Album Review: Purplehaze Ensemble – S/T

What’s in a name? Take PurpleHaze Ensemble’s moniker for instance. You’d imagine this Polish quartet to be a Jimi Hendrix covers band who, before each gig, spun a coin to see which band member would get to set fire to his guitar that night. Either that or to be a room full of potheads trading heavy-lidded musings on why Weetabix tastes “like sandpaper, ma-a-a-n”. Of course, they are actually a lot more interesting than the former and a hell of a lot more compos mentis than the latter.

Interestingly, they seem to sit at the centre of a musical crossroads, where the x-axis of grunge and stoner hits the y-axis of progressive metal and ambient rock. One minute they rage like Down, with vocalist Macias screeching like Phil Anselmo would after necking a bottle of bleach, the next they are conjuring up the head-down grunge of a Soundgarden or an Alice In Chains. Head deeper into the disc and you’ll discover that they are even capable of sucking up the progressive, experimental nectar from bands like Tool or Palms.

Starting out as just plain old PurpleHaze, a band focused on dispensing a solid dose of stoner rock, they recently switched drummers and employed synth player, Bemben, who was able to add a new dimension to their music by integrating an atmospheric layer of keys and samples underneath.

Interestingly by paying homage to the “old ways” of recording, they whipped this version up in one-take at at Red Shift Studio in Cracow. Only the vocals and synths were added afterwards – it has certainly made for an album with a vital energy and an almost edgy quality to it. On the downside, that mix has produced rough patches where the instruments don’t quite marry together. In particular, the harsh tones of the guitar leap out at the listener when the rest of the band is raging, but happily it comes back into its own when the power levels drop and the waves calm.

The dissonant fizz of the driving opener “Siren’s Song” is certainly a nasty wake-up slap with Macias at full roar and firing out crunch and sludge in equal measure. The oddly-rambling nature of “Haunt The Freak” instead finds an echoing, psychedelic series of Bombay Monkey-esque samples to lounge in before the dial is cack-handedly wound up and our first taste of their grunge leanings hove into view.

By “Could I” (a nod to Alice In Chains’ “Would I”, perhaps?) they’ve settled down into the session and the track’s natural structure gives us a true taste of their innate knack for songwriting. A gentle build with warping synth soon breaks into a stone-cold groove. Here, Macias uses the rhythmic swagger to impart a chilled blue tone into his vocal. Serving him well, he craftily weaves it around the chords in patterns, throwing neat lyrical twin hooks into the verses – “Spiders on my face / Snakes inside my face”. Running at nearly eight minutes in length, you still wouldn’t say it overstays its welcome.

Ramping up the atmospherics, “Kickin’ Curbs With A Thin Stick” and “Cross” offer up sub-level bass and the warping environs of Deftones-esque lush-to-crush experimentation. The former ends with a section where the strings drop out to leave just the synth roaming from the left ear to the right like a lost bee buzzing around inside our skulls. One to avoid is the mathy “Lie Is The Answer” which punches low as the vocalist trades restraint for over-commitment to the cause. Resplendent at it’s heart, the remainder is just too loud and too loose to really make any impact.

The band’s willingness to trade between grit and power and colour-streaked, ambient washes means that there is never a dull moment at any point in this self-titled debut. Most certainly, there is room for manoeuvre and not everything meshes together quite as you’d expect it to, but there is more than enough quality within to warrant further investigation – there aren’t all that many albums out there with this much variety on display. PHE have certainly shown that they have the courage to push things to the next level and that bodes well for their future. With an extra layer of lacquer applied to the production next time out, they might just yet surprise us all. Now, whose turn is it with Jimi’s big box of matches?

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2014/02/purplehaze-ensemble-st-unquiet/

Album Review: El Doom And The Born Electric – Self-Titled

Ole Petter Andreassen is El Doom, Norwegian artist, producer and founding member of death n’ rollers The Cumshots and stoner poptarts Thulsa Doom, two wildly different-sounding bands. I must admit I was intrigued then, when his Born Electric project plopped onto my desk with the information that he had collected around him a sort of a “Who`s Who of the Norwegian progressive/jazz scene. We have Norwegian Grammy-awarded bass-player Nicolai Eilertsen (Elephant 9), drummer Haavard Takle Ohr (El Cuero), Hammond wiz Ståle Storløkken (Elephant 9) and guitarists Brynjar Takle Ohr (El Cuero) and Hedvig Mollestad (Hedvig Mollestad Trio). Unfamiliar names but, as early listens prove beyond a doubt, all incredibly adept at their art.

