2013 Chronicle (Year in review) part 10 - Best of September 2013

September 2 - Cult of the Headless Witch (ST)

September 3 - VISTA CHINO (Peace) - The band formerly known as Kyuss Lives! made their debut on this date.  Though it was a debut, it was easy to go in with a whole suite of set expectations, but to their credit, Vista Chino delivered an album that both pays homage (pun unintended) to the band's Kyuss roots and moves in an all-new direction.  This was the record that should by all rights have been the biggest let down of the year, and ends up an easy top 20 pick.  Original review here.  Get it here. Highlights include: "Dargona Dragona" and "As You Wish".  Rating 4.5/5

September 6 - Nonsun (Sun Blind Me)

September 6 - SINISTER REALM (World of Evil) - Shadow Kingdom Records rarely falters in their vision or their judgment, so you know what you were getting into here, old school metal touched by the hand of doom.  Vocalist Alex Kristof puts in a strong Dio-like performance while guitarists Risko & Kantner shred and the rhythm section creates a claustrophobic effect.  Good heavy old school doom right here.  Get it here. Highlights include: "Cyber Villain" and "Dark Angel of Fate".  Rating 3.5/5

September 9 - BLOOD RED WATER (All the Ills of Mankind) - Italian sludge quintet Blood Red Water increased the stakes big time on their second E.P.  The follow-up to last year's 'Tales of Addiction & Despair' was still full of addiction & despair, only the intensity was increased a hundred fold with faster tempos and tighter grooves.  Original review here.  Get it here. Highlights include: "Bad Trip in a Toxic Mind" and "The Outstanding Loss".  Rating 5/5

September 11 - NYMF (From the Dark) - One of the best albums of the year, 'From the Dark' also happens to be one of the hardest to define by genre.  Niklas Sjoberg's vocals are mostly clean if forceful, but sometimes growl, the music mostly moves at a good pace with the force of a jackhammer but is also doomy in places.  I just call it good metal with cool lyrics about werewolf covens and vampires and stuff.  Original review here.  Get it here. Highlights include: "Fear of the Doom" and "Lucifer Takes the Crown".  Rating 4.5/5

September 11 - Sun of Man - (I)

September 13 - Exiles (Wreck)

September 13 - Shades of Deep Water (Waterways)

September 13 - YIDHRA (Hexed) - From L.A. but featuring a thick, filthy, very un-sunny sound the doom metal quintet Yidhra conjured their debut album on this date.  There's nothing cute or pretty about this 9-song collection of doomed death knells, just some extremely atmospheric tunes, thick like black attic mold.  Original review here.  Get it here. Highlights include: "Oath Breaker" and "Mai-Cob".  Rating 4.5/5

September 17 - SUBROSA (More Constant Than the Gods) - Utah's very own experimental doom quintet SubRosa has crafted the go to album to escape the traditional, the expected or the norm (however strange your norm may be). SubRosa push the sonic boundaries into the remote, into the timeless. Sarah Pendleton's violin has a lot to do with it, her highly atmospheric playing style suggests the sound of the future while conjuring images of a pirate-laden and enchanted past. 'More Constant Than the Gods' is a listening experience all its own.  Get it here. Highlights include: "Ghosts of a Dead Empire" and "Cosey Mo".  Rating 4/5

September 17 - Tombstone (Evil Seed single)

September 18 - PALM DESERT (Adayoff) - Recorded in a single marathon session, with much if not most of it improvised or composed on the spot in the studio, 'Adayoff' is a breezy EP that moves through track after track of loose stoner jams.  The "off-the-cuff" way it was put together is part of this E.P.'s haphazard charm.  Original review here.  Get it here. Highlights include: "Dusty" and "Among the Stones".  Rating 4/5

September 18 - WOODWALL (WoodEmpire) - Italian quartet Woodwall's full-length debut already made my dubious "didn't listen to enough" list, unfortunately, but I'm more than happy to rectify that as time trudges onward.  Certainly the most adventurous offering in the stoner / sludge category this year, 'WoodEmpire' is full to the brim with progressive movements, changing dynamics and strange ideas.  Get it here. Highlights include: "WoodEmpire" and "King Stuste".  Rating 5/5

September 20 - Alucarda (D.F.F.L.)

