksi Ekso – Brown Shark Red Lion (2011)
C-Sides – Devitrification (2011)
If you’re anxious to listen something new from Geddy Lee – I guess everybody is waiting for “Clockwork Angels” – , well, this C-Sides probably will satisfy you. Released by the brand new label White Knight Records, “Devitrification” sounds just like some lost and found recordings by Rush from the late 70s, eventually early 80s, the stuffs they used to do before “Grace Under Pressure”. And the voice of Dan Fry reminds of Geddy Lee, Martin Rosser proved to be a colorful guitarist and Allan Mason-Jones is a balanced, power-rock drummer. All three of them before C-Sides in 2007 were members of the progressive rock band from Wales, UK, Magenta. But C-Side brings some heavy, modern sounds along that good-old taste rock and have some freshness, have a couple of good themes and write some nice songs. The parallels with the Canadian gods, kings, whatever you’d like to call them, stands, but C-Sides only recall that perfume of the 70s, 80s and they create their own world. Read more C-Sides – Devitrification (2011)
June DeVille – Swan Songs Of The Coyote (2011)
If the Google do not make a sucker out of me ( 😀 ), Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and from there are this three piece band called June DeVille, founded in December 2007 and as they say: “not split up yet.” 😀 And actually I didn’t stumbled into them, they found me. (Thanks Max!)
Their music is what we call post-metal and they flavor it with some grunge left-over spices, that kind of noisy and heavy grunge what once was the driving force behind Soundgarden. And well, June DeVille was a quite nice surprise. First at all, they have nerve. Sometimes it sounds like Zakk Wylde does it in his better days with Ozzy and Black Label Society. Secondly, but not at least, they wrote and recorded a couple of great songs. Read more June DeVille – Swan Songs Of The Coyote (2011)
Samael – Lux Mundi (2011)
Samael was a hell of a guy! 😆 😆 😆 Actually an important archangel in Talmudic and post-Talmudic lore, a figure who is accuser, seducer and destroyer, and has been regarded as both good and evil. Also called Sammael and Samil, he is considered in legend both a member of the heavenly host with often grim and destructive duties and a fallen angel, equatable with Satan and the chief of the evil spirits. One of Samael’s greatest roles in Jewish lore is that of the angel of death. In this capacity he is a fallen angel but nevertheless remains one of the Lord’s servants. As a good angel, Samael supposedly resides in the seventh heaven, although he is declared to be the chief angel of the fifth heaven. It is said that he was the guardian angel of Esau and a patron of the Roman empire. Read more Samael – Lux Mundi (2011)
The Phantom Carriage – New Thing (2011)
Throatruiner Records have a nice, fan-friendly approach by making most of their products accessible for free-download. I just wanna say this, on one hand the legal – or not – free downloads helps to spread and popularize the music and the new bands mainly, but on the other hand, every and each free download makes the artist lives one grade harder and one drop bitterer. So, I’m just telling you, support your favorite artists in any way you can, please share this album as much as you can, give them as much as you can. You may not realize how much that matters. The underground and the new artists deserves at least this much. Otherwise in a few years we may left exclusively with the plastic stuffs offered by the big corporated shitheads. Fuck. I had to say that. Thanks.
The Phantom Carriage are an extreme, but excitingly experimenting band combining different genres from black metal to jazz. “New Thing” is gloomy, intense and exciting, so don’t let yourself scared away by the very first impression. Read more The Phantom Carriage – New Thing (2011)
Ocoai – The Electric Hand (2011)
Ocoai are an awesome surprise. Guitarist and engineer/producer Travis Kammeyer and drummer Tim Smith met in in the summer of 2006 and wanted to try something different, they wanted to be the loudest and heaviest band around. And the sound of Ocoai is kind of muddy, sludgy, spreading into multi-layered dimensions, imagine Moody Blues jamming around with Down or Sigur Rós playing some Mastodom songs. I hate labels and labeling music, but this is kind of cinematic Metal. Ambiental, spacy constructions, ingenious use of the cello, gentle guitar tunes or crushing riffs and noisy explosions completing and overlapping each other in a nice, natural flow. Without a vocalist they managed to fill up the wide spaces, but still, I believe a powerful throat can take them much further. In any case, not a James LaBrie copy I had in mind, but eventually someone with the qualities and abilities of John Bush (Armored Saint, Anthrax). Read more Ocoai – The Electric Hand (2011)
Rhian Sheehan – Seven Tales of The North Wind (2011)
Rhian Sheehan predominantly writes music for film and Television, his music has also appeared regularly on BBC television programming, including Top Gear, and has been used for a variety of TV commercials and movie trailers and short films worldwide.He composed the soundtrack to the UK’s National Space Centre’s We Are Astronomers, a 360° Full Dome Film narrated by Doctor Who’s David Tennant which is currently screening in digital planetariums around the world, as also composed the score to the 13 part prime-time TV Drama series “The Cult”,and the Emmy Award winning series “Reservoir Hill”. Read more Rhian Sheehan – Seven Tales of The North Wind (2011)
