Stone Tools - Stoned To Death

Stone Tools - Stoned To Death (2015)

The Time has come for another great local release... the time has come to get STONED!

Stone Tools are a barbaric thrashlords from the southern caves of Maine. The music that is played on Stone Tool's debut album is the kind of music summoned by riff gods using lightning bolts and ancient stone-based instruments. Don't believe me? Take a listen to Stoned To Death right now:



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Stone Titan - Scratch 'N Sniff

Stone Titan - Scratch 'N Sniff (2013)

Stone Titan is some pretty nasty doom metal. Almost every riff is drenched in greasy filth that intoxicates the air. From just listening to Stone Titan's summer of 2013 release, Scratch 'N Sniff, I can smell the all too familiar small of musty basements, sweaty punks, cheap-ass beer, and skunk weed, lots and lots of skunk weed. This album brings me back to some of the coolest times I've ever had without exactly being there and interacting with people. It's like one of those candles you smell at the mall that have all those different scents but what you really end up smelling is your friend's house from 2nd grade that you don't talk to anymore... except, you know, it's music. Dirty sludgy doom metal music.

Highlights: "I Wish I Was Fucking Dead", "Alaskan Thunderfuck", "Faul", Can 'O Worms", and "A Brief History of Overweight Men"


Bandcamp
Last.fm

Carl Sagan Presents: The Body in the Kelp

The Body in the Kelp - The Body in the Kelp (2013)

The Body in the Kelp were born in 48 hours. These songs, they were born in 48 hours. Everything about this album, 48 hours.

Well sort of. The Body in the Kelp is a band made up of four musicians who, before participating in the 5th annual Portland Space Gallery 48 Hour Music Festival, had never played music together. See, the 48 Hour Music Festival is simple, you put a bunch of musicians together randomly and make them come up with a 20 minute set and a band name in 48 hours. Then they play said songs for a sold out crowd at the Space Gallery. The Body in the Kelp and this EP are just that; the 20 minute set the four musicians came up within 48 hours and played at the show. It's a bit more polished and re-recorded now, but the premise its still there: this is 48 hour music.

This EP opens with an amazing sample choice of Bert and I, a Maine humor classic, and then an ambient bassline leads in to rhythm guitars and drums before the vocals pierce through. From there we get more samples including a Martin Luther King speech along with more riffs, sliding guitar, doomy textures, and dirty rock 'n' roll vocals. Need I say more?



48 hours this stuff was thought up. Four amazingly original songs. Wickedly good stuff. Get it.

Soundcloud
Bandcamp (48 Hour Music Festival)
Facebook
Last.fm

Monday LXXXVII

Yandom.

True Neutral Crew - #MONSANTO (2013)

True Neutral Crew is an experimental krautrock-meets-hip-hop-of-some-kind project by members of Foot Village, Clipping, I.E.



Released just in time to celebrate Monsanto's executive receiving the noble prize of food AKA the World Food Prize for the development of genetically modified organisms or GMOs.

True Neutral Crew also have a remix kit for #MONSANTO that comes with a remix of "Monsanto" by Viper Venom and the ingredients to remix the rest of this mixtape (not including the bonus track).

Last.fm

Pat "the bunny" Schneeweis - The Mark Inside (2013)

Pat "the bunny" is currently the frontman for Ramshackle Glory, an anarcho folk punk outfit from Tuscon, Arizona. You may also know Pat from the passionately honest and rebellious folk punk bands Wingnut Dishwasher Union or Johnny Hobo & The Freight Trains.

The Mark Inside is a bit different from most of Pat's projects in that it's not about him or his friends. No, it's actually about characters and stories that are mostly fictional and made up by Pat, but are just as emotional and feel-y as true stories would be.



Bandcamp
Last.fm

Iron Sword - Loose Leaf (2013)

Iron Sword are a doomed stoner/sludge metal from Vermont.


