True Nature - You Shouldn't Have To Shout So Loud EP review

Year : 2009
Genre : Post Grunge with a fine tint of Stoner Rock and Dramatic Gloom
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

True Nature is a Brooklyn based multi-rock ensemble with a keen and admitted fascination showcased towards both the grunge ethos of the early '90s and towards black belt level bubble gum rock practitioners like present day Foo Fighters. But all this is on paper - in reality, True Nature has more stoner gloom into it then Foo Fighter ever wanted - because Foo Fighteres never wanted it anyway. The True Nature members definitely pack a six pack of stoner rock, which reigns as one of the most significant hallmarks that valiantly and efficiently distinguishes this band from the 23423432423423432 other groups that to this day harvest their covert excitement from the constant vicinity of unaltered moss-grunge.

What I hear on the disc, is a pleasantly and competently layered experience. On the surface, I find polite, safe, riskless melodic silence molestation along the exact registers I'd expect to be courted when checking out a band with a skillfully telegraphed set of classic era inspirators. The good thing about throwing out a term like "classic era" is, that everyone can feel good about their pathetic tastes. All this though does not mean that the radio friendly songs would lack dignity and heft.

Yet, at the second layer of the complexly presented narrative behaviors contained on this EP, the developments are even more inviting, and not only for your mom and her favorite sex dwarf, but for the enthusiastic snob and for the miserable music critic. Take heed and bear witness to this much more dark and so elegantly menacing layer that also is observable beside the everyday average radio rock fuckaroundery!

With concluding track, "Father", the band ventures to the direct verges of soul crushing saloon sludge metal, - yeah, I think they have just invited a genre, and I'm crediting it for them [or them for it, you feel me]- only to take the promise of imminent void-extermination into Aerosmithesque bonfire-glam, and they manage to assuage the heated iron without you feeling yourself cheated in the process. The reason for this is the following: the chorus is not exactly the outright drunk-lovemaking glam-nonsense you had your 234234th nervous breakdown on MTV to, it has a superb Stone Sour tint to it. He has high talent levels for both. Read on to know more about "teh" disc.

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Gone For Days - Gone For Days EP review

Year : 2012
Genre : Alternative Rock with a Stoner Rock flavor
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

Paradoxically, Gone For Days comes (SIC!) to a spot near you to molest silence with ruthless efficiency. The quartet sports and brings a ripe understanding of exigently constructed alternative/stoner rock. Think of a trivium-consortium composed of the radio friendly behavior of Stone Sour, the melodic rhetorics of Disturbed, and add JUST a hint of Place of Skulls on top, and you will have a quite trusty image of the shape of music the self titled EP features. The compositonal tactics exhibited on the spin are easy to decipher and even easier to enjoy without noticing it, - this is a key trick in music, and, once summoned, the music is doing something right - making the 7 entries highly suitable prospects to receive sublime airtime on a radioshow without the band members and their agenda losing credit and dignity in the process. The data is without doubt engineered to be safely approachable from different directions, and it strikes up a pretty sober and muscular balance amidst the elements it emerges to court. Read on to know more about this pleasant alternative/stoner rock effort.

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High On Fire - De Vermis Mysteriis review

Year : 2012
Genre : Sludge / Stoner Rock
Label : E1 Music
Origin : United States
Rating : 7.5 / 10

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I have been introduced to this group anticipating stoner rock, but the data on the disc sounds to me as sludge metal with stoner elements and some rabid leanings here and there towards full scale thrash warfare. This particular album is - kind of - a concept album, and the free encyclopedia, Wikipedia does a tremendous job addressing the circumstances why it is such. The following introductory quotation is taken from this Wikipedia page.

"De Vermis Mysteriis is the sixth album by metal band High on Fire. According to frontman Matt Pike The album’s title (translation: “The Mysteries of the Worm,”) is a nod to a fictional grimoire conceived by the late, great Psycho author Robert Bloch in 1935 and later incorporated into horror master H.P. Lovecraft’s renowned Cthulu Mythos. “It’s a concept record, a little bit,” Pike offers. “I got this idea about Jesus Christ and the Immaculate Conception: What if Jesus had a twin who died at birth to give Jesus his life? And then what if the twin became a time traveler right then? He lives his life only going forward until he finds this scroll from an ancient Chinese alchemist who derived a serum out of the black lotus—which is actually in Robert E. Howard’s ‘Conan’ stories—and then he starts traveling back in time. He can see the past through his ancestors’ eyes, but his enemies can kill him if they kill the ancestor that he’s seeing through at the time. Basically, he keeps waking up in other people’s bodies at bad times. It’s kinda like that old TV show Quantum Leap. Kurt actually pointed that out to me after I told him the idea. But whatever—time travel is a killer concept.”

