- Slave the Hive (High on Fire / single) 2013
- Dragon Witch (Glowsun / Eternal Season) 2012
- King Stuste (Wood Wall / Wood Empire) 2013
- Golden Sun (Spirits of the Dead / Rumours of a Presence) 2013
- Shame (Jucifer / за волгой для нас земли нет) 2013
- 120 Days (Ilsa / Tutti il Colori Del Buio) 2013
- Raildriver (House of Harkonnen / Vol. 7) 2005
- Siege of Jerusalem (Stone Dagger / cassette single) 2013
- Lo Sound Desert trailer 2012
- Untitled [live] (Geezer) 2013
- Freelance Fiend [live @ Roadburn 2012] (Leaf Hound / Growers of Mushroom) 1971
- Wreckage (Space Mushroom Fuzz / Stealing Some Time) 2013
- Sinistra (Wounded Giant / Lightning Medicine) 2013
- The River (The Tea Party / Splendor Solis) 1993 'classic clip'
Showing posts with label Leaf Hound. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leaf Hound. Show all posts
Friday, 6 December 2013
Hour of Power 12/06/13
Tuesday, 3 December 2013
NEWS: Legendary LEAF HOUND to release "Live In Japan" album in January 2014!!!
Exciting announcement off the newswire!!:
A Heavy Rock Legend is back:
LEAF HOUND TO RELEASE "LIVE IN JAPAN" ALBUM IN JANUARY 2014!
LEAF HOUND TO RELEASE "LIVE IN JAPAN" ALBUM IN JANUARY 2014!
Leaf Hound’s “Growers Of Mushroom” album, originally released on Decca in 1971, has over the years become a bona fide worldwide cult classic of the hard rock genre, discovered by each new generation of rock fans. It has been cited as a hugely important album in the evolution of both the Heavy Metal and Stoner Rock genres, much like the first Black Sabbath album. Classic Rock Magazine has raved that “Growers of Mushrooms” is one of the most influential pieces of music on the stoner rock, and the album has gained a reputation as being one of the true lost gems of the early British hard rock scene. Original Decca vinyl copies are one of the most rare collectable rock albums out there with prices soaring above £4,000!
More than 40 years later after the release of that legendary ‘Growers Of Mushroom’ record, after numerous club gigs with acts such as Nazareth, Mountain, Orange Goblin or Witchcraft and festival appearances live at Roadburn, Sweden Rock or Desertfest in London, Leaf Hound are finally back! It was during a sweltering hot Japanese summer of 2012, heavy rock legends Leaf Hound were invited to make their first ever appearance in Tokyo, Japan. These shows were recorded and filmed for a limited release in Japan as a live album and DVD package by Captain Trip records in 2013. Leaf Hound have now teamed up with American label Ripple Music, who will be releasing the Leaf Hound‘Live In Japan’ Vinyl album and DVD/CD set worldwide in January 2014!
The tracklist of "Live in Japan" will include following legendary Leaf Hound songs such as:
Barricades
Freelance Fiend
Work My Body
Stop, Look And Listen
With A Minute To Go
One Hundred And Five Degrees
Evil
"Live In Japan" by Leaf Hound is set to hit the UK stores on January 13rd,
and will be coming out in Europe on January 14th 2014 via Ripple Music / Planetworks Enterprises.
www.ripple-music.com
www.planetworksent.com
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www.planetworksent.com
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Sunday, 2 December 2012
Hour of Power 12/01/12 (playlist)
Highlights from the week of 11/25/12 - 12/01/12
- Night (Ice Dragon / Tome of the Future Ancients) 2012
- Amaranth [live] (Windhand) 2012
- Navy in Alice (1000mods / Super Van Vacation) 2011
- Everything Divine (Seamount / Earthmother) 2012
- Blackbird (Dwellers / Good Morning Harakiri) 2012
- White Magic Black Magic (Saint Vitus / ST) 1984
- Searching (Three Seasons / Understanding the World) 2012
- Cosmic Cruiser X (Mage / Black Sands) 2012
- Growers of Mushroom (Leaf Hound / Growers of Mushroom) 1971
- Levantado (Heavy Eyes / Maera Demo) 2012
- Milk (White Bone Rattle / Creature of Curiosity) 2012
- Understanding Ouroboros (Ice Dragon / A Gallery of Rogues) 2012
Tuesday, 27 November 2012
Leaf Hound - Growers of Mushroom (classic album review)
RetRotation #2 - Leaf Hound
Simple riffs, solid rhythm section and soulful singing under the banner of funky Led Zeppelin inspired bluesy hard rock. This is Leaf Hound's Growers of Mushroom.
