Saviours - "Into Abaddon"

I had the opportunity to see Saviours live at Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin late last year. Unfortunately the band was sandwiched between Sweden’s Witchcraft and Austin’s own The Sword – two bands exploring a similar sound as Oakland, California’s Saviours. In this awfully repetitive live context, Saviours were too much to handle – no matter how high I was and how ready I was to hear some old fashioned riffage, because with The Sword due up, I admittedly turned my back on Saviours' set, choosing to go check out one of the other bands on the diverse festival lineup.

If that live set was anything as impressive as Into Abaddon – the band's Kemado Records debut – I can say just one thing: WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING?!?! This shit is brutal, harder hitting than a cross-face bitch-slap from a big black dildo. Stoned out grooves fueled by fast cars and loose women, Sabbath-loving and Lemmy-inspired, Saviours are four motor heads stuck in the wrong decade and loving every minute of it. The band was born from the ashes of East Bay thrashers Yaphet Kotto but sound nothing like that incredible proto-screamo band. Saviours are good in their own right, without the need to name drop Yaphet Kotto (who also happen to be one of my personal all time faves).



“Raging Embers” kicks off Into Abaddon with an almost Yes like chromatic groove. Like a lot of southern sounding seventies metal, “Embers” shuffles forward in 6/8 time. This can get tiresome after a few songs, but Saviours manages this formula tastefully.

One thing I definitely dig about Saviours' songs is their length – five, six and seven minute stoner metal jams are where it’s at buddy. The closing “Inner Mountain Arthame” is some epic Brit-metal and shows all of the band's talents perfectly. Recommended listening, no doubt.

Austin Barber half-screams, half-chants his vocals, like a drunkard yelling at the night sky before kissing the cold concrete. Barber’s hoarse throat sounds like it’s nursed enough bottles of Jim Beam to give the man a liver aged well beyond it’s years. Fuck it – if it helps you write riffs this brutal, who gives a shit? Party hard.

“Narcotic Sea” begins with fazer-effected guitars panned from one channel to the other, dizzying the listener, before the band drops into some early Metallica thrash. “Cavern of Mind” settles into a groove that’ll make every kid want to be a guitar hero, crushing posers in its wake.

Seven songs deep, Into Abaddon is the perfect length, clocking at just under 40 minutes. That's just enough time for you the really begin to enjoy Saviours post-hardcore meets “New Wave British Metal” sound without wearing you out. Into Abaddon is a stellar effort.

Enjoy a live video for "Cavern of Mind" below:



mp3: Saviors - "Raging Embers"
myspace: www.myspace.com/saviours666

San Antonio's The Grasshopper Lies Heavy

I'm really digging this brutal instrumental band from from San Antonio, TX called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Check out my review of their CD from decoymusic.com below.



Though billed by the band as “54 tracks of dense, heavy, delicious, moist poundcake,” The Grasshopper Lies Heavy’s Gun (released via Forgotten Empire Records) is really just six tracks of dense, delicious doom metal – and 48 tracks of nothing but beeps.

San Antonio’s The Grasshopper Lies Heavy play feedback heavy instrumetal and their second EP is a promising introduction to a band with big potential. But for all intents and purposes, Grasshopper is merely the demented ramblings of James Woodard. With the closing of each measure, Grasshopper leaves the listener worried whether the bottom will inevitably drop out, if the crushing riffs will collapse upon themselves, resulting in a dismal display akin to a self-imploding building, the rubble of a bombed out suburb, the twisting metal and shattered concrete of a trade center collapsed.

“Equalizer Drone” begins with feedback, a reverberating fury; as anticipation builds the band teases like a buzzed 18 year old. The level of tension developed is something along the lines of what Tool creates on some of their feedback-laden interludes. Grasshopper comes in as band for the first time with “Gifts” and immediately make a map of thematic ideas to be developed over the next five tracks.

“Untitled2” is Grasshopper’s most melodic offering – sounding almost like a ridiculously heavy version of Mineral or some other mid-90s shoe-gazing indie rock band.

Read more about Gun here.

mp3
The Grasshopper Lies Heavy - "Equalizer Drone"

Colin Munroe

Colin Munroe is this cat from Toronto that I'm really feeling right now. His latest release is a remix/cover of Kanye West's "Flashing Lights" (Graduation, 2007) available on his myspace profile. He's also dropped this beautiful music video for the track:



I guess I'm really just feeling this tracks as a struggling musican and artist myself. I WANT THOSE FLASHING LIGHTS for real - just gotta get that shit PLAYED.

Beyond this track though, Munroe's material is interesting, but nowehere near the quality of his Kanye remix. According to his myspace profile, the young songwriter has hooked up with Dallas Austin to work on some tracks. Could this kid be some sort of Canadian J.T.? It's certainly a possibility.



Here's another video from Munroe, a great stop motion flick for the Ben Fold's like "World of Pain." This is more piano rock akin to The Fray or some other adult-oriented pop but still an entertaining video and decent song.

Robots and Empire - Poughkeepsie's best kept secret

Robots & Empire writes the most intense, blue-jeaned and whiskey gutted rock ‘n’ roll ever. These Poughkeepsie, NY natives know how to rock a riff like the best seventies guitar gods. The band's sophomore powerhouse Omnivore would have been the sort of post-hardcore record to rival Quicksand and Failure if it was released back in 1996. This album is a post-post hardcore record that challenges the best of their generation’s output by blending the best of rock ‘n’ roll from 1976, 1996, and 2006.

