Album Review: Royal Thunder - Wick

Grabbing the chance to wade into Royal Thunder’s world is always a bit of a pleasure. The Atlantan quartet are right up my alley often warping the softer edges of classic rock and grunge with deft psych touches to create a warm, unctuous sound. New album, Wick, has promised to offer something a little different though so we’ll see in which direction they’ve veered.

It’s a slow, melancholic start with Mlny Parsonz’ strong, part-growled vocal outpourings, saving the weak MOR melodies, rhythmic plodding and cloying, overwrought threads from anonymity. Happily, as the tempo picks up, to coincide with the rollicking force of “The Sinking Chair”, the disparate structures begin to mesh together and throb beautifully. Her vocal even kicks into growl mode and the twisted overdrive in Josh Weaver’s guitar really ram home the band’s intent and passion. It’s a right old rocker all wrapped up in bookends of feedback.

There’s elements of stoner plod, dirty pop and blues boogie in here, but it’s the rich vein of frazzled country that shines through strongest of all. The balletic “Plans” is pure Black Crowes, the over-dramatics and soporific nature of “Push” and “The Well” are tinged with Creedence and Fleetwood Mac, whilst the lilting kick and rattle of “Anchor” is delivered with a sneer, a swagger and a truckful of capricious intensity that only comes from extended Country & Western immersion – I bet they recorded it wearing ten gallon hats.

Ultimately it’s the weaker numbers, such as the loose-limbed “We Slipped” and the wheedling, naval-gazing title-track that leave this coming up short of their best material. Despite the clipped song structures, multi-instrumentalism and new clean lines they are sporting this, by no means, is an album that has strayed too far from the nest but it does come fired up by this strong sense of purpose. It’s interesting to notice that Parsonz found making the album a bit of a struggle. “It was a fight, but to hear it now, to see it finished, is so gratifying. I’m looking at it, going we’re done, it’s over, be free.” For me, the overwhelming sense from reading that quote is one of relief, rather than achievement. Let’s hope that the pieces fall into place a little easier next time.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2017/04/royal-thunder-wick-spinefarm/

https://www.facebook.com/RoyalThunderMusic

Album Review: Iron Tongue – The Dogs Have Barked, The Birds Have Flown

The origins of heavy metal are consistently fought over by rival factions, but one irrefutable fact that stands out from the bickering, regardless of whether you stand in the Blue Cheer, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple or Cream camps, is that without blues music, metal probably would never even have made it that far. This is an interesting counterpoint to consider when rolling Iron Tongue‘s debut album around your skull for the first time.


With its heart in blues and its soul in metal, this cathartic crusher, hammered out by a mélange of Arkansas veteran musicians, pays due deference to its forbears. Initially, the music bears a strong resemblance to the recent batch of Townes Van Zandt covers, perpetrated by doom Illuminati Steve Von Till, Wino and Scott Kelly. Brief bursts of it emerge as Iron Tongue roughly feed their country affectations and hefty, blues-tinged rock through the chomping maw of old school doom metal in much the same manner. However, there is no getting away from where much of this album’s running time is spent; playing between the twin forces of St. Vitus and The Allman Brothers Band.

As an addendum to this, it is worth noting that leading the line here is Rwake‘s vocalist Chris “C.T.” Terry. Although The Dogs Have Barked, The Birds Have Flown oozes with a far more laid-back, almost-jammed approach to songwriting, it still comes as no great surprise to discover that there are also strong hints of the Little Rock sludge-flingers’ Southern drawl, twang and propensity for experimentation coursing through this.

Kicking us off, the soft-hearted, warm and gently twinkling ‘Ever After’ sucks up a Cream-esque vibe and neatly introduces us to the juxtaposition between Stephanie Smittle’s crystalline high-pitched backing and CT’s cracked, gnarly growl. Step forward a notch into ‘Skeleton’ and you’ll find yourself cornered by controlled, insistent chord rotations. Intense disillusionment and anger begin to flood through in the lyrics, fed by the steady pounding of skins and dense bass thunder. Sneaky Hammond organ rushes leak into the kind of bleak, glacial riffery employed by Dave Chandler (only without the cone-splitting distortion) as we drink in echoes of his first-love, St. Vitus. To finish, Smittle’s emotive bullet-points ram home the power of the wordplay as the valve amps creak and cry for mercy.