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Black Pyramid - II review

Year : 2012 
Genre : Stoner Rock reeking (the promise of) Doom
Label : MeteorCity Records
Origin : Hell, naturally.
Rating : 5.0 / 10

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It seems super-easy to understand where Black Pyramid is coming from, as this group is quick to establish the basic rule set by channeling coarse epic rock and almost-power metal vibes with a doomy heft and timber to get the actual point across. My primordial concern is that with the latter sentence I have just wrote-, I told you pretty much everything I feel there is to be told about this delivery. "Doomy" never turns to "doom" herein, the coarse epicness never puts goosebumps on your soft skin, yet, in my opinion, being forced to produce a physical reaction to doom music is the minimum a doom aficionado can expect. I DO want to be blown away by this release, as I am blown away by Argus' latest doom offering Boldly Stride the Doomed, yet this baby here, while packs theoretical sex appeal from top to bottom, (on paper, that is) simply does not impose relevant danger to my trusty little Geiger counter, you catch my drift? Read on to find out more about this rock-orthodox stoner rock album.


With a program time of 60 minutes of super-homogeneous stoning - with two songs clocking in above the ten minutes mark, one above 15, even - I personally feel the release is stupendously self-indulgent and has an ubiquitous set of minor difficulties deciding what "exactly" to do, and how "long" to do "that" for. Still here? WOW. The band follows and exhibits mostly - if not entirely - orthodox compositional techniques similar to that of ancient doom groups like Pentragram, - check out their latest album, superb record to put yourself to sleep with in 2 seconds - yet, in my opinion, the Danger-, the Animal contained in Black Sabbath does not accept the invitation to be featured on this delivery. It never touched the fucking envelope. The songs simply ain't that fun, nor that dangerous, the hooks reek sweat and worse, and the band, as hinted, has a reoccurring tendency to prolong simplistic musical ideas to their own pleasure. The jam session in track number 4, "Dreams of the Dead", for example. A tormented-, stone-simplistic guitar riff collides with a bonfire chord structure for eternal aeon-minutes. What?? The title justifies the means? You might be right about that.

Black Pyramid, in my opinion is pretty above average at best, and I do not think it is that harsh of a thing to say when you witness what the prominent representatives of the genre offer to this day, - hell, a Mors Subita intro packs triple the doom this album has the concept of or the access to - then why satisfy with less? I feel the release is packed with musical sections the whole would looked better without, simply because they are not that well defined, nor that well articulated or well presented. Granted, there is not much on this bloated LP that falls below the minimal expectation levels of my secretive inner stoner rocker, but I'm damn sure that there is zero on it that registers as manna for it.

A bloated-, relatively uninspired release with a modest set of charms that will start to reek sweat pretty swiftly, simply because the whole album takes itself much more seriously than the character of its (intended) music is flattered by the band members. The release suffers legendarily from a falsely positioned self-image of its own capacities, in my opinion. Other than that, I've heard worse. (A few times.)

Rating : 5.0 / 10

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Electric Mary - III review

Year : 2011
Genre : Stoner Rock
Label : Independent
Origin : Australia
Rating : 8.6 / 10

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Electric Mary's III is stoked out stoner rock with buff-, snarly, efficient production values that constantly glorify the psychedelic inner cataclysm of the '70s through a haughty blues rock direction armed with a good amount of groovy and sludgy tendencies to address. The album is not hesitant at all to reveal its ultimate-, straightforward meaning right away, as the stimuli tends to register as a comfortably decipherable alloy of the following elements : Jimmy Hendrix without the heroin, AC/DC, and add a trusty does of not too radical southern sludge to the fray yet. With 38 minutes of showtime, this record has a sober understanding of its own agendas and related capacities, and it is not too risky to say that it remains stable and free of inconsistencies throughout the 10 tracks it takes its ride along. The operational field of this disc seeks and delivers no shocks or surprises, steadily defining itself as a premiere choice for any diligent fan of well tamed "Born to be wild!" stoner rock that which now comes to you with a lot of proper love surrounding it by its current practitioners. Read more about this likable stoner dog.


The album explodes into silence with top grade classic production values to reveal the nature of its musical lingo, which is no doubt a sight and experience worth to behold and collect. Order variable. The primer behavioral patterns this LP wants to entertain you with are nothing that is likely to catch you off-guard, but have all the chance to fix each and every aspect of your stoner cravings : the riffs are JUST sufficiently sculpted in their obese but muscular character, and the spin, fortunately enough, shows ever-present awareness of the frequency locations it is mapping out, so expect an adventurous ride in a high-octane hippie van that has an extra gear to authentically surprise you.

The record's mere sound is worth addressing further: it is a very carefully researched alloy that exhibits the capacity to reveal both lush and irony qualities, and it is the exact kind of sound you could imagine in your best dream relating to this music. So no caveats-, not even an empty space for them herein at all.

