“Exploding through the frigid waves and frothing foam, the leviathan’s ponderous girth smashes down upon the rocky shore with a thunderous wet slap. Slowly, laboriously, the tidal titan heaves himself ashore, massive muscles undulating under the dense layers of blubber enrobed in barnacle encrusted plate metal. The Iron Walrus has come this day, and nothing on the beach can move him, nor compel his to departure.” Coo coo ca choo.
![Laser Flames on the Great Big News – Laser Flames on the Great Big News [Things You Might Have Missed 2017]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/LaserFlamesontheGreatBigNews1-768x766.jpg)
“The term retro metal/rock gets bandied around a lot, due to the over-saturation of bands mining the freewheeling creativity of ’70s rock to varying degrees of success and very little originality. Lumping Laser Flames under the retro label would be a great disservice to the creativity and inventiveness the band conjures throughout the epic stoner odyssey of this self-titled release.” Retro rock with freakin laser beams!
“Winter is coming, and not just in Westeros. As the days grow shorter and the coats grow thicker, a somber feeling draws across us all, blanketing anticipatory holiday cheer. Seasonal Affective Disorder (with its hilarious acronym SAD) strikes its yearly blow, and the call of morose doom metal like Hallatar and Loss is stronger than ever. But frankly, in this melancholic time of the year, it’s nice to have a band around who don’t give a flying iota about the dark short days ahead. The Atomic Bitchwax is that band in body, mind and spirit.” Screw your winter!
“The downside to an early magnum opus in your career is that everything you do afterwards will be compared to it. Pearl Jam never lived up to Ten, Guns ‘n Roses have always cowered under the shadow of Appetite for Destruction, Annihilator spent 14 albums getting compared to the first 2, and Electric Wizard could play nothing but Dopethrone for the rest of their lives. When your career consists of fruitlessly building towers of Babel, trying to reach the God you created, it can be disheartening for an artist struggling to move forward. In this case, your best friend is a reviewer who, against all odds, left listening to that unattainable pillar of perfection near the bottom of their bucketlist.” Hello, friend to wizards.
“In a faraway corner of the Southern hemisphere belonging to radiant women and men who loot (and labor), a storm is brewing. A seething swarm of stoner sludge swirls and simmers in the starless sky, and my advice, should you hear that thunder, is the same as Colin Hay’s: you better run, you better take cover. A scant 2 years after dropping a self-titled pseudopodian riff bomb on an unsuspecting world, Melbourne’s Motherslug have added a second full-length to their cornucopia of doom, and all the salt in the world won’t keep you safe from this slugger.” Slimin’ and stealin’.
“Stoner doom seems such an easy genre to play. Write every kickass riff you can think of, play them slow and heavy, and you’re most of the way there. Yet many struggle with the cyclopean task of keeping their bundle of riffs interesting for 45 (or 75) minutes. Ufomammut is not one of them, however.” Putting the “uf” in Ufomammut.
“Splits are great ways to expand your musical repertoire when familiar with one of the bands collaborating. A level of mutual respect is presumed between the two: surely a favored artist will have good tastes themselves? And surely the twinned groups will offer something similar but sufficiently distanced for a neatly conjoined listening experience? Such conclusions seem logical.” Slashed by Occam’s razor.
“Seeing the number of debuts and sophomore albums in our promo bin can be a little depressing. It seems to suggest most bands don’t last beyond the early stages. Maybe these young bands are ripped apart over squabbles about the musical direction, or bickering over how to divide the piles of money and groupies, or simply life happening and leaving no room for 9 months of touring per year. Not so for The Quill, a Swedish ‘heavy rock’ group that has been active since 1990 and now have Born From Fire, their 8th album, loaded into the trebuchet.” Flowing prose or writer’s block?
“I might have a minor masochistic streak when it comes to reviews. Sure, much of my rapidly developing reputation for reviewing dreck (see: Akoma, Invidia, Insatia, Blind Seer) arose from sheer bad luck on blind promo selection. But why else would I stand up and say “I’ll take the ring to Mordor” when Steel mockingly requested volunteers to review a 37-minute, self-released(!), sophomore(!!), single-track(!!!), instrumental(!!!!) doom metal album?” Snakebit.
“Hailing Satan from Poitiers, France, they knock politely for 20 seconds before bursting in to commandeer the stereo. We’re listening to Servants of the Salem Girl now, and that’s that. Within moments the air is thick with fuzzy guitars, and unless somebody’s handling the snacks poorly then I believe I’m also getting a whiff of brimstone. In short order, Servants gets and keeps heads moving the good old fashion way: bitchin’ riffage and songs about the Devil.” The Dark Lord of Partying.