For those in search of walking riffs and a spot of bluesy swagger, head over to ‘Lioness’ and ’7 Days’. The former offers jinking boy-girl vocals, fuzzed-up bass and a tune-in, drop-out, throbbing four-chord trick, as Iron Tongue menacingly wrap you around their collective finger. The latter is all whining leads, sweet drops into half-time, more background Hammond and a croaky, lived-in vocal that winds itself up into a tuneless howl.

Realistically, for a seven-tracker to really shock and awe, you do need to be able to dig through all the songs and hit gold and that isn’t the case here. Some less-hardy souls might find things a little repetitive, and a couple of tracks, despite their reasonable running times, fail to keep producing and, consequently, do stretch the limitations of patience. Sadly, closer, ‘Said n’ Done’, by conjuring up the Blue Cheer proto-metal spirit – a matter of dispensing with the formalities with a simple grip and rip – suffers most of all. It stomps about, before it petulantly sinks down to a lethargic plod, where it revels in its own soul-sucking wedge of sludgy dissonance like a sullen brat. Thankfully there’s album highlight, ‘Moon Unit’, surely a reference to Frank Zappa‘s wackily-named first-born, there to save the day and act as a Sabbathian counterbalance, and it does hit like a brick between the eyes. Making plenty of room in the music, it sticks CT front and center. From this position of dominance, his vocal shifts from frazzled to fragmenting as he sets about bellowing out this trip of a track like his very soul depends on it.

Neurosis’ Steve Von Till has been moved to refer to this release as one containing “a power and an edge and soul that rarely exists in music today”. Now there’s a man who knows his onions and there is no arguing with that as the perfect one-line analysis for this beasty. As the viscious lyric from ‘Moon Unit’ warns – “The lights are out, engine is running and I have got you in my sights”. CT and, indeed, Iron Tongue have got metal history to back them up here, so take note.

Also online @ Heavy Blog Is Heavy = http://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2013/05/10/iron-tongue-the-dogs-have-barked-the-birds-have-flown/

Album Review: Carcharodon - Roachstomper

Carcharodon, the collective term for a species of large shark, aren’t exactly the most sophisticated band – the Italian’s debut album was called Macho Metal, for crying out loud. There is nothing they seem to enjoy more than swigging whiskey and blowing holes in their amps. When your influences range from the steady sludge of Eyehategod and High On Fire to speedier death metal bands like Entombed and Carnivore, you should expect a band with pretty big teeth and they don’t disappoint in that respect.

Their swathes of leaden distortion turn the guitars into a real conveyor belt of teeth and leave Roachstomper sounding as dense and weighty as a bag of gravel. Pixo’s “motorbass” tears lumps out of your ears and his nail-gargling “growl” and pig squeals threaten to rip them right off. And the band make all this noise with their tongues planted firmly in their collective cheek. It almost hurts to listen to the “bree, bree” lampoonery of “Pig Squeal Nation” and you’ll want to check out Pixo singing (what sounds like) “Jumbo squid you are my meal, I’ll see you tomorrow in my shit!” Now that has got to be a band playing it for laughs all the way.

Several of the tracks overstay their welcome by digging down a little too deeply. “Marilyn Monrhoid” has a fine, galloping opening that jinks into a neat, head-bobbing sway, yet it’s spoilt by a collapse into a series of needless climaxes. Also, “The Sky Has No Limits” lives up to its own name by recycling the same three chords for a full seven minutes before switching up into an incessant warble that collapses into jarringly oppressive white noise. Even “Stoneface Legacy” is guilty by spending two unnecessary minutes rotating around the same riff.

It’s a hole that their deference to country and blues (they cite ZZ Top as an influence) enables them to dig back out of. “Chupacobra” and “Voodoo Autopsy” are steeped in the genres – you’ll hear it in the snatches of slide and steel guitar and the jaunty licks emerging brightly from their sticky sludge. Their unique song construction allows them to retain the element to surprise at all times. Even taking into account the mesmeric, reverse chanting that bookends “Stoneface Legacy”, who could honestly have foreseen the sample of redneck dialogue and cosmic Mastodon-esque insanity of “Beaumont, TX” or the climax of “Burial In Whiskey Waves” which suddenly explodes into warping, euphoric melody.

Roachstomper is a brute of an album. It’s been fleshed out to bursting point, resulting in plenty of unsightly bulges, yet it’s exactly the kind of deathly bait that will tempt stoner fans into biting. Carcharodon smell blood. Will you let them sink their teeth in?

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2013/03/carcharodon-roachstomper-altsphere/