I first heard this album five years ago on a warm summer night of degenerate drinking in the park. After Black Sabbath 'Sabotage' had finished playing we wondered what to listen to next. I had this one album I hadn't heard yet by a group called Leaf Hound. They were a band I'd taken a flyer on after hearing the song "Growers of Mushroom", an unabashedl Cream pastiche. I wasn't expecting much, maybe some stereotypical British blues noodling or some out there prog meanderings, along the lines of Soft Machine or even "Blue Condition" or some such. I wasn't prepared for what blared out of my buddy's crappy little portable speakers. As each song ended we kept finding ourselves stopping and saying "that was a great song." By the time "Stray" blasted through the speakers the conversation was over and Leaf Hound owned the night.
The riffs are absolutely perfect, weaving simplistic tapestries of filth funk and headbanging grooves. They are the stuff that stoner rock dreams are made of, every bit as seminal to the genre as Sabbath's are to doom metal. Riffs such as "Freelance Fiend" and "Stray" are what the stoner rock fan is always hoping to hear. Without argument these are two of the best songs of all time.
By now the lore is familiar: 1 the band had already broken up at the time of this album's original release, 2 Peter French (vocalist) bounced from band to band never finding the stardom he so richly deserved, 3 original pressings of the LP sell for upwards of £2000, etc. But 1+2 do not necessarily make 3, logically speaking. What happened between 2 & 3?
Someone must have finally heard the damn thing.
"Freelance Fiend" is about as fine an opening statement as one will find on a hard rock album, it has all the classic ingredients of the band in full flight with a Hendrix-like guitar intro that cowbells its way into a power groove the likes of which one can only marvel at. The chorus rings out in a very Zeppelinian fashion, cutting out and allowing vocalist Peter French the spotlight that was (according to lore) so unjustly denied him. Add some phasing for the outro and you've got yourself one hell of a classic.
"Stray" is just simply put one of the best goddamn songs I've ever heard. After a quick two measure solo guitar intro, the power groove stutters and struts in with dark and heavy footsteps. The guitar sounds like danger coming and the drums are very Bill Ward inspired, especially during the chorus. The funkiest white boy music one can ever hope to hear. Peter French adds a ton of urgency to the song with his strained vocal delivery.
As mentioned above, the very Cream-y "Growers of Mushroom" was the first song I heard (I also discovered "Hot Smoke & Sassafrass" by Bubble Puppy at around the same time. Check it out.) and it really didn't prepare me for what was to come on the rest of the album. The song sticks out like a sore thumb when taken with the rest of the album, making you wonder not only why the shortest track on the album buried in the middle of side B became the title track, but why it was even included on the album in the first place. It's structurally, stylistically and technically different from anything else found on the album. It's a very good song, it's just curious and is symbolic of the kind of decision making that clouded this album and its posthumous issuance like a haze of stale dopesmoke. "Sad Road to the Sea" and "Sawdust Caesar" also puts the band's Cream influences on display, particularly in the drums on the latter, the former track utilizes a Jack Bruce-like vocal melody and sounds like something off of 'Wheels of Fire'. They're both great songs.
"Stagnant Pool" is a perfect example of the kind of riff and the kind of song that one might expect to hear from a stoner rock album released today. This track in particular seems to presage the sound of Kyuss with its driving riff, sudden tempo changes and urgent vocals. Just another in a number of all-time classics.
This would be a perfect five album if not for "Work My Body" and "With a Minute To Go", two slower numbers that were pretty standard fare at the time for this kind of album. "Work My Body" in particular proves that as good as the band were at crafting heavy blues funk, they weren't as capable as, say, a Led Zeppelin when handling the larger, slower compositions. "With a Minute To Go" isn't really a bad song but it goes against the grain on this album, sandwiched between high energy "Stray" and the title track, this song doesn't make for a good follow up to "Stray". It's like having desert first, what follows, though good, just won't measure up. Maybe this would have worked better as a closing track.
Reminds me of: Cream, The Faces, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin
My Rating: 4.5/5
Tracklist
1). Freelance Fiend (3:11)
2). Sad Road to the Sea (4:16)
3). Drowned My Life in Fear (3:00)
4). Work My Body (8:12)
5). Stray (3:48)
6). With a Minute To Go (4:19)
7). Growers of Mushroom (2:17)
8). Stagnant Pool (3:59)
9). Sawdust Caesar (4:30)
Total Run Time: 37:28
From: Battersea, South London, UK
Genre: Stoner Rock (with hindsight), Heavy Metal (at the time), Hard Rock, Psychedelic, Southern Rock
Released: November 1971
More Info
History
Interview w/ Peter French
Suggested Listening Activity for fellow non-stoners: This is beer drinkin' music.