September 20 - Dead Meadow (Warble Womb)

September 24 - Olde (The Gates of Dawn)

September 24 - SASQUATCH (IV) - L.A.'s go-to fuzz rockers let loose their fourth album for Small Stone Records on this date.  What may seem unassuming on first listen soon takes hold of the listener and it isn't too long before you can't stop spinning the record.  Simply put, this is some top notch stoner rock.  Original review here.  Get it here. Highlights include: "The Message" and "Smoke Signal".  Rating 4/5

September 24 - WINDHAND (Soma) - Arguably the biggest doom buzz band in the world of mainstream metal, Windhand's second album and first (full-length album) on Relapse Records had many scratching their heads wondering what all the fuss was about.  It's my assumption that these head scratchers never heard the band's self-released debut and so failed to see the band find their own identity and leave their own  mark on the genre.  'Soma' is an impressive six song collection which casts a dark light on all corners of Windhand's emerging identity while throwing all but the kitchen sink at the listener including the 30 minute-(over)long closer.  Original review here.  Get it here. Highlights include: "Woodbine" and "Orchard".  Rating 4/5

September 27 - Disenchanter (Back to Earth)


Best Album From June 2013:
'From the Dark' by NYMF

Best Song From June 2013:
"Woodbine" by WINDHAND

PARANOID Thoughts:

Female-fronted.  You read that two word phrase a lot these days.  "Female-fronted occult-based doom metal band ..." is becoming roughly as familiar a phrase as "... a mix of sun and cloud with a chance of showers ...".  The most remarkable aspect of it all remains the fact that it continues to be pointed out in the first place.  I, myself have been known to utter the phrase and it always makes me feel a bit uncomfortable.  In my defense I would like to point out that I usually try to give a reader unfamiliar with a band at least an idea of what to expect from the vocals of ANY band, and if they are instrumental to point that out early in an article as well.  We all have different tastes, some like clean vocals, some don't, etc.  The truth is, the overwhelming majority of metal vocalists are men and I don't see that changing any time soon, so the fact that a band's vocalist is a woman remains an interesting one I suppose.

The issue here of course is the vague generalness of the term "female-fronted".  I'm not sure the phrase has any real meaning whatsoever, and does nothing to prove to me that such different sounding bands with such different vocal styles as say Jess & the Ancient Ones and Shroud Eater have anything in common at all.  What do Kylesa, Windhand & Seremonia have in common?  They are all bands and that's about the extent of it.

Below you'll find a list of my favorite lady singers whose bands released albums in 2013.

Top 10 Vocalists (Female):
1). Jex Thoth (Jex Thoth)
2). Alia O'Brien (Blood Ceremony)
3). Shelly Delbridge (Albino Python)
4). Jane Esther-Collins (Shinin' Shade)
5). Emily Kopplin (Mount Salem)
6). Darcy Nutt (Uzala)
7). Jean Saiz (Shroud Eater)
8). Dorthia Cottrell (Windhand)
9). Noora Federley (Seremonia)
10). Rebecca Vernon (SubRosa)

And just so the dudes don't accuse me of being a 'sexist', here's the men's list.  Some were selected for their singing chops, others for their incredible ability to pen unique and thought provoking lyrics, some even have both those things going for them.  Mostly it's whose words and whose voices that spun around my head in 2013.

Top 10 Vocalists (Male):
1). Marc Gaffney (Gozu)
2). Kevin Schindel (Neon Warship)
3). Aryn Jonathan Black (Scorpion Child)
4). Butch Balich (Argus)
5). Mark Weiner (Earthen Grave)
6). Dee Calhoun (Iron Man)
7). Phil Anselmo (Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals)
8). Ron Rochondo (Ice Dragon / Tentacle / The Mangled Dead)
9). Steve Janiak (Devil To Pay)
10). Philip (Aleph Null)

Hour of Power 12/14/13

1. Palm Reader (Castles / Fiction or Truth?) 2013
2. Sweet Remain (Vista Chino / Peace) 2013
3. Prophet (Truckfighters / Universe) 2014
4. Blood Like Cream (Red Fang / Whales & Leeches) 2013
5. Tango Decadence (Kamchatka / single) 2013
6. Harmonomicon (Intronaut / Habitual Levitations) 2013
7. CЯEATURA (Black Majik Acid / Sermons of the Dead split w/ Merlin) 2013
8. The Only Truth (Bretus / ST EP) 2009
9. Am I Alone (Slow Heart / TBA) 2013
10. Totality (Sheavy / Moons in Penumbra) 2014
11. Rhetoric of No (Indian / From All Purity) 2014
12. Triumph and Power (Grand Magus / Triumph and Power) 2014

Hour of Power 10/05/13 (playlist)

1. Hail to the Haze (Iron Man / South of the Earth) 2013
2. Lotus Jam (Beelzefuzz / ST) 2013
3. Turn the Tide (Spiritual Beggars / Earth Blues) 2013
4. Be Like You (Bite the Bullet / ST) 2013
5. Red Fang promo 2013
6. In the Forest (Doublestone / Wingmakers) 2013
7. Equus October (Earthless / From the Ages) 2013
8. Haunted (Rob / Maniac OST) 2013
9. Jackal Headed Guard of the Dead new album preview 2013
10. Dargona Dragona (Vista Chino / Peace) 2013
11. The Message (Sasquatch / IV) 2013
12. Death is Another Word ... (Earthen Grave / ST) 2013
13. Death Dealer (The Gates of Slumber [R.I.P.] / Hymns of Blood and Thunder) 2009
14. All Nightmare Long (Metallica / Death Magnetic) 2008 'classic clip'

Vista Chino - Peace (album review)

We in the stoner rock and doom metal community have had it really good for the past couple years.  However, 2013 has not been without its share of difficulties from death to polemics.  Probably the most divisive debates of the year have been over the new Black Sabbath and Orchid albums.  Largely, supporters of one band don't seem to support the other and it's become a regular mods versus rockers type of atmosphere (kidding).  There's been no blood shed over this paradigm, none that I know of at least, and most of us can still be buds and clank beer bottles after the debate is over and move on with our lives until the next great debate swings along.  And then there was Vista Chino.  It's no surprise really that folks will have strong opinions about this band.  Vista Chino is after all the latter day equivalent, if not remnant of Kyuss who, after Black Sabbath, are probably the most seminal influence on the whole lot of this broad underground genre.  Some people don't like Vista Chino.  The reasons for this are numerous and somewhat obvious if not apparent in the music.  If you've ever heard former Kyuss guitarist Josh Homme wax eloquent on his former band you'll understand the philosophy that he believed that they all shared at the time the band was happening.  That it was in and of the moment, a rejection of all things unoriginal and something never to be revisited or duplicated.  But as if often the case in life, the man was speaking for himself and not for the group as he believed he was.  John Garcia and Brant Bjork, Kyuss vocalist and drummer respectively, decided that they were getting the old band back together.  Why?  Maybe it's a mid-life crisis thing. Who knows and does it really matter why anyway?  They began touring as Kyuss Lives! which gave birth to one of the uglier situations of the year prior when a lawsuit filed by Homme and former Kyuss bassist Scott Reeder prohibited the band from recording under the name and prompting the change to Vista Chino.  Had Homme been involved in what ultimately became the Vista Chino project, it's almost certain that there would be little to no debate over its musical merits.  As it stands, Homme's place in the line-up has been filled by Belgian guitarist Bruno Fevery (Arsenal), an unenviable task if there ever was one.  It's a bit like asking a guy off the street to replace Tony Iommi in Black Sabbath or Jimmy Page in Led Zeppelin.  Absolutely unheard of!  Sacrilege!!

But the legal prompting of the name-change may have been the best thing for this band and taking it as its own thing, the music, and yes the guitar parts as well, are actually quite outstanding even within a genre absolutely overflowing with talented and unique musicians who have picked up where Kyuss left off.  WIth a situation like that you'd think there'd be no room left for a band such as this left to explore, but you'd be wrong.

First off, new guy Fevery does his best Homme interpretation and actually pulls it off with a great measure of skill.  Instead of taking the feel of a Homme Kyuss riff and going from there, Fevery cranks the fuzz up to 11 and feels his way around, much in the same way as his predecessor, but he does it in his own way.  This should be fairly obvious.  "Of course he did it in his own way, how could he not do it in his own way?"  Well, I have, and I'm sure that you have, heard too many guitarists who try to sound like Homme.  Fevery doesn't try to sound like Homme.  What comes across is the sense that the new buck uses some of the same starting points while setting riff to tape.  It's a feel thing, not an intellectual thing.

Garcia, Bjork and (now departed) bassist Nick Oliveri are in fine, latter-day form.  It's interesting that Garcia sings in his clean Unida style rather than the gruff growl remembered from 'Blues for the Red Sun', which part of me was hoping he'd get back to, even though that was what initially turned me off of the band when I first heard the album some 15 years ago.  At the time, I thought Garcia's vocals detracted from the band and made the band sound amateurish.  Of course, once the taste was acquired, it certainly added to the atmosphere the band was always drowning in.  I was a stupid kid, what did I know?

As mentioned earlier, fans of the original band seem to be split on this album, but for those without a rooting interest or who liked Kyuss but wasn't married to them, ought to be pleasantly surprised by the potency of Vista Chino.  Many a sonic dreamscape is explored and there's a definite and familiar looseness to the development of the songs, sort of like taking all the rigid material out of the jelly of the songs so that they flow from one idea to the next like blobs while maintaining a loose outline.  The thing is most of the ideas which flow by are terrific, if not fully developed and mostly brand new.  Those same casual fans will probably groove along to "As You Wish", "Planets 1 & 2", "Dargona Dragona" and the first bit of the 13 minute album closing epic "Acidize ... The Gambling Moose" or actually, all of it.  Kyuss fan or not, these tracks should put a smile on your face, they are full of fire, fuzz and fury.  Many of these songs have a "Green Machine" feel to them, at least at first, but soon spin off into their own freaking orbits, man.

I would rate 'Peace' as one of the best "big-name" releases of the past couple years, it's more of a debut than a comeback and if you keep that in mind, the album should speak to you and tickle your fuzzy bone.

The band recently blew through my town and there's still time to catch them on the last leg of their North American tour.  They're going to be in Quebec City, Ottawa, New York, Philadelphia and Columbus over the next week, check the band's facebook for details.

Highlights include: "Dargona Dragona" and "As You Wish"

Rating: 4.5/5


Tracklist:
1). Good Morning Wasteland (0:59)
2). Dargona Dragona (4:48)
3). Sweet Remain (3:11)
4). As You Wish (5:01)
5). Planets 1&2 (6:32)
6). Adara (4:40)
7). Mas Vino (1:26)
8). Dark and Lovely (6:15)
9). Barcelonian (3:31)
10). Acidize ... the Gambling Moose (13:01)
Bonus Tracks
11). Carnation (4:14)
12). Sunlight at Midnight (3:49)
Total Run Time: 57:22

John Garcia (Vocals)
Brant Bjork (Drums)
Bruno Fevery (Guitar)
Nick Oliveri (Bass on the 'Peace' record)

From: Palm Desert, California

Genre: Stoner, Psychedelic, Hard Rock

Reminds me of: What else?

Release Date: September 3, 2013

Vista Chino on facebook

GET IT HERE

OR HERE (digital)