Don’t let anyone tell you that there’s no good music anymore. There is always good music. You just have to find it. I hope this list and this blog helped you discover some good stuff in 2016.
I reviewed close to 50 albums released in 2016 last year, so I’ve decided to highlight the top 25. Here are numbers 25-21.
25.Slavesbring great British punk that skewers not only the elite rich, but also Millennial slackers and even the stupidity of drunk driving.
24.Dunsmuiris a metal supergroup featuring members of Clutch, Fu Manchu, The Company Band, and Black Sabbath. Their debut is a concept record about a shipwrecked crew fighting monsters on a remote island.
23.
Canadian psych-rockers Elephant Stonehave yet to put out a bad record, and this one added electro touches to their mix of 1960’s psychedelia and bhangra.
22.
Birth is a fine piece of stoner rock from this three-piece Australian outfit. I was on a big stoner rock kick in 2016 and ORB certainly fit the bill.
21.
Klaus Johann Grobe were a delightful discovery this year, and their latest album, Spagat Der Liebe, is a fun electro / lounge record suitable for both late night parties and making out.
Who cracks the top 20? Come back tomorrow to find out!
Keep your mind open.
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Age of Winters, the debut album from The Sword (J.D. Cronise – guitar and vocals, Bryan Richie – bass, Kyle Shutt – guitar, Trivett Wingo – drums) is nothing short of a metal masterpiece. It was a bold statement in 2006 and is still just as powerful a decade later, putting many newer metal albums to shame.
What makes it different? For one, the instrumentation. The Sword can shred like a Ninja Turtles villain and jam harder than Schmucker’s equally well. Second, their lyrics are epic. “Barael’s Blade,” for example, is a song about a magic sword that starts with the lyric “Forged by the Crow-Mage from shards of darkness.” You can’t get much more metal than that.
“Freya,” about the queen of the Valkyries, hits as hard as “a sword of fire and an axe of gold.” The result of the bloody battle portrayed in the song is cursed by survivors in “Winter’s Wolves.” “The Horned Goddess,” who “sits astride mountains tall and wide,” is a heavy salute to (I think) Hela – the Norse goddess of the underworld. The song chugs along like the boots of a Viking army climbing a glacier. “Iron Swan” is a fast song about a dark boat that brings death to one’s enemies. The guitars shred like stampeding horses on it.
“Lament for the Aurochs” is the heaviest doom-metal track on the record. The bass rumbles, the cymbals crash, and the guitar solos are like battle cries. The first verse alone tells you how heavy this song is: “Laboring in the liquid light of Leviathan, spectres swarm around the sunken cities of the Saurians. Rising from the void through the blackness of eternal night, Colossus of the Deep crashing down with cosmic might.” Who else is crafting lyrics like this?
“March of the Lor” is a powerful “instrumental in eight movements” that puts about ten minutes of blistering rock into less than five minutes. “Ebethron” has a sweet drum solo in it (When was the last time you heard a drum solo in a song, metal or otherwise?) and is an epic tale of a warlord preparing for a world-shaking battle.
The whole album is world-shaking. You need this in your collection if you’re a metal fan.
Recorded at Tilburg, Holland’s annual Roadburn festival dedicated to rock and metal, Live at Roadburn is probably the closest you can get to an Earthless (Mike Eginton – bass, Isaiah Mitchell – guitar, Mario Rubalcaba – drums) concert without being there. It might not entirely melt your face, but it will certainly heat it up and warp your mind.
The double-disc CD version has two songs on each disc. A four-song set is average for an Earthless show, because most songs are at least fifteen minutes long. The performance starts off with “Blue,” which is not only a stoner rock gem, but it also has elements of prog-rock sprinkled throughout (the way Mitchell’s guitar and Rubalcaba’s drums bounce off each other, for instance). Mitchell’s guitar hits definite Cream territory around the ten-minute mark.
The song rolls into the epic “From the Ages” with Rubalcaba’s near-manic drumming and Eginton’s rock solid bass. The groove they hit around the 24-minute mark is outstanding. All three of them click so well that they make it sound easy. They drop into almost a blues-rock groove around the 31-minute mark (with Eginton’s mantra-like bass). They get cosmic around minute 38 and slowly build into re-entry burn rock fury.