Electric Mary III's lead singer is an interesting presence in the mix, and now I'm going to write about this man. His timber sounds to me like a mixture between the AC/DC fronter and Phil Collins, and the vocal channel he declares his manly lamentations on, always is sitting in a superbly researched place in which it does not interfere with the anatomical integrity of its surroundings at all.

As mentioned, the album has an AC/DC musical narrative incorporated into its other primordial elements of psychedelic stoner rock and sludge, and it must be mentioned that at the climax of the record, this particular narrative - the AC/DC one - is bloated into the occult wild space territory of merciless Van Halen metal-love ballads that I personally find horrifying, but they just might be what you are looking for. The chorus of the track "Bone on Bone" is a perfect example of the music you can chase me out of all worlds with : pinkish glam-blend of the collective emotional mid-tempo ethos of Aerosmith and Bon Jovi. Granted, the lyrics might be about something else, but who has the time to worry about those when the music wants to kill you. Pretty shocking and paralyzing, in my opinion, but I must admit that it is absolutely properly done. Electric Mary has a key on her back, and she is running towards you. Prepare for your desperation move.

Rating : 8.6 / 10

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The Dive - The Dive review

Year : 2011
Genre : Psychedelic Stoner Rock
Label : Independent
Origin : Greece
Rating : 8.0 / 10

Greek formation The Dive delivers a self titled monster length that reeks the rampant affection for all things rooted in 69. Give me Woodstock, give me fractal patterns, give me Timothy Leary on a pointlessly large projection device and let's hear how he summarizes and deciphers the reality flow.

The Dive brings you the music that originates from the same character as the music of Jimmy Hendrix is originating from, yet this band shows considerable attentiveness towards the parts of you that are more fond of zoned out/zoned in consciousness exploration, resulting in an aural data flow that has a ripe, peaceful and chilling demeanor as its ultimate face. This does not at all mean that The Dive refrains from assaulting the strings and drums nice and proper on occasions. Intensity IS part of the flow here, yet this intensity is a calm one, too. It addresses the qualities of a raging gas giant, but - fortunately - never the qualities of an incoming cosmic body with mind parasites on board. The Dive utilizes a very elegant and merciful method to create efficient patterns at will that do bring mere time to a still, and they always release you, the listener back into time - fuck - in a sane way. This is successful still music, because it - fortunately enough - wants to be that. Read on to find out more about its main operations, or Plan 9 from Outer Place will commence. It is an actual song title from the record by the way, and also is a retro science fiction film the creators of the record likely dare you to seek for.



The Dive offers a very clever method to zone the listener out, regardless of consent. The basis of the revealed sonic fabrics tend to sound like an efficient start sequence of a more freely positioned riff to ensue, yet, instead of forcing your awareness to catch up to what it thought it will need to catch up to, it gets the mercy, because this "start grid" restarts, and your awareness is sitting in it once again, yet the surroundings - along with the experience - have been adjusted, and you are defined as the enjoyer before you even know it. This technique of expressing the actual statements on top of self-repeating sonic entities of simplistic but legitimate beauty, is key element on this record. The Dive, thank the cosmos for that, not once - nor more times, smartyfartsy - commits the act of self indulgent behavior, and a variation or a sane derivation from the original pattern always reigns stationary nearby, stirring the flux in a gentle-, or, sometimes, in a more pronounced manner from time to time.

The record shows a peaceful and LIVELY face, which is especially interesting to watch, considering the sound character of the release. The roar of the band does sound like that of a good old "let's shatter this puny soul to microshards" doom metal squad, but they choose to articulate majestic statements, instead of formulating the guaranteed promise of impending doom. Even when The Dive gets angry, it is evident that it is just for the fun. You are witnessing a giant entertaining you and itself, and it does not want to harm anything, though it could crush everything it chooses to. But it chooses NOT to, and this is one of the most relevant beauty factors of the record. Funnily enough, the basic vibe this release communicates along, shows similarities with Yob's Atma, but, while the doom metal formation concentrates on the negativistic potentialities of the experience flow, The Dive threads along the neutral and positive interpretation fields, but a very important clarification needs to be made. The Dive is not at all a sonic rendition of an escapist point of view into a reality that serves anything and everything you need to feel yourself comfy in. No. Yob and The Dive and the listener are all aboard the same spaceship into a - uuuuh - mystery, but the Yob dudes anticipate a shitstorm - if anything - to follow up, - and suggest that a proper living being opens its mouth in it - while The Dive dudes anticipate anything else to follow up. Each is a legitimate stance. You, as the listener, either need to take a position yourself, or you can refrain from it, and rightfully so, once you make sure you are the one who missed the spaceship.

Rating : 8.0 / 10

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