Hour of Power 02/14/14

1. Foehammer (Conan / Blood Eagle) PRE
2. Nine Princes In Amber (Ogre / The Last Neanderthal) PRE
3. Mommy (At Devil Dirt / Plan B: Sin Revolución no hay Evolución)
4. Kings Highway (Scorpion Child / Self-Titled)
5. Black Helicopters (Gaggle of Cocks / Low Class Trendsetter)
6. Torres De Silencio (Akuma / For the Beloved Bones)
7. A Very Old Ghost Behind the Farm 'La Came Crude' teaser
8. As The World Burned (SOL / And The Mouth of Time is Open)
9. Fly Trap (Fight Amp / Birth Control)
10. Ananta (Yama / 7" single) PRE
11. Black Crypt (John Gallow)
12. Dopelord new album teaser
13. Season of the Sun (Dirt Wizard / No Son of Mine)
14. Thoth Amon (Wizard Union / Smoking Coffins)

 PRE = Pre-Release / Not yet available

Hour of Power 10/26/13 (playlist)

1. Goodbye Gemini (Blood Ceremony / The Eldritch Dark) 2013
2. Children of the Sun (Nightstalker / Dead Rock Commandos) 2012
3. Heartbreaker (Motörhead / Aftershock) 2013
4. Loner (Black Sabbath / 13) 2013
5. Golachab (Saturnalia Temple / Impossibilum EP) 2013
6. Go Blind (Shooting Guns / Brotherhood of the Ram) 2013
7. Ride to Ruin (Hollow Leg / Abysmal) 2013
8. Conscience (At Devil Dirt / Plan B: Sin Revolución no hay Evolución) 2013
9. Evil Eye (Fu Manchu / The Action Is Go) 1997 'classic clip'

And a special bonus:
10.  Cooking Hostile with Phil Anselmo Episode 1 2013

At Devil Dirt - Plan B: Sin Revolución no hay Evolución (album review)

40 years ago ...

Augusto Pinochet, commander-in-chief of the Chilean army stages a successful coup d'etat against President Allende, the man who had appointed him to the position.  He would hold the reigns of power in the country for the next 17 years.

Months ago ...

Memories resonate and echo across time.  A shadow passes over the earth, traveling at twice the speed of sound.  I'm picking up a transmission from the universe as the shadow approaches.  60's underground psychedelia, Smashing Pumpkins 'Siamese Dream' album and a kind of positive social Darwinism will collide with Chainsaw fuzz to formulate a Plan B from outer space.  It's going to cause a stir.  It's going to change opinions.  It's going to solidify things then take them in new directions.  This is what it will look like to see individuals embody the very expansion of the universe ...

Today ...

The first thought that occurs to me is 'Siamese Dream', but mostly just the heavy, catchy parts of that album.  For the last At Devil Dirt album, 'Chapter II', the first thought that occurred to me was 'Songs for the Deaf'.  Is this evolution?  Is it revolution?  Well for those of us who have been following the course the band has taken in the interim, the transition should come as little surprise.  Besides, it's not as pronounced as I'm making it out to be.  At Devil Dirt is still At Devil Dirt and the dust and dirt that settles on Chilean streets still churn and dance with their immutable power, but let's say there's an extra teaspoon of sugar in this recipe and, importantly, an extra serving's worth of variation.

At Devil Dirt have the increasingly rare ability to craft memorable choruses.  I'm not just talking about pleasant or catchy hooks here, I'm talking about statements with the power of a politically charged lullaby.  Aldous Huxley discussed the ability of melody to worm its way into the mind and change opinion in his 1959 non-fiction book Brave New World Revisited from the chapter "The Art of Selling":

"...melodies tend to ingrain themselves in the listener's mind.  A tune will haunt the memory during the whole of a lifetime.  Here, for example, is a quite uninteresting statement or value judgment.  As it stands nobody will pay attention to it.  But now set the words to a catchy and easily remembered tune.  Immediately the become words of power.  Moreover, the words will tend automatically to repeat themselves every time the melody is heard or spontaneously remembered.  Orpheus has entered into an alliance with Pavlov - the power of sound with the conditioned reflex.  For the commercial propagandist, as for his colleagues in the fields of politics and religion, music possesses yet another advantage.  Nonsense which it would be shameful for a reasonable being to write, speak or hear spoken, can be sung or listened to by that same rational being with pleasure and even with a kind of intellectual conviction."