Across the 53 minutes of their debut’s running time, there are some straight-forward tunes, like the indignant howls that haunt ‘With Full Force’ and the threaded hooks and melting heart of ‘The Lights’. However, the lengthier pieces reveal the band’s true colours and penchant for throwing everything into the pot and liberally stirring. Take ‘Fire Don’t Know’. It bursts forth with a bumpy camel ride of a guitar riff that unbalances you with its thunderous grunt, threatening to throw you off before El Doom can pour out his tremulous David Bowie meets Neil Arthur (Blancmange) vocal. Obscure 70s/80s references aside, the nine-minute blazer, wrapped around a malleable, prog rock wall of sound, crescendos and abates its way through careering psych and driving stickwork, vibrating wodges of Hammond and reverb-heavy guitar solo.

Thought that was good? Get a load if ‘It’s Electric’. It’s the strait-jacketed madman within; the forceful bass bullying it’s way to stand side-by-side with El Doom. It’s the sound of The Melvins channelling Rush through Mastodon’s insane set-up. The blue hints, oddly offer up the kind of tonal flourishes that Mark Morton brings to Lamb Of God to mind, and the dying licks of Spanish guitar slap on nothing but a huge grin to your gurning face.

‘The Hook’, naturally, stands out a mile. The sheer panic within Doom’s quavering vocal almost loses the plot; chaos defined. Matching it there is a blitzkrieg of guitars that dive down into cloud before reappearing to continue the dogfight. Volume knobs are toyed with and the jarring chords begin to collapse in on themselves as the production calls it a day and fades them out well before their time is up. Still, there are some sublime riffs lurking within all this. The best of which is the sinuous lick that marks out ‘Subtle As A Shit House’ and will see you strapping on the air guitar and screwing your eyes up in reverie. Sure the track falls into a pit of classic rock posturing but you’ll buy into it to get back to that sublime riff once more. Oh, and you want a spot of Soundgarden-esque grunge? Look no further than the 11-minute wanderlust of ‘Red Flag’.

All tracks covered then, we have learned that to appreciate El Doom And The Born Electric’s debut, an open mind is an absolute must. For those fans of all things rock who are willing to dig into something a little more jazzy and a lot more progressive than they are used to, will be handsomely rewarded.

Also online @ Ave Noctum

Album Review: Threat Signal - Threat Signal

When I first caught a whiff of Canada's metal machine Threat Signal back in 2009, the feisty stench of bloody power chords, sweaty drum thunder and tearfully bellowed vocals pretty much knocked me off my feet. The album was 'Vigilance' and the track was "Afterlife". It had everything from that creepy slow-build and sharp snap into focussed aggression to an infectiously sassy swagger. Now, having heard their muscle-bound self-titled follow-up, it's instantly apparent that they've pulled out all the steps to chuck in as much vim and vigour as they can muster. They've brought a new drummer and guitarist to the party and have returned to using their seven-string axes. Dropping to A# has certainly beefed up the bottom-end chug and there is also an added tech metal dynamic. All of this, vocalist Jon Howard claims, "has made everything sound much heavier and darker; it also offered my vocals a different range to sing in."

"Uncensored", for instance, kicks like a mule, screams like a lunatic and double-kicks you until you actually feel bruised by the experience. Brutal enough to rub shoulders with both Mnemic and DevilDriver at the same time, it actually treads the inventive path that a small French band called Darkness Dynamite started so impressively down a few years back. "Comatose" and "New World Order" add hooked choruses which thrashily punch their way through to the dark pieces like "Trust In Noone" and "Fallen Disciples" where Howard revels in the speed, roars himself hoarse in the verses, and sinks his teeth into trying to surpass Jamey Jasta for power.

When Howard digs into the choruses his tremulous singing vocal tends to follow the same pattern of hold and pitch and it does, somewhat disappointingly, mean several of the tracks smear themselves across the album, bleeding into one another all too readily. "Death Before Dishonour", with its dark intro and polyrhythmic punch, stands out as does "Disposition" for its startlingly sudden drop into clean melodics and sweeping solo. In fact, as the album progresses, and they focus less on laying waste and more on delving into their box of tricks, they begin to find some pretty inventive methods of attack.