Disc 2 features “Godspeed” and “Sonic Prayer.” “Godspeed” begins with fuzzy distortion and rolling cymbals before bursting forth like a platoon of orcs smashing down a fortress wall. Your mind is almost in your shoes by the 16-minute mark because the song becomes a psychedelic freak-out at that point. The band is racing like a nitro-burning funny car about four minutes later when they’re into “Sonic Prayer.” It’s jaw-dropping by then (like any Earthless show).
Pick up this album if you can’t make it to an Earthless concert. It will get you into orbit. A live show will send you to the next solar system, but Live at Roadburn will at least help you circle the planet.
Keep your mind open.
[We’re issuing a sonic prayer that you’ll subscribe to us.]
Imagine you flew from Guatemala to Chicago to see a band and they only played four songs (including the encore), but you were ecstatic by the end of the show. This is what happens at Earthlessshows.
My friend, Paul, and I went to see Earthless, Ruby the Hatchet, and Marmora at the Empty Bottle. It was my third time seeing Earthless and Paul’s first. We hadn’t seen either of the opening acts. Paul and I are big fans of Earthless and their mostly instrumental cosmic rock, and the Empty Bottle (which was sold out) would be the smallest venue in which I’d seen them so far.
We met a couple who drove in from Wisconsin to see them for the first time. We all talked about the number of songs we’d get to hear from Earthless. They played four the first two times I saw them, so Paul and I were betting on at least three. The couple from Wisconsin hoped for four, and they were correct.
First up were Marmora – a Chicago four-piece that blended stoner rock with punk. Paul knew we were in for something groovy when their lead guitarist came out wearing a “Got blunt?” T-shirt.
Marmora – rocking hard despite having a rough day at the office.
Marmora had been through a rough day. The lead singer had screwed up his ankle, they mentioned having some sort of vehicle trouble earlier, they accidentally set their gear in dog poop while loading the van, the drummer’s foot pedal broke (thankfully, they had another), and the lead singer broke a string on his guitar. They put on a good set despite all that, and their rhythm section is particularly good.
Ruby the Hatchet put on a fine set of witchcraft rock with song titles like “Pagan Ritual” and “The Unholy.” They have a great organ player who brings a cool 1960’s vibe to their power. Their lead singer commands a room and her hand gestures as she soaks in the band’s sound might as well have been learned from Dr. Strange.
Ruby the Hatchet casting spells on all of us.
Earthless walked on stage with no muss or fuss. They said hello and then unleashed. A brother-sister duo from Guatemala were next to me and told me how they’d come to the States to follow Earthless on their current tour. They were big fans of stoner / doom metal. The brother, David, told me he’s been reaching out to stoner metal bands in hopes of convincing them to tour in Guatemala, where there is no stoner metal scene according to him. He and his sister had a great time, although his sister couldn’t understand why the audience wasn’t dancing more. “American audiences are so fucking stiff,” she told me.
She probably changed her mind by the time a fight broke out in a mosh pit started by some dude high and / or drunk out of his mind. I saw her grab the guy by the face while he was being dragged out by fans and security. Earthless, meanwhile, were too busy detaching the roof from the Empty Bottle and rocketing into space to notice or care. All three of them were on fire, but I must mention that this was the hardest I’ve seen drummer Mario Rubalcaba play so far. He beat his kit like it stole his skateboard.
That’s not a disco ball above Earthless. It’s a small moon they pulled down from the heavy gravity of their set.
Their first song, “Uluru Rock,” was 25 minutes long. The second, “Violence of the Red Sea,” was 15. The third, “Sonic Prayer,” was a half-hour. They came back on for a quick encore – a blazing cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Communication Breakdown” that lasted under five minutes and left everyone stunned. “I liked them before,” Paul said. “I like them even more now.”
Walking back out into the low 30’s weather after getting our faces melted was jarring, but it felt great. We’d been elevated. I’ve always said that Earthless chose that name for their band because their music can’t be confined to this planet. They proved that again in Chicago.
Landing like a meteor impacting the moon, Belgium’s Fire Down Below (Kevin Gernaey – guitar, Sam Nuytens – drums, Jeroen Van Troyen – guitar and vocals, Bert Wynsberghe – bass) brings us Viper Vixen Goddess Saint – a good bit of stoner rock to get you through the coming winter.
After a short, almost bluesy instrumental intro (“El Viento del Desierto”), the band comes out chugging with “Through Dust and Smoke.” Imagine punk drumming, Wolfmother guitar licks, and prog-rock vocal stylings and you’ll get an idea of this track. They come out swinging and hit a triple.