Such power is dangerous in the wrong hands.  At Devil Dirt have scored the kind of sing-songy messages that are not easily forgotten at least twice on this album:  the title track, and the album's closer "There Is Not A God Or A Devil" (also featured on the Chilean Fuzz II compilation [see the review here]).  The band understands that simplicity is the usher of memory and that this simplicity invites a listener / audience sing along.  John Lennon had the ability to pen anthems with "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine" being the finest examples of his politically charged message songs.  It's also clear that At Devil Dirt had Lennon in mind while creating 'Plan B'.  Lennon's "Across the Universe" is covered here (interestingly sequenced right before "There Is Not a God Or A Devil") and the song is smothered in about three inches of dark fuzz.  The Chilean duo had shown the ability to pen simplistic anthemic tunes on 'Chapter II' and that ability has been focused like a laser to match their intent on 'Plan B'.

Of course, it isn't just the above mentioned songs that show this mind-worming catchiness.  I begin to wonder whether or not the band can really help but write incredibly catchy songs.  Opening pair "Don't See You Around" and "Conscience" are marvels of eloquent catchiness.  This is the form the band's evolution has taken, it's all about focus.

As for the revolutionary, AT Devil Dirt tries some things that are altogether new to their sound.  "40 Years Ago" becomes a 13 and a half minute "sound-painting", not entirely unlike "Revolution 9", with clips and samples of what I must only assume is Chile's own notorious dictator, Pinochet propagandizing.  The song is bookended by more traditional sounds, including one of vocalist Nestor Ayala's most ambitious choruses yet, as he experiments with Alice in Chains style dissonance.  Fortunately, the adventurous melody is met by perhaps his most ambitious and far reaching lyrics yet, telling the story of Pinochet and the plight of the Chilean people during his 17 year reign.  I'm not even going to pretend to know what living under a dictator is like, but it is heartening to know that there are those out there who chose not to forget and are still driven to tell the story.  Another branch of At Devil Dirt's revolution is the abundance of slower songs, specifically on side B, something that was missing entirely from 'Chapter II'.  That album could be accused of being a bit samey, however kick-ass.  But perhaps the most surprising strike here in the band's musical coup d'etat is the bluesy acoustic "Time To Flee".  There is absolutely no doubt at all that the band has pulled out all the stops on their latest record and that the band has invested their hearts, minds and souls into its execution.

Years from now, after the revolution ...

When the shadow had passed over the earth, finally completing its orbit, it punched into escape velocity, it's work finished.  Down below a confused murmur arose.  Could it have been a dream?  Had it all really happened?  Yes, the Earth remained the Earth, and there was no way you could feel the difference between day to day and yet it was there.  Something had changed.  Something essential had shifted.  The heavens did not rejoice, the sky did not sing and to a man, the human race went quietly about its business.  Yet somewhere within the heart of every one a confidence pulsated and they knew instinctively, they were ready for the next step ...

'Plan B' will be made available in most musical formats between Halloween and March 2014.  The digital version of the album will be available on bandcamp from October 30 while CD and cassette copies will be distributed from December 15.  The vinyl edition will be out in March from Bilocation Records.

Highlights include: "Sin Revolución no hay Evolución" and "There Is Not a God or a Devil"

Rating: 4/5


Total Run Time: 55:20

Néstor "Gato" Ayala (Guitar/Vocals)
Francisco "Hongo" Alvarado (Drums)

From: Santiago, Chile

Genre: Stoner, Psychedelic, Blues, Doom, Sludge

Reminds me of: John Lennon, Smashing Pumpkins

Release Date: October 30, 2013

At Devil Dirt on facebook

The All-New! All- Different! Weekly Mailbag! for 01/21/13 - 01/25/13

A look at what came in the mail this week, featuring links, product descriptions and mini-reviews, featuring ...