Having heard the nuts on this, it's no surprise to see Zeuss is on production duty and he's definitely given this one the beans. A little of 'Vigilance's subtlety has been lost somewhere along the line but, on the positive side, with an album like this, Threat Signal are now doing exactly what they say on the tin - fair warning, I believe.

Also online @ Metal Team UK = http://www.metalteamuk.net/oct11reviews/cdreviews-threat.htm

Album Review: Full Blown Chaos - Full Blown Chaos

The day I saw NYHC outfit Full Blown Chaos hit Peterborough, England and heard Ray Mazzola ask the audience to turn to the person next to them and punch them full in the face, was the day I understood just how wide the yawning divide between hearing a recorded album and seeing the band perform that same said album live could really be. They were the second of four bands on that day, hardly a position of strength, but they exhilaratingly stole the show by a country mile, leaving a messy trail of testosterone in their wake.

Mazzola has said of the band’s live efforts – “You need to be in everyone’s face and make them remember you, whether they like it or not.” An ethic that makes sense having witnessed it first hand but, away from the venue, the album they were touring that day, Heavy Lies The Crown, amounted to tight, uber-aggressive, yet essentially generic metalcore. So, when I learned about this latest self-titled release and the fact they’d added another guitarist, I began to hope that they’d really had a crack at recreating their live show; had perhaps dredged up a chunk of music that would separate them from their peers.

The first few bars do prove promising and are a lumbering feast of chugged guitar and biting snare, harder and heavier than we’ve heard the band produce previously, but this soon falls away into boorish gang chants housed within short, smooth attacks. The lyrics are a combination of hate-fueled jibes and pointed, moralistic observations – “Why are your words so full of shit, you’re not the first to lie to my face” (from “Villains”), “Our values are running away, this is the process of decay” (from “The Walking Dead”), “Don’t you ever shut the fuck up?” (from “Gutter Mouth”), and “As of right now I don’t know who you are, what have you become, you’ve fallen so far” (from “Gravedigger”).

This band are kings when it comes to concocting big, meaty chunks of rollicking hardcore; music that grinds its way down to the snapping point where the rhythmic artillery disintegrates into heavy-as-hell, double-kicking, slow-motion breakdowns that chew you up and spit you back out into real time. FBC are a righteous Chimaira; Madball on steroids. The tracks do dip in and out of rockier and thrashier sections, but you have to pay attention to what’s being brewed up in the smothered background thrum to spot them – “Rise + Conquer” diligently inserts gaps and chants to soften the impact of the macerator vocal, whilst “Silence Is Golden” emits a rippling Trivium-esque riff which eventually dissipates into a flamboyant solo – the former raises hairs on your neck; the latter stands out like a poodle at a bulldog convention and makes you briefly wish they’d followed their own title’s advice. As for the thrash, “Battle Hymns And Broken Bones” is almost reminiscent of Austrian Death Machine, albeit without the necessary tongue-in-cheek.

As a complete work, it’s all a bit similar and over-familiar. The tracks that do standout are few and far between. “The Walking Dead” and “War Machine” are Full Blown Chaos on maximum – an auditory sea of fists and a firm thumbs up to those who’ve stayed faithful to the cause – and “Cain Marko”, which has a devilish triple (quadruple, if you count the split chorus timings) breakdown finale to mark it out. Essentially though, this isn’t much of a step away from their previous release and, I fear, will all too easily be left lagging behind the Hatebreeds and Unearths of this world.

By all means, do have a go at spinning their CD in numerous locations and at ever-increasing volume levels (as I did with their last release), but you will seriously need to haul ass to an FBC show to fully understand the real impact that this collection of songs can have on you. Mosh gloves are an absolute necessity.