The cover art to their new demo entitled, Loose Leaf was provided by Maine's finest party thrash metal legends, WARANIMAL and their bearer of the party axe, Nick Reddy. Both bands love to rip it up...

... more ways than one!

Last.fm

Monday LXXXI

Part 1

Piles and Piles - Premonitions Say (2013)

Mathgaze if mathgaze was really a thing, I guess. Twinkly, laid-back vocals, and lengthy jams.

Piles and Piles are not to be confused with Pile, who are also from Mass.



Last.fm 

Two Hand Fools - Two Hand Fools (2013)

Two Hand Fools are a noisy pop punk band from Cleveland, Ohio. They also must be Tim & Eric fans as the first track off their new self-titled album is not just "Spaghetti", but "Spaghet"!


Spooked ya!

Last.fm


Vultures of Cult - SVRF EP (2013)

Vermont stoner rock/metal outfit, Vultures of Cult released a surf rock album this week. Need I say more?



Just get it!

Last.fm

Monday XXXXXXIV

All this talk of MLK is making me thirsty...

SRVVLST - I Would But I'm Baroque (2012)

SRVVLST (yes, as in 'Survivalist') is a post-whatever - or as Last.fm puts it - a post-everything four piece from Ohio. 

They twinkle, they noodle, they shout, they get intimate, and they survive. 

In my book, that's about all a band needs to do to count as post-everything anyways. 

Last.fm

Sinforiano Diaz - The Moosup Seassions (2012)

Sinforiano Diaz is the solo moniker of This World is a Beautiful Place & I am No Longer Afraid to Die's Tom Diaz. It also features Axel Diaz on guitar and John Bowles guitaring and singing some back up vox. 

Tom Diaz replaces the electric twinkly feels with acoustic, sometimes uke-driven, but still twinkly feels here on this little four song release entitled, 'The Mossup Sessions' after the session of which he recorded this, in Mossup, Connecticut. 

Fans of Crywank, Waxahatchee, Warren Franklin, John Galm, and other solo acoustic singer-songwriter acts will most likely dig this gravely.

PS: It has just come to my attention that Tom Diaz may not be playing in TWIABP anymore... which is lame. 

Last.fm

Iron Sword - Demo (2012)

Iron Sword is a super intense and sloppy stoner metal band from Burlington. 

They're going to be playing a neck-breakingly good show (from the looks of it) with hometown sweeties, WARANIMAL (if you live in Maine and like metal and haven't seen WARANIMAL play, I feel bad for you son!) along with The Proselyte (MA), Eastern Spell (ME), and Lunglust (MA) on the 25th!

I don't know if I'll be able to swing down to see this mega stacked line-up in Portland on Friday (that's when it's happening of course. Put it on your shredule if you haven't already), but Iron Sword is also playing a show the next night (Saturday) at Orono which looks to be a real rager as well and is much closer to my current location. ;)

Hell, maybe I'll just go to both!

Hopefully dese boys bring there samples with them from this demo - including the Dazed and Confused Matthew Mcconaughey sample at the beginning of "Stairway to Hell"! Check it out:

Here's the poster for the show Friday night for your viewing Lord of the Rings pleasure as well:

Last.fm

Also...

The writers at SPIN have put together a 20 song mix featuring hits off their "Best Metal Albums of 2012" list.

While I'm not a big fan of some bands listed (Meshuggah, Gojira, Torche) and others I haven't listened to in ages (Lamb of God, Napalm Death, Deftones), there are still some good picks and new faces to the metal game that I agree deserve a spot on a best of list somewhere. Whether or not it's missing some of my favorites or your favorites... It's still (free) metal; a genre that now a days is so mixed and misinterpreted that it's almost impossible to follow and know just who are the 'best'.

Click for DL

Also, I knew I was never going to get out of posting Tard somewhere this year.

Highlights: Converge, Pallbearer, Neurosis, Horseback, and Enabler. 