“Pure Shit” is sludgy trash metal, with ultra-distorted bass and throaty growls, which kicks this album off in stellar fashion. On “Monolith,” the next track, the band naturally switches from 90's-esque grunge to Neruosis-leaning doom.

Vocalist Brian Conway’s voice is what seals the deal for this band. It’s not that his voice is really unique, it’s just not the way most metal or hardcore vocalists sing today. His approach is more of a late-90’s alternative rock style of singing but a hell of a lot more intense. Conway does tend to wear his influences on his sleeve though: Mike Patton (“Spider Mites”), Ken Andrews (“The Midst of This”), Layne Staley (“Monolith”), and Matt Talbott (“Nameless”).

The rest of the band all matches Conway in intensity. Drummer Jason Petagine’s beats sound like the slow-moving drums of Satan’s marching band, guitarist Nick Haines creates a wall of sound, a shit-covered-and-smiling palate for Conway’s song, and Greg Nazak’s bass tone is just sick... sick like leaning over a toilet bowl sick.



“Mudgash” moves like a four-wheeler stuck in 8 inches of slush. “Erase Your Name” is too tough-guy, too much of a meathead bro-mosh, so much so it almost sounds like Sevendust meets Throwdown. “Bob Roberts” is written for fans of Open Hand’s Trustkill Records classic "You and Me".

Robots & Empire is where the flannel shirt meets the skinny jeans, where the Meat Puppets meet Mastodon. Rarely does an unsigned band excite me this much. Plain and simple, Robots & Empire are a rock band and this album is intense as fuck.

Visit Robots & Empire on myspace here.

Oh Astro

This husband and wife duo is sample happy - they're sample crazy. Shit is ridiculous. Oh Astro is husband and wife duo Hank Hofler and Jane Dowe and their latest Champions of Wonder is currently streaming at their promotion teams website here.



These two are like mad scientists - they even look a little kooky - cutting up the best tracks from all over the music landscape and piecing them back to together as the best post-everything groove pop out there.

This is straight from Fanatic Promo's press release - trust me, I ain't hip enough to recognize any of these originals Hofler and Dowe dissect. But just look at some of the works reworked by Oh Astro:

"Snow Queen" - Ratatat "Desert Eagle" and Lily Allen "Everything is Wonderful."

"Hello Fuji Boy" - Hot Chip “Boy From School,” Fujiya & Miyagi “Ankle Injuries,” and Lionel Richie “Hello.”

"Candy Sun Smiles” – Busdriver “Sun Shower,” Gnarls Barkley “Gone Daddy Gone,” and Electronic “Getting Away With It."

CMJ said the debut Oh Astro mini-album, Hello World (Illegal Art) was “funky and pretty...Hello World’s bite-sized samples concoct a weird pop universe." The same could be said of Champions of Wonder. Oh Astro live in a world where the synthesizer has taken over, where humans only speak in sampled cuts of previous conversations, where originality lies in the ability to manipulate previous attempts at originality. The say there's nothing new under the sun so Oh Astro say fuck it - we'll take we what got and rethink that shit.

Can't wait to pick up Champions of Wonder when it hits the street.Oh shit... and the physical release contains surround sound mixes of the first three tracks by Aaron Paolucci (who also mastered the stereo mixes) that can be played on a computer connected to a 5.1 sound system. Fucking nuts. Audiophiles please hide your hard-on.

Here's a link to Oh Astro's label home, Illegal Art, on on Wikipedia. The label is the home of the popular Girl Talk and releases sampled-based music only, challenging copyright law and advocating their artists' right to sample freely.

Visit Oh Astro on Myspace.

Danny Malone

Austin’s Danny Malone is your classic singer/songwriter – a heart-on-his-sleeve hopeless romantic who bares it all and then some on his four song EP, Baby Bleu. But Malone’s songs would be nothing without the rich arrangements and assortment of musicians who make up his revolving cast of characters posing as a backing band.



I can’t breathe, I can’t even see, I’m begging you please because my fingers are freezing.

With a whistle-worthy hook provided by trumpets, “Silence” recalls fellow Austinites Spoon and is simply one of the best pop songs I’ve heard in some time. I’m convinced that the horn solo is indie rock’s new trick to writing a hit worthy pop song. Feist’s iGen anthem “1234” and Spoon’s “The Underdog” come to mind.

“Swimming Pools” is toe-tapping rock, the sort that litters the Saddle Creek Records catalog. And is that a freakin' vibraphone? Amazing. The bouncy backbeat Malone brings in for the chorus makes the walk home after a long night of drinking more tolerable, because a good song can make every hangover easier to deal with.

When I wake up, Oh I’m so confused, still can’t find my shoes.



Malone’s music is painfully honest, littered with "I"s and "You"s. That can wear thin after some time, but if it’s what you’re into it’s not that bad. “Lucky Break” is a bit too introspective, too slow and adult oriented pop for my tastes. Without his backing band on “Baby Bleu,” Malone sounds confidant yet still vulnerable.

At four songs long, Baby Bleu is the very definition of a tease. One can only hope Malone has more music up his sleeve, more songs in his bag, and more hits in the making.

Wishin I was somewhere lost with you, and not lost without you Baby Bleu.

Visit Danny Malone on myspace here.