This Is Book’s Music

The folks at the Hellride Music Superstore specialize in hard rock and some of its more deviant variations, including stoner metal and doom. A video was posted to talk about one of their recent arrivals, an album by Apostle Of Solitude called Last Sunrise and you can see it being discussed through the video above. What’s cool about the vinyl is that the album proper is spread across three sides, and side 4 consists of six cover versions as bonus tracks. Nice.

You can order your copy here.

Take a look at that equation again: Melvins.

Remix EP

Scion

Put them together, and you have a remix EP Melvins are releasing through Scion. Yes, the car company, or in this case Scion AV, the audio/visual department of the automobile company. The Electric Flower EP features remixes by Doorly, Lovelock, MRK 1 and J Phlip. Since it is 2010 and the industry wants you to believe everyone is pro-digital, you can find this EP at the usual digital merchants. Fortunately for diehard fans, you will be able to find it on both vinyl and CD (phew).

Rodrigo y Gabriela will be hitting the road later this summer for a tour that will take them to the lip of autumn. They recently shot a video for the song “Hanuman”, directed by Olallo Rubio.

If the visuals look a bit like homage, you would be right, as it tips its hat to this:

The Beastie Boys also did the same in their video for “Gratitude”:

As for the tour, this is where they’ll be:
AUGUST
13 – Redmond, WA – Marymoor Amphitheater
14 – Troutdale, OR – Edgefield
16 – San Diego, CA – Humphrey’s
18 – Los Angeles, CA – Greek Theatre
20 – Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre
21 – Berkeley, CA – Greek Theatre
24 – Vienna, VA – Filene Center at Wolf Trap
26 – Boston, MA – Opera House
28 – Highland Park, IL – Ravinia Festival
30 – Baltimore, MD – Pier Six Concert Pavilion
31 – Knoxville, TN – UT Knoxville

SEPTEMBER
02 – Houston, TX – House of Blues
03 – Austin, TX – Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheatre

It has been said that the Pacific Northwest was the last stop for the criminally insane, and perhaps that’s why a lot of things have been left of center. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but the imperfections are what make them appealing. Case in point: Wolves In The Throne Room from Olympia, Washington, who have gained a following well beyond the Washington State boundaries, in fact they’re currently on tour in Europe.

In 2005 they released Diadem of 12 Stars, which was called by one critic “environmentalism black metal”. Van Records in Germany have now released on vinyl in two ways: one as a standard 2LP edition, the other as a deluxe 180g 3LP box set with a poster, patch, and a vinyl-only bonus track. The music is spread over five sides, while Side 6 features an etching.

The deluxe 3LP box set can be purchased here, while the standard 2LP set can be had there. Both are German pressings and thus you’ll be paying import prices. Both links will take you to AllThatIsHeavy.com. You can also buy other items directly from the band.

Suma are a Swedish stoner/doom metal band, and it seems they (Swedes) always go in it to win it when it comes to all that is metal. The band have a new album called Ashes (Throne), and you can now buy it as a white vinyl double LP. Vinyl junkies will love the fact that the LP version has a bonus track NOT on the CD version. This album was worked on by the great Billy Anderson, so you know you’ll feel it in the gut.

You can buy the double LP from AllThatIsHeavy.com.

The musical minds of AUN and Habsyll have united, at least on vinyl, for a split album from the good folks at Public Guilt Records.

AUN offer up two tracks, with “Druids” being a sludgy wall of guitar drone, drums neck deep in an echo chamber, and a core minimalistic bass line that does everything in its power to suck the life out of you in slow motion at its 13 minute duration. If you are also a hip-hop/hard rock/classic rock fan and you are familiar with the drums from Mountain‘s live version of “Long Red”, imagine that beat being the backdrop to guitar drones. That’s “Druids”, and it’s one trippy ride. “Fall Out” is a mere 5 minute, 33 second excursion and is a bit more optimstic sounding and arguably more accessible in a Sonic Youth/Pussy Galore sense, but still sounds deafening in the right situation.

Habsyll do things mroe drawn out, something Melvins, Boris, and Earth fans will appreciate. The introduction of “IV” sounds like someone entering an empty garage, fooling around with whatever is in the room. Once the task is over, another door opens and you realize you’re not in a garage but in a hospital room as you’re about to watch someone do surgery on you. The surgeon and the man on the operating table is you, and you’re about to feel every thing enter you. In truth, it’s some really heavy drones where electricity and air play with each other in such a way that you eagerly eat up every moment, every swipe of the gong, every counter melody where it isn’t expected. It could be horrific and it may sound that way, but it’s quite beautiful in its own corrupt fashion.

This is the debut video by Shadowjack, a band who play around with hip-hop but add some grungy stoner metal to it. Does it work? Click and find out. If you like what you hear, you can download their albums for free via Bandcamp. As you’ll see, they have some industrial roots in their previous works, so the hybrid described here is not something they randomly slapped together, but something they’ve grown into something they can call their own.

Earthlings? released their EP Humalien last year, and now they’re presenting it in a format perhaps best suited for stoner metal and psychedelic rock: vinyl, in this case a 10″ record. It’s being released by Treasure Craft and you can buy it from All That Is Heavy. If you want to hear the four songs on the record, click here.

This is the artwork for a forthcoming split 12″ EP by Melvins and Isis. A news item at TheMelvins.net states that Isis‘s Aaron Turner posted the cover for the 12″ to be released this summer on Hydra Head, in time for when both bands will tour together in June.

Melvins fans will want it to hear alternate takes of “Pig House” and “I’ll Finish You Off”, both of which will appear on The Bride Screamed Murder, due out on June 1st via Ipecac.

(Melvins items can be found at Insound.com or Amazon.com.)

Recorded in 2001 and released in 2002, Reverend Bizarre‘s In the Rectory of the Bizarre Reverend has been praised by fans of both doom and stoner metal since then. Eight years later, the album has been reissued on double vinyl with a nice gatefold sleeve. If you want the album on standard black vinyl, you can click here. If red vinyl is what you desire, you may click there (both links will lead to All That Is Heavy.) The album is still available on compact disc, which also features their Return Of The Rectory album in full. The CD can be purchased from Insound.com.

Reverend Bizarre members Albert Witchfinder and Peter Vicar are now involved in separate band projects since the band called it a day in 2007.