“Roadburner” has a great heavy charge throughout it, and I love the way it breaks into a faster beat even before the first lyrics. It reminds me of a mix of Helmet and Quicksand, but with epic arena rock vocals from Van Troyen. “Universes Crumble” might refer to the eventual heat death of the galaxy, but the track is cosmic in its scope. The hand percussion throughout it is a great touch that brings a bit of a meditative aspect. The first line Van Troyen sings is “You are stars.” We are made of stars and to the stars we eventually return. A universe can crumble, but even that energy is reborn into another form. The song weaves back and forth between cosmic psych-rock and prog-metal. It’s outstanding.
“Dashboard Jesus” is quite suitable for late night pedal-to-the-metal drives along European coastlines, city highways, or dusty back roads. The guitars shred hard and Nuytens seems to have grown a third arm by the time this track comes along because it sounds like he’s hitting multiple cymbals at the same time (and the breakdown he has with Wynsberghe is sweet). After another bluesy instrumental (“Resurrection”), the album ends with the appropriately titled “The Mammoth.” It’s appropriate because it’s over eleven minutes long and is has heavy as a woolly mammoth walking across a hardwood floor. It’s an epic finish to a cosmic trip, like the aforementioned meteor smacking the moon.
I had no idea there was a stoner rock scene in Belgium, so I’m glad these guys sent me their record. You should seek them out if you enjoy stoner rock, prog-rock, or psych rock.
Keep your mind open.
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Wolf People have shared the next single, “Night Witch,” from their forthcoming album, Ruins, out November 11th on Jagjaguwar. The single is accompanied by an eerie visual with direction from Marsha Balaeva and drone footage from Ivan Makarov which premieres today via CLRVYNT.
On the video, Balaeva explains, “I was born in the Soviet Union, and growing up, one of the streets in our neighbourhood was named after one of the pilots from the all-female 558th Night Bomber Regiment that operated during WWII. These women flew old biplanes under the cover of darkness and bombed the invading Germans. The planes were too slow and would have been easy targets in daylight, but at night they could cut out their engines and glide silently to their target and drop their cargo. Germans gave them the name of Nachthexen (Night Witches).”
She continues, “For this video I wanted to use stop-motion animation to depict the time when eerie shadows and flashes of light in the night brought fear into the hearts of those on the ground. The time when the setting dusk spelt the beginning of a night of terrors and vulnerability. Much of the video was filmed at night in the Lake District in the UK, but the drone footage was made in Russia, where the Night Witches flew all these years ago.”
Recorded in Devon, Isle Of Wight and London, Ruins is Wolf People’s most direct and instinctive work yet, simultaneously reaching back into a fecund past to tell us who we are today, while harnessing the power of modern technology and ideas to ponder unknown futures. Lyrically Ruins imagines how the planet might appear when society has finally fallen to dust and ash, and the creeping vines and nettles have reclaimed the land. It is the product of letting go of conceit, contrivance and, indeed, a career plan.
Influences upon Ruins come in all shapes, size, contours and hues: the discovery of proto Sabbath/Zeppelin Scottish band Iron Claw, the lesser known landscapes of rural Bedfordshire, backstage Taekwondo stretches, Scandinavian psychedelia, fleeting rural epiphanies, Dungen, Trees, Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, a group holiday on a remote Finnish island, and Jagjaguwar flipping out after seeing them play in Bloomington, Indiana and insisting it was time they made their Back In Black…
WOLF PEOPLE TOUR DATES (new dates in bold): Thu. Nov. 17 – Bedford, UK @ Esquires Fri. Nov. 18 – Leeds, UK @ Headrow House Sat. Nov. 19 – Glasgow, UK @ Sleazys Sun. Nov. 20 – Manchester, UK @ Deaf Institute Tue. Nov. 22 – London, UK @ Oslo Thu. Nov. 24 – Birmingham, UK @ The Sunflower Fri. Nov. 25 – Sheffield, UK @ Picture House Social Sun. Nov. 27 – Bristol, UK @ Louisiana Sat. Feb. 14 – Hamburg, DE @ Hafenklang Sun. Feb. 15 – Leipzig, DE @ UT Connewitz Mon. Feb. 16 – Berlin, DE @ Cassiopeia Tue. Feb. 17 – Koln, DE @ King Georg
Clutch released its compilation album La Curandera on black vinyl on October 7th. La Curandera was originally released on Sept. 29, 2015 in a limited, pink vinyl edition for RED’s “Ten Bands One Cause” campaign to celebrate breast cancer awareness month. Due to continued demand, Weathermaker Music decided to re-release this album at this time on black vinyl.
La Curandera is a compilation of 8 tracks from Clutch’s vast catalog of songs.
“The track listing features characters that can only be described as formidable female protagonists” states front man Neil Fallon. “And to put this project over the top we are lucky to have the cooperation of world renowned illustrator Becky Cloonan who created brand new artwork fitting this cause.”
The Rock and Roll Hall of Famehas released its list of candidates for the class of 2017. As usual, this list causes arguing and controversy, so I’d better throw in my two cents.
It’s an impressive list, and you can only vote for five. It also highlights what the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has become – a hall of fame for rock and other genres. Country is, for the most part, left out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (and definitely in this voting class), but hip hop, R&B, soul, rap, and electro now make the cut (and there’s nothing wrong with that).
Picking five from this class is difficult, but some are easy to weed out. Let’s go through the list, shall we?
Joan Baez: She gets the first “Why isn’t she already in there?” nod. I don’t own any of her records and would be hard-pressed to name or sing any of her songs, but I do know her impact on the 1960’s folk / Americana movement was massive and second only to Nobel Prize Winner Bob Dylan’s.
Bad Brains: These punk legends broke ground for a lot of bands to come and influenced a lot of punk kids to cross racial boundaries and embrace one another (and help each other protest wrongs done to all sides).
The Cars: These (at the start of their career) oddballs showed that post-punk could be danceable and appeal to weirdos and the popular kids at the same time. They were one of the first post-punk bands to get significant airplay and bring keyboards and synths into the mainstream.
Chic: They’ve been nominated eleven times now. Why? Because they were one of the greatest disco bands of all time and pretty much laid the groundwork for hip hop. Their grooves have been sampled more times than anyone can count, and leader Nile Rogers is one of the greatest songwriters of all time.
Depeche Mode: One of the greatest electro acts of the 1980’s and 1990’s. They have filled stadiums and inspired more people to buy a keyboard and a drum machine than many other bands of their ilk.
Electric Light Orchestra: The second “They’re not already in there?” nod goes to them. Their albums are lush, somewhat psychedelic masterpieces, and their live shows were legendary. Plus, Jeff Lynne is an amazing songwriter.
Janet Jackson: I’m not much into her newer material, but you can’t deny her early records produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis are funky classics.
Jane’s Addiction: They deserve a nomination for being ballsy enough to make their first album a live record – and it’s still my favorite album of theirs. Plus, you have to give Perry Ferrell some credit for keeping the music festival culture alive through the lean years and helping create the large landscape of festivals today.
The J. Geils Band: They were nuts live, had impressive chops and blues swagger, and quit just as they had begun to rule the world.
Journey: I was never much into these guys, but I know a lot of people who were and still are. I can remember how a release by them was an event. Everyone I knew who was into them during their heyday went nuts with anticipation in the days before their new album hit the stores. Plus, “Don’t Stop Believin'” has become a theme for seemingly everyone on the planet by now.
Chaka Khan: I didn’t follow her much either, but her cover of Prince’s “I Feel for You” is, without question, one of my favorite songs of all time and introduced me to sampling and beat mixing when I was in middle school. I will always love her for that.
Kraftwerk: Simply put, you wouldn’t have hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bands without them, not to mention EDM.
MC5: One of Detroit’s greatest exports and one of the greatest rock bands ever, MC5 flattened audiences that were coming out of the hippie daze and ready to get raw.
Pearl Jam: You heard Ten all over the place if you were anywhere near a college campus in the early 1990’s. They’ve hung around longer than almost every other grunge band (Mudhoney might have them beat) and still pack stadiums today.
Tupac Shakur: Admittedly, I was never into Tupac Shakur or gangsta rap much, but I do acknowledge his impact on the genre, pop culture, and Hollywood, and his mic skills were off the charts.
Steppenwolf: Look at those guys. Those guys would fit in at any Levitation festival today. “Magic Carpet Ride” and “Born to Be Wild” are iconic rock classics, and so are they.
Joe Tex: A soul and disco legend. I love it when the Hall gives a nod to funky performers like Joe Tex, and especially when they give a nod to disco. Look up some of his Soul Train performances if you want to see how cool he was.
Yes: The third “Wait…What? They’re not in the Hall?” nod goes to one of the greatest prog-rock bands of all time. Their cosmic grooves still amaze today. Just listen to “Roundabout” and try to imagine writing and playing that.
The Zombies: The fourth and final “Shouldn’t they already be in there?” nod goes to these psych-rockers who have influenced everyone from Dave Grohl to the Black Angels. “Time of the Season” is one of the greatest psych-rock tracks of all time.
So, who gets my vote? Here are my choices (once again in alphabetical order):
Chic. Again, Nile Rogers has crafted so many hits that you and I can’t keep track of them. “Le Freak” is probably their biggest hit and was secretly a slam on the band getting shut out of Studio 54 one night. The original chorus was “Aaaah…fuck off!” No joke. It laid the foundation for hip hop. Just listen to the rhythm section and you’ll hear samples from dozens of rap hits.
2. Electric Light Orchestra: My wife would probably strangle me if I didn’t vote for them because they’re one of her favorite bands, but she has no reason to worry. Jeff Lynne deserves to be in the Hall for crafting lush rockers like this.
3. Kraftwerk: You wouldn’t have another nominee, Depeche Mode, without Kraftwerk. DM would, in their right minds, walk out of the building if they were inducted before Kraftwerk. You wouldn’t have Daft Punk, Panda Bear, Caribou, and most EDM without these guys.
4. MC5: My reason for voting for the MC5 can be summed up in one question, “Have you ever heard them live?” They’re one of the first bands I’d see if I could build a time machine.
5. The Zombies: I love psych-rock, so it’s so surprise that I voted for them. I saw them at Levitation Austin in 2014 and they still sounded incredible and the whole crowd loved them.
Colossal rockers Earthlesshave released dates for a December tour throughout the U.S., and I plan to see them on opening night at Chicago’s Empty Bottle. Don’t miss your chance to have your face melted and consciousness expanded. Earthless always puts on a great show. They’ll be with Ruby the Hatchet as well, so it’s a fine double-bill of psych / stoner rock power.
One of the best parts of writing this blog is when a band asks me to give them a listen and they turn out to be as good as Australia’s Comacozer.
These three psych / doom / stoner rockers have crafted a fine piece of work with their album Astra Planeta. It’s five tracks (the shortest at 6:21) of instrumental spaced out riffs that range from solar wind trippy to asteroid impact heavy.
“Saurian Dream” starts off like a slippery salamander wriggling out of mud atop a fresh grave but then morphs into wavy heat mirages seen by a goanna sunning itself on a hot outback rock.
The guitar on “The Mind that Feeds the Eye” sounds almost like something from a spaghetti western score, even with the heavy delay pedals. The bass is as crisp as a bullfrog’s croak, and the drum beats snap by you like telephone poles as you cruise down a lonely road. The title reminds us that most of what we see is illusion, but what you see will be altered if your mind is altered. All great holy men and women have known and professed this. Comacozer add another page to the sermon.
I’m a sucker for ancient Egypt, so I’m not surprised that I love “Navigating the Mandjet.” The mandjet was one of the Egyptian sun god Ra’s solar boats (“The Boat of Millions of Years”), and the song would be perfect for the sound system on it. I dig the rock beat that runs through it, and the guitar and bass have a perfect Middle Eastern groove for the track.
The bass on “Illumination Cloud” sounds like something Les Claypool dreamed once. The song builds to a great cosmic rock track with some of the best guitar shredding on the record.
I don’t know if the Apophis named in “Hypnotized by Apophis” is the Egyptian snake demon of chaos with a magical gaze or the charted 325 meter-wide asteroid that might hit the Earth in 2068. The song’s perfect for either case, as it swirls with cosmic riffs ideal for flying through an asteroid belt and bass and drums ideal for battling a giant snake with a lance.
Astra Planeta is a solid record of excellent cosmic psych rock. These guys need to play at a Levitation festival, and you need to buy this album.
Slaves bring great British punk that skewers not only the elite rich, but also Millennial slackers and even the stupidity of drunk driving.
Dunsmuir is a metal supergroup featuring members of Clutch, Fu Manchu, The Company Band, and Black Sabbath. Their debut is a concept record about a shipwrecked crew fighting monsters on a remote island.