AT DEVIL DIRT - The Gentlemen Bastards - IT'S NOT NIGHT: IT'S SPACE - State of Micky and Tommy - WHEELFALL

AT DEVIL DIRT - Chapter II "Vulgo gratissimus auctor" (2012)

Having put it off for far too long I finally bought a copy of the last of my top 10 albums of 2012 that were available (Moon Curse is the only one left now as it hasn't been available as a physical release, but word came in that they have sent their album off to the vinyl plant and their EP is being pressed even as we speak).  It took about three weeks in getting here, which isn't too long a wait for it to come all the way up the coast from Chile to BC and when it arrived it came with a copy of the band's self-titled debut album as well!  I hadn't gone back and heard it yet as I'm still quite satisfied listening to 'Chapter II' at the moment.  Admittedly it's been a long moment.  If you haven't read it yet, and you want to know what I think of the music, you can read my full review.  It's actually one of my most read posts (or at least, one of my most 'looked at').  Like every band featured on Paranoid Hitsophrenic, they're a very good band and it seems a lot of folks are really taking notice of them.  Such is the power of 'Chapter II'.

If you're not familiar with the band, they are a two piece from Chile.  There's Nestor Ayala on guitar and Francisco Alvarado on drums and they pound, fuzz, wail and crash with a tone that pierces straight to the center of the brain.  Great stoner rock in the Queens of the Stone Age tradition.

Listening to the debut for the first time I'm struck by an aspect I never got to touch on in my review, which is the band's growth between releases.  'At Devil Dirt' takes a more aggressive approach while 'Chapter II' takes is more laid back with the confident swagger of a band finding its voice while maintaining a sharp focus.  Also, the vocals are mostly in their native Spanish with only a few in English on the debut.  'Chapter II' is all in English.

The 'Chapter II' CD is available on the band's bandcamp page for 12 US dollars and comes in a single panel digipack with credits on the inside cover and band photos beneath the CD tray.  The debut has much the same format and is for sale at 10 US dollars on bandcamp.  The digital version of this album is also a "pay what you want" while the digital version of 'Chapter II' is available at 4 dollars.
Highlights include "I am an Ugly Skin" and "That the Start Sweet Ends Bitter".
Rating 5/5

2012 Chronicle (Year in review) part 8 - Best of August

August 2 - Pitch Black Forecast (Burning In Water, Drowning In Flame)

August 3 - Lemonparty (The All-Seeing)

August 3 - RED DESERT (Damned By Fate) - Melodic downtuned and fuzzed out rock and roll riffs with excellent hooks.  What you're looking at here is a Top 10 album of the year, so it is revealed.  I've lived with this album for months and its many terrific tracks have become staples of the daily hour long commute to work mix.  Very few albums grabbed me for as long or as hard as this one has.  And it has one of the best album covers of the year.  It's a winner all the way around.  What's not to like?  See my previous write-up of Red Desert.  Get it here on Bandcamp.  Highlight include "Devils Curse" and "Lust Queen".  Rating 4.5/5

August 5 - Atragon (Vol. I)

August 8 - Hyne (3000)

August 11 - Salem's Pot (Sweeden)

August 12 - DOPETHRONE (III) - It is something to behold listening to this Montreal based three piece run through riff after riff of the grooviest, doomiest shit you will ever smoke ... er, hear.  The death metal vocals may be a turn off for some, but the riffs will bring one and all back, every time.  This band is something special.  Get it here.  Highlight include "Hooked" and "Devil's Dandruff".  Rating 4/5

August 14 - Slow Mover (ST)

August 18 - Tsepesch (Demo)

August 19 - MARA (Demo) - This Swedish four piece released one of the year's best demos.  They play Doom / Stoner / Sludge, in that order.  They can haul ass and play slow all at the same time (it has to do with vocals and crash symbol).  They could use a little love (or at least 'like') on Facebook.  Get the demo for free here.  Highlight include "Greed" and "Possessed".  Rating 4.5/5

August 24 - MEXICOMA (Supervoid) - Swedish six-piece stoner rockers Mexicoma brought their triple guitar attack out of hiding and returned with their second release.  This 4 song EP unleashed one of the catchiest songs of the year in "Mortified".  No joke, that song gets caught in my head at least once a week.  Get it here, if you dare.  Highlight include "Mortified" and "Room 101".  Rating 4/5