Also online @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/full-blown-chaos-full-blown-chaos

Album Review: Floodstain - Slave To The Self Feeding Machine

Floodstain are tough-talking Dutch metallers who, according to their website, were "spawn out of the dark bowels of a town nicknamed 'Hell', a place dominated by gray skies and endless rain, where boredom gets killed by vandalism, drugs and heavy sludge rock." On closer inspection they appear to have originated in Hellevoetsluis, a small village in Southern Holland, although they currently cite the sunny climes of Alfaz Del Pi, a peaceful resort in Costa Blanca, as their MySpace location. So I think we can take all this PR posturing with just a small pinch of salt (although we do love that "horns" cursor).

What we do have to take seriously is their colossal riff engine spewing angry, dark sludge into any spare lughole it can find. Jozz, the vocalist and, amazingly, lone guitarist, layers up his own outpourings to evoke Down's Phil Anselmo at his most vitriolic, whilst bassist Bobysan and drummer Vesso balloon out the bottom-end. They eagerly diversify the aggression to echo both the stoner wall of fuzz of Fu Manchu ('The Slumbering Titan Slayer') and the magnificent roar and balls-out grunt of High On Fire ('Suicide Pep Rally'). Despite all this early bluster they are clearly at their happiest when settling on the driving groove of Corrosion Of Conformity ('Ice Pick Lobotomy'), and sound oddly ineffective when the walking bass and softened build of the title-track take us on a more rocked-up, QOTSA-influenced path - the halfway drop-off into a heaving abyss of jerking, psychotic Pantera hat-doffing soon gets the party restarted.

There's sneaky touches of Sabbath-esque musicality to be found in 'Crooked Teeth' and 'The Slumbering Titan Slayer', that rise up from the deluge of riff-slinging, but they are merely fleeting and by the time you've finished the bad trip of the bonus track's anomalous radio static and sirens, these moments are long forgotten. I could spend all day name-checking bands that this reminds me of; there really is no trick here. If it's meaty and it rocks, Floodstain will amp it up to the eyeballs and beat it black and blue until it cries bloody tears. The liner-notes even see them paying homage to "Budweiser" - the supposed "king of beers". Their early material (they've been going at this for ten years now) was full of promise (do check out the awesome 'Asphalt Blues' on their MySpace) so instead of all these aforementioned influences, that clearly run deep, we'll be hoping for a little more of their own personalities next time around.

Also online @ MTUK = http://www.metalteamuk.net/oct10reviews/cdreviews-fs.htm

Album Review: Mt. Desolation - Mt. Desolation

Mt. Desolation is the deceptively morbid moniker for the new vehicle featuring Keane’s songwriter-in-chief/pianist, Tim Rice-Oxley, and their bassist/percussionist, Jesse Quin. Calling on their contacts to help add flavour, they’ve drafted in The Killers’ drummer Ronnie Vannucci, Mumford & Sons’ banjo-player Country Winston and Noah And The Whale’s fiddle-player Tom Hobden. Their MySpace page describes this hotch-potch band, somewhat cryptically, as a mixture of Chinese traditional and Italian pop, although they sound more like a conglomeration of twee folk and giddy alt-country to me.

Tracks like ‘Departure’ and ‘Platform 7′ are devilishly happy-go-lucky tracks that swing with fat double bass, brushed snare and banjo – the former makes a feature of the freewheeling fiddle whilst the latter is all about the rhythmic plink of the piano. Other songs like ‘Bridal Gown’, ‘My My My’ and ‘State Of Our Affairs’ thicken the pace to venture down emotive paths as the softly-delivered vocals cut deeper – Rice-Oxley also craftily tweaks his delivery to add some quite poignant touches.

Taken with a pinch of salt, this eponymous album serves as a welcome deviation to the standard negativity of much that follows these particular genres around and it’s certainly great to actually hear the band enjoying themselves behind their instruments. But there are more serious moments when familiarity begins to merely breed contempt. There’s plenty that follows the same old predictable pattern; a style of songwriting that Rice-Oxley clearly feels comfortable with. The clinically-adept ‘Annie Ford’, for instance, unabashedly soaks itself in the filthy bathwater of former country music pioneers, lathering on sweeping pop licks with a rich hook and a hefty dose of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

By the time the epic croons of ‘Bitter Pill’ sweep into view, mid-album, you’ll be thinking of Mt. Desolation as a kind of countrified Keane. As breezily adept as this all is, it’s still somewhat disappointing to find just how short a distance the players are prepared to venture from their comfortable position in the middle of the road.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/10/mt-desolation-mt-desolation/