Life on the road for a band is full of highs and lows. The unpredictable nature of the business of music interferes with the process of making art accessible to many. This is a sad reality for all touring bands, except for a precious few. Perspective is what you need to survive. You can look no further than the band TOTIMOSHI who has been around awhile, opened for some huge bands like THE MELVINS, MASTODON, NEUROSIS and ISIS and have a great new album out, Avenger (At A Loss). O’Brien club, just outside of Boston was less than full tonight which was kind of disappointing. The band however, appreciated those who did come out and didn’t let it affect them at all which was professional and cool. I was hoping to snag the split 7” the band has out with THE MELVINS, but alas they didn’t have it yet.
Darryl Sheppard is BLACKWOLFGOAT!
After hanging out a bit and chatting with some local scene folks, the bands started to play. The first band I caught was experimental noise-rock outfit LEAGUES. Fronted by the enchanting Deb Nicholson, the band ran through some obtuse songs that were high-minded, idealistic art pieces as much as they were songs. The crowd was digging it and the band seem to give that energy right back to the fans which was cool. Next up was solo guitar act BLACKWOLFGOAT. BLACKWOLFGOAT is the brainchild of guitarist Darryl Sheppard (MILLIGRAM/HACKMAN) who gets up there with just a guitar, an array of effects and one solitary amp. He crafts interesting rhythm and drone effects with his delay and sampling pedals and then plays beats, counter melodies and other riffs built on top of that foundation. The results are trippy and cool his choice of notes and licks is quite clever. Some of the loops become just insanely hypnotic over the course of time, sucking you in to the musical vortex. Bravo!
TOTIMOSHI rips it up live in Boston.
Finally it was time for TOTIMOSHI to hit the stage. They set up quickly and the fans that were in the house packed into the front for the headliners. The band readied for a musical war of the senses. Opening with the title track from their new album, they definitely set it off big time. Propulsive beats dropped from drummer Chris Fugitt like a thunderclap as Tony Aguilar’s guitar tone stabbed at our ears. The grooving jam just filled up the room and crushed. “The Seeing Eye” was next and was also really impressive. Between Aguilar’s fuzzed out riffs and singer/bassist Meg Castellanos thick as a brick basslines, the song is head-nodding good time. Aguilar is one of the more underrated front men rocking stages today. In addition to his terrific guitar skills, he is a fine singer and really connects with the crowd to put across his lyrical poetry. The stop-start riffs that end the song were lock-tight, showing what a veteran group with chops like these can do. Another Castellanos bass heavy track is “Calling All Curs” was next. A classic sounding funky instrumental, it is a jam full of swagger and bounce not unlike LED ZEPPELIN’s “The Crunge”. Fugitt in particular really killed and he was playing a cool looking see-through red drum kit that resonated throughout the tiny club. He also chips in some vocals here and there. Next up were “Ladron” and “Dance of Snakes”. “Ladron” begins as a trippy BLACK SABBATH or CREAM stoner jam, but quickly shifts in the verse to a semi-tone poem vibe. Later on it boils over into a full-fledged stomping rock anthem. “Dance of Snakes” is another husky rocker with a great breakdown and a super heavy ending. Just real music, delivered from the heart which is hard to come by these days. “Mainline” has a bit more in common with jazz music in terms of angular beats and phrasing, but winds up as a bluesy dirge. Aguilar’s passionate wail gives a feeling of imminent doom. As they sailed through the rest of the set with little stage banter, they chose to keep the focus on the music. “Viva Zapata” recalls some of the more interesting early SOUNDGARDEN songs when they were a lot more experimental. Aguilar in particular has a bit of Kim Thayil in his vibrato and chord voicings that really gets to me. “Gnat” was my favorite song of the set with its atmospheric build up all the way through to its rave-up ending. After robust versions of “The Fool” and “Opus” the band ran through an amazing cover version of “Are You Experienced”. Aguilar just slayed on the guitar solos and his whammy bar action is really admirable. They closed the triumphant set with “Waning Divine”, easily one of the best and hardest songs the band has ever written. It is equal parts ethereal, PINK FLOYD meditation and also a furious doom masterpiece all together. TOTIMOSHI is a band that really tries to create something special with their music so check em out if they come to your town.
In case you haven’t gathered this from my millions of random references in my reviews, I am originally from New York City. Thank you very much. I’m also very proud to rep all of my hometown bands from my preferred sub-genre of thrash, to good old NYHC and right on through to the current wave of death and black metal bands currently tearing up the scene (there is actually a scene again-huzzah!). So it was cool to get the debut EP by TIGER FLOWERS to review because I knew a few of those guys back in the day. Or should I say, my old band opened for JOHNNY CAGE IS A FAKE and MY BITTER END in NYC earlier in the last decade. Guys from those bands became TIGER FLOWERS, so named for the first African-American heavyweight boxing champion. Why is any of this relevant to the review? It’s not, but if learned anything from my time in corporate America, it’s the mantra of full disclosure at all times. The skinny is those bands were pretty cool back then, the one track I heard recently on a comp was really good and so the buzz I was hearing on this group seemed warranted.