August 24 - VINUM SABBATUM (Bacchanale Premiere) - This Finnish quintet dropped the vintage rock and roll album that no one was expecting after establishing their sound as traditional doom.  Well, the album is more along the lines of proto doom.  There's still plenty of doom and thunder, but filtered through a Deep Purple lens so to speak.  Indeed that DP sounding organ is a big part of this album's sound and one of the main reasons I found it so addictive.  The album is extremely hook heavy as well and the A5 digipack CD packaging is just great, it comes with lyrics printed in the booklet to boot.  Any way you look at it, it's a killer package.  Get it here.  Highlight include "Earthrise" and "Tombstone Rider".  Rating 4.5/5

August 28 - ADMIRAL SIR CLOUDESLEY SHOVELL (Don't Hear It ... Fear It!) - The Shovell's impressive debut proves that the UK hard rockers don't make cooped-up compositions.  They let their children wander free, to laugh and spread their wings, to explore inner and outer space while ever remaining tethered to a late 60s early 70s framework.  Get it here.  Highlight include "Killer Kane" and "Red Admiral, Black Sunrise".  Rating 4.5/5

August 28 - NIGHTSTALKER (Dead Rock Commandos) - Greek stoner rock legends Nightstalker made their Small Stone record label debut with 'Dead Rock Commandos' and aced it.  10 good songs full of memorable riffs and lasting hooks.  Just a solid, solid album.  If you like rock, you'll like this.  Get it here.  Highlight include "Dead Rock Commandos" and "Go Get Some".  Rating 4/5

August 29  - CAPTAIN CRIMSON (Dancing Madly Backwards) - Seems my fingers are stuck typing about this band the way the songs are stuck in my head.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: one of the catchiest albums of the year.  Solid, steady driving hard rock that veers off into controlled chaos.  Wonderful stuff.  Get it here.  Highlight include "Dancing Madly Backwards" and "Lonely Devils Club".  Rating 4.5/5

August 30 - BISON, BISON (ST) - This was one of the first reviews I did and the band were very supportive.  Great guys.  Their 6 song EP challenged me and re-taught me the value of embracing the unexpected.  Terrific 3-piece stoner rock from Portland with traces of indie rock and many other styles on display.  Hunt them here.  Highlight include "Sweetish" and "Rivertown".  Rating 4/5

August 30 - Black Magician (Nature Is The Devil's Church)


August 31 - AT DEVIL DIRT (Chapter II "Vulgo gratissimus auctor") - Chilean duo At Devil Dirt have one of the best guitar sounds on the market today (rivaled only perhaps by Conan).  It's deep and mossy.  It will tear your skull apart.  The drums shake mountains and crash lightning.  The multi-tracked vocals smell sweet but spit poison.  At Devil Dirt have found an identity and exploit it for all its worth, 11 equally good songs of heavy fuzz and catchy harmonized melodies.  Read my original review of this terrific album here.  Get it here, and read the press clippings on the page while you're at it ;-).  Highlight include "I Am An Ugly Skin" and "Let It Flow".  Rating 5/5

Best Album From August 2012:
'Chapter II "Vulgo gratissimus auctor"' by AT DEVIL DIRT

Best Song From August 2012:
"Mortified" by MEXICOMA

Hour of Power 11/24/12 (playlist)

Highlights from the week of 11/18/12 - 11/24/12

1. Crazy (Sticky Digit / ST) 2012
2. Let It Flow (At Devil Dirt / Chapter II "vulgo gratissimus auctor") 2012
3. Black Night (Deep Purple / Deep Purple In Rock) 1970
4. The Ice Mammoth (Blue Aside / The Moles of a Dying Race) 2012
5. Smoke and Fire (Sun Gods in Exile / Thanks for the Silver) 2012
6. The Assassin's Song (Necronomicon / The Queen of Death) 2012
7. You Don't Love Me (Groundhogs / Scratching the Surface) 1968
8. Cosmonautical Mile (Harvester / The Blind Summit Recordings) 2012
9. The Cloven Sea (Arkham Witch / Legions of the Deep) 2012
10. Horsepuncher (live) (Lord of the Grave / Green Vapour) 2012
11. Huckleberry (live) (Ichabod / Dreamscapes From Dead Space) 2012

At Devil Dirt - Chapter II "Vulgo gratissimus auctor" (album review)

At Devil Dirt is a two-piece stoner band from Chile, they describe their sound as "Simple, Drums, riffs and melodic vocals, sometimes screams..."  Their second album is a good times record soaked in lazy multi-tracked harmonies and a fuzz tone so thick you will swear the world is being slowly ripped apart.  Amazingly that fuzz tone comes out of a guitar, not a bass.