SPIN

Friday Streamin'

Here's some new/newer stuff you can listen to.

Sirs - Sirs (2012)

The Sirs self title has been out for a little while now but I just got around to giving it a good listen for myself. I'm not sure if I like it as much as their first EP, 'Vas Deferens' (just got what they means), but it seems like it'll grow on me after a few more listens. Definitely try it out for yourself if you haven't already. It won't hurt. I swear.

Last.fm

Solos - Beast of Both Worlds (2012)

Solos is the new project of Spencer Seim of Hella/The Advantage/sBACH and Aaron Ross - that guy who sang for Hella for a while there. That being said, Solos is a lot like what would happen if There's No 666 in Outer Space-era Hella would have been like if there was no Zach Hill. I'm not saying that the drummer Solos has is not a good drummer... they're just not, well... Zach Hill. So, if you were a fan of Hella when they focused on putting Aaron Ross in the spotlight, you're really going to like Solos! If you found 'There's No 666 in Outer Space' to be Hella's weakest album, I would still say that you should give this project a listen, especially since Solos aren't Hella and clearly don't want to be.

Solos' bandcamp describes their sound to be a cross between Led Zeppelin and MGMT. "As ridiculous as this may sound".


Last.fm


Vultures of Cult - Fathoms (2012)

Vultures of Cult have a kind of shitty name. The fact that they play really nasty stoner metal out of Vermont is not as shitty. The fact that these bros probably ripped shit up in Portland last weekend with KYOTY is not shitty at all. The fact that I couldn't go to the show... is pretty effin' shitty.

If you purchase the digital downloads for 'Fathoms' on their bandcamp, you receive a bonus track entitled, "Running From the Eye".


Official site
Last.fm

Monday XXXXIII

Home Alone and not doing anything about it.

Birds In Row - Collected (2012)

French crusty hardcore. Something about the French... They always have a way of making such a used up genre sound just that much interesting again. America buddy, take note.

Bandcamp
Last.fm

This Town Needs Guns - Adventure, Stamina & Anger (2011)

UK's number one poppy math rock act, This Town Needs Guns' little teaser from last year. It is probably also the last TTNG record/EP/single featuring the signature singing of Stuart Smith as he has since left the band to further focus on his family and become a dad. Henry Tremain of another "math pop" act, Pennines is now on vocal duties as well as bass duties after the departure of Jamie Cooper. The line-up may now be a little different but I am still very much looking forward to hearing what these guys have got for us ahead recording/album wise. Just as long as they keep that noodly, upbeat math rock sound going, unlike many other math rock acts who have decided to tone down their technical sounding skills, *cough*Maps & Atlases/Tera Melos/Minus The Bear/screw Minus The Bear*cough*, I will still be a big fan and listener. 


Bandcamp
Last.fm

Cower - Land Before Time (2010)

Heavy and powerful rock from Portland, Oregon. I have this weird feeling I've posting these guys before but I haven't... It's important I do though because I also forget about them until I go back to Duck. Little Brother, Duck!'s bandcamp and look at their recommandations. That being said, this is a really awesome recommandation on those guys' part and I'm pretty pumped to see 'em again tomorrow night!

I just can't help myself when it comes to shameless plugs for other bands while trying to persuade  people to listen to the real band in question. Guess it's okay when both bands are totally gnarly, though... right?

Last.fm

Happy Earth Day!

Earth - Pentastar: In The Style of Demons (1996)

This the stoner drone doom band, Earth's third studio album. It is the one with the Jimi Hendrix cover and the car on the front.

It's their rock 'n' roll album.

Similar acts/sounds: Boris, Sunn O))), Sleep, Khanate, Nirvana, Weedeater, KK Null, and the rest of the similar artists listed on Last.fm.

Happy Earth day.

PS: 'Sunn Amps and Smashed Guitars' is the one with Kurt Cobain and 'Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light (parts 1 & 2)' is the one with a cello.

Last.fm