Opening up with “Cuts” the band shows an immediate take no prisoners approach to song craft. After about a minute of lonely, angular guitar notes the track explodes into waves of dissonant, gut-wrenching tones. With a flair for the avant-garde and the extremely pissed vocals of front man Jesse Madre. Combining the best post-hardcore of CAVE IN and an almost grindcore sensibility of unbridled rage makes the song really powerful. “Last Horse” is another punishing song with many creative twists and turns. Similar to THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, you have a band deftly able to genre blend and bend discordant anti-melodies to their will. There is a lucid moment a third of the way through the track where it gets trippy and somber for a moment, showing the stripes of a band that has been around the block once or twice. Psychedelic guitar effects warp the reality of the song in a nod to BOTCH and take it to an unexpected plateau. When Madre implores “it’s do or die, it’s do or die” you don’t doubt his convictions for a second. “The Weight” has a familiar feeling to it with an urgent take on a jazzed out drum riff and another spastic chord progression from Dean. Will chimes in some excellent distorted bass punctuated by more great drumming. “Drag”, which is the song I already knew is just killer. Obtuse riffs and brutal beats full of cultivated sickness ring out. The song has several movements like a sick little symphony, changing stylistic directions many times. At about nine minutes long, it feels as grandiose as its intent to alarm and enlighten the listener all at once. This music is beautifully chaotic and fully unpretentious; made by guys that obviously love music and value artistry. I can’t wait for the full length.
We'll be following TIGER FLOWERS career with great interest.
It’s been six years since Sweden’s The Quill have graced us with another LP of their legit-sounding retro-rock, with Full Circle being the band’s first proper full length since sadly losing their incredible former frontman, Magnus Ekwall.
Not that any of this really matters in the big picture, given the fact that verrrry few people have been listening during the course of The Quill’s existence, which is even more depressing, given the stellar songwriting displayed on such albums as 2002′s Voodoo Caravan and it’s 2003 follow-up, Hooray! It’s a Deathtrip.
While the band’s last album-2006′s In Triumph-crashed and burned upon it’s initial release, Full Circle seeks to build from the ashes of Ekwall’s departure (and the arrival of new singer Magz Arnar) via a more updated, less ‘classic rock’ sounding effort, for a new audience.
As a result, Full Circle seems to possess a bit more in common with bands like Hellfueled, Soundgarden, Black Label Society and even The Cult-despite the fact that Arnar’s powerful voice is a dead ringer for Grand Magus frontman JB Christofferson-then their hazier, more psychedelic days. There is much more emphasis upon ‘Thee Riff’ and it’s importance here, with a stripped down and centered songwriting aesthetic which speaks much of the band’s desire to streamline their sound, perhaps for a new audience.
Ultimately, they succeed, with Full Circle serving as one of the band’s most imminently listenable releases to date. Still, Ekwall’s passionate croon is missed, and the songwriting of super-early Quill efforts still rings loud and true on the back burner. Kudos still belong leveled at the band for their unerring dedication towards The Rock, however, for Full Circle is an admirable step from The Quill’s death door situation.
Despite my undying love to anything retro-70s, stoner and psychedelic, I must admit that the growing fascination towards the genre from the hipster elite is more than a bit troubling.
With so much attention being paid to wink-nudge gentrifying of the style via annoyingly self-aware press releases, it can get to be kind of a downer knowing that so much of this apparent appreciation seems to be on such a surface level. Irony is a dead scene, yet so much modern press seems to be devoted to endless back-slap namedropping. It’s kind of annoying.
See Serpent Throne, for example. This instrumental band kick out a hat-full of solid, syrupy stoner jams, and possess a veritable riff arsenal at their collective disposal. Yet, there’s a certain vibe to their band which smacks as a bit disingenuous. Maybe its the attached press release, which name drops bands like Budgie, Cactus and Wishbone Ash with far too much smarm to be taken seriously, or maybe its the fact that so many bands of this style have now come out of the woodwork, all decked out in the latest vintage store threads and faded indie tattoos.
The underlying fakery of it all does a disservice to Serpent Throne’s actual MUSIC, which does indeed rock the party, despite containing stupid titles like “Riff Forest” and not really embracing any of the 70s Scorpions vibes promised by their press release. The band are legit, though, and know how to handle their instruments with an able sense of melody and vibe. While there’s a bit lacking in terms of emotional depth, White Summer-Black Winter has an aesthetic appeal to its credit, and flows by smooth and easy to the ears.
The instrumental aspect harshes the mellow, however; these songs seem achingly absent without vocals, and sound empty, as a result. Maybe its time Serpent Throne finally bites the bullet, hires a lead singer and becomes a band truly deserving of all this potential?
The Italian doom trio known as Ufomammut—yeah, that’s right, I said ‘Ufomammut’; say that three times fast—have unleashed five mammoth full lengths prior to their latest, sprawling Eve epic…although you’d probably never know that if hadn’t just wrote it, right? That’s because Ufomammut have run comparatively under the radar since their inception in 1999, all the while quietly releasing collections of heavy, spacey psych/doom for those with their ears to the underground, and their hearts in the Floyd-ian stratosphere, setting controls for the heart of the sun.
“We wanted to do our own Meddle, admits the band’s bassist and vocalist Urlo in strained English, “We started from this one long song idea with other smaller songs surrounding and supporting it, yet—like a blob—the idea grew so much, that we decided to make the album one long song only. We had the self-consciousness that a forty-five minute song could be boring, so we tried to make it as varied as possible, and I think we did a good job. We’ve changed a lot with this album and we hope it’ll open to new ways. Usually we don’t know how the next record will sound like; we always try not to repeat ourselves…”
Ufo axeman Poia chimes in next with his own thoughts on Ufomammut and Eve’s lengthy, intertwined concept, saying, “Ufomammut music has been described as ‘Heavy Mental’: this can be considered not a genre, but an attitude: a sort of mind trip. This is what we are searching for: our idea of music, something which can lead you to a different place.” (more…)