We've all got a favorite food.  That thing you could consume every day and never get sick of.  The two guys in the band (Néstor "Gato" Ayala (Guitar/Vocals), Francisco "Hongo" Alvarado (Drums)) employ a simple formula, take three cups of deep-tone fuzz and mix with three cups of melodic multi-tracked vocal harmony and add a tablespoon of sugar.  Bring to a boil.  Serve daily.  On paper, it shouldn't work but it does.  It would be so easy to get the formula of 11 songs, two instruments, 47 minutes wrong, that these guys are going back to the well too many times, and yes there's a singular vision, a signature sound throughout, but there's enough variation to keep things interesting.  Each time I listen to this album I have a new list of four favorite tracks.  Oh yeah, every song is a highlight.

The guitar tone, hooks and rhythms at times compares favorably to the best moments of Queens of the Stone Age's classic 'Songs for the Deaf' album.

Opening track "I am an Ugly Skin" showcases the band's mollases slow, Sabbathy side, the track absolutely drools thick streamers of fuzz and creeps evilly forward like a deranged beekeeper with a chainsaw.  And always there's the honied vocal melodies to draw you close.  That's when the tortured lyrics stick the blade between the ribs, as in "I Walk Aimlessly": "I don't know why you are laughing, I must confess, this really hurts."  The track also reveals the band's bluesy underpinnings with a harmonica wailing distant in the mix.

"Let It Flow" is another slowly spinning buzzsaw of a track.  When this band plays downtempo, the tracks extend over five and sometimes six minutes long, but they never feel drawn out because they retain a strict attention to song structure.  The trajectory of each song is focused, even while they do allow themselves the occasional jam moments.  "Unleash Your Anger" is another fine example of this.  "Let It Flow" is a great example of Gato's seemingly natural born ability to draft catchy melodic hooks with ease.  "That the Start Sweet Ends Bitter" is the band at its heaviest, thumping best a fitting close to the album that leaves the listener panting for more.

You will come for the fuzz but you will stay for the melodic hooks.

Highlights include: "Better the Devil You Know Than the Devil You Don't Know" and "I am an Ugly Skin"

Rating: 5/5


Total Run Time: 47:12

From: Santiago, Chile

Genre: Stoner, Doom, Fuzz Rock, Desert Rock

Reminds me of: Kyuss, QOTSA, Sleep, Snail

Release Date: August 31, 2012

Suggested listening activity for fellow non-stoners: Don't worry, that deep-tone fuzz you hear is just the radiation from the sun burning your eyes out and boiling your brain.

Interview with Sludgelord

Better Reviews
The Obelisk
The Sludgelord
The Soda Shop

Hour of Power 11/17/12 (playlist)

Highlights from the week of 11/11/12 - 11/17/12

1. Warhead (Heat / Old Sparky) 2012
2. Better the Devil You Know Than the Devil You Don't Know (At Devil Dirt / Chapter II "vulgo gratissimus auctor") 2012
3. Transmaniacon MC (Blue Oyster Cult / ST) 1972
4. Skygods (Demonic Death Judge / Skygods) 2012
5. The Red Death (Hornss / The Red Death) 2012
6. Shine (Maligno / The Funeral Domine) 2011
7. Decibel Grand (Molior Superum / Into the Sun) 2012
8. Case of Fidelity (Greenleaf / Nest of Vipers) 2012
9. Second Production (Mike Stuart Span [Leviathan] / Children of Tomorrow) 1967
10. The Megalodon (Corrosion of Conformity / Megalodon EP) 2012
11. Non-State Actor (Soundgarden / King Animal) 2012
12. Blind Seer (Green & Wood / Devil's Plan) 2011
13. Tower of Skulls (Beastwars / TBA) 2013
14. Dust Parade (Terra Firma / Harms Way) 2001