I first heard this album five years ago on a warm summer night of degenerate drinking in the park. After Black Sabbath 'Sabotage' had finished playing we wondered what to listen to next. I had this one album I hadn't heard yet by a group called Leaf Hound. They were a band I'd taken a flyer on after hearing the song "Growers of Mushroom", an unabashedl Cream pastiche. I wasn't expecting much, maybe some stereotypical British blues noodling or some out there prog meanderings, along the lines of Soft Machine or even "Blue Condition" or some such. I wasn't prepared for what blared out of my buddy's crappy little portable speakers. As each song ended we kept finding ourselves stopping and saying "that was a great song." By the time "Stray" blasted through the speakers the conversation was over and Leaf Hound owned the night.
The riffs are absolutely perfect, weaving simplistic tapestries of filth funk and headbanging grooves. They are the stuff that stoner rock dreams are made of, every bit as seminal to the genre as Sabbath's are to doom metal. Riffs such as "Freelance Fiend" and "Stray" are what the stoner rock fan is always hoping to hear. Without argument these are two of the best songs of all time.
By now the lore is familiar: 1 the band had already broken up at the time of this album's original release, 2 Peter French (vocalist) bounced from band to band never finding the stardom he so richly deserved, 3 original pressings of the LP sell for upwards of £2000, etc. But 1+2 do not necessarily make 3, logically speaking. What happened between 2 & 3?
Someone must have finally heard the damn thing.
"Freelance Fiend" is about as fine an opening statement as one will find on a hard rock album, it has all the classic ingredients of the band in full flight with a Hendrix-like guitar intro that cowbells its way into a power groove the likes of which one can only marvel at. The chorus rings out in a very Zeppelinian fashion, cutting out and allowing vocalist Peter French the spotlight that was (according to lore) so unjustly denied him. Add some phasing for the outro and you've got yourself one hell of a classic.
"Stray" is just simply put one of the best goddamn songs I've ever heard. After a quick two measure solo guitar intro, the power groove stutters and struts in with dark and heavy footsteps. The guitar sounds like danger coming and the drums are very Bill Ward inspired, especially during the chorus. The funkiest white boy music one can ever hope to hear. Peter French adds a ton of urgency to the song with his strained vocal delivery.
As mentioned above, the very Cream-y "Growers of Mushroom" was the first song I heard (I also discovered "Hot Smoke & Sassafrass" by Bubble Puppy at around the same time. Check it out.) and it really didn't prepare me for what was to come on the rest of the album. The song sticks out like a sore thumb when taken with the rest of the album, making you wonder not only why the shortest track on the album buried in the middle of side B became the title track, but why it was even included on the album in the first place. It's structurally, stylistically and technically different from anything else found on the album. It's a very good song, it's just curious and is symbolic of the kind of decision making that clouded this album and its posthumous issuance like a haze of stale dopesmoke. "Sad Road to the Sea" and "Sawdust Caesar" also puts the band's Cream influences on display, particularly in the drums on the latter, the former track utilizes a Jack Bruce-like vocal melody and sounds like something off of 'Wheels of Fire'. They're both great songs.
"Stagnant Pool" is a perfect example of the kind of riff and the kind of song that one might expect to hear from a stoner rock album released today. This track in particular seems to presage the sound of Kyuss with its driving riff, sudden tempo changes and urgent vocals. Just another in a number of all-time classics.
This would be a perfect five album if not for "Work My Body" and "With a Minute To Go", two slower numbers that were pretty standard fare at the time for this kind of album. "Work My Body" in particular proves that as good as the band were at crafting heavy blues funk, they weren't as capable as, say, a Led Zeppelin when handling the larger, slower compositions. "With a Minute To Go" isn't really a bad song but it goes against the grain on this album, sandwiched between high energy "Stray" and the title track, this song doesn't make for a good follow up to "Stray". It's like having desert first, what follows, though good, just won't measure up. Maybe this would have worked better as a closing track.
Reminds me of: Cream, The Faces, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin
My Rating: 4.5/5
Tracklist
1). Freelance Fiend (3:11)
2). Sad Road to the Sea (4:16)
3). Drowned My Life in Fear (3:00)
4). Work My Body (8:12)
5). Stray (3:48)
6). With a Minute To Go (4:19)
7). Growers of Mushroom (2:17)
8). Stagnant Pool (3:59)
9). Sawdust Caesar (4:30)
Total Run Time: 37:28
From: Battersea, South London, UK
Genre: Stoner Rock (with hindsight), Heavy Metal (at the time), Hard Rock, Psychedelic, Southern Rock
Released: November 1971
More Info
History
Interview w/ Peter French
Suggested Listening Activity for fellow non-stoners: This is beer drinkin' music.
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