SLEEP LP PRESSING INFO:
Dopesmoker 180 gram Picture Disc double
vinyl version= 1,000 pressed (only 500 available via Southern Lord
mailorder. Band has the other 500)
Dopesmoker 180 gram Black double vinyl version = 1500 pressed
Dopesmoker 180 gram Green double vinyl version = 3500 pressed
Dopesmoker 180 gram Clear double vinyl
version = 2000 pressed (*only available in Europe or when purchasing the
'ALL VERSIONS' package)
"For 2,000 of the vinyls (1500 black and 500
green) we had the artwork printed on holographic foil paper and then
fabricated by Stoughton for their "old-style" tip on gatefold jackets.
This was the bands vision as the best way to present the artwork. Due
to the high expense of the paper we only did a portion of the pressing
on this paper stock. After these have sold through we will have the
"regular jackets" which are the ultra high quality Stoughton
"old-style" tip on gatefold jackets and special parts of the art has a
spot-uv gloss. The lungsmen and their space pod come to life!"
Vinyls? Ugh. Southern Lord, get it together (grammatically).
(It's Southern Lord, so prepare to be raped by shipping fees)
...And now for something completely different! Entombed is awesome, I love them, and many of you know this. Unfortunately Entombed, in recent years, have had some missteps. While Inferno was largely a disappointment it did contain one of my favorite songs, "That's When I Became A Satanist". The When In Sodom E.P. was pretty awesome, but I digress. Black Breath is also awesome. They haven't had any missteps. Their latest album Sentenced To Life is an absolute ball breaker of buzzsaw guitars and death and roll goodness. Unrelenting from start to finish, Black Breath appear poised to usurp Entombed as the kings of MetalZone mayhem. Which, I'm totally o.k. with. Btw be sure to check out their new Scion A/V sponsored video for "Home Of The Grave", it's pretty awesomely terrible (in a good way). And is it just me or does the drummer look a hell of a lot like Nick Frost?
This one right here took me by surprise for sure. As I'm prone to do, I was surfing around on the superly awesome Brooklyn Vegan site and stumbled across an intriguing picture. It was two women sitting surrounded by drums with Asian opera masks on with a kinda of Ladytron noir vibe going on. The bands name was Yamantaka // Sonic Titan. With that name and the visual aesthetic that was presented to me, lets say I was intrigued. I read further, bands like Sleep, Queen, Qotsa, Ladytron (pegged that one) popped up as comparisons. Holy shit, I like all of those things! Then things like traditional Japanese opera and performance artists popped up. "Dude gotta check this out", I thought to myself. So I did. Let me tell you, this band, group, collective, continual art piece, or whatever you'd like to call them is flat out awesome.
YT//ST is the brainchild of Montreal performance artists Alaska B and Ruby Kato Attwood whose previous project was called Lesbian Fight Club. I know, right! Armed with an incredible sense of design, mad illustration skills, and a huge pile of "junk electronics" Ruby and Alaska wanted to start a project that would combine all of that with their strong cultural identities (both are mixed race). Forming in 2007 they quickly found their direction and started work on the first of their "Noh-Wave" operas." Noh" referring to the Japanese opera format . Through their short homebrewed operas they eventually formed a network of Asian and Indigenous artists that comprise the current collective. Montrealers(?) have had the pleasure of being wowed by YT//ST performances for some time now, now it's the rest of the worlds turn. Set against massive and quite intricate homemade black & white cardboard sets, YT//ST craft a complete experience for their audience. Visually its stunning enough, but throw in the fact that Alaska and Ruby are killer musicians, takes YT//ST over the top. It's gorgeous, other worldly, sludgy, and it rocks. Any other attempts to describe this album musically would not do it justice. Listen to this immediately! Most Definitely a year end contender for me. Yeah, I know it came out last year, but it's new to me!
* I mistakenly identified Noh as a Chinese format when in fact it is Japanese. Thank you, reader.
I told Rob I wasn't going to post this, but I decided that if I went ahead and did so it might light a fire under his ass and he might actually order a copy rather than wait for weeks and complain to me about how he didn't get a copy when it sells out. I don't know how many test pressings Halo of Flies had for this release, but I doubt it was very many. "Shorties With MP40s" is one of my favorite Thou songs and easily their silliest song title. This also features Thou covering "Screaming At A Wall" by Minor Threat, the fastest thing they've done to date. Dude from Halo of Flies said he's going to write "a cute little note" for everyone that buys a copy and "maybe I’ll toss something else in as well." Don't sleep on it.
Well, it appears that the mighty Coffinworm's 2009 demo The Great Bringer of Night will see a proper (read: vinyl) release via The Flenser. Two bonus tracks from the same recording session bring the total up to 5 songs. This might not be essential for some of you as the only song that didn't make it onto their absolutely crushing full length was "The Inner Caligula," but if you love this band as much as I do it's worth the 15 bucks for that song alone. Remastered by James Plotkin, limited to 120 copies on gold vinyl and 380 on black.
I absolutely adored Whirr's (they were called Whirl at the time) 2010 EP Distressor, so their first full length ranked among my most anticipated albums of 2012. After having nearly a month to digest Pipe Dreams how do I feel about it? It's complicated. As I said when I did a write up on Distressor, I think Whirr are at their best when combining the walls of blissful shoegaze guitar they create with a slightly more up tempo, hook-heavy and poppier sound, "Meaningless" being the perfect example. You could call it dream pop if you were so inclined. Is that sound on Pipe Dreams? It sure is. In fact there's probably about the same ratio of dream pop to more traditional shoegaze on this album as there was on the EP, but for some reason it just hasn't grabbed me like the EP did and I don't know why. Perhaps because one of the best songs was released on a 7" last year and I was already intimately familiar with it. Maybe it's because I had been hoping that this would be an album almost entirely comprised of pop songs. Perhaps I'm just mad that after the 0:14 second mark of "Home Is Where My Head Is" they don't play the best riff on the entire album ever again. Maybe I'm just an asshole. Whatever the case may be and despite my being a complete and utter baby about this, you should listen to this album. I know it's going to grow on me. Eventually I'm going to love the shit out of this album, look back on this post marvel at how fucking dense I was. Hopefully it will grow on you too.
In anticipation of the new Screaming Females album which drops Tuesday (and hasn't leaked yet, goddamn it) NSMYR! is providing a primer for those of you who may be unaware the bands charms. Screaming Females are an indie punk trio from New Brunswick, New Jersey. Admittedly I was a little late to the party, not having actually heard them until last year when I happened upon Castle Talk, but that first listen was a revelation. Have you ever been a few tracks into an initial listen and you just know that you're hearing one of your new favorite albums? That's what this album was like for me.
I hate to focus in on one individual in a band when describing them to someone who might not be familiar, but guitarist/vocalist Melissa Paternoster is undoubtedly the centerpiece of the Screaming Females. Simply put, she shreds. Her playing exudes an effortlessness and nonchalance, the riffs and solos just seem to well up at the tips of her fingers until they can't be contained any longer and finally burst forth. Her fluid, stream-of-conscious style reminds me of two of my favorite guitarists ever, Jimi Hendrix and J. Mascis, the latter being the more apt comparison stylistically. Her voice is tremendous. Powerful and finding a near perfect balance between the brashness of Kathleen Hanna and swagger of Carrie Brownstein.
I think everybody should give this a listen, but fans of Dinosaur Jr., Hüsker Dü and Sleater-Kinney should especially